By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
It is a fact, which we cannot conceal from ourselves, that many Free Presbyterians, on account of their lawful calling, or on account of the acute housing problem, are living far away from any place of worship belonging to the denomination, and are faced with the choice of one of two alternatives, that is, to go to no place of worship, or to go to a church where the worship is not conducted according to the Word of God. We are painfully aware that many have made choice of the latter alternative, and one is not long in their company when it is very evident that what the Psalmist said of the children of Israel has been fulfilled in their case, that they ‘were mingled among the heathen, and learned their ways.’ Many things which they were not accustomed to, and which they would look upon with horror in connection with the worship of God, are now looked upon as things that are indifferent or, perhaps, the very thing that went far to beautify God’s worship. Among these things are to be found the use of instrumental music in public worship. In the Deed of Separation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, one of the reasons given for taking up a separate position is, “That the present subsisting Church, calling herself the Free Church of Scotland . . . by the authorisation of instrumental music in the public worship of God has altered the ancient and universal practice of the Church of Scotland, and violated the purity of worship as understood by the Free Church of Scotland in 1846.” Those who led the people of the Free Presbyterian Church in 1893 to take up a separate position did not pen the above statement without weighing their words. An Act of the General Assembly and the practice in connection with the praise in a large number of congregations throughout the Church testified to the truth of the statement, and the fact that the practice was contrary to the Word of God constituted a sufficient reason why there should be a separation. The fact that instrumental music in connection with the worship of God is contrary to the Scriptures is denied by many, and their arguments in support of their views, being so very plausible, too often act as a salve to the conscience of many who ought to know better, but who do not take the trouble to examine these things for themselves. Our purpose, at this time, is to show that there is no support given in the New Testament to the use of instrumental music in the worship of God. When we turn to the Subordinate Standards of the Church, that is, the Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, which are based upon the Word of God, we find no ground for the use of instrumental music in worship. We read that “the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.” (Confession of Faith, Chap. xxi. 1.) In both the Larger and Shorter Catechisms this is also given in substance. To those who have not given much study to the question of instrumental music in the worship of God, these statements of the Westminster Divines may appear to be in direct conflict with certain passages of Scripture. We read of instrumental music in connection with certain acts of worship under the Old Testament Dispensation, and our friends reason that because of this, there is nothing wrong with instrumental music under the New Testament Dispensation. Some will point out that there is no positive command forbidding its use and, therefore, that the practice is to continue to the end of time. Before coming to such a conclusion, however, it would be well to examine carefully as to the connection in which instrumental music was used in God’s worship. It may not have been generally noticed by the advocates of instrumental music that there was a direct precept given for its use in connection with the offering of sacrifices under the Law. “And he set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets. . . And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David king of Israel” (II Chron. xxix. 25-27). It is only in connection with sacrifices offered in the Temple at Jerusalem that we find instrumental music; there is no record of it in connection with any other part of the Temple service. It may further be pointed out that as there were no sacrifices offered in the Jewish synagogues, either in Jerusalem or throughout the country, there was no instrumental music in connection with worship in the synagogues, which, incidentally, explains why Paul makes no reference to them in his condemnation of the work of the Judaizing teachers who so often dogged his steps when proclaiming a full-orbed gospel. Thus we see that instrumental music and the sacrifices of the Old Testament Dispensation must stand or fall together. The sacrifices, being the shadow of good things to come, their musical accompaniment must also be a shadow of good things, and when the good things typified have come, there is no further need of the shadow. When we come to the New Testament Dispensation, we find no trace of instrumental music there in connection with the worship of God. During the days of Christ’s humiliation, He worshipped in the synagogue where no instrumental music was used, as has already been observed. After the institution of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, we read that, “when they had sung an hymn, they went out unto the mount of olives,” but we find no mention of any instrumental accompaniment to the singing. The writers of the New Testament make no reference to instrumental music in connection with the worship of God, and all references made to singing indicate clearly that it is with the human voice. The Apostle Paul in writing to the Ephesians says concerning the way in which Christians ought to be exercised, that it should be, “speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” The same thing is repeated by him in the Epistle to the Colossians, where he says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. iii, 16); and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he says, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Heb. xiii, 15). The case against instrumental music in the worship of the New Testament Church is well stated by the Rev. James Begg, D.D., of New Monkland, the father of the better-known Dr. Begg, of Newington. “Authorities on this subject need not be multiplied. There is frequent mention of Christians in these early ages, SINGING the praises of God; but no accounts that they employed organs, or other instruments of music, in this part of divine worship. These, with many other corruptions, were brought into the Church in the after ages of Popish darkness and superstition. If, then, instrumental music formed no part of the service of the Jewish synagogue, but was peculiar to the worship of the temple, at the offering of sacrifices—if it was never recommended nor employed by Christ, or His Apostles—though they both sang the praises of God themselves, and prescribed this duty to others—if this music was never used by Christians who lived in those ages nearest to the time of Christ and the Apostles, is there not good reason to conclude that it is no part of the worship authorised by God in the New Testament Church? That though it was connected with the law given by Moses, it is yet no part of that system of grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ?” (The Use of Organs in the Christian Worship.) When we come to consider the question of instrumental music in the worship of God from a historical point of view, we find that its advocates have nothing left them on which to base their arguments except the actions of men who had no love for the guidance of the Most High in these matters, for the early history of the Christian Church does not give them any support. Justin Martyr, who lived in the second century, says, “Plain singing is not childish, but only the singing with lifeless organs, with dancing and cymbals. Whence the use of such instruments, and other things fit for children, is laid aside; and plain singing only retained.” When we come to the time of the Reformation, we find that organs were cast out as things that had no Scriptural authority. Luther maintained that they were the ensigns of Baal. Calvin is very explicit in his condemnation of organs when he says, “In Popery there was a ridiculous imitation (of the Jews). While they adorned their temples, and valued themselves as having made the worship of God more splendid and inviting, they employed organs, and many other such ludicrous things, by which the Word and worship of God are exceedingly profaned, the people being much more attached to those rites than to the understanding of the Divine Word. We know, however, that where such understanding is not, there can be no edification, as the Apostle Paul teacheth, while he saith, ‘How can a person give testimony to the faith, and how can he say Amen at the giving of thanks, if he does not understand?’ Wherefore, in the same place, he exhorts the faithful, whether they pray or sing, they should pray and sing with understanding, not in an unknown tongue, but in that which is vulgar and intelligible, that edification may be in the Church. What, therefore, was in use under the Law is by no means entitled to our practice under the Gospel, and these things being not only superfluous, but useless, are to be abstained from; because pure and simple modulation is sufficient for the praise of God, if it is sung with the heart and with the mouth. We know that our Lord Jesus Christ has appeared, and by His advent has abolished these legal shadows. Instrumental music, we therefore maintain, was only tolerated on account of the times and of the people, because they were as boys, as the sacred Scripture speaketh, whose condition required these puerile rudiments. But in Gospel times, we must not have recourse to these, unless we wish to destroy the evangelical perfection, and to obscure the meridian light which we enjoy in Christ our Lord” (Calvin on I Sam. xviii, 1-9; translation by Dr. Porteous). In Scotland, at the time of the Reformation, organs in churches were destroyed as being equally as much the symbols of Popery as images. In the First and Second Books of Discipline there was nothing to sanction the use of instrumental music in the worship of God. This was also the case with the Westminster Directory for Public Worship. The Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, on 20th May, 1644, wrote home to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, giving a narrative of what was taking place while they were in London, and among other things they stated that “the great organs of Paul’s and Peter’s were taken down,” which shows an interesting background to the attitude taken up in the Directory to instrumental music. We have, moreover, a positive statement in the Directory as to the mode of praise when we read the following:—”In the singing of psalms, the voice is to be tunably and gravely ordered; but the chief care must be to sing with understanding, and with grace in the heart, making melody unto the Lord.” Our forefathers were not in any way astray when they treated instrumental music in worship as Popish, for they were introduced into the Church during the dark days when Popery had succeeded in spreading its ignorance and superstition over the face of what was known then of the world. About the year 757, King Pepin of the Franks received an organ, as a present, from the Greek Emperor, and as he could not use it himself, and had no one in his kingdom who was skilled in the playing of it, this devout son of the Roman Catholic Church devoted it, as he thought, to the service of God. This was the first authentic notice we have of an organ in connection with the Church, although, on the authority of Bellarmine, they are said to have been used in the service of the Church for nearly one hundred years before that date. In our own country they were introduced into cathedrals and abbeys during the reign of King James I of Scotland, who became king in 1423. Thus we see that the introduction and continued use of organs in public worship coincides with the period in which Popery, in all its darkness and horror, held undisputed sway, and, in passing, it may be remarked that this matter is in keeping with the rest of the religion of Rome, for the most of its worship and doctrines are borrowed from the heathen, for the use of instrumental music in connection with the worship of their gods was in vogue long before the Roman Catholic Church ever thought of instrumental music. From this we see, that, in the matter of instrumental music, Rome is in the direct line of Tubâl, who was of the race of Cain, and “the father of all such as handle the harp and organ,” and like Cain they bring “of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.” One lesson to be learned from the foregoing is, that while instrumental music was used under the Old Testament Economy, only in connection with the offering of sacrifices in the Temple, these sacrifices, having been done away with by the great Sacrifice offered on Calvary, there is no place for the musical accompaniments of these sacrifices under the New Testament Economy, and where they are introduced, there is betrayed a love of ritual and outward pomp which is contrary to the spiritual worship required under the New Testament Dispensation. Dr. Porteous, in his Statement on the organ question, before the Glasgow Presbytery in 1808, puts the matter thus:—”From the beginning of the world there has been a moral Law and a spiritual worship; which remain unchanged under every dispensation. Whatever is to be found in the Old Testament with regard to either of these, is of permanent and everlasting obligation. But with respect to the modes of external worship, there was to be an entire change; which was announced by our Lord Himself in a very early period of His ministry:—”The hour cometh, when ye shall neither on this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father . . . But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth;”—not according to the old institution, in the hour that was past, but according to the new institution, in the hour which cometh, and now is. Nor must it be forgotten, that it is not the ordinary manner of the writers of the New Testament to inform us what Divine institutions were to be abrogated, but only what observances were to take place under the Gospel. They do not tell us that the Passover was no longer to be observed, but only that the Lord’s Supper was to be administered. So, with respect to praising God, they do not expressly say that instrumental music is to be silenced, but they do expressly say that God is to be praised and worshipped by singing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, with understanding and grace in the heart, for the purposes of instructing and comforting one another. This is to be the change under the Gospel, as far as Psalmody is concerned.” In the foregoing remarks we have endeavoured to state facts which ought to receive serious consideration from men and women who are ready to treat as something of no consequence departures from the worship of God to which they were not accustomed in their younger days, and departures against which their parents raised a life-long testimony, by their practice, in adhering to the mode of praise practised in the Church of Scotland in its best days. Let them search the Scriptures so that they may not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but rather that they would seek to conform to the Apostolic injunction, “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men” (I Cor. xiv, 20).