The Scottish Metrical Version of the Psalms (1650)
Philip Rainey's article examines the Scottish Metrical Version of the Psalms (1650) as a culmination of the Reformed tradition extending back to John Calvin's foundational work in the 1530s-1560s. The piece explains the theological principle underlying Psalm-singing in Reformed churches—the regulative principle of worship—and encourages Presbyterian believers to appreciate the historical and spiritual significance of their inherited Psalter. This resource is valuable for understanding both the doctrinal foundations of Reformed worship practices and the historical development of metrical Psalms in Protestant tradition.
Philip Rainey Do we appreciate what a treasure we have in the Scottish Psalter of 1650? Just as the Authorized Version of the Bible did not appear in a vacuum but was the perfecting of a textual tradition revived at the time of the Reformation, so the Scottish Metrical Version of the Psalms was the ripest fruit of a long and painstaking labour to produce in the English language an accurate versification of the church’s manual of praise. Psalm-singing has been and is a feature of the...