The Christian Use of the Psalter   By: Arthur Richard Whitham (1863-1930)

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF THE PSALTER

BY THE

REV. A. R. WHITHAM, M.A.

Principal of Culham Training College, and formerly Vice Principal of Cuddesdan College

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1909

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The Mysteries of Grace. By T. A. Lacey, Chaplain of the House of Mercy, Highgate.

Letters to a Godson. First Series. By Cyril Bickersteth, Priest of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield.

First Studies In S. Mark. By G. M. Ireland Blackburne.

Spiritual Counsels to District Visitors and others. By the late George Howard Wilkinson, D.D., Bishop of S. Andrews: Primus.

The Christian Use of the Psalter. By A. R. Whitham, M.A., Principal of Culham Training College.

Our Working Girls and How to help them. By Flora L. Freeman, Author of "Sunshine of Everyday Life."

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PREFACE

This little book, based on three Lectures delivered to the S. Paul's Lecture Society in January, 1908, is not intended so much for the scholar as for the plain man who goes to Church and loves the Prayer Book, but finds the Psalms sometimes puzzling. They are certainly the most difficult, though the most characteristic, part of the daily offices of the Church. What has been attempted in these Lectures is not to explain them in detail, but to suggest the broad lines of interpretation which seem always to have been in the mind of the Church in her use of the Psalter. A few additional helps have been suggested in the Notes.

CULHAM, 1908.

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CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

LECTURE I

PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 PART II. DIFFICULTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

LECTURE II

CHRIST IN THE PSALTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

LECTURE III

THE CHURCH IN THE PSALTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

APPENDIX

BRIEF SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE CHRISTIAN USE OF EACH PSALM . 107

INDEX OF PSALMS REFERRED TO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

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The Christian Use of the Psalter

LECTURE I

PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Haereditate acquisivi testimonia tua in aeternum: Quia exsultatio cordis mei sunt.

The Christian use of the Psalter is as old as Christianity itself. The new born Catholic Church, returning from her earliest conflict with the kingdoms of this world, found the most natural expression of her faith and her need in the words of the 2nd Psalm:

Why did the Gentiles rage, And the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth set themselves in array, And the rulers were gathered together, Against the Lord, and against His Anointed. (Acts iv. 25, 26, R.V.)

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Before this, on the very birthday of the Church, the chief of the Apostles had appealed to the witness of "David," for the Resurrection and Triumph of the Holy One (Pss. xvi., cx. in Acts ii. 25 8, 34, 35). And even earlier, during the ten days of waiting, the great Psalms of righteous wrath (thought so impossible by many to day) had supplied the prophecy of the fall of Judas:

Let his habitation be made desolate, And let no man dwell therein;

and the justification of the election of Matthias: