A47407:366
The breach repaired in God's worship, or, Singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,…
The breach repaired in God's worship, or, Singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, proved to be an holy ordinance of Jesus Christ with an answer to all objections : as also, an examination of Mr. Isaac Marlow's two papers, one called, A discourse against singing, &c., the other, An appendix : wherein his arguments and cavils are detected and refuted / by Benjamin Keach ...
London: printed for Author, 1691
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Besides, since God is so much pleased, as you intimate, with the bare Internal Worship of the Heart, without the bodily Organs, and with Prayer particularly, why do you not excuse the Tongue from that Service likewise, and say, that External Expressions in Prayer, or praising God with the Tongue, is a low formal thing, and to be rejected?
But I can't but smile at one of your first Expressions; ⟨p. 125⟩You say very right, ours is an intelligible sort of Singing. But that which you •lead for is such, that no Body can tell what to •ake of; be sure 'tis no Singing at all, as in the first Chapter I have proved; I mean, that which you call the Essence or Being of Singing in the Heart, or inward Joy. Brother, I have showed you, that Singing and Preaching, &c. are Ordinances of a different Nature to that of Prayer; Prayer may be performed in the Heart without the Tongue; but there is no proper Singing or Preaching without the Organs of the Tongue, and therefore all your whole Fabric is overturned with one blast: for this Error of yours, is like that of the first Concoction; If you have got no other proper singing of Psalms, than what we plead for and practise, nor no other can be found warranted in God's Word, Then […] must be the true and right Ordinance, and manner of performance of it, likewise. Let Men but destroy the practice of an Ordinance, as 'tis by so many practised, and has been from the beginning, and as we conceive and believe in a right manner, unless they have another Form to present to our sight, that we may have time to compare them with God's Word, to see which may be nearest the Rule in our Judgments, they do nothing but perplex the World as well as us. You have presented us with one, I must confess, which only has that Name given to it by your self, but it is not the thing, i. e. it is no proper Singing at all.
But I can't but smile at one of your first Expressions; ⟨p. 125⟩