Doctrinal, expository, and homiletic literatures exhibit the divergent
theological opinions of Christian men; but psalms, hymns and spiritual
songs reveal the sensibilities of the devout, as they converge towards
the common centre of all religious trust and hope and love. More of
unity is possible in the worship of praise than in any other kind of
worship. What on one side is deemed superstition, what on another is
regarded as sectarianism, may sometimes taint the expression of pious
thought and feeling in verse; but an immense number of compositions
in English hymnology are altogether free from defects of either of
these kinds, and are fitted to convey, with propriety, the sentiments
of people who differ widely from each other whenever they enter the
region of polemics. Broad Church and Low Church, the Anglican, the
Evangelical, and the Nonconformist, on some occasions find it easy to
combine in the service of song, and to adopt with common joy and love,
the same strains of sweetness and purity which form a consentaneous
_Cardiphonia_, a blended utterance of many hearts.[572]
Before approaching the subject of hymnology proper, a few words may
be introduced in relation to a kind of poetry which closely resembles
it. It would be foreign to my purpose to say anything critical of the
grand religious epics of John Milton, known by every one: they belong
to the realms of imagination, and scarcely come, except in some of
the songs which they include, within those precincts of Christian
affection where the humble hymn-writer makes his home. Nor can I
take up Joseph Beaumont’s _Pysche or Love’s Mystery, displaying
the intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soul_, which was published
in 1648, and is known by very few; since its length, extending to
40,000 lines, baffles all attempts at description, and its blending
of Pagan fables with Bible facts, often takes it out of the circle of
religious poetry altogether. Benlowes’ poem, entitled _Theophila, or
Love’s Sacrifice_, published in 1652, is of a different character:
his verses come more within the range of modern sympathies, whilst
their quaintness of style leave no doubt as to the age in which they
were written. Such compositions can scarcely be called devotional;
but verses flowed from certain pens, at the time I speak of, which,
although not meant for public or private worship, did very charmingly
embody the aspirations of Christian men. Some of them, it is true, had
a tinge of peculiarity, derived from ecclesiastical or theological
preferences, but the general stamp of these compositions was such as
to commend them to many outside the circle to which they particularly
belonged. For instance: Richard Crashaw, a clergyman, who had been
Master of the Temple, and who died in 1652, wrote _An Ode prefixed to
a Prayer Book_, in which, imbued with an Anglican admiration of that
volume, he beautifully says:--
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
“It is an armory of light,
Let constant use but keep it bright,
You’ll find it yields
To holy hands and humble hearts,
More swords and shields
Than sin hath snares, or hell hath darts.
Only be sure,
The hands are pure,
That hold these weapons, and the eyes,
Those of Christians, meek, and true,
Wakeful, wise;
Here is a friend shall fight for you;
Hold but this book before your heart,
Let prayer alone to play its part.
O, but the heart
That studies this high art,
Must be a sure housekeeper,
And yet no sleeper.
Of all this store
Of blessings, and ten thousand more,
(If, when He come
He find the heart from home),
Doubtless He will unload
Himself some other where,
And pour abroad
His precious things
On the fair soul whom first He meets,
And light around him with His wings.”
When the Anglican wrote these words, such of them as express admiration
of the Common Prayer would not command the sympathy of certain
Puritans; other Puritans, however, with a measure of qualification,
could share in that sympathy; and all, one would think, might enter
cordially into such feelings, as are expressed, generally, by the
largest portion of the Ode, in reference to the pleasures and duties of
devotion.
Whatever there might be restrictive of sympathy under one form in
the verses from which I have just made a selection, nothing of the
kind, under any form, can be found to exist in Henry More’s _Sonnet
on Religion_; for that exhibits the widest breadth of Christian
fellowship, and embraces within the range of its regards the devout
members of all communities. The Anglican and the Evangelical, the
Broad Churchman and the Mystic, might consistently adopt the following
sentiment:--
“The true religion sprung from God above,
Is like her fountain--full of charity;
Embracing all things with a tender love,
Full of good will, and meek expectancy;
Full of true justice and sure verity,
In heart and voice; free, large, even infinite;
Not wedged in straight particularity,
But grasping all in her vast active sprite--
Bright Lamp of God, that men would joy in
Thy pure light.”
More died in 1687. The same year Edmund Waller passed away, singing
the following lines, which complete and crown his _Divine Poems_;
lines which indicate faith in the life and immortality brought to light
by the Gospel, and which convey aspirations breathed by Christians of
every Church and creed:--
“The seas are quiet when the winds are o’er;
So calm are we when passions are no more:
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries:
The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new lights through chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become,
As they draw nearer to their eternal home,
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.”
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
Francis Quarles had a place assigned him in the _Dunciad_, by
Alexander Pope, but is by Campbell admitted into “the laurelled
fraternity,” and has lately recovered somewhat of his original renown.
He wrote a paraphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which was published
in 1645, just after his death, but the _Emblems_, for which he is
still so celebrated, appeared as early as 1635; and, although earlier
than our period, may be noticed here in passing, because they seem
to have been largely read for fifty years, or so, after their first
publication. They strikingly reflect the poetical taste, most popular,
under the Commonwealth, and amongst a large number of religious
people for some time afterwards. Quarles furnishes an example of the
combination of pictorial devices with the printed text. He tells his
readers at the outset, “Before the knowledge of letters, God was known
by hieroglyphics,” and then asks, “Indeed, what are the heavens, the
earth, nay every creature, but hieroglyphics and emblems of His glory?”
Leaving this border land of religious poetry--which, although in the
seventeenth century large in itself, appears small in comparison with
religious prose, and, for the most part, inferior in its literary
pretensions--we enter the province of hymnology proper, where we
find much to interest us. Yet here we must remember, that within the
era prescribed in these chapters, we do not reach what may be called
the land of Beulah in the regions of English sacred song. Before we
can approach that region, we must pass over another half century.
The position of hymnology in the history of our literature since the
Reformation is a little remarkable. Hymnology was late before it
appeared in any thing like vigorous efflorescence, and in this respect
it exhibits a contrast to what we notice with regard to poetical
literature in earlier times and other respects. Poetry came before
philosophy in Greece. Homer composed his Iliad and Odyssey long ere
Plato wrote his Dialogues. Something of the same order meets us in
the succession of authorship when we turn to the Biblical and sacred
literature of our own country in the middle ages. Versification rose
into life much earlier than prose. Between the metrical paraphrase
of Scripture by Cædmon, the Whitby monk, and the theology of the
Anglo-Norman schoolmen, five centuries elapsed; the prose translations
and treatises of Wycliffe came two centuries later still. Romantic and
dramatic poetry took the lead at the close of the sixteenth century.
Spencer and Shakespere are a little in advance of Raleigh and Bacon.
But when we look at our religious literature since the Reformation,
we notice an inversion of such order. The Church under Elizabeth and
the earlier Stuarts produced prose theology in abundance, some of it
of a high order; but it yielded comparatively few verses strictly
religious. The Augustan age of divinity is comparatively poor in the
hymnal department, poorer in quality than it is in quantity. When,
however, doctrinal divinity had declined in the eighteenth century, and
the most intellectual theologians were those who defended the outworks
of Christian evidence, and no such men as Thorndike, Bull and Pearson
appeared among Churchmen; and no Divines equal to Owen, Baxter, and
Howe could be found in the ranks of Nonconformity,--hymn-writers arose
in greater numbers, and with sweeter notes, than at any earlier season.
We must not anticipate them, but confine ourselves to the scanty
collections of psalms and hymns contributed between the commencement of
the Civil Wars and the epoch of the Revolution.
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
First we shall glance at books simply intended for use in public
worship. New versions of the Psalms were early prepared by Rous and
Barton--the first was published in 1641, the second in 1644. The
Psalter, with titles and collects, attributed to Jeremy Taylor,
appeared in the same year, and afterwards ran through several editions.
“The Psalms of David from the New Translation of the Bible, turned into
metre by Henry King,” Bishop of Chichester between 1641 and 1669--James
I.’s “king of preachers,” and who to his fame as a preacher added some
reputation as a poet--issued from the press under the Commonwealth,
in 1651 or 1654. In the following year, the Rev. John White published
“David’s Psalms in metre, agreeable to the Hebrew;” and it may be
mentioned, as an indication of the alliance of instrumental music with
psalmody under the Protectorate, that on the 22nd of November, 1655,
according to a printed quarto sheet still in existence, there were
select Psalms of a new translation, arranged to be “sung in verse, and
chorus, of five parts, with symphonies of violins, organ, and other
instruments.” The Psalms were paraphrased and turned into English
verse by Thomas Garthwaite in 1664, by Dr. Samuel Woodford in 1667,
and by Miles Smyth in 1668. In 1671 there came out “Psalms and Hymns,
in solemn music, in four parts, on the common tunes to Psalms in metre
used in parish churches, by John Playford;” and in 1679, “A Century
of Select Psalms in verse, for the use of the Charter House, by Dr.
John Patrick.” J. Chamberlayne Gent, Richard Goodridge, and Simon Ford
added, before the Revolution, volumes of paraphrases; and in the year
of that great event, we find another volume, bearing the title of
“The whole Book of Psalms, as they are now sung in the churches, with
the singing notes of time and tune to every syllable, never before
done in England, by T. M.” These are the principal, if not all the
Psalm-books, produced from the opening of the Commonwealth to the
legal establishment of toleration. Public worship was, from the time
of passing the Act of Uniformity, until its modification under William
III., forbidden by constitutional law to be celebrated anywhere but in
the churches and chapels of the Establishment; and therefore it was for
them expressly, and for them alone, that the various translations and
editions of the Psalter were designed. Specimens of these productions
need not be given, as they are more or less close and unpoetical
renderings in rhyme of the Book of Psalms.
Besides these publications, translations of particular Psalms appeared
in detached forms. John Milton translated several. Some, indeed, are
only classical renderings of the thoughts contained in those sacred
compositions; but under date April, 1648, we find, under his hand,
“Nine of the Psalms, done into metre, wherein all, but what is in
a different character, are the very words of the text, translated
from the original.” This method of versification put such chains on
the wings of poetry that it was impossible for it to do otherwise
than stretch them with awkwardness; yet, notwithstanding such an
incumbrance, there may be noticed a few movements in the bard’s verses
which are free and graceful. The paraphrase of the 136th Psalm, which
he wrote in his fifteenth year, contains strokes of magnificent
diction, and expresses adoration and praise in some of its very highest
strains. Milton, as a boy, there struck a key-note which must lead off
a chorus of Divine music wherever it is heard:--
“Let us, with a gladsome mind,
Praise the Lord, for He is kind;
For His mercies aye endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.
Who by His wisdom did create
The painted heavens, so full of state;
Who did the solid earth ordain
To rise above the watery plain;
Who, by His all-commanding might,
Did fill the new-made world with light,
And caused the golden-tressed sun
All the day long his course to run.”
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
Paraphrases of the Psalms were attempted by distinguished poets who
rarely touched on sacred themes. John Oldham, for example, who died in
1683, composed a number of elaborate lines upon the 137th Psalm, but
they contain as little of devotion as they do of harmony and rhythm. I
am not aware that Dryden clothed any of the Psalms in English numbers,
but he translated the _Te Deum_, and wrote a hymn for St. John’s
Eve. These pieces are little known, and scarcely strike the chords of
devotion; but there is a rich, full, Divine spirit in his rendering of
the _Veni Creator Spiritus_, such as floods the soul with heavenly
desires:--
“Creator Spirit, by whose aid
The world’s foundations first were laid,
Come visit every pious mind;
Come pour Thy joys on human kind;
From sin and sorrow set us free,
And make Thy temples worthy Thee.”
George Wither, the Puritan poet, who died in 1667, wrote hymns and
songs of the Church; and amongst translations of the Lord’s Prayer,
perhaps there never was one so compact, and so closely adhering to the
original, as his:--
“Our Father, which in heaven art,
We sanctify Thy name;
Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done,
In heaven and earth the same:
Give us this day our daily bread;
And us forgive Thou so,
As we, on them that us offend,
Forgiveness do bestow.
Into temptation lead us not,
But us from evil free:
For Thine the kingdom, power, and praise,
Is, and shall ever be.”
I proceed now to notice a few original productions. Jeremy Taylor wrote
hymns, which he describes as “celebrating the mysteries and chief
festivals of the year, according to the manner of the ancient Church;
fitted to the fancy and devotion of the younger and pious persons: apt
for memory, and to be joined to their other prayers.” In much of his
poetry we miss the exquisite rhythm of his prose; nor can there be said
to be in it much of that Divine power, or that human pathos, which
kindles devotion in Christian bosoms. The first hymn for Christmas Day
is perhaps the best of all:--
“Mysterious truth! that the self-same should be
A Lamb, a Shepherd, and a Lion too!
Yet such was He
Whom first the shepherds knew,
When they themselves became
Sheep to the Shepherd-Lamb.
Shepherd of men and angels,--Lamb of God,
Lion of Judah,--by these titles keep
The wolf from Thy endangered sheep.
Bring all the world into Thy fold;
Let Jews and Gentiles hither come
In numbers great, that can’t be told;
And call Thy lambs, that wander, home.”
These lines are thrown into a form which partakes of the nature of
an ode more than that of a hymn: certainly they are altogether unfit
for Divine worship, and the same remark may be made of all the verses
printed in Taylor’s works.
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
Robert Herrick, who comes within our range of time--for he died about
1674--wrote a beautiful litany to the Holy Spirit, which bears a
lyrical character suitable for psalmody, and contains the following
earnest cries:--
“In the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When I lie within my bed,
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drown’d in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When, God knows, I’m tost about,
Either with despair, or doubt,
Yet before the glass be out,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the judgment is reveal’d,
And that open’d which was seal’d,
When to Thee I have appeal’d,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!”
Although Richard Baxter has been always so renowned as a prose writer,
his poetry was for a long time neglected; but of late one of his
lyrical compositions has obtained a very extensive popularity. There
is in it a quaint beauty, which evokes our admiration of the author’s
piety, beyond the praise which we bestow upon the freshness and
originality of his mind. It is a specimen of that devout confidence
in God which so thoroughly inspired the best religiousness of the
seventeenth century; it furnishes an incentive to pure and hallowed
affections, in every bosom, and it possesses some of the best
qualities of a Christian hymn:--
“Lord, it belongs not to my care,
Whether I die or live:
To live and serve Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.
If life be long, I will be glad
That I may long obey:
If short, yet why should I be sad,
That shall have the same pay?
If death shall bruise this springing seed,
Before it comes to fruit,
The will with Thee goes for the deed,
Thy life was in the root.
Long life is a long grief and toil,
And multiplieth faults:
In long wars he may have the foil,
That ’scapes in short assaults.
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
He that unto God’s kingdom comes,
Must enter by this door.
Come, Lord! when grace has made me meet
Thy blessed face to see;
For if Thy work on earth be sweet,
What must Thy glory be?
Then shall I end my sad complaints,
And weary, sinful days;
And join with the triumphant saints,
That sing Jehovah’s praise.
My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him.”
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
John Mason, who died in 1694--father of him who wrote the _Treatise
on Self-Knowledge_--was a very superior hymnologist. Between the
verses just quoted from Richard Baxter, and the following, taken from
a hymn by Mason, entitled _Surely I come quickly_, there is a
remarkable resemblance:--
“And dost Thou _come_, my dearest Lord?
And dost Thou _surely_ come?
And dost Thou _surely quickly_ come?
Methinks I am at home!
My Jesus is gone up to heaven
To get a place for me;
For ’tis His will that where He is,
There should His servants be.
Canaan I view from Pisgah’s top,
Of Canaan’s grapes I taste;
My Lord, who sends unto me here,
Will send for me at last.
I have a God that changeth not,
Why should I be perplext?
My God, that owns me in this world,
Will own me in the next.
Go fearless, then, my soul, with God
Into another room:
Thou, who hast walked with Him here,
Go, see thy God at home.”
Flourishing between the age of Quarles and Watts, Mason attained a
style which is described by Montgomery as “a middle tint between the
raw colouring of the former and the daylight tint of the latter. His
talent is equally poised between both, having more vigour and more
versatility than that of either his forerunner or his successor.”[573]
His merit as a hymn-writer--extraordinary for the age in which he
lived--seems to have been appreciated by Pope, Watts, and the Wesleys,
who studied and copied him; but he was much neglected for a long time,
to be reinstated in popular favour of late years.
Mason’s _Song of Praise for the Evening_ is now well known, but,
in its modern form, we miss the middle stanza of the original:--
“Now from the altar of my heart
Let incense-flames arise:
Assist me, Lord, to offer up
Mine evening sacrifice.
Awake, my love; awake, my joy;
Awake, my heart and tongue;
Sleep not when mercies loudly call,
Break forth into a song.
Man’s life’s a book of history;
The leaves thereof are days;
The letters mercies closely joined;
The title is Thy praise.
This day God was my Sun and Shield,
My Keeper and my Guide;
His care was on my frailty shewn,
His mercies multiply’d.
Minutes and mercies multiply’d
Have made up all this day:
Minutes came quick; but mercies were
More fleet and free than they.
New time, new favour, and new joys,
Do a new song require:
Till I shall praise Thee as I would,
Accept my heart’s desire.”
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
Amongst the anonymous poetry of that period there is a hymn of the
sacred ballad type, so singularly touching to my mind, so expressive
of that admiration of Christ which lies at the heart of all Christian
piety, and so much less known than it ought to be, that I venture to
introduce several of its stanzas:--
“There was a King of old,
That did in Jewry dwell;
Whether a God, or Man, or both,
I’m sure I love Him well.
Love Him! why, who doth not?
Did ever any wight
Not goodness, beauty, sweetness, love--
Not comfort, love, and light?
None ever did, or can;
But here’s the cause alone
Why He of all few lovers finds,
Because He is not known.
There are so many fair,
He’s lost among the throng;
Yet they that seek Him nowhere else
May find Him in a song.
This God, Man, King, and Priest
Almighty was, yet meek:
He was most just, yet merciful;
The guilty did Him seek.
He never any failed
That sought Him in their need:
He never quenched the smoking flax,
Nor brake the bruised reed.
He was the truest Friend
That ever any tried,
For whom He loved He never left,
For them He lived and died.
And if you’d know the folk
That brought Him to His end,
Read but His title--you shall find
Him styled the sinner’s Friend.
His life all wonder was,
But here’s a wonder more,
That He, who was all life and love,
Should be beloved no more.
I’ll love Him while I live;
To those that be His foes,
Though I them hate, I’ll wish no worse
Than His dear love to lose.”
Benjamin Keach, the author of _Tropologia; a Key to open Scripture
Metaphors and Types_, was a zealous hymnologist. This Baptist
minister vindicated the practice of singing against the objections
of some of his brethren, in a curious book printed in 1661 under the
title of _Breach repaired in good Worship, or singing Psalms proved
to be an Ordinance of Christ_. Having written _The Glorious
Lover, a Divine Poem_, in 1679, he published, in 1691, a volume
entitled _Spiritual Melody_, containing “Psalms and Hymns from
the Old and New Testament,” and also _The Bread revived in God’s
Worship, or singing of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs proved to be
an Holy Ordinance_. These were followed, in 1696, by _The Feast
of Fat Things full of Marrow_. In referring to hymns of this date,
however, we pass over our boundary line, yet, if I may trespass so far,
I would select a copy of verses composed by Keach as a specimen of
the extraordinary doggerel which he considered fit for congregational
worship. It is not to be taken as a specimen of the worship which was
actually celebrated in Nonconformist chapels before the Revolution;
for Keach’s book, as it appears from what I have just said, was
not published until afterwards, and the state of psalmody amongst
Dissenters must be reserved for future consideration. It, however,
indicates a certain taste, or a want of taste altogether, which in some
quarters might be found during the period covered by our present survey.
“If saints, O Lord, do season all
Amongst whom they do live,
Salt all with grace, both great and small,
They may sweet relish give.
And, blessed be Thy glorious name!
In England salt is found,
Some savoury souls who do proclaim
Thy grace, which doth abound.
But O the want of salt, O Lord!
How few are salted well!
How few are like to salt indeed!
Salt Thou Thy Israel!
Now sing, ye saints who are this salt,
And let all seasoned be
With your most holy gracious lives;
Great need of it we see.
The earth will else corrupt and stink;
O salt it well, therefore,
And live to Him that salted you,
And sing for evermore.”
[Sidenote: POETRY.]
Certainly this is not one of the hymns fitted to convey the devotion
of the united Church; but I suppose we must take it for granted, that
there existed people, at the time when it was written, who could sing
it with gravity. It is impossible to mark absolutely the point of
separation between what demands some respect, if it do not inspire
reverence, from that which excites ridicule, and even contempt. So much
depends upon education, association, and habit, in religious matters,
that we may here truly apply the adage of one man’s meat being another
man’s poison. People who laugh at Keach’s metaphors and hymns perhaps
indulge in forms of worship which appear excessively ludicrous to
religionists of his order. The devoutness of some people may feed on
aliment which would produce only revulsion in others; and let us hope
that the good folks who were taught to conduct services of song after
this very peculiar fashion could nevertheless make melody in their
hearts unto the Lord. At all events, Keach’s _Saints the Salt of the
Earth_ is a specimen of one kind of hymnology which the seventeenth
century produced.