my burg

In 1719 Isaac Watts published The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of The New Testament And Applied to The Christian State and Worship . This was a new metrical Psalter for singing in the churches, but he wrote the words, taken from the Psalms (OT), with a view to the Gospel (NT). In his preface he wrote a defense of this approach.  His words, which follow below, can also help guide us today as we read the Psalms in a Christ-centered way.  "I come therefore to explain my own design, which is this, To accommodate the book of Psalms to Christian worship. And in order to do this, it is necessary to divest David and Asaph, etc., of  every other character but that of a psalmist and a saint, and to make them always speak the  common sense, and language of a Christian... "Where the Psalmist uses sharp invectives against his personal enemies, I have endeavored to  turn the edge of them against our spiritual adversaries, sin, Satan, and temptation. Wher...

During the Lord's Supper on Sunday I was blessed by the lyrics of a couple of hymns by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), a minister of the Free Church of Scotland.  He and his brother Andrew were excellent writers of devotion, history and other evangelical works.   The first hymn was one we sung and the other was one I read afterwards in meditation... Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face; Here would I touch and handle things unseen; Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace, And all my weariness upon Thee lean. Here would I feed upon the bread of God, Here drink with Thee the royal wine of Heaven; Here would I lay aside each earthly load, Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven. I have no help but Thine; nor do I need Another arm save Thine to lean upon; It is enough, my Lord, enough indeed; My strength is in Thy might, Thy might alone. Mine is the sin, but Thine the righteousness: Mine is the guilt, but Thine the cleansing blood; Here is my robe, my refuge...