THE Presbyterian College of Londonderry possesses as one of its Professors the Rev. David Smith, D.D., formerly a minister in the United Free Church of Scotland. This gentleman, who is regarded as a clever divine of the new school, conducts a “Correspondence” column in the pages of the well-known British Weekly. Questions on subjects of religious and moral interest are invited from readers of the paper, and Professor Smith writes a short article weekly in answer to these questions. His articles, as may be expected, run almost wholly on the lines of so-called progressive thought. It is not too much to say that they are well adapted from various points of view to lead enquirers into the newer light which is darkness. His views on the inspiration of the Scriptures are those of the modern rationalistic school who profess great loyalty to Christ and at the same time refuse to accept His testimony as the Divine Prophet of the Church. One of the apostles of modern charity, Professor Smith is also, like many of his compeers, marked by an easy self-confident dogmatism which looks down with flippant contempt on those who abide by “the old paths” in doctrine and worship. We feel deeply grieved that the Irish Presbyterian Church is so far “on the downgrade” as to have such a teacher in one of her theological Halls.
It is our present purpose to notice an article of Professor Smith’s on the subject of the Psalms and praise which appeared in the British Weekly of 12th February. In this article he sets himself to answer the following questions, “Are the Old Testament Psalms suitable and sufficient for the service of praise in a Christian congregation? Should instrumental music be used?” His answer contains a small modicum of truth, and a large quantity of unsound, unproved and rather startling assertions, dealt out in the usual style of self-confident assurance, which makes the compound more readily swallowed by the ignorant and unwary. Let us observe a few outstanding points.
1. Professor Smith admits without hesitation that the Psalms are suitable “for Christian worship.”
He refers to the Psalter in glowing terms as “a precious part of those Holy Scriptures which were so dear to our Lord, and which were the only Bible of the Christian Church during the first generation of her career,” and “as a fountain of refreshment to Christians in all ages,” declaring that “it would be a heavy disaster to the Church if she lost the Psalter, and its neglect were a sore impoverishment of her spiritual life.” “Not the least of its blessings,” he proceeds, “is the sense which it creates within us of the oneness of the Church in all ages—our spiritual kinship with the saints who only saw the Saviour afar off in the dim light of prophecy.” So far, good; though it is doubtful if the light of prophecy was so dim as Professor Smith supposes. Farther on, he inconsistently takes away even this “dim light,” for he pronounces the Old Testament revelation to be so defective as, in our judgment, leaves no light at all to the ancient saints to see the coming Saviour, whose name is Immanuel, God with us.
2. Professor Smith maintains that “the Psalms are insufficient” for Christian praise on various grounds, among which is the very extraordinary one that the Psalms are “Unitarian.”
He thus expresses himself: “The Trinity is a distinctively Christian revelation. . . . The Jewish Psalms are Unitarian, and Unitarianism is not the Christian faith.”
Now, to deal with this remarkable objection to the Psalms, let us observe that the precise meaning of these statements is that the Trinity, or the Three Persons in the Godhead, are not revealed as matters of reality or doctrine in the Old Testament in general, or in the Psalms in particular. The Old Testament only makes known that there is one God, and the fact that there are Three Persons within the compass of the ever-blessed Godhead is only revealed in the New Testament. The Psalms, like the rest of the Old Testament Scriptures, are Unitarian—proclaim the one God and tell us nothing of a plurality of persons in the Godhead. Such is the grossly erroneous view of a man of light and leading in the Presbyterian Church of the twentieth century. He professes to receive “the Christian revelation” embodied in the New Testament, and yet he receives it not—he is blind to its plainest statements—for if one thing is brought out more plainly than another in that inspired book, it is that the Old Testament contains a revelation (distinct, though not full) of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the one Godhead. To say the least of it, Professor Smith exhibits very bad taste in describing the Psalms as “Unitarian,” for that name is definitely associated with, not a simple belief in the oneness of God, but the positive denial of the truth that there is more than one person within the one Divine Essence. Such denial, even our British Weekly oracle, who is daring enough, will not assert to be found in the Psalms, and it is altogether unworthy of a man of his profession to label the Psalms with the name which embodies that denial.
Let us now look at some of the proofs that there is a revelation of the Trinity in the Old Testament and in the Psalms. And where shall we find the most conclusive ones? Just in the Christian revelation—the New Testament—the only place where Professor Smith finds the fact of the Trinity.
As to the Old Testament in general, let us consider for example the first chapter of Genesis in the light of the first chapter of John’s Gospel. In Genesis, i. 2, it is written that “the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters,” and at verse 26, that “God said, Let US make man in our image, after our likeness,” while it is written in the opening verses of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was not any thing made that was made. . . . And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.” Do not these passages, studied in their reflex light, prove to a demonstration that there is a revelation of the Trinity in the grand opening chapter of the Old Testament?
Let us consider, again, the eighth chapter of Proverbs in the light of what is said in first Corinthians (chapter i.) and elsewhere in the New Testament, concerning Christ as “the wisdom of God.” In Proverbs it is written, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought forth; . . . when he prepared the heavens I was there. . . . Then I was by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.” In the light of all we have in the Christian revelation do we not see unmistakeably in this passage of the Old Testament a distinct revelation of the Father and His only and eternally begotten Son? As to the personality and work of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person in the Godhead, we may clearly observe that there is a revelation of Him in the Old Testament when we consider, among many other places, Isaiah lxi. 1—the utterance of the Messianic Servant of Jehovah given in prophecy—”The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek,” etc., along with the application of these words to Himself by the Lord Jesus Christ, as reported in Luke iv. 16-21. It would not be difficult to a true believer to discover the Three Persons in this portion of the Word.
As to the Psalms in particular, it is the most evident witness of the New Testament that they contain a revelation of a plurality of persons in the Godhead. Does not the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who claimed to be the eternal Son of the Father, find Himself in the 110th Psalm, where it is written, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool?” (Luke xx. 41-44). The Apostles and early Christians, who were filled with the Holy Ghost, also saw in the Psalms the Divine Messiah in His person, death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, as we find in numerous references in the Acts of the Apostles. Still again, when the inspired Apostle writes his wonderful Epistle to the Hebrews, where does he go in his first chapter for testimonies to the divine personality of the Son of God, as distinguished from the Father, but to the Book of Psalms? He describes the Son as “the brightness” of God’s glory, and “the express image of his person,” and proclaims Him to be the sustainer of the universe, “upholding all things by the word of his power,” and then proceeds to give us, from the book of Psalms, addresses by the Father to the Son, in which the personal divinity of the Son is most clearly expressed. “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Ps. ii.). “But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom” (Ps. xl. 5). “And thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands” (Ps. cii.). If we examine the New Testament carefully, we shall also observe that it bears testimony to the personality of the Holy Ghost, as appearing in the Psalms. The apostle Peter, in the first chapter of the Acts, declares to the assembled disciples, “Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake before concerning Judas.” Statements such as these expound to us the words which the Psalmist said respecting himself as a divinely-instructed teacher, “the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue,” and confirms to us distinct references to the Spirit in the Book of Psalms. Witness the Psalmist’s prayer in the 51st Psalm, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me . . . and uphold me with thy free Spirit;” and again in the 143rd Psalm, “Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.”
These quotations must suffice meantime. Much might be gathered directly from the Old Testament itself concerning a Trinity in Unity—Jehovah, the Angel of Jehovah, and the Spirit of Jehovah—and the light that comes from the “Christian revelation” only illuminates the darker places of the first revelation, and gives us to see more distinctly and fully than ever the movements of the Triune God there. It appears to us that Professor Smith is blind to the truth in both Testaments, otherwise he could not entertain such misguided views of the important subject of the Trinity. If he really believed the Christian revelation, he could not but see the Trinity in the Old Testament.
3. Professor Smith also entertains highly exaggerated and unwarrantable ideas on the subject of what he calls “evangelical hymns,” as distinguished from the Psalms.
He asserts without a particle of proof that “it is a fact that the Apostolic Church used other praise than the Psalms,” and quotes as “snatches of her hymnology” the rapturous utterances of Mary and Zacharias and Simeon, as found in the first chapters of Luke, as well as brief passages from the Apostle Paul, such as Second Timothy, ii. 11-13, and Ephesians, v. 14. These inspired utterances may possess a certain rhythmical flow, but this is no proof whatever that they constituted any part of a hymnology used in the early Church. The Most High has provided us with no new inspired book of praise in addition to the Psalms.
Again, our British Weekly oracle repeats the trite but baseless dictum, often heard in recent days from advocates of uninspired hymns in worship, “Without evangelical hymns there never has been and cannot be an evangelical revival.” We wonder at a man of Professor Smith’s learning and intelligence giving expression to such an absurd and unwarrantable sentiment. Was the revival vouchsafed on the Day of Pentecost not an evangelical revival, and what was in the mouth of the Apostle Peter on that memorable day? Was it quotations from new evangelical hymns composed for the occasion? Nothing of the kind; but the inspired Psalms that had been used in the worship of the Church for many generations. If we come to Scotland in Reformation and later times (to which Professor Smith refers), when there were deep and extensive revivals both in Lowlands and Highlands, we see that the inspired Psalms alone were found highly adequate to express the emotions of the worshippers, and that they wanted nothing else in the stated worship of God. In so-called revivals of a still more recent date no doubt plenty of quasi-evangelical hymns have been used, but we are well warranted in concluding that in the measure in which these revivals were removed in thought and feeling from the songs of the Holy Ghost, in that measure they were of the devil and not of God. We do not deny but some sound hymns have been composed and sung by men who were taught by the Spirit of God as the result of special seasons of revival, but these compositions can never be put on the same level with the divine, infallible songs of the Psalter. And to say the least, it is downright falsity, and nothing else, to assert that “without evangelical hymns there never has been and cannot be an evangelical revival,” meaning, of course, hymns outside the Psalms, which Professor Smith inferentially traduces as non-evangelical.
4. The last thing we shall notice in this article—and we have written more than we originally intended—is Professor Smith’s allusion to instrumental music.
He says that “as for instrumental music, it is extraordinary perversity when a man denies its legitimacy in Christian praise and will have nothing but Psalms. . . . There was no lack of instruments in Jewish psalmodiy (Psalm 150) and if it be said that instruments are now superseded, then so are priests and sacrifices, and the Psalms are full of these.” In reply to this, we say that there is no perversity in the matter. Instrumental music was confined to the temple service under the Old Dispensation, and that service has now passed away. The Apostolic Church used no instruments of music in the service of praise. “By him (namely, Jesus), therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name” (Hebrews xiii. 15). Let it be observed, further, that the allusions to musical instruments are remarkably few in the one hundred and fifty Psalms—we catch, as it were, just the dying echo of the psaltery, timbrel and harp—instruments of a temporary institution, destined to pass away. Professor Smith reminds us that the Psalms are “full of” the priests and sacrifices; but let it be remembered that the allusions to these (fewer than he suggests) in nowise impair the usefulness of the Psalms or prove that the ceremonial law should now be observed in the New Testament Church. If his slipshod logic, however, held the field, the ancient ritual would still be in practice, a thing that no person of Christian commonsense has ever suggested on the ground of allusion to it in the inspired Psalter.
It is with a sense of pain that we say in conclusion that the Irish Presbyterian Church can never expect the blessing of God as long as it has such teachers as Professor Smith in her Halls. The same remark is applicable to other denominations which have theological instructors of a similarly erroneous stamp in their places of learning.