Hymns of the Soul

Leon Wencelius, "The Word of God and Culture," in The Word of God and the Reformed Faith: Addresses Delivered at the Second American Calvinistic Conference held at Calvin College and Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 3, 4 and 5, 1942, pp. 169-171:

Music is born of joy. It is the direct manifestation of the soul happy to know itself united with God. Do not the angels sing of His glory and His sovereign goodness in their celestial choirs, and did not see the Lord himself like to sing those "hymns of the soul" which are the psalms with his disciples? Music is the art most capable of rendering glory to God. It is the most dynamic of arts, capable of moving all the senses profoundly. It is capable of setting the soul on fire, and when it attains its end, it reaches bliss in the most perfect serenity.

Music can have for its object either the praises of God or the joy of man who lives in the universe. Secular music, in the realm of general grace, has a role analogous to that of painting and of sculpture. It gladdens the soul and represents its emotions, but like the plastic arts it, too, can be corrupted. It, too, can swell the heart with vanity, flattering the singer, while nursing his pride, and develop in him hypocrisy, the taste of immoderation, thus corrupting him. In just such a way the Tyrians soothed their ears with voluptuous and perverse songs.

The Word of God teaches us that God should be the object of our songs. They must praise his creation in "profane" music and glorify salvation in religious music. Here again, the very history of the Reformation shows us how the Calvinistic civilization of the XVIth century was aware of music in the field of Culture.

From the time of his arrival in Geneva Calvin recommended the singing of psalms. He looked for translators and composers and set himself to work upon them. But when he discovered the psalms of Marot, he gave up his own translations in favor of those of the poet. Calvin discovered the most appropriate melodies for the interpretation of the spiritual truth of the Psalms, first among these were the noble airs of Bourgeois and of Goudimel.

As an Alsatian I am happy to point out that the tune of the songs which became the national anthem of the Huguenots was given to Calvin by an Alsatian composer, Greiter; and so Strasburg, which later gave France its Marseillaise, can be even more proud of having given to the Huguenots the melody of their famous Psalm 68: "Que Dieu se montre seulement!"

We are at the time of Calvin in the presence of a real Renaissance of sacred music. The people of the XVIth century enthusiastically adopted the psalms. They were sung by everybody, even by Charles V when he passed Paris, and especially along the pré aux clercs, by all the fervent youth of Paris. Faithful to Calvinist sobriety, the composers of the Psalter searched for the simplest possible melodies. They discovered, according to the work of a French critic of music, the predestined forms in which the religious fervor and though contained in the psalms flow with the greatest possible harmony. Once the theme was found, the composers were to treat it in the most simple manner, note against note. Music became simple and its notation underwent a complete transformation. The principal melody changed from the tenor to the soprano voice. The expression which established harmony between song and words was discovered and was to lead to the oratorio. Music, heretofore reserved to the clergy, now became a universal art, thanks to the Reformation. The Psalter, call[ed] the "siren of Calvinism" by its enemies, captivated many souls and its harmonies soon spread over all the world. The history of the Psalter was to parallel that of Calvinism and it is interesting to note that at the present moment, together with a renaissance of Calvinism, there is apparent a growing taste on the part of modern Calvinists for the old psalms of the XVIth century.

We may conclude by saying that music is a form of culture inspired by God in order to glorify the creation and its Creator.

French Witness in Florida

Robert Stevenson, Protestant Church Music in America, p. 3:

Although Jamestown was not founded until 1607, Plymouth until 1620, and Massachusetts Bay until 1630, these seventeenth-century English colonies by no means initiated Protestant forays into North America. As early as the spring of 1564 three shiploads of Huguenots under the command of René de Laudonnière, settled ten miles down St. Johns River from what is now Jacksonville, Florida. Their principal recreation consisted in singing Marot psalms. The sturdy Calvinist tunes to which these were sung caught the immediate fancy of the surrounding Florida Indians, who came from far and near to enjoy the Huguenots' music. Before long the natives were singing the same tunes, learned by rote. After the Spaniards massacred the encroaching French colonists, the Indians for many years continued to sing snatches of these vigorous Huguenot tunes as "codewords" to determine whether any stragglers along the seacoast were friendly French or sullen Spanish.

Nicolas Le Challeux's Brief Discovrs et histoire d'vn voyage de quelques Francois en la Floride, published at Geneva in 1579 as an appendix to Girolamo Benzoni's Histoire novvelle dv Novveav monde, specifies the very tunes that were used as signals -- those for Psalms 128 and 130. He writes that the Florida Indians "yet retain such happy memories that when someone lands on their shore, the most endearing greeting that they know how to offer is Du fons de ma pensee [Ps. 130] or Bienheureux est quiconques [Ps. 128], which they say as if to ask the watchword, are you French or not?" Le Challeux continues that the Indians do so because "the French while there taught them how to pray and how to sing certain psalms, which they heard so frequently that they still retain two or three words of those psalms."

Reformer and Poet

One day in 1548, soon after Theodore Beza arrived in Geneva, John Calvin entered Beza's room, unbeknownst to his friend, and found lying on a desk a draft versification of Psalm 16 by the young Reformer. He took it, and with the agreement of other ministers to whom he showed the paper, succeeded in persuading young Beza to try his hand at further poetic versifications of the Psalms. This lead to the completion of the Genevan Psalter (1551-1562) following Clement Marot's early death (he died in 1544 having put 30 psalms to metre).

Earlier that year, before his conversion and arrival at Geneva, Beza in fact had published his Poëmata, or Juvenilia, a collection of poems written mostly before he turned 20 (he was 28 or 29 when they were published) dedicated his mentor (and Calvin's), Melchior Wolmar, that were more elegant and more innocent than later critics would assume. Beza would later describe his Latin epigrams as being "in imitation of the ancient poets," naming elsewhere Catullus and Ovid. He would later express regret for writing these particular poems, identifying them with the errors of his youth, though his opponents took occasion to ascribe a corruption to them which was not there. Henry Baird writes: "On that score, nothing more need be said than that not many of the Juvenilia are open to the charge of indelicacy, while many are above reproach" (Theodore Beza, Counsellor of the Reformation 1519-1605, p. 30).

But in his new life after conversion, he embraced the psalmody of Geneva, and tried to redeem his poetic gift. Thus, the Huguenot Psalter was completed and Reformation Psalmody was strengthened.

All his life, Beza retained a love of poetry. He regretted some of his youthful poetic labors and the fact that, rightly or wrongly, they became the basis of certain calumnies leveled against the Reformation. He would mainly write prose thereafter, but the Genevan Psalter is a shining example of how he would redeem his noteworthy poetic gifts. He continued to write poetry from time to time, as well as a play, Abraham Sacrifiant, published in 1550. It was translated into English in 1575 (published in 1577) by Arthur Golding under the title The Tragedy of Abraham's Sacrifice. It is available to read online in modern spelling here (and in the original spelling here).

Beza has been often quoted as saying, "I have never been able to repent of my love of poetry." The context of this statement is worthy of elaboration. It was in the preface to his play that he wrote:

I admit that by nature I have always delighted in poetry, and I cannot yet repent of it; but much do I regret to have employed the slender gifts with which God has endowed me in this regard, upon things of which the mere recollection at present makes me blush. I have therefore given myself to such matters as are more holy, hoping to continue therein hereafter.

There is in this statement some measure of guilt it seems, and there is a sense in which his religious poetic and playwright efforts are an expiation, or an atonement, for youthful misdeeds, real or perceived. Talents wastefully employed by him in younger days were applied to more serious and eternal endeavors. But the gifts themselves were not to be denied, and the poetry in Beza would flow all throughout his life.

He wrote an epigram upon the death of his dear friend, John Calvin, originally in Latin, which reads:

Rome's greatest terror he, whom now being dead
The best of men lament, the wicked dread:
Virtue itself from him might virtue learn; -
And dost thou ask why Calvin did not earn
A place more splendid for his last repose,
Than that small spot which does his bones inclose?
But know, that modesty even from the womb
Had been his guest, - and she has built his tomb.
O happy clod! thy tenant, great was he;
The gorgeous shrines may justly envy thee.

Not long after his wife Claudine died in 1588, he wrote a poem for Jacques Lect, a Councilman in Geneva who likewise lost his wife, in which he honored Claudine and expressed his own grief while consoling his friend.

In 1595, he wrote a poem to his friend Grynaeus, pastor of Basel. Henry Baird writes (ibid, pp. 341-342:

But up to the end of his life the passion for letters continued, and now that the time for sustained labours had clearly passed, it was chiefly in poetry that he continued to divert himself, the epigram which had been the pastime of his youth thus becoming the solace of his old age. The homeliest circumstance of every-day life afforded subject enough for verses — Latin verses, of course—in which the trivial occurrence was turned to spiritual account and made to bear a higher interpretation. In the freedom of familiar correspondence with his old friend, Grynaeus, the pastor of Basel, he jots down, for example, the fact that that very morning of his seventy-sixth birthday, his aged servant had greeted him on awaking with news from the poultry- yard. A hen had been bought a month before and had been lost sight of at once; she just now appears, but not alone; fifteen little chickens, her progeny, follow and crowd about her.

"You see," he writes to Grynaeus, "by this homely incident how unconventionally I treat you. I gave thanks for this increase of wealth to the Author of all good, and I saw in it—shall I tell you ?—without regarding myself in this as being guilty of superstition—the presage of some special favour. I even composed on this subject an epigram, and I send it to you, in order not to leave you a stranger to these light relaxations of my mind." Heppe, 315.

The eight verses enclosed were of faultless Latinity, but need not be transcribed here. The thought was simple but pious. The hen bought but a month ago rewards her purchaser, who expended for her but ten sous, with a whole brood of young. "And I, O Christ full of benignity, what fruits have I returned to Thee in the seventy-six years that I have lived until now?"

In the late 1590's, a curious rumor was spread that Beza was at death's door, and that indeed he had died, having returned to the Roman fold on his death-bed. Beza himself was very much alive and found it amusing (one may well imagine he would appreciate Mark Twain's remark that "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated") but found it necessary to dispel the rumor with a letter and satirical epigram.

There is a story told about a famous visitor who visited him around the year 1600 and found him busily scratching out and re-working poetic verses to which Beza pleasantly responded by saying "This is the way that I beguile my time!"

The last poem he published was a tribute to King Henry IV, who visited him in Geneva in 1599. "It was a poem of six stanzas, Ad inclytum Franciae et Navarrae regem Henricum IV. ("to the renowned King of France and Navarre, Henry IV.") 'It was his last, his swan song.'" (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 8 § 175, quoting Heinrich Heppe, Theodor Beza. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, p. 310).

Beza's poetry was a pleasant diversion or pastime for him, but a gift to the church, especially in the form of the Huguenot Psalter. He will always be remembered for his prose writings, but he was a poet and a playwright too, and if I may be permitted a brief allusion to a modern composer, Alan Lerner, "Don't let it be forgot / that once there was a spot" where poetry and the Reformation came together in Beza's Geneva.

The Genevan Psalter and Common Grace

John H. Gerstner, "Singing the Words God Has Put in Our Mouths" (originally published in The Hymn, January 1953), in John H. Gerstner: The Early Writings, pp. 204-205:

The third theological foundation of the Genevan Psalter was the doctrine of common grace. By this it was recognized that there are two types of divine gifts -- supernatural and natural. The former are the virtues wrought in the soul by a special work of grace; the latter are those which pertain to secular matters and are distributed to all, not to saints only; as a matter of fact, often to sinners. But, wherever they were, Calvin recognized these and used them for his purposes. Skill in music is a natural rather than a supernatural skill, but Calvin was ever on the alert to capture this for the worship of God. Thus, at his Academy in Geneva, he made music required four hours each week. The choir thereby trained in this skill was to lead the people so they could, under its leadership, cultivate the same skill. Acting on this same principle, Calvin was quick to appreciate the able -- though not excessively orthodox -- Marot, and to stand by the gifted composer, Bourgeois, who was thrown into prison for breaking some of the rigid disciplines of Geneva of which Calvin was himself the main author. Abraham Kuyper, in his admirable Lectures on Calvinism, so aptly remarks, "Music...would flourish, henceforth, not within the narrow limitation of particular grace, but in the wide and fertile fields of common grace."4

4 Lectures on Calvinism, p. 228.

The Continuators Continued (Part 4)

This is the conclusion (for now) of a series on the continuators of certain Puritan works.

Richard Stock's commentary on Malachi was published 15 years after his death and supplemented by Samuel Torshell (1605-1650).

Abraham Hellenbroek's Catechism

Abraham Hellenbroek's (1658-1731) catechism entitled A Specimen of Divine Truths was expanded after his death to include an introduction to students on how to profit from catechism class, a chapter on the counsel of peace, and a compendium of the principal doctrinal errors of those outside the Reformed Faith. The expanded edition is sometimes referred to the "big Hellenbroek." I am uncertain as to the identity of the editor(s) involved.

G.A. Henty's Last Novel

G.A. Henty died while in the midst of writing his last novel, By Conduct and Courage, which was completed by his son Captain C.G. Henty.

Sebastian Benefield's Commentary on Amos

Sebastian Benefield wrote a commentary on Amos 1-3, the last portion of which was published in 1629, before he died in 1630. Thomas Hall supplemented this with a commentary on Amos 4-9.

Martin Chemnitz's Commentary on the Harmony of the Gospels

Martin Chemnitz began a commentary on the harmony of the Gospels which was continued by Polycarp Leyser the Elder (1552-1610), and completed by Johann Gerhard.

The Huguenot Psalter

Metrical versions of 52 Psalms were completed by Clément Marot by the time of his death in 1544. The remaining versified Psalms in the Huguenot Psalter were completed by 1562 largely, if not exclusively, by Theodore Beza.

All The World's A Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players...

-- Jacques, in William Shakespeare's As You Like It (c. 1599), Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-140

Or as a Huguenot poet, Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544-1590), put it earlier:

The World's a Stage, where God's Omnipotence,
His Justice, Knowledge, Love, and Providence
Do act their Parts; contending (in their kindes)
Above the Heav'ns, to ravish dullest minds.
The World's a Book in Folio, printed all
With God's great Works in letters Capitall:
Each Creature is a Page: and each Effect
A fair Character, void of all defect.

-- La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde (1578), trans. by Joshua Sylvester as Divine Weekes and Workes, First Week, First Day

Not only did Du Bartas influence Shakespeare, his epic poem about creation is thought to have been a major influence upon John Milton's Paradise Lost. In the tradition of hexameral literature, Du Bartas' poetry represents a major achievement. He was not the first to see the world as a stage, although his picture of God's attributes manifested in theatrical glory is, to my way of thinking, more spiritually eloquent than Shakespeare's, nor was he the first to be inspired by contemplation of God's work of creation in the first week of the world. But his influence was such that he is considered to be only French poet of the 16th century who could rival Clement Marot as "the poet of princes, and the prince of poets," and as Joseph Hall wrote in poetic praise of Du Bartas and his English translator, he was certainly a chief poet in two languages:

Bartas was some French angel, girt with bays;
And thou a Bartas art, in English lays.
Whether is more? Mee seems (the sooth to sayn)
One Bartas speaks in tongues; in nations, twain.

Although little-known today, his legacy is behind some of the greatest works of English literature, and when one reads the original French or the English translation, though in eloquence he has been superseded, the Huguenot's combination of spiritual grace and poetic expression tunes the believing heart more sweetly, in my opinion, than England's chief muses.

Clement Marot on Singing Psalms

Clement Marot, "Aux Dames de France" (dedication in Marot's Psalter), as cited (and translated) by Isaac D'Israeli, "Psalm-singing," in Curiosities of Literature (1859), Vol. 2, pp. 475-476:

O bien heureux qui voir pourra
Fleurir le temps, que l'on orra
Le laboureur a sa charrue
Le charretier parmy la rue,
Et l'artisan en sa boutique
Avecques un PSEAUME ou cantique,
En son labeur se soulager;
Heureux qui orra le berger
Et la bergere en bois estans
Faire que rochers et estangs
Apres eux chantent la hauteur
Du saint nom de leurs Createur.
Commencez, dames, commencez
Le siecle, dore! avancez!
En chantant d'un cueur debonnaire,
Dedans ce saint cancionnaire.

Thrice-happy they, who shall behold,
And listen in that age of gold!
As by the plough the labourer strays,
And earman mid the public ways,
And tradesman in his shop shall swell
Their voice in Psalm or Canticle,
Sing to solace toil; again,
From woods shall come a sweeter strain
Shepherd and shepherdess shall vie
In many a tender Psalmody;
And the Creator's name prolong
As rock and stream return their song!
Begin then, ladies fair! begin
The age renew'd that knows no sin!
And with light heart, that wants no wing,
Sing! from this holy song-book, sing!