By Reading we
learn what God speaks to us in his Word; but when we sing, especially
unto God, our chief Design is, or should be, to speak our own Hearts
and our Words to God. By Reading we are instructed what have been the
Dealings of God with Men in all Ages, and how their Hearts have been
exercis'd in their Wandrings from God, and Temptations, or in their
Returns and Breathings towards God again; but Songs are generally
Expressions of our own Experiences, or of his Glories; we acquaint him
what Sense we have of his Greatness and Goodness, and that chiefly in
those Instances which have some Relation to us: We breath out our Souls
towards him, and make {244} Addresses of Praise and Acknowledgment to
him. Tho I will not assert it unlawful to sing to God the Words of
other Men which we have no Concern in, and which, are very contrary to
our Circumstances and the Frame of our Spirits; yet it must be confest
abundantly more proper, when we address God in a Song, to use such
Words as we can for the most part assume as our own: I own that 'tis
not always necessary our Songs should be direct Addresses to God; some
of them may be mere Meditations of the History of Divine Providences,
or the Experiences of former Saints; but even then, if those
Providences or Experiences cannot be assum'd by us as parallel to our
own, nor spoken in our own Names; yet still there ought to be some
Turns of Expression that may make it look at least like our own present
Meditation, and that may represent it as a History which we our selves
are at that time recollecting. I know not one Instance in Scripture, of
any later Saint singing any part of a Composure of former Ages, that is
not proper for his own Time, without force Expressions that tend to
accommodate or apply it. But there are a multitude of Examples amongst
all the Scriptural Songs, that introduce the Affairs of preceding Ages
in the Method I have described. Psal. 44. 1, &c. When _David_ is
recounting the Wonders of God in planting the Children of _Israel_ in
the Land of _Canaan_, he begins his Song thus, _We have heard with our
Ears O God, our Fathers have told us {245} what Works thou didst in
their Days, in times of old, how thou didst drive Out the Heathen with
thy Hand, and plantedst them, how thou didst afflict The People, and
cast them out._ Psal. 78. 2, &c. _I will open my Mouth in a Parable, I
will utter dark Sayings of old which we have heard and known, and our
Fathers have told u