Forgotten riches: the Psalm canticles at Mattins and Evensong

Responding to the Puritan critique that daily use at Mattins and Evensong of Benedictus, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis equated to repetition of the angelic greeting to the Blessed Virgin  ("the Ave Maria"), and thus it was not appropriate "to make ordinary prayers of them", Hooker offered a powerful defence of the use of these Gospel canticles as "the most lucent testimonies that Christian religion hath" (LEP V.40.2).

In doing so, however, he also referenced the fact that alternatives were offered from the Psalter for each of these canticles - Psalms 100 (Jubilate), 98 (Cantate Domino), and 67 (Deus Misereatur) respectively - "and in every of them the choice left free for the minister to use indifferently the one or the other". 

The alternative provision from the Psalter had been introduced in 1552, retained in both 1559 and 1662. The fact that they were retained in the Prayer Book - when Puritan proposals for reform of the liturgy were robustly and routinely rejected - might make us wonder about too quick an association between the use of the Psalm canticles and Puritan or 'low church' sympathies. When we turn to the Laudian and High Church Prayer Book commentary tradition, this suspicion is confirmed.

The Laudian Sparrow, for example, suggested use of the Psalm alternatives "in Lent and Advent, which being times of Humiliation, and Meditations on Christ as in expectation, or his sufferings, are not so fitly enlarged with these Songs of highest Festivity".  It was not, however, only in the penitential seasons that Sparrow proposed the use of these alternative canticles:

as also at other times also, when the Contents of the Lesson shall give occasion, as when it speaks of the enlargement of the Church by bringing in the Gentiles into the Fold of it, for divers passages of those three psalms import that sense.

Sparrow's openness to the use of the Psalm canticles was not unusual in the Laudian and Old High tradition of Prayer Book commentary.  Wheatly, for example, similarly suggested use of Cantate Domino in place of the Magnificat when appropriate because of the content of the first lesson:

when the first Lesson treats of some great and temporal deliverance granted to the peculiar people of God, we have the ninety-eighth psalm for variety; which, though made on occasion of some of David's victories, may yet be very properly applied to ourselves, who, being God's adopted children, are a spiritual Israel, and therefore have all imaginable reason to bless God for the same, and to call upon the whole creation to join with us in thanksgiving.

In Six Sermons on the Liturgy of the Church of England, Thomas Secker - High Church Archbishop of Canterbury 1758-68 - indicated a regular use of these alternatives.  Jubilate, he says, "we use the more frequently"; Cantate Domino "may be used, and in some places it frequently is"; Deus Misereatur "we are allowed to use, and sometimes do".  The fact that he makes such references in the sermons also indicates that these canticles would not have been unfamiliar to the laity.

Secker explains how these Psalms function as meaningful alternatives to the Gospel canticles. This is particularly evident in his account of Jubilate:

The hundredth psalm ... is peculiarly proper after a lesson from the Gospel, since it peculiarly relates to the Gospel times: as appears from its inviting "all lands to be joyful in the Lord"; declaring them equally "God's people, and the sheep of his pasture"; and calling on them equally to "go into his gates, and praise him for his mercy and truth". And may we all accordingly so praise and serve him "in his courts" here below, that we may for dwell in his tabernacle and rest on his holy hill above, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Laudian and Old High Prayer Book commentary tradition therefore offers a theologically rich case for the use of the alternative canticles drawn from the Psalter. In particular, Sparrow, Wheatly, and Secker each point to a deeply Christological reading of these Psalms, which can then become a means of encouraging a Christological praying of the rest of the Psalter at Mattins and Evensong. As with the references in the Gospel canticles to "the Lord God of Israel" (Benedictus), "Abraham and his seed" (Magnificat), and "the glory of thy people Israel" (Nunc Dimittis), the Psalm canticles are a declaration that "the Old Testament is not contrary to the New" (Article VII).  All three commentators also note that there can be a liturgical coherence to the use of these canticles, no less so than with the Gospel canticles.

There is, then, a considerable contrast between the very positive light in which the Laudian and Old High Prayer Book commentary tradition regarded the Psalm canticles, and, for example, the assumption in Frere and Proctor that these canticles are inferior and rarely to be used.  While Jubilate may indeed feature more widely at contemporary Mattins, there can be assumptions that Benedictus is superior and should be normative, while Cantate Dominio and Deus Misereateur are rarely said or sung at Evensong.  

Not only does this deprive the daily offices of a theologically rich use of these Psalm canticles, it also ignores the wisdom of the Laudian and Old High Prayer Book commentary tradition.  Restoring the use of these canticles should be considered as a means of allowing the full riches of Prayer Book Mattins and Evensong to be experienced in the Anglican tradition's daily sacrifice of praise, prayer, and thanksgiving.