Sometimes, John Calvin’s lack of addressing a subject at any length, his comparative silence on any subject, the opposers of what he taught, and the position of the historic reformed Church, the Biblical position is under-minded purely on the basis of Calvin NOT saying much about it! How’s that for a positive negative?

The one that immediately comes to mind, is Calvin’s view on Keeping the Sabbath Day. In his institutes he said little about this, and from that, and the fable, (yes I say that as fact, even though I was not there, because so many of Calvin’s writings if you read them you know it has to be fable as it would be against everything he taught and practiced) that he went bowling one Sabbath day, which is mere conjecture, are used to prove Calvin was not a strict Sabbatarian. I have read enough however in other sources to know that this was not true.

Calvin having penned certain hymns, is also something often used to say he was not an Exclusive Psalmodist. Yet ascribing certain hymns to his having written that have never been proved to have been his, is again, somewhat lame and clutching at straws. Let’s deal with fact. A thorough read of just a few of Calvin’s writings would soon make known that Calvin believed the Regulative Principel of Worship, and was in part its founder as far as bringing it back into practice in the public Worship of God. Same as for his being a strict Sabbatarian.
But I would like to quote Malcom H Watts, from a little booklet he wrote in response to Iain H. Murray’s rather poor, in my opinion attempt to say why hymns were okay in worship, called “The Psalter–The only hymnal” Watt’s wrote a response called, “God’s hymnbook for the Christian church” of which a little is from below:

Given Calvin’s strongly held views on Scriptural psalmody, it is unlikely–to say the very least–that he would written a hymn for public worship. Further more, it is significant that this hymn did not appear in the 1539 Strasbourg Psalter, for which Calvin was responsible, but in the 1545 Psalter, which was prepared by Jean Garnier, the Pastor of the French Church in that city… 1) When the hymn first appeared in 1545, Calvin had been back in Geneva for four years; and 2) the hymn next appeared in the 1553 Strasbourg Psalter which, once again, was the work of Garnier…. attention should be drawn to an important letter Calvin wrote to Conrad Hubert, on May 19th, 1557. In that letter Calvin said: “By nature I was inclined to poetry, but I have bit it farewell, and for twenty five years I have composed nothing, except at Worms, followign the example of Philipp and Sturmm, I was led to write for diversion that poem you read [Epinicion Christo Cantatum--a Latin Poem against the papacy. MHW.] It would appear from this statement, contrary to popular belief, Calvin did not compose any hymns for worship and therefore he was not responsible for the hymn in question. This hymn cannot be produced as evidence that Calvin supported the cuase of uninspired hymnody. [Malcom H. Watts–”God’s hymnbook for the Christian Church.”