Weston Stoler
Puritan Board Sophomore
I cannot find a direct source citing whether John Calvin was psalms only. Anyone know of a quote that might help me? For my research paper.
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"Now what Saint Augustine says is true, that no one is able to sing things worthy of God unless he has received them from him. Wherefore, when we have looked thoroughly everywhere and searched high and low, we shall find no better songs nor more appropriate for the purpose than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him. And furthermore, when we sing them, we are certain that God puts the words in our mouths, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory."
-John Calvin, "Epistle to the Reader," Genevan Psalter (1542)
It might be a bit anachronistic to call him "an Exclusive Psalmodist" for various historical reasons (e.g., the lack of congregational singing at all before he translated the psalter), but he said some things that sound that way. It cannot be conclusively argued from Geneva's practice alone that Calvin was in full support.
One thing I've sometimes wondered is: How do we know what Geneva's practice was? Is it simply the presence of other songs in the Genevan Psalter, or is there something more conclusive?au5t1n said:It cannot be conclusively argued from Geneva's practice alone that Calvin was in full support.
One thing about this discission that must be noted is this, just because certain items were included in the Genevan Psalter does not mean they were items to be sung. The Trinity Hymnal has opening sentences, confession of faith and 10 commandments but no church I know sings them. Could it not be that for a people who had and could afford only a very few books that the consistory decided to include these important elements within the psalm book for convenience?
What other evidence is there of the Geneven Practice?
It is simply amazing how many myths, half-truths, and even outright lies have been propagated about the life and person of John Calvin.
If one reads carefully and thinks about the words in Calvin's preface to the 1542 Genevan Psalter, I think the answer as to whether he practiced exclusive psalmody is pretty clear.
Read the brief quote taken from the 1542 preface from the above post. If Calvin, after having thoroughly looked far and wide, and could find nothing better than the Psalms to sing, why we people then assume that he did after all go ahead and sing things inferior to the Psalms? That makes absolutely no sense. ANY statement that he did so is purely speculative and cannot be based upon hard, firm evidence. And, as stated above, the very spurious and dubious claim that Calvin did write one or more hymns is again purely speculative without any hard, objective evidence.
As Chris Coldwell stated long ago about Calvin bowling on the Sabbath, it gets very tiring dealing with all of the urban legends surrounding Calvin which have no solid basis in fact.
“The Constance Hymn Book of 1540, called by Hughes Old ‘one of the most important monuments in the history of Reformed liturgy,’ included hymns by Zwingli, Leo Jud, Luther, Wolfgang Capito, and Wolfgang Musculus, among others.” Terry Johnson, The History of Psalm Singing in the Christian Church