THE ONLY MANUAL OF PRAISE IN THE WORSHIP OF GOD FOR ALL TIMES.
BY THE REV. D. MACFARLANE, DINGWALL.
THE following article is the outcome of a correspondence in the local press on the subject of uninspired hymns in public worship. In almost all the Presbyterian Churches in Scotland the inspired Psalms are either superseded or largely supplemented by uninspired hymns in the worship of God, which indicates a sad departure from Reformation principles, doctrine, and mode of worship. Now, while I admit that scriptural hymns composed by men taught of God, though not inspired, are useful in their own proper place, that is, for private edification, I hold that the Book of Psalms is the only divinely-authorised manual of praise in God’s worship for all times, and I shall endeavour to prove my statement, both from Scripture and Church history.
1. From Scripture.—
It is God, the only object of worship, whose prerogative it is to appoint the matter and manner of His own worship. This He has done in His Word, which is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him. His will, revealed in the Scriptures, is the law whereby we are to be regulated in all our duties to Him. To sing praise to His name is part of the worship He requires of us, and in order that we might celebrate His praise in an acceptable manner, He has supplied us with a book of songs indited by His Spirit. That book is the Book of Psalms. As “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” so is the Book of Psalms. The Lord appointed David, “the sweet Psalmist of Israel,” and others whom He had inspired by the Holy Spirit, to compose this Book, to be the only authorised manual of praise in His worship to the end of time. That the Book of Psalms was designed for both dispensations—the old and the new—as the only divinely-appointed manual of praise, may legitimately be inferred from these facts:—
(1) That none of the apostles, or any other inspired men, were employed by Christ to compose another book of songs for the New Testament Church. Now, if Christ, the Head of the Church, had purposed to provide such a book, surely He would have authorised inspired men to perform such an important work, and would not have left it to be done by men who could not justly lay any claim to inspiration. Inspiration ceased with the apostles. I observe that a correspondent on the question under discussion confounds inspiration with illumination. That writer does not seem to me to have studied theology, or if he has, his knowledge of the subject is inaccurate. All Christians taught of God are subjects of spiritual illumination, but no Christian since the time of the apostles, however high his attainment in grace, has been inspired. “Spiritual illumination is an essential element in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, common to all true Christians; inspiration is a special influence of the Holy Spirit, peculiar to the prophets and apostles, and attending them only in the exercise of their functions as accredited teachers.”—Hodge on Systematic Theology. It is of the utmost importance to keep in view the distinction between inspiration and illumination. Unless this is done the question will be left in the utmost confusion.
(2) That the Book of Psalms contains sufficient matter for praise to the end of time, which makes it unnecessary that any addition should be made thereto, even although it would be lawful to do so, which it is not. Add to this that praise is expressed in the Psalms in such a manner as is incapable of improvement by any attempt of uninspired men—the words being indited by the Holy Spirit. Then as to the matter and manner of expression, this book is a perfect manual of praise for the New Testament Church to the end of time, when all the redeemed shall sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb in heaven for ever. What theme do we wish to take up to celebrate the praises of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that is not to be found in the Book of Psalms? Do we praise Him as the Creator, Preserver, and Righteous Law-giver and Governor of the world, and not find abundant matter and suitable words put in our mouths by the Holy Spirit in that book of sacred song? What aspect of the divine attributes, as “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth,” we desire to celebrate in song that is not to be found in that book in most suitable terms, ready for our use in that dutiful exercise? Do we praise Him for the gracious scheme of redemption—originating in His own eternal purpose—for the salvation of “a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,” and not find sufficient matter for our song in the Book of Psalms? Do we praise Him for providing a Substitute and Surety for us in the Person of His only-begotten Son, and sending Him to the world in our nature, to “suffer, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,” and need we seek for matter of song outside the Book of Psalms? But not only that the Father, who gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, is extolled in songs of sweet melody in the Book of Psalms; but the praises of the Son, who came and humbled Himself unto the death which is the wages of sin, are not less set forth in that book in songs of adoration and thanksgiving.
I am aware that the advocates of uninspired hymns say that, although the Book of Psalms was a suitable manual of praise for the Church before Christ came to the world, it is not now—after He has come and finished the work of redemption—sufficient to celebrate His praise without the addition of songs of mere human composition and authority! To show that there is no scriptural or reasonable foundation for such an idea, I may refer the reader (1) to the Twenty-second Psalm, where “the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow,” are set forth by the Holy Spirit in sacred poetry, with such strict exactness and solemn and affecting grandeur as need not the words of vain man to improve upon it. Though David was the penman of that Psalm, Christ is the speaker, and we know that He uttered the first words of the Psalm—”My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?”—when finishing the work of redemption on the Cross (Matt. xxvii. 46); and although He did not repeat in words the following verses, which describe His awful sufferings, He gave expression to them in a more solemn manner—an expression in which there was a loud voice, which was heard by His Father, whose pleasure it was to bruise Him, and which should be heard by us, telling us of the fearful punishment we deserve on account of our sins, and of the unspeakable love of the Saviour, who endured that punishment for all that the Father gave Him in the everlasting covenant of grace before the foundation of the world. Was that Psalm suitable for the Old Testament Church? And is it not suitable for us? If believers under the old economy sang it in anticipation of Christ’s sufferings, much more ought we, under the new, to sing it, seeing that His predicted sufferings are now an accomplished fact! (2) Notice the Sixty-eighth Psalm and the eighteenth verse. Here the victory of Christ over sin and all enemies, and His triumphant ascension to heaven, are celebrated in such grand music as delights the heart of the Father, and that of the once “Man of Sorrows,” the heart of holy angels, and the heart of every true Christian on earth. Let us listen to the song: “Thou hast ascended on high; thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.” Where, I ask, is the need of songs of human composition to celebrate the exaltation of the ever-blessed Saviour, which is so well done in this Psalm? They are as chaff to the wheat. (3) Observe the Fiftieth Psalm, 1-6 verses. In these verses the second advent of Christ, to judge the quick and the dead at the last day, is celebrated in song in such majestic style, and at the same time in such intelligible expression, as leaves no room for an uninspired hymn on this most solemn subject.
Passing over several other things which might be referred to in support of my contention regarding the sufficiency of the Book of Psalms as a manual of praise, I shall close the argument from Scripture with a brief survey of the apostolic age. The hymn-singers think they have a divine warrant for their innovation in the example of Christ and His disciples having sung a hymn at the close of the Passover services, and in Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians and Colossians to sing “hymns and spiritual songs.” But it can be shown that there is no foundation for their allegation in these instances. The testimony of the Jews, who were familiar with the service of the Passover, goes to show that it was their custom during that solemnity to sing the six Psalms of David—the 113th, 114th, 115th, 116th, 117th, 118th. Christ observed the Passover in the customary way, and He and His disciples sang one of these Psalms—probably the 118th—at the close of the services. And as to Paul’s exhortation to sing “hymns and spiritual songs,” it is to be observed that he did not command those addressed to compose these songs. They were already composed, and used in the worship of God. They were in the Book of Psalms. The reader may, by consulting that book, see that some of the Psalms are designated songs. “Psalm or Song” is the title of several of them, e.g., 30, 45, 46, 48, 66, 67, 68, etc.
2. From Church history—
comprising four periods, the Primitive, Medieval, the Reformed, and from the Reformation to the present day.
(1) In the Primitive period the Book of Psalms was the authorised manual of praise in the Church. Other hymns were considered an innovation, and looked upon by the godly with suspicion. Clement of Alexandria, who lived in the second century, was perhaps the earliest hymn-writer. He composed one hymn, but there is no evidence that it was ever used in public worship. In the same century, Bardesanes, who was of a Gnostic sect that denied the divinity of Christ, wrote 150 hymns, which he, for self-glorification, called psalms. By these heretical songs, the Syrian Church was in danger of being overflowed with a heresy that aimed at the overthrow of the very foundation of the Christian religion—the denial of the Godhead of Christ! But there is ample evidence that the Psalms of Scripture were exclusively used in public worship by the orthodox in the early Church, down to the fifth century. Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, says, “The Donatists, too, reproached the orthodox because they sang with sobriety the divine songs of the prophets, while they (the Donatists) inflamed their minds with the poetic effusions of human genius.” It is stated in the Apostolic Constitutions “that women, and children, and the humblest mechanics, could repeat all the Psalms of David; they chanted them at home and abroad; they made them the exercises of their piety and the refreshment of their mind. Thus they had answers ready to oppose temptation, and were always prepared to pray to God, and to praise Him, in any circumstance, in a form of His own inditing.” This was also in the fourth century. Cassian, who lived in the fifth century, says, “The Elders have not changed the ancient custom of singing Psalms. The devotions are performed in the same order as formerly.” Evidence to the same effect might be multiplied, but enough has been adduced to show that in the Primitive Church the Book of Psalms was the only recognised manual of praise in the worship of God. During this period, the orthodox followed apostolic usage. Had the apostles left other songs for the Church than the Psalms, surely there would be some mention made of them after their death. The fact that hymnologists had to begin to compose songs for the Church proves that they left none behind them but the Scripture Psalms they themselves used during their lifetime.
(2) The Mediæval or “Dark” Ages. In this gloomy period, when “darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people,” we look in vain for sound doctrine or purity of worship in what was called “the Church.” The light of the Bible was hid under the thick darkness. It was, however, a time of hymn-making, as is the case in every age of spiritual declension. Many hymns were composed by monks. But the hymns were characteristic of their authors, and of the darkness that prevailed. In these idolatrous songs the praise was divided between God and angels and saints. Let us listen to The Voice of the Christian Life, describing the state of matters:—”Of Mone’s Collection of the Latin Hymns of the Middle Ages, in three volumes, one is filled with hymns to God and angels; one with hymns to the blessed Virgin Mary; and one with hymns to the saints.” But in the midst of the general apostasy there was a remnant according to the election of grace in Southern France, and among the Alps, who, in the midst of persecution, adhered faithfully to the faith once delivered to the saints, and these used the Psalms of the Bible in their service of God’s praise. Dr. Macmaster, speaking of this period, says, “In the middle ages, the ages, too, of moral gloom and terrible superstition, the purest section of the Church of God was found in the valley of Piedmont. Among the Waldenses were found the simplicity of apostolic order, and the purity of evangelical worship. They sang, ‘mid Alpine cliffs, the Psalms of Scripture. And long before the Reformation dawned on Europe, they sang them in metre.”
(3) The Reformed Period. The Reformation in Germany was not so pure as in some other countries of Europe, and the Church there used hymns along with psalms in public worship, “although it repudiated, en masse, Mediæval hymns.” It retained, however, some serious errors of the corrupt system of the dark ages. The false doctrine of consubstantiation, held by Luther, was one of these. But it was different in the Churches in France, Holland, and Britain. These adhered to the Psalms of Scripture in worship. Let us again incline our ear to hear the Voice of the Christian Life speaking on the subject in this period—”The Reformed Churches of France and French Switzerland seem to have had no literature corresponding to the hymns of Protestant Germany. Did the peculiar form which the Reformation took in France, then, tend to quench the spirit of sacred poetry, or what other causes brought about this result? When we remember that the same absence of an evangelical national hymn literature, springing up spontaneously as a national growth of the Reformation, which characterises the Reformed Churches of France and French Switzerland, exists also in the sister Church of Scotland, it is impossible not to connect this fact with the similar form which the Reformation took in all these lands. None of the strictly Calvinistic communities have a hymn-book dating back to the Reformation. It cannot surely be their doctrine which caused this; many of the best known and most deeply treasured of the more modern hymns of Germany and England have been written by those who receive the doctrines known as Calvinistic. Nor can it proceed from any peculiarity of race, or deficiency in popular love of music and song. French and Scotch national character are too dissimilar to explain the resemblance; whilst France has many national melodies and songs, and Scotland is peculiarly rich in both. Is not the cause then simply the common ideal of external ecclesiastical forms which pervaded all the Churches reformed on the Genevan type? . . . Next to the first chapter in the Acts of the Apostles, was to stand, as the second chapter, the history of the Reformed Churches. Words were to resume their original Bible meaning, nothing was to be received that could not be traced back to the divine hand. Ecclesiastical order was to be such as St. Paul had established, or had found established; clearly to be traced, it was believed, in the Acts and Apostolical Epistles. Thus, the Book of Psalms became the hymn-book of the Reformed Churches, adapted to grave and solemn music, in metrical translation whose one aim and glory was to render into measure which could be sung, the very words of the old Hebrew Psalms.”
(4) From the Reformation down to the present day. The leaders of the first Reformation—that from Popery—did noble work, for which they are worthy of being held in honourable remembrance, though some of them retained some of the dregs of the middle ages. But it was after the second Reformation—that from Prelacy—the Confession of Faith, the Act of Uniformity, and the Directory for Public Worship, were compiled. In these subordinate standards, founded on Scripture and agreeable thereto, the doctrine and worship of the Church are fixed. In the Directory for Public Worship, the Psalms of Scripture are alone ordained to be used in worship, to the consequent exclusion of all uninspired hymns. As already mentioned, the Calvinistic Churches strictly complied with this rule in their practice. They did so down to the eighteenth century. “As early as 1542, Calvin introduced the Psalms in Marot’s translation into the worship of the Genevan Church. The Psalter remained the exclusive hymn-book of the Reformed Church down to the eighteenth century.”—Delitzsch. The Wesleys were the first to give a hymn-book to England, in the eighteenth century. Up to that time the Book of Psalms was the only manual of praise in the Church there, with the exception of a few hymns that were introduced, and used by some.
As for Scotland, the Reformed Church there had no uninspired hymns till the eighteenth century, when at a time of spiritual declension the Scripture Paraphrases now appended to the Bible were introduced. But they were not used in public worship by those who had regard for sound doctrine and purity of worship, and who sought to feed their flock with “the sincere milk of the Word.” They came into partial use in 1807—a century ago. In 1843—the year of the Disruption—the Book of Psalms was the manual of praise in the Church of Scotland, though some made an occasional use of the Paraphrases referred to. It was Dr. Candlish who led the introduction of uninspired hymns in the Free Church. He was opposed by Dr. Begg, Dr. Kennedy, and other faithful men, but he insisted on his project, and said he only wanted a few hymns. He would be satisfied with twenty-five. Dr. Kennedy, who was a member of Assembly that year, said that if the Assembly would agree to Dr. Candlish’s motion for hymns, ten years hence there would be an overture on the table of the Assembly for the introduction of the organ into God’s worship. He was scouted for such a preposterous idea. The Free Church, would never, they said, condescend to do such an unseemly thing. The motion for hymns was carried by a large majority at that Assembly, and, exactly as Dr. Kennedy predicted, ten years thereafter there were two overtures sent up to the Assembly craving the venerable Court to permit the introduction of the organ into the service of praise in public worship! And what was the result? The Assembly swallowed its ten year old scouting of Dr. Kennedy’s forecast, and so greedy was it for innovations in worship that, with a wide-open mouth, it swallowed the “kist of whistles,” too. And yet its craze for such unwholesome food was not satisfied. The motion for the introduction of the organ was carried by an overwhelming majority, with the late Principal Rainy at their head, who, since the Free Church began to decline, always managed to carry with him a large majority on the wrong side. Since that time, a hymnary containing several hundred songs has been prepared by the innovators, to be used in public worship, and musical instruments have been multiplied, to be employed as substitutes to offer praise to God on behalf of spiritually dead congregations, who are self-worshippers rather than worshippers of God, who will not give His glory to any other, nor His praise to graven images.
In conclusion, I wish to point out (1) that while the one Scripture Psalmody is a bond of union among Christians, uninspired hymns are a cause of division in the Church. We need not go far back in history to prove this. The Free Church of 1843 is a case in point. There was unity among the ministers and members of the Church until uninspired hymns were introduced into it. The introduction of hymns into the Free Church was the putting in of the thin edge of the wedge which in process of time split that Church into three different sections. Hymns were introduced first, the Organ followed as a matter of course, and then a change of Creed. The men who forced these changes on the Church without any scriptural warrant are responsible for the deplorable divisions which now exist in the Highlands and in other parts of Scotland, and for all the bitterness displayed in connection with these divisions. This is so evident that it will be readily admitted by all except such as are under judicial blindness, or are indifferent about religion. (2) That uninspired hymns are a channel of doctrinal errors. They were so in the primitive, mediæval, and subsequent periods of the Christian era, and they are so in our own day. A critical examination of the hymns used in Protestant Churches in Scotland would probably show that some of them contain dangerous errors. The Gnostics of ancient times disseminated their heretical doctrines by means of sacred poetry. The Romanisers in the Protestant Church of England have now begun to employ the same method, in addition to their former intrigues, in order to proselytise. (3) That in every time of genuine reformation in the Church there is a return to the Word of God as the rule of faith and practice; and so the Church in all its branches shall, during the glorious days of the millennium, be one corporate body, holding the same scriptural doctrines and the same mode of worship. All uninspired hymns shall be set aside, and the Book of Psalms shall form the one manual of praise for the universal Church of Christ throughout the world. Let us then, in our own day, adhere faithfully to sound doctrine and purity of worship, and testify against those who depart from the same, as we shall have to render an account of our stewardship at the great day of judgment.
A Pastor who is causing the Flock to Err.—
Readers of this Magazine may not be deeply interested in the sayings and doings of the Rev. R. J. Campbell of the City Temple, London, but, as the City Temple is one of the foremost Nonconformist charges in England, the sayings of its minister, in most circumstances, would attract attention, but all the more so at the present moment, as Mr. Campbell is advocating a New Theology which is causing quite a ferment in Nonconformist circles in England. Here are two specimens of the New Theology:—”Every man is a potential Christ, or rather a manifestation of the eternal Christ, that side of the nature of God from which all humanity has come forth,” and “Sin itself is a quest for God—a blundering quest, but a quest for all that. The man who got dead drunk last night did so because of the impulse within him to break through the barriers of his limitations, to express himself, and to realise the more abundant life. His self-indulgence just came to that; he wanted, if only for a brief hour, to live the larger life, to expand the soul, to enter untrodden regions, and gather to himself new experiences. That drunken debauch was a quest for life, a quest for God. Men in their sinful follies to-day, and their blank atheism, and their foul blasphemies, their trampling upon things that are beautiful and good, are engaged in this dim, blundering quest for God, whom to know is life eternal.” Evidently this preacher himself is on some blundering quest, and even the sacred claims of charity will not hinder us from describing such teaching as the doctrine of devils. Yet this is the man who for years was chosen by Dr. Robertson Nicoll to give spiritual instruction in the columns of the British Weekly.