The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Late Rector of the United Parishes of St. Mary, Woolnoth, and St. Mary, Woolchurch Haw, London, Vol. 9 of 12 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Late Rector of the United Parishes of St. Mary, Woolnoth, and St. Mary, Woolchurch Haw, London, Vol. 9 of 12

May I not here appeal to the practice of the Dis senters themselves? I suppose Dr \vatts's Hymns, and his imitation of David's Psalms, especially the latter, are used, by a large majority of Dissenting Congregations, in their public worship. Many of these pieces are devotional, that is, they are in the strain of prayer, or praise. They are, ' therefore, forms of prayer or praise and when the first line is given out, it is probable that several persons in the assembly know before-hand every word they are to sing. In some congregations the Psalm or Hymn. Is delivered line by line, and in most, the bulk of the purple are provided with books. Now it appears to me, that when a worshipper who attends to what is going forward, and' is not content with a mere lip service, joins in singing verses, which express the desires and petitions _of his heart to the Lord, he prays and if' he uses verses with which he was before acquainted, he prays by a form he does the very thing for which we are condemned; unless it can be proved that the fault and evil which is essentialto a form in prose, is entirely removed if the substance of the obnoxious form be-expressed in metre and rhime.

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