This was not a legalistic requirement. Rather, for Spurgeon, God’s salvation was the reason for our singing. Singing was not just another thing to pass the time, more entertainment to indulge the senses. No, singing was an appropriate and responsive act of praise to the God who accomplished salvation for his people in Christ Jesus. Speaking to his congregants, Spurgeon exclaimed, “Ye children of his grace, sing unto your Father’s name, and magnify him who keeps you alive.” As a redeemed sinner, Spurgeon declared that “There is no song like that of redemption.” He insisted our God “must be extolled…and he must have the best of our songs.” Spurgeon noted, “Praise is the beauty of a Christian. What wings are to a bird, what fruit is to the tree, what the rose is to the thorn, that is praise to a child of God.” 

The year was 1855 as controversy brewed about the pews of London over the publication of a hymn-book entitled, The Rivulet. Penned by the local minister Thomas Lynch, the book raised more than a few ministerial eyebrows for its lack of explicit Christian orthodoxy. The hymn-book quickly acquired the epithets, “pantheistic,” “written by a Deist” with “not one particle of vital religion or evangelical piety.” The crux of the issue was not the quality of the poetry, but rather the absence of doctrinal clarity in the lyrics. As Charles Spurgeon cheekily put it, “Certainly, some verses are bad…but others of them, like noses of wax, will fit more than one face.”

Spurgeon’s main concern with The Rivulet was Lynch’s insistence that the hymnal be used in congregational worship. Spurgeon did not object to using the book in private, but to sing its hymns in the gathering of the saints was unthinkable. He said, “A book may be very excellent, and yet unfit for certain purposes.” In Spurgeon’s view, the book was so devoid of any useful doctrine that its lyrics could not “cheer us on a dying bed.” Though The Rivulet is filled with beautifully crafted lyrics, he claimed that “she who would wash the feet of the God-man, Christ Jesus, with her tears, will never find a companion in this book.” In other words, congregational singing should be centered on the saving work of Jesus.

But this was not a legalistic requirement. Rather, for Spurgeon, God’s salvation was the reason for our singing. Singing was not just another thing to pass the time, more entertainment to indulge the senses. No, singing was an appropriate and responsive act of praise to the God who accomplished salvation for his people in Christ Jesus. Speaking to his congregants, Spurgeon exclaimed, “Ye children of his grace, sing unto your Father’s name, and magnify him who keeps you alive.” As a redeemed sinner, Spurgeon declared that “There is no song like that of redemption.” He insisted our God “must be extolled…and he must have the best of our songs.” Spurgeon noted, “Praise is the beauty of a Christian. What wings are to a bird, what fruit is to the tree, what the rose is to the thorn, that is praise to a child of God.”

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