A new website dedicated to the 1650 Scottish Psalter

A new website recently arrived which appears to be dedicated to the 1650 Scottish Psalter.

“Welcome!

This site has been created in conjunction with the Scottish Metrical Psalm Sing at the Reformed Presbyterian International Conference held on the campus of Indiana Wesleyan University (Marion, IN). The Psalm Sing will take place on Thursday, July 26, 2012, at 2:00 p.m.

We hope that the resources that you find here will assist you in praising the Triune God of Holy Scripture, using His own inspired songbook; especially as it has been translated in the Scottish Psalter of 1650.”

Here is a selection from an article written by Sean McDonald and Brad Johnston

“Reformed Presbyterians have frequently commended the use of this Psalter. Robert J. Dodds, an American missionary to Syria from 1856 to 1870, wrote regarding “what an excellent metrical version of the Psalms we have. Its excellence consists,” he said, in its “fidelity to the original Hebrew. It may be asserted without fear of successful contradiction, that, take it all in all, it retains the meaning, spirit, life, energy, majesty and sublimity of the Hebrew Psalms, as little impaired as does the prose translation.”

More recently, the late J. Renwick Wright, in an address on “The Influence of the Scottish Metrical Psalter” (1949), tied in the experiential Christianity so often found in connection with this Psalter with its precision in translation. “Has the Scottish Metrical Version had great influence on the lives and characters of men? Yes, and all for good. Lying close, as it does, to its Hebrew original, it has been used thousands of times to lead men to seek spiritual life, to enter into spiritual life, and to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord. What better influence could it have than that?”

As we sing from this Psalter, let us remember those that have gone before us in the faith, who have been strengthened, comforted, and edified as they sang these very words. And let us give all the praise of any blessing we receive from this Psalter version to the same eternal and unchangeable God worshipped in centuries past by Reformed Presbyterians around the world.”