Voices of the Past
on the Psalter
Charles Spurgeon
“Time was
when the Psalms were not only rehearsed in all the churches
from day to day, but
they were so universally sung that the common people
knew them, even if
they did not know the letters in which they were written.
Time was when
bishops would ordain no man to the ministry unless he knew
“David” from end to
end, and could repeat each psalm correctly; even Councils
of the Church have
decreed that none should hold ecclesiastical office unless
they knew the whole
psalter by heart. Other practices of those ages had
better be forgotten,
but to this memory accords an honourable record. Then
as Jerome tells us,
the labourer, while he held the plough, sang Hallelujah;
the tired reaper
refreshed himself with the psalms, and the vinedresser, while
trimming the vines
with his curved hook, sang something of David.”
Martin Luther
“The Psalter ought
to be a precious and beloved book, if for no other reason
than this: it
promises Christ’s death and resurrection so clearly – and pictures
his kingdom and the
condition and nature of all Christendom – that it might
well be called a
little Bible. In it is comprehended most beautifully and briefly
everything that is
in the entire Bible... In fact, I have a notion that the Holy
Spirit wanted to
take the trouble himself to compile a short Bible and book
of examples of all
Christendom or all saints, so that anyone who could not
read the whole Bible
would here have anyway almost an entire summary of it,
comprised in one
little book.”
John Chrysostom
“Do you wish to be
happy? Do you want to know how to spend the day truly
blessed? I offer you
a drink that is spiritual. This is not a drink for drunkenness
that would cut off
even meaningful speech. This does not cause us to babble.
It does not disturb
our vision. Here it is: Learn to sing Psalms! Then you will
see pleasure indeed.
Those who have learned to sing with the psalms are easily
filled with the Holy
Spirit.”
Andrew Blackwood
“Perhaps our other
denominations would have greater love for the Bible if we
sang from the Psalms
as often as our fathers did after the Reformation. Many
of those songs came
out of the fiery furnace, and so they brought our fathers a
mighty sense of
God’s holiness, as well as a keen awareness of his laws.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Whenever the
Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from
the Christian
church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power.”
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