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Why Arguments for Exclusive Psalmody Don’t Stand Up
Brian McClung, Minister of Newtownabbey Free Presbyterian Church in northern Ireland, has offered a series of posts in which he gives some persuasive reasons why, in the end, arguments for the use of exclusive psalmody in worship simply doesn’t hold water.
McClung writes in his opening post:
The point of dispute is not the singing of Psalms. It is the singing of Psalms exclusively. To say that the book of Psalms gives us many wonderful examples of how God is to be praised is one thing but to say that only the Psalter is to be used and nothing else in worship is something else entirely.
Does the Bible teach that we have only one book of inspired praise and that is the book of Psalms and therefore nothing of mere human composition is ever to be sung? I do not believe that it does. I don’t believe that the Scriptures nor Church History agrees with the exclusive Psalmist position.
2. Old Testament and New Testament saints did not live by this exclusive psalmist rule.
3. The angels and glorified saints did not sing the psalms.
4. There are possible remnants of hymns/canticles/doxologies quoted in the New Testament.
5. Progressive Revelation argues against Exclusive Psalmody.
6. Exclusive Psalmody leads to different levels of worship.
9. The early New Testament Church did not believe in Exclusive Psalmody.
10. The Reformers at Geneva did not believe or practice Exclusive Psalmody.
11. The Puritans did not all believe in Exclusive Psalmody.
12. The Westminster Divines did not believe in Exclusive Psalmody.
13. Scottish Presbyterianism has not always believed in Exclusive Psalmody.
14. The metrical translation of the psalms is not an accurate translation.
15. Singing Psalms which make mention of musical instruments.
5 Pt. Salt 
Joel, good morning.
Just a heads up. I printed this for my files using your print button. However, it came out so small, it was not usable. Perhaps your webmaster could address this issue for future printings.
Thanks, Ted
Did the same for me. It’s trying to print headers, footers, graphics, etc as well as the text, and that’s why it is so small. Work-around seems to just select the text (links) and paste into a notepad type app, then print from there. Sorry about that. It’s a WordPress issue.
This blog post is weak. I’m not even a Pastor & can see that these can be refuted. Question: Why go against the EP, when you could focus on the apostate jellyfish out there? You don’t like the EP because they sing God’s word? Seriously?
#1 – This scripture refers to Psalms. #2. OT Saints only sang the Psalms in worship.What would Jesus do? He sang the Psalms. I thought you were trinitarian? Is Christ not in the Psalms? R.L. Dabney (not an EP) argued that the use of instruments were a part of the ceremonial law, I agree. I thought you were a Dabney fan?
Very weak arguments.