Psalm Singing Online

For those interested in listening to the Psalms being sung congregationally there are several options provided below.

The following link is to a free playing of the CD "Performed in Heaven." You can find it here. Once you click on the link, you should click on the "Play All" button towards the top or select the particular Psalm you desire to hear.

The Aberdeen congregation of the Free Church Continuing has a page with 16 Psalm and tune selections available for free download. They are at the bottom of their online media page.

Another free source is found on a blog, Texan Rose.

Alternatively, if you would like to purchase the "Performed in Heaven" CD, you can do so through the Free Presbyterian Bookroom (the bookshop of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland).

There are other Psalm singing CDs of the Scottish Psalter available for purchase.

-From Crown and Covenant; Note the remaining four volumes are provided in a side bar.

-From the Presbyterian Reformed Church. There are two volumes available.

Our own denomination, the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), is in process of producing teaching and singing CDs setting forth all the tunes from the Scottish Psalmody. The relevant information is available through the Aberdeen's website.

Lastly, there is a helpful Biblical argument and defense of Psalm singing by Pastor Gavin Beers of the Ayr congregation. It is titled, "Exclusive Psalmody - Traditional or Scriptural" and is available as an address on Sermon Audio or as an article through the denominational magazine. For more information on worship and Psalmody, you may wish to consult the articles available at The Westminster Presbyterian's page on worship.

May the Lord bless you as you seek to worship him in spirit and in truth!

Songs of Zion

For those unaware, the modern standard on psalm singing is back in print in a revised form. I have not yet purchased this new edition, but if it is at all similar to its predecessor it is well worth studying. The book, Songs of Zion, is by Michael Bushell and is available at Crown and Covenant for $25.00.

Words of Samuel Rutherford - To Believers Struggling with Weakness

Samuel Rutherford, “To the Parishioners of Kilmacolm,” 5 August 1639, in Letters of Samuel Rutherford.

Here Rutherford addresses some who struggle under their sense of weakness due to affliction and sin. If you sense and even are overcome with the reality of your sins and weakness in spiritual things, here is counsel for you for your encouragement in Christ.

"…I would say two things: 1. To want [lack] complaints of weakness, is for heaven, and angels that never sinned, not for Christians in Christ’s camp on earth. I think our weakness maketh us the church of the redeemed ones, and Christ’s field that the Mediator should labour in. If there were no diseases on earth, there needed no physicians on earth. If Christ had cried down weakness, he might have cried down his own calling. But weakness is our Mediator’s world: sin is Christ’s only fair and market. No man should rejoice at weakness and diseases; but I think we may have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because without them, Christ’s fingers (as a slain Lord) should never have touched our skin. I dare not thank myself, but I dare thank God’s depth of wise providence, that I have an errand in me, while I live, for Christ to come and visit me, and bring with him his drugs and balm. O how sweet is it for a sinner to put his weakness in Christ’s strengthening hand, and to take a sick soul to such a Physician, and to lay weakness before him, to weep upon him, and to plead and pray! Weakness can speak and cry, when we have not a tongue. ‘And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, Live’ [Ezek 16:6].The kirk could not speak one word to Christ then; but blood and guiltiness out of measure spake, and drew out of Christ Pity, and a word of life and love. 2. As for weakness, we have it that we may employ Christ’s strength because of our weakness. Weakness is to make us the strongest things; that is, when, having no strength of our own, we are carried upon Christ’s shoulders, and walk, as it were, upon his legs. If our sinful weakness swell up to the clouds, Christ’s strength will swell up to the sun, and far above the heaven of heavens."