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The Psalter - the Only Hymnal?

Will he be heard?

THE PSALTER - THE ONLY HYMNAL?
By Iain H. Murray
The Banner of Truth Trust
32 pages. £1.50. ISBN 0 85151 809 5

Quiet, please, as we tiptoe down the corridor and briefly listen at the door. Inside are the Puritans, agonising over whether it's safe to sing hymns yet. Hitherto they have stayed with Old Testament Psalms, but uneasy rumours have somehow wafted outside. Their 17th century dictionaries and rulebooks are on the table.

That picture is unfair to the author, who here introduces a short summary of biblical common sense into the discussion. The wonder is that it is still needed. But some prefer to sing of Jehovah than of Jesus; of Canaan than of Christ; of Levi and Lot, than of the Lamb of God.

They remain time-warped for several reasons, as illustrated by Roy Mohon's recent 'Psalms-only' manifesto, duly reviewed in these pages. One is the impenetrable barrier they construct between saying and singing, allowing us to praise, pray and preach in words from outside the Bible, but never to sing them.
Another is a virtual ban on criticising the 1650 Scottish Psalter, which is treated with reverence similar to that which Rome pays to the Latin 'Vulgate' Bible - or more, since that may be translated. Reading the Scots version is frequently mystifying; hearing it relentlessly bellowed forth makes us wonder if the singers understand the real Psalms at all, with their subtleties of phrase and nuances of mood which the tortured, plodding Common Metre entirely misses. A mature Scottish Christian leader confided recently that he often reaches the end of a stanza and thinks, 'Now what was that, again?'

So Iain Murray's patiently reasoned analysis, rich in documentation and enhanced by anecdote, is still required. He exposes crater-sized holes in the logic of these latter-day Zionists; he is sure to be read, but will he be heard?

Christopher Idle, Peckham