A new version of the Psalms of David: together with all the church-hymns, into metre, smooth, plain and easie to the most ordinary capacities: and yet as close to the original languages, and the last and best English translation, as the nature of such a work will well permit. By Simon Ford, D.D. and rector of Old Swinford in Worcestershire.

Psalm XLIX. (Book 49)

[verse 1] A Trend all people, and give ear To what I am to tell: [verse 2] High, low, rich, poor, who e'r you are, That in the world do dwell. [verse 3] My mouth such Doctrines shall declare, As tend to make you wise: In weighty points of knowledg rare, My heart I'll exercise.

[verse 4] The sacred Par'ble I rehearse, Shall my attention raise; Whiles on my harp, tun'd to my verse, Dark things my song displays. [verse 5] Why should I fear in evil days, When guilt my courage quells; And, to my grief, before me lays, The wandrings of my heels.

[verse 6] There are, who trust in stuffed bags, Stored up for such a season: And of their riches make their brags, And think they do't with reason. [verse 7] But such, alas, with all they have, A brother can't redeem: With God, to ransome from the grave, No wealth is in esteem

[verse 8] For none for life a price can give, (That traffick fails for ever:) [verse 9]

That always here a man should live, And see corruption never. [verse 10] For death, both fools, and wisest men, Befalls, by equal lot: And both of them, to others, then, Must leave whate'r they got.

[verse 11] They think their houses firm shall stand, To generations all: And, as entail'd to theirs, their land By their own names they call. [verse 12] Yet man that in great'st honour is, Therein continues not: But equally with beasts he dies, And is alike forgot.

Part II.

[verse 13] Great folly surely doth appear In this fond way of theirs: Yet all their worldly sayings are Approved by their heirs. [verse 14] Like sheep they're, folded in the grave, Where all together dwell: Death feeds on them, and all they have, However they excell.

And when th' eternal day shall set An end to deaths long night: The just o'r them that pow'r shall get, Which they supprest by might. [verse 15] But when I to the grave descend, Though death my life bereave:

God from its pow'r shall me defend, And shall my soul receive.

[verse 16] Be not of any, then, afraid, Because his wealth o'rflows: Nor, at his house be thou dismay'd, When it in glory grows. [verse 17] For when he dies, to all he got, His title's at an end: And after him, his pomp shall not Into the grave descend.

[verse 18] Though, while he liv'd, himself he deem'd The happiest man alive: (And they are always so esteem'd, That know the way to thrive.) [verse 19] He, at his death, shall thither go, Where such as he are gone: And lodge in those dark cells below, Where light yet never shone.

[verse 20] Thus man that in great honour is, And understandeth not: Lives like a beast, and so he dies, And is alike forgot.

Gloria Patri.

To Father, Son, and Spirit, One. True God, in Persons Three, How, as before the world begun, And ever, Glory be.