'The benefit and comfort of singing the praises of God': Bishop Beveridge, metrical psalms, and Nelson's 'Life of Dr. George Bull'

Last week's reading from Robert Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull (1713) considered the place of metrical psalms in Bull's devotional and congregational life. Following his comments on this, Nelson turns to another great High Church exponent of the singing of metrical psalms and a contemporary of Bull, Bishop William Beveridge (d.1708). 

The various debates which surrounded metrical psalmody in the 18th century Church of England never doubted the practice itself. However, in addition to complaints that congregations too often left the singing of psalms to the clerk and groups of singers, another frequent complaint was that where congregations did participate in the singing of the psalms they sat to do so. There are consistent exhortations for congregations to stand when praising God in psalm singing. Nelson is pleased to point to this being the practice in Beveridge's congregations:

I have with pleasure beheld the Conformity of the whole Congregation to his own Devout Practice, who constantly stood with Reverence while he sung the Praises of God; and when he went into the Pulpit, he neither altered his Posture, nor forbore to join with the Congregation till the Psalm was finished.

Another debate was the introduction of the New Version metrical psalter by Tate and Brady in 1696, replacing the Sternhold and Hopkins psalter. Nelson notes that "the excellent Bishop Beveridge hath defended the Old Version, in a particular Discourse upon that Subject". This refers to A Defence of the Book of Psalms, with the subtitle "with critical observations on the late new version, compar'd with the old". Now, the debate surrounding the New Version is not the subject matter of this post. More significant, I think, is how Beveridge's account of the place of metrical psalms in the practice and piety of the 18th century Church of England supports that given, as we saw last week, by Nelson.

In A Defence of the Book of Psalms, Beveridge notes that the Elizabethan Settlement maintained the choral singing of psalms, canticles, and anthems "in all Cathedral and Collegiate Churches", with "certain Persons ... appointed, in each of them, to learn the Art of Singing by Musical Notes". By contrast, however, there was a recognition that the "Art and Skill requir'd to do this way of singing ... cannot be practised in ordinary Parish Churches". This, states Beveridge, is why "our first Reformers ... did not appoint the Psalms and Hymns ... to be only Sun, but either Said or Sung". And it is here that we then encounter the introduction of the congregational singing of metrical psalms:

But then, there was another Way also found out, whereby all sorts of People might have the Benefit and Comfort of singing the Praises of God both at Church, and in all other Places; and that was, by turning the Psalms of David, and the other Hymns, into English Metre, that they might be more easily got by Heart, and kept in Memory, and then setting such plain musical Tunes to them, as might be easily learned and practised, even by the meanest of the People. 

The practice thus being introduced quickly became a settled and an enduring part of divine service in most parishes of the Church of England. What is more, in counselling against replacing the Old Version of the metrical psalter, Beveridge describes the importance of the practice to the popular piety of Church of England folk:

They have been accustom'd from their Youth to sing these Old Psalms in their Churches every Lord's Day, and have found such extraordinary Benefit and Comfort from that most excellent and heavenly Spirit of Piety and Devotion that runs through them, and moves upon their Souls in the due use of them, that they have got many of them by heart, and are able to repeat and sing them by themselves, in their own Houses, or Closets, or wheresoever they are: And whensoever they have a mind, as all good People often have, to be chearful and merry, to rejoice in the Lord, and magnify his Glorious Name for his manifold Favours and Mercies to them; then these Psalms come into their Minds, and fill them with unspeakable Joy and Thankfulness to God, and with Reverence and Fear of his Holy Name: So that whatsoever their Condition is, they find Something here that suits it, as exactly, as if it was design'd for it. They also that cannot read, by the frequent use of these plain Psalms, can say many of them by heart, and call them to Remembrance upon all Occasions, and exercise their Faith, and Fear, and Trust on God, in the Repetition of them.

It is a beautiful, striking description of the importance of metrical psalmody in 18th century Church of England popular devotion and piety, both in the congregation and - as Beveridge charmingly notes - "their own Houses, or Closets" (which Nelson, as we have seen, also mentioned regarding Bull). What aided this was the metrical psalter being bound up with Bibles and the Book of Common Prayer:

it is got into almost all the Bibles and Common-Prayer-Books, as well as Churches, in England. By which means, there are Millions of them dispersed over the Kingdom. There is not a Family where any one can read, but there is one or more of the Psalm-Books there

All of this suggests that studies of Church of England popular piety in the 'long 18th century' need to recognise and consider the place of metrical psalms as being much more significant than has often been realised. It also suggests a popular piety much more deeply rooted in the Psalms than is the case with contemporary Anglicanism. This - contrary to the dismissive attitude to the practice which accompanies much commentary on the matter - might lead us to reflect on what has been lost with the disappearance in the mid- and late-19th century of the singing of metrical psalms. 

A final point before we move in our readings from Nelson's Life of Dr. George Bull. At the conclusion of last week's post, considering the place of metrical psalms in Bull's devotions and worship, I mentioned that the practice contributed to what Gibson has referred to as the "unity and accord" of the Church of England between 1688 and 1832. The fact that Nelson points to the importance of the practice in the devotions and ministry of Bull and Beveridge illustrates this. Nelson's regard for Bull is, of course, obvious. He also gives high praise to Beveridge:

And now I have named this great and good Man, I cannot forbear acknowledging the favourable Dispensation of Providence to the Age in which we live, in blessing it with so many of those Pious Discourses, which this truly Primitive Prelate delivered from the Pulpit ... He had a way of gaining Peoples Hearts, and touching their Consciences, which bore some Resemblance to the Apostolical Age ... what an Eminent Pattern he was of true Primitive Piety.

Bull was, in the terminology used by Samuel Fornecker in an excellent study, a leading light of Arminian Conformity, above all for his Harmonia Apostolica. Beveridge, by contrast, is highlighted by Stephen Hampton as a Reformed divine, committed to a Calvinist soteriology, as seen in his Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (1710). Nelson, however, admires and praises both divines, and sees no contradiction in so doing. Their theological differences were not, clearly, of more significance than their shared commitment to the episcopal order, liturgy, and Articles of the Reformed Church of England. Beveridge, like Bull, privately received episcopal orders during the Commonwealth. And both, to return to the theme of today's post, praised the Triune God - in congregation and closet - in the words of metrical psalms, a practice which revealed and aided the unity and accord of the Church in which they faithfully ministered.