Family-hymns gathered (mostly) out of the best translations of David's psalmsFamily-hymns gather'd (mostly) out of the best translations of David's psalms

TO THE READER.

MY Design in this Essay is to promote the singing of Psalms in Families, as a part of their Daily Worship, especially their Sabbath-Worship; an Exercise which (however it be now with other Instances of the warmest Devotion sadly disused, yet) was anciently practised by the generality of serious Christians, who thus turned their Houses into Churches, (such Churches as Saint Paul speaks of, Rom. 16.5. […] 2.) by praising God together, and by teaching and admonishing one another in singing of Psalms. If we ask for the good Old Way, we shall f•nd this Path in it trodden by the Primitive Christians in the Church's early days; among the particulars of whose Religion that Learned ⟨image 3⟩Pen, which wrote the Primitive Christianity, traceth remarkable Foot-steps of this Family-Exercise, Part 1. Ch. 9. The sound of this Melody was not only heard in their Solemn Assemblies, where it appears by many passages (particularly that known Account which Pliny gives to Trajan of the Christians, Epist. l. 10.) to have been a considerable part of their Public Worship, but in their private Houses also, where it seems to have been the common usage to sing Psalms with their Wives and Children, especially at and after their Meals; a practice commended by Clemens Alexandrinus Paedag. lib. 2. c. 4. by Chrysostom in Psal. 41. which made the Psalms so familiar to them, that, as Jerome tells us (Epist. ad Marcel.) in the place where be lived you could not go into the Field but you should bear the Plough men, and the Mowers, and the Vine-dressers thus employed: Sonnet Psalmos convivium sobrium, saith Cyprian. Socrates Hist. Eccles. lib. 7. cap. 22. speaks of it as the practice of Theodosius the Emperor, to rise early every morning to sing Psalms with his Sisters; so that his Palace (saith