A47407:680
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.
Answ. By this way of arguing you may lay Godly Christians under Temptations about Prayer, especially in the Church, because they may plead they have not the Gift; whereas the Grace of Prayer, viz. a broken Heart, is that which God chiefly looks at, and so should we too. This makes no more against Singing, than it doth against Praying. And thus I must argue upon you, If I have not the Special Gift of Singing, I must content my self with the Essence of it in my Heart, and yet (as I have showed) the essence of it is not in the heart as it is in the Voice; and so since if I have not the special Gift of Prayer, I must be contented with the Essence of Prayer, only Heart-Prayer, and not pray vocally at all.
Answ. By this way of arguing you may lay Godly Christians under Temptations about Prayer, especially in the Church, because they may plead they have not the Gift; whereas the Grace of Prayer, viz. a broken Heart, is that which God chiefly looks at, and so should we too. This makes no more against Singing, than it doth against Praying. And thus I must argue upon you, If I have not the Special Gift of Singing, I must content my self with the Essence of it in my Heart, and yet (as I have shewed) the essence of it is not in the heart as it is in the Voice; and so since if I have not the special Gift of Prayer, I must be contented with the Essence of Prayer, only Heart-Prayer, and not pray vocally at all.
But you intimate, that none ought to sing but such who are in the full assurance of the Love of God. But you might as well say, none ought to rejoice in the Lord, nor to praise him, but such only, as well as to say what ⟨p. 43⟩you do here against their Singing who want that assurance.
But you hint, in pag. 46. as if we must be satisfied with your Essence of Singing, viz. inward joy in the Heart, till we come to the primitive perfection of Divine Worship, &c.