The Puritans' Need for a New Translation

One of the most important innovations of the Reformation was the singing of the Psalms by the whole congregation instead of by a choir. As soon as the Bible was translated into the vernacular languages, metrical translations of the Psalms began to appear — Luther's Geystliche Gesangk Buchleyn in 1524, Marot and Calvin's Aulcuns Pseaumes in 1539, and Coverdale's Goostly Psalmes also in 1539. People learned them avidly and sang them in their homes, in the field, and in their workshops. The communal singing especially engendered a feeling of unity. Thus psalm-singing, produced by the Reformation, became in turn one of its most powerful weapons. In spreading and deepening the new religious movement, it accomplished more than all the treatises of the theologians.

The German hymnody of the Reformation period was immense. Luther, who loved "the concord of sweet sounds," drew his tunes from the rich tradition of popular and semi-sacred music. His hymns and psalms, the latter being paraphrases rather than translations, possessed simple beauty and great strength. His rendering of Psalm 46, beginning "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott," soon evolved into a national anthem of Protestant Germany. In France, curiously enough, psalm-singing began at the Court, with the "sainctes chansonettes" of Clément Marot, poet and courtier of Francis I. Twelve of his psalms, with six more attributed to Calvin, were published in the little volume of 1539; and two years later an enlarged version appeared containing thirty psalms by Marot and fifteen by others. The Sorbonne was alarmed and got the work banned. But by then Calvin had obtained authority from the Council of Geneva to introduce the versified psalms into regular use. It was psalms only, for, unlike Luther, Calvin disapproved of popular hymns and insisted on a close translation of the biblical verses; but he, too, welcomed solemn music, which Louis Bourgeois, Jean Goudimel, and other talented composers supplied.

Coverdale's magnificent prose translation of the Psalter, as adapted by Cranmer for the Great Bible of 1539, was retained, with minor alterations, in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549. His Goostly Psalmes, however, with its thirteen psalms and nearly as many hymns, was prohibited soon after its appearance, as Henry VIII, having rejected alliance with the Lutheran princes of Germany (and his marriage with Anne of Cleves), veered again toward Catholicism. It remained for Thomas Sternhold, a courtier like Marot but unfortunately a much less gifted poet, to initiate the metrical version that was to find general acceptance. Thirty-seven of his psalms were publishedin 1549, the year of his death. The work was continued by John Hopkins, "a worthy school-maister" of Suffolk, and by several of the exiles, who fled abroad from Queen Mary's reign. They were encouraged by Calvin and urged on by the new editions of the Huguenot Psalter, on which Theodore Beza had been steadily working. After their return to England upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth, they made rapid progress. The complete English metrical version, attached to the Book of Common Prayer, was published in 1562, in the same year as the first complete French Psalter.

The Sternhold-Hopkins version was not the only English translation. Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey, incomparably better poets than either Sternhold or Hopkins, had translated a number of psalms before. But their verses did not catch on; nor did those of Robert Crowley, John Hall, Francis Seager, and Archbishop Matthew Parker, though the last especially had an engaging simplicity. The very slowness of its development must have helped the Sternhold-Hopkins version, its gradual growth endearing it to the exiles. The mediocrity of its versification was no handicap either. "Had they been more poetically translated," Thomas Warton remarked, "those psalms would not have been acceptable to the common people."

But the tunes were of the greatest benefit to the version. Accented in the same way as the words, they were easy to sing. From 1570 on, the book, with its "apt Notes to synge," was frequently printed as an integral part of the Bible, which thus had both a prose and a verse translation (and when the Prayer Book was included, also a second prose version). Although choral singing continued in the cathedrals and college churches, and congregational singing was restricted to the parishes, the Church, on the whole, favored the new version. The Puritans were the first to manifest dissatisfaction with it, not because of its artistic shortcomings, but because it was too free for their taste; for the version, although "conferred with the Ebrue," was based largely on the Vulgate and Coverdale's prose translation. It was for the Separatists, who from the end of the century on were emigrating to Holland, that a new, stricter version was first prepared. Hebrew scholarship was far more advanced by then; and Henry Ainsworth, pastor of the English church at Amsterdam, had a profound knowledge of the language. After years of labor, in 1612 he published his translation, in prose as well as meter, with copious annotations on the Hebrew text. His work was adopted by both his congregation and that of John Robinson at Leyden.

Having studied the Hebrew text, which few of the earlier translators could do, Ainsworth was able to correct some of the errors of the Sternhold-Hopkins Psalter. Confident that he did not "omit the grace of the Hebrew tongue," or use "such uncouth phrases as the common reader understandeth not," he thought his differences from the earlier English versions justified. "I follow the Original text," he wrote in his preface, "where moe are to be seen than our English can wel admit of; serving both to shew the sense, and to read with consideration." Believing in the propriety of the singing of psalms by the congregation, he included "singing notes" in his volume, some of them taken from English and others from French and Dutch psalms. The Pilgrims naturally brought with them the psalm book, which, reprinted several times, remained in use at Plymouth till the end of the colony.

The founders of the Bay Colony, on the other hand, whether their Bible was Genevan or King James, had been brought up on the Sternhold-Hopkins version. The book, published by then nearly two hundred times, had taken deep roots in the mind of the people. Yet, like Ainsworth, the ministers were aware of its corruptions. As they later explained:

... it is not unknowne to the godly learned that they [the translators] have rather presented a paraphrase then the words of David translated according to the rule 2 chron. 29, 30. and that their addition to the words, detractions from the words are not seldome and rare, but very frequent and many times needles ... and that their variations of the sense, and alterations of the sacred text too frequently, may iustly minister matter of offence to them that are able to compare the translation with the text; of which failings, some iudicious have oft complained, others have been grieved ...

Wishing to enjoy the Lord's ordinance "in its...