By REV. JAMES MACLEOD, Greenock.
THE most of Christians and Pagans use some form of instrument in their public devotions. Why, then, should Free Presbyterians be different from almost all other Christians in this part of the public worship of God? It cannot be a question of “use and want,” or mere custom, or matter of expediency. It must be a matter of the highest importance to the worshippers. If God prescribed the form in infinite wisdom we should be scrupulously careful, and conscientiously tender that under no consideration should we add or subtract to the prescribed rule of how we ought to worship God. This is not a question of being “narrow minded” or “broad minded,” “ignorant” or “learned.” It is outside the arbitrary conclusions of the most learned of men; and within the knowledge of the simple fisherman or blacksmith, whether we are authorised by the Word of God to make use of Instrumental Music in the public worship of God in the New Testament Church? If not, what is the authority of other Churches, Protestants and Roman Catholics, for using Organs, Choirs, and hymns in the public worship of God? Can it be traced to the early Christian Church, commonly called “The Apostolic Church”? First of all, was there an “Apostolic Church as such”? No. The period of time that the Apostolies lived is historically called “Apostolic,” to distinguish it from the Pastoral Government of the Church of God that was to remain, and continue to the end of time. Is there any record at any time, or in any place where in public assembly the Apostles used Hymns, Organs
and mixed Choir of male and female? No. The Apostles, being Jews, knew from early childhood that various instruments of music were used formerly in their own public worship.
Why, then, did they not continue to use “Organs, Choirs, and many instruments of music?” We know that the Hebrews were a musical people. David, probably the greatest of them all with his “Harp” or “Lyre,” and even in captivity we read of their “Harp”; and no doubt when they came back to their beloved Jerusalem they used their ancient instruments of music as a token of joy and praise to Jehovah, their Deliverer. Why, then, are all the Apostles silent on this national characteristic of their race regarding instruments of music? There is no evidence in a chapter or verse in the gospels, Acts, and Epistles of the Apostles that instruments of music were ever used by them or that they authorised the use of the “Harp,” “Organ,” or any of their ancient instruments. These were, as Patrick Fairbairn tells:—(1) Stringed Instruments; (2) Wind Instruments; (3) Instruments of Percussion. This is what we are concerned about. Are we acting according to the revealed will of God in His Word when we do not use Hymns, Organs, or Choirs in our public or private devotions? It will not do to say, “Let every one be clear in his own conscience.” The question is infinitely more serious than that. It is not a matter of choice. It belongs to the glory of God, and where His glory is involved let men be aware of the danger of adding to His worship without His divine authority! All who use Organs say, “That it is to aid the harmony of the people when they praise God by song, Psalm, or hymn.” Can it be to the glory of God although men should have harmony of “sound,” if they are poles apart in their understanding, light, faith, knowledge, love, wisdom, and humility? Can they who are in the flesh please God? The Holy Spirit says “No.” Can instrumental music harmonise the dead soul and the living soul? Never! One sound is dead, the other sound is living. The vocal cords are used by both parties, but because the one is dead spiritually, and the other by saving grace alive, all the Organs, hymns, choirs, knowledge of music, and rhythm in the universe cannot harmonise the dead and the living in their souls. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John v. 24).
This subject has been the cause of innumerable discussions. Books in scores have been written by Germans, Jews, British, Americans, and, in more remote times, by European writers, so that it is unprofitable to try to enumerate them because of the different opinions offered which cannot be reconciled or prove that the Apostles ever used or authorised the use of Musical Instruments in the worship of God. It is therefore clear that all the Musical Instruments that were in use in the service of the Tabernacle were shadows “of the good things to come” and passed for ever away with all the rest of the “beggarly elements,” “which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did
the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation” (Heb. ix. 9-10).
The Holy Spirit calls them “carnal ordinances” in contradistinction to the present form and spiritual worship of the Church of God under gospel ordinances. Musical Instruments were part of the “carnal ordinances” of the worship of the Church under the old order, but under the present order we have none of them left. We can have, therefore, no difficulty in our minds to see and understand why the Apostles were so uniformly silent on the question of Musical Instruments, as well as on the other utensils of the Tabernacle. Have we, then, any warrant from the Word of God to use Musical Instruments in the worship of God under the present gospel dispensation? No. If not, how dare we add to the divine worship of God what we are not directly or indirectly authorised to do? We, therefore, conclude that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is in the path of duty before God when her people will not tolerate to have Musical Instruments, Choirs, or man-made hymns in her public devotions! Can, then, a Free Presbyterian worship God in congregations where Organs, hymns, and Choirs are a conspicuous part of the worship? Impossible! Let us turn to the 18th chapter of Revelation, verse 22: there we have it clearly stated that it was to be part of the judgment that was to come on the great “Whore Babylon” that the voice of harpers, musicians, pipers, and trumpeters, “shall be heard no more at all in thee.” This gorgeous worship was to be definitely destroyed as foreign and contrary to the worship of the Church of God. It is then obvious that all who use musical instruments, hymns, Choirs (or teams) are in that sense and measure allied to the “Mystical Babylon.” This “Mystical Mother” has many “daughters!”
Why were music, hymns, choirs, alters, confessions, various Orders of Clergy introduced into the Christian Church? It would take a long time, space, and searching into the remote past to give a large and elaborate explanation why from the time the Apostles finished their course, departures from the faith and from the simple worship of the early Christians appeared? Man is a restless being and, like the troubled sea, cannot be at rest. He looks for new things and changes. That is really at the bottom of all the changes that took place, and like our own age, changing position, and the practice of the true religion to suit what is called “modern times,” Scholarship, Science, and New interpretations of “God’s mind!” If one will, with any real care, look at the changes that have taken place for the last 50 years, and further back, say 100 years ago, it is simply colossal!
German Theologians and Scientists were the advance guards in attacking and repudiating the Word of God from Genesis to the book of Revelation. In one word, the Germans rejected the gospel, the Bible, and the worship of God as established after the Reformation, and were the pioneers in advancing all the wicked “modernism” that
brought the people of Europe to a state of savage, brutal conception of life, and the value of human life, not even excelled in the “dark and middle ages.” All this can be traced to the fact of departing from the Word of God and adding to the divine worship of God what was not authorised by the Lord.
The Reformed Church of Scotland abolished all the gorgeous trimmings of the Papal Church, such as music, Organs, choirs, as well as masses, confessions, and all the other genuflections of the priests, nuns and bishops! Why, then, did the Protestant Church of Scotland reintroduce Organs, Hymns and Choirs (or as they are now called teams) into the public worship of God? If Knox and Alexander Henderson sincerely believed that uninspired Hymns and Instrumental Music have no place in the worship of God, where did those who reintroduced this part of the practice of Papal Rome get their authority from? We can say without the least hesitation—”not from the Word of God.” Those who use Hymns and Organs add to the worship without authority. This is a daring assumption, as if what the Holy Spirit handed to the Church was not enough without adding songs or hymns composed by Cardinal Newman or Isaac Watt! The one human song is of equal authority as the other as far as the worship of God is concerned. In our Gaelic language we have most beautiful spiritual and Scriptural hymns, and spiritual songs of the highest order—to mention only a few: first, John Grant, Dougal Buchanan, and John Morrison (the Harris Bard). For depth of feeling, spiritual sentiment, and sanctified experience the English, the German, Dutch or American Bards never excelled them! Think of Dr. Macdonald, Ferintosh; Rev. John MacRae; Rev. Alexander MacColl, Lochalsh; and Dr. John Kennedy, Dingwall, saying from the pulpit, “We shall sing this morning, ‘John Grant on the glory of the suffering Saviour!'” How, then, can any true-hearted Free Presbyterian join in the worship of such as may intimate, “Let us praise No. — Hymn, composed by Cardinal Newman!”
“Miss Bold-as-Brass will lead the Choir.” Intimation: “In the evening a Solo by Miss Ignorant-of-God from Theatre Royal.” How could Free Presbyterians associate in the worship of God with such mockers? In the Highlands our people may say, “Surely things are not as bad as all that?” Yes, and far worse than that, but that is enough to show you how Protestants have departed from the Word of God. Read Job xxi. 6-14. It is now a religion of music, all singing, and music. It is not necessary to preach to “good” people. If they were to be addressed as sinners, and as enemies to God that had need of repentance, they would not tolerate such a preacher one day. They have been taught that “God is love,” and they deny future punishment and a lost eternity, and the day of judgment, and what else have they to do but sing, and sing hymns by the dozen. It does not matter who composed them: they are hymns! Some will say we should be tolerant—they never had but hymns. That is not the truth.
Rev. William Romaine never used hymns, and spent all his days in the Church of England. And what a blessed ministry! He used the Psalms in metre as we do. It is more reasonable and Scriptural to praise God with His own holy Word than with man-made songs and hilarious hymns even if they had a Romish Cardinal as the composer! Let us consider a common argument that is used in self-defence—“Good ministers and godly people use hymns and organs in their religious devotions, and surely if they were as bad and as wrong as all that God would have shown them that He was displeased with them?” “He has showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah vi. 8; Deut. v. 22). It doth not matter who adds to the worship of God, he is wrong, let him be Aaron or Peter. The prescribed rule is laid down by the Holy Spirit, and we do not find in it “Organs, Hymns, Choirs (or Teams), Solo Singers; and hymns Number so and so!” Free Presbyterians may feel isolated, being almost alone in this respect, and in many other respects, but if God be for us who can be against us? (see Mark viii. 38, and Luke ix. 26). Faith has no need of a Popish Organ to praise God. Let us keep to the pure, simple, and Scriptural worship of God and deliver the same holy Scriptural Form of Worship to our children as our fathers handed it down to us. One may say, “That is very well, and may be easy for you to say, but when we take people from other Churches with us to our Church they feel so funny about it: no choir, no organ, no hymns, and no solo singing, and only three portions of Psalms sung during the whole service.” What of that if that is in accordance with the mind of God?
Let us look at it from a Free Presbyterian point of view. A God-fearing Free Presbyterian was on business in one of the large centres of the South, and on Sabbath morning he decided to go to Church, and, as his own Church was not in this place, he went to the nearest place of worship to his lodgings. The officer at the door gave him a polite welcome, “So pleased to see you, and should I have the pleasure to show you where to sit?” “Yes, sir, and thank you very much.” The Free Presbyterian looked towards the pulpit, and the first thing he noticed was a piece of cloth hanging over the front of the pulpit with a cross wrought with gold thread on this black piece of cloth! “What can this mean?” he muttered to himself. He was hearing moaning noises coming from the back of the pulpit which he never heard before. “What can this be?” The minister appeared very well dressed, with a black cloak and large-size ring on his left hand little finger. The minister stood in the pulpit and looked at the ceiling, then turned to the end of the building, then disappeared as if on his knees in the pulpit. He reappeared, stood up, and in an unnatural tone of voice read from a book he had in his hand a song, and the number was, to the best of my recollection, 1456. The moaning noise
behind the pulpit gave one huge peel and the congregation sprang to their feet like a well-drilled regiment to attention on parade! The noise behind the pulpit (they called it an Organ) boomed louder and louder, so that the vibration sounded in my unaccustomed ears like the roaring of the ocean swell on the rock-bound coast of my native shore. The first singing is over, the congregation sit. The minister, standing, prays. When the prayer is over, another singing, and the Organ booms. The minister intimates the lesson for to-day: “Luke, Psalm 100, Romans 8: verses 38, 39 and John . . .” The sermon is on charity. He reads it from bits of paper. Am not sure was it seven or ten minutes it took the minister to read his sermon on charity, which, he explained, meant giving to the funds of the Church. He called out No. 9845. The congregation up quick, and the Organ boomed.
I felt utterly uneasy and wondered had I by mistake entered a theatre or some place like that instead of a place of worship! I vowed I would never go to such a place again. “Do you remember anything of what the minister said?” On his little sermon on “charity” he mentioned “modern science” and “modern interpretation,” and I feel trembling to tell you that I heard the minister say in his sermon on charity “that Christ was a good man, but just a man like ourselves.” When I heard that I was mortally afraid that the ceiling of the building would fall on my head. How did the congregation respond to that? They all appeared to smile at his great learning. I afterwards understood that this Rev. Dr. spent a long time in a German University. His intimations were very long. He intimated that “Burns Supper” would be in the hall of the Church the following week and that pipe band from “Grave-end” would be present; and that Professor “Care-nothing” would give the lecture. He also intimated that there was to be a dance in the Church Hall on Monday night for the young, but that all were welcomed to be present! When I got to my lodgings, I went to my knees asking for pardon that I ever entered that synagogue of Satan. I read the third chapter in John and Psalm 51 to get all that rubbish out of my mind and the noise of that Organ out of my ears. Supposing I would never enter a place of worship again, never shall I go to such a place of hypocrisy.”
Will you now be ashamed to take a poor sinner from that synagogue of Satan to worship the God of your fathers in accordance with His Word? I hope not. Free Presbyterians, keep to your own Church and the lovely, humble, Scriptural form of worship. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccles. xii. 13).