Bygracealone
Puritan Board Sophomore
You are trying to compare apples and oranges. In a discussion with the Mormon, what is required is common definitions of biblical words, and those common definitions are utterly essential, if the two of you want to discuss the same subject. In a discussion between unaccompanied sung praise and accompanied sung praise advocates, the debate is over the extent of what is confessionally mandated. No informed student of the matter can doubt that the writers of all the Confessions believed and practiced unaccompanied psalmnody and the confessions were written against that background which the writers almost certainly presumed.
But the confessions and standards do not explicitly mandate the unaccompanied method; they only explictly mandate sung praise. Even though their authors believed and practiced USP, the fact that they did not manadate their practice in the Confessions leaves the matter up for debate, once the difference is raised. While accompanied sung praise may be a non-confessioinally mandated innovation in Reformed Churches, it is not, by definition, contrary to the confessions. It will only be anti-confessional if the confessions are amended to specifically exclude the practice.
An illustration may serve to make the point. Am I right in thinking that some US territories that became states faced a choice between becoming slave or free, because the US federal constitution did not prohibit slavery in the territories? And am I right in thinking that those states that did choose to become slave did not have their stance rendered illegal until and a civil war and subsequent amendement to the constitution prohibited slavery nationwide?
I don't think that just because they didn't mandate it that it means it's open for debate. It was the normal practice of the Churches back then, so they had no need to mandate the Church to do what it was already practicing. I would guess that they never thought the Church would go in the directions she has gone concerning worship.
I think the better analogy would be something along the lines of the subject of abortion. Abortion wasn't something that the Church was faced with during the 1600's; it wasn't even on the radar screen. But just because the confession doesn't provide a mandate on the subject doesn't mean it's open for debate. There were a number of things that were assumed by the divines at the time that they didn't feel the need to address and a number of things they couldn't possibly have known would need to be addressed. That's one of the benefits of having a Testimony alongside our WCF in the RPCNA...