It must be allowed by all, that we ought to have the same acts of faith in one, as we have in the other. This is evident from all composures in prose or verse, whether divine or human. If the subject-matter be historical, whatever the form be in which it is laid down, the principal things to be considered are, those matters of fact which are therein related. If an history be written in prose, and the same should be turned into verse; its being laid down in the form of a poem, though it adds something of beauty to the mode of expression, yet the ideas, that are conveyed thereby, or the historical representation of things, are the same as though they had not been written in verse. It may be, the reading the same history in verse, may add something of pleasure and delight to those ideas which we have of it, in like manner as singing, according to the third head before mentioned, is a distinct ordinance from reading (though the matter be the same, as it respects the exciting the affections;) yet this does not give us different ideas of it; much less are we to take occasion from thence, to apply those things to ourselves that are spoken of others; unless parallel circumstances require it. If this rule be not observed, I do not see how we can sing many of the psalms of David. Sometimes the subject-matter thereof is not agreeable to every age of life, or the universal experience of particular persons. It would be very preposterous for a child, in singing those words, _I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread_, Psal. xxxvii. 25. or what is elsewhere said; _Now also, when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not_, Psal. lxxi. 18. to apply them, in particular to himself. And when some other psalms are sung in a public assembly, in which God’s people are represented as dejected, disconsolate, and, as it were, sinking in the depths of despair; as when the Psalmist says, _My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed_, Psal. lxxvii. 2, 3. and elsewhere, _I am counted with them that go down into the pit. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me. While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted_, Psal. lxxxviii. 4, 7, 15. This cannot be applied to every particular person in a worshipping assembly; as denoting that frame of spirit in which he is, at present, any more than those expressions which we meet with elsewhere, which speak of a believer, as having full assurance of God’s love to him, and his right and title to eternal life; as when it is said, _Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory_, Psal. lxxiii. 24. can be applied to those who are in a dejected, despairing, or unbelieving frame of spirit.