Henry Cooke on Uninspired Hymns
While I set not up my own convictions as a rule or measure of the consciences of others, I cannot fail to pity those who find, as they assert, so little of Christ in the inspired psalmody of the Bible, that they must seek and employ an uninspired psalmody as exhibiting Him more fully. Our Lord Himself found Himself in the psalms—Luke 24:44-45—and thereby "opened His disciples' understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." Surely what was clearest light to their eyes, should be light to ours. And, truly, I believe, there is one view of Christ—and that not the least important to the tired and troubled believer—that can be discovered only in the Book of Psalms—I mean His inward life... The most pious productions of uninspired men are a shallow stream—the psalms are an unfathomable and shoreless ocean.