---
title: 'Louis F. Benson on the Praise Songs Characteristic of Early Presbyterian Worship'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2022-08-16
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2022-louis-f-benson-on-the-praise-songs-characteristic-of-early-presbyterian-worship
---

# Louis F. Benson on the Praise Songs Characteristic of Early Presbyterian Worship

From his Stone Lecture on “The Psalmody of the Reformed Churches,” delivered in February 1907 and published in 1909, Louis F. Benson writes:

“We are to study a peculiar type of Protestant Church Song: — which was introduced into public worship at Geneva in connection with the Calvinistic Reformation; which spread, along with the Calvinistic doctrines, into France, the Netherlands and other continental countries; which became, under Genevan influence, the characteristic song of the Reformed Churches of Scotland and England; and which finally was carried across the ocean by immigrants from these various European countries, and took its place as a part of the cultus of American churches, whether Episcopal, Congregational or Presbyterian.

The type of Church Song with which we have to deal consisted in the singing by the congregation itself of metrical versions of the songs of Scripture, preferably ‘the Psalms of David.’ It is therefore conveniently designated as Metrical Psalmody. We need, however, to understand the precise force and significance of both the words composing this designation. There was, of course, no actual novelty in making the singing of Psalms a part of church worship. The practice had obtained from the beginning, having passed into the Christian Church from the Jewish. In the Daily Office of the Latin Church, as contained in the Breviary, the Psalter had always held the place of honor. Provision was made in the Breviary for the orderly rendering of all the Psalms in the course of each week. But the Psalms were not in the language of the people, the Latin prose version being exclusively used; and they were set to the Gregorian Chant, which could only be rendered by trained officiants. In such a Psalmody the people could take no part, and in actual life they were hardly even in contact with it. In the parishes it was accounted sufficient that the priest should recite the Office as his daily meed of private devotion. As over against this historic “Psalmody” of the pre-Reformation Church, the Calvinistic Psalmody lay in its congregational character. The Psalms were rendered into the vernacular that the people might understand them, and they were put into metrical form so that they might be set to simple melodies which the people could sing. To mark this distinction the Calvinistic type is designated as *Metrical* Psalmody.” — [Louis F. Benson](/authors/louis-fitzgerald-benson), *John Calvin and the Psalmody of the Reformed Churches* (1909), pp. 1-2