spoken,” says Paul Westermeyer, “but they cry out to be sung.”39 That in itself is worth pondering. “The Psalms are poems,” adds C. S. Lewis, “and poems intended to be sung.”40 Calvin further explains the Reformers’ partiality to the Psalms in his Preface to the Psalter (1543). The Psalms, he argued, were the songs of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, that which St. Augustine has said is true, that no one is able to sing things worthy of God except that which he has received from Him. Therefore, when we
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