Psalmody was little more in favour than the gilded pipes of the organ. The
Westminster Directory for Public Worship, adopted by the General Assembly
in 1645, recommends that "for the present, where many in the congregation
cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person
appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by
line, before the singing thereof." Before this time, in 1642, there had
been much controversy in the western Lowlands concerning the singing of
the doxology at the end of a psalm, a practice which was popularly
regarded as a commandment of men, not to be accepted as a divine
ordinance. The General Assembly, in 1643, took the matter into
consideration, and ordered the dispute to be dropped. In 1649, however,
the subject was again before the Assembly, which then resolved that the
singing of the doxology should be discontinued.
In 1647, a committee was named by the General Assembly to examine and
revise Rous's paraphrase of the Psalms, and Zachary Boyd was requested to
make a metrical version of the other Biblical songs; but nothing was done
in the latter direction, probably due to the desire for uniformity with
the Presbyterian Church in England, and in 1650 the present metrical
version was printed for use in public worship, without the addition of any
hymns or paraphrases. Nothing further was done for the improvement of
congregational singing for more than half a century.
The question of instrumental music was revived in 1687, by the erection in
the Royal Chapel at Holyrood, by order of James II., of a large and
magnificent organ, which was regarded as a step towards the introduction
of the Romish service. So convinced were the people of this that the
clergy of even the Episcopal churches discontinued the use of the organ in
public worship. In the following year, when James had abdicated, and the
fear of Popish devices had become allayed, the mob of Edinburgh testified
to the national joy, and at the same time indulged their latent propensity
to mischief by breaking down the organ and burning the materials.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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