Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
This is for those who hold to a cappella singing in the Churches, and for others who care to read and learn some history.
The use of musical instruments in the public worship of the Church is a denial of Christ's final sacrifice. Just the same as if we used an altar today and sacrificed an animal upon it in Christ's worship. [NOTE: This is not saying that those who use musical instruments are not Christians. Only that the use of musical instruments does deny Christ's sacrifice.].
Summary: The Scriptures are clear, if we would be cognizant of the books 1 and 2 Chronicles, that musical instruments were added as an element of the ceremonial temple worship under the time of David to be employed by Solomon upon the building of the temple. It was the duty of certain Levitical priests to carry the ark, etc. as they moved through the wilderness. However, since the ark had come to rest in its final place in Jerusalem at the threshing floor, the Lord instituted a new duty to those same Levites adding an element of singing and instrument playing as a covering of sorts to the gruesome and unending sacrifices offered. It is noted that only a particular group of Levites were to be players of instruments, and the instruments were determined by the Lord not the priests. The common Jew did not play the instruments, only the Levites of particular family groups.
When we come to Hebrews and we come to Christ's final sacrifice everything of the ceremonial temple worship is done away with. So that even in 2 Chronicles 29:25-30 this is foreshadowed in the time of Hezekiah's reforms that when the sacrifices were offered the singers sang and the instrument players played "until the burnt offering was finished" at which time the Levites are commanded to keep on singing praise unto the Lord. So that the final sacrifice offered, instruments cease, while the Levites kept singing the praises of the Lord.
When coming to the NT, we learn that Christ's final sacrifice brings a complete end to the ceremonial temple worship. There is no more temple, altar, laver of washing, and no instruments. Following Christ's final sacrifice we learn that the instruments God's people play are now the strings of the heart ('making melody' is that word for plucking an instrument).
Eph 5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...
And the sacrifice that is offered is praise from our lips, Heb 13:15 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.
If the playing of musical instruments is part of temple worship, and it is fulfilled by Christ’s final sacrifice. To then employ musical instruments in worship when Christ has died once for all is a great affront to our Savior. It is a passive denial of His final sacrifice.
In Church History, the vast majority of the Church did not use musical instruments in public worship until the popularization of it through Moody's revivals in the 19th Century (the Jewish Synagogue didn't until 1950). There are examples of use before this but not in a lot of churches.
Our reformed fathers spoke to the use of musical instruments as well:
John Chrysostom, Homily on Psalm 149 (4th century),
“It was only permitted to the Jews as sacrifice was, for the heaviness and grossness of their souls. God condescended to their weakness, because they were lately drawn off from idols; but now, instead of organs, we may use our own bodies to praise him withal. Instruments appertain not to Christians.”
John Calvin’s Homily on 1 Samuel 18:1-9 1561-3 (As quoted by Porteous, The Organ Question, p. 45),
“In Popery there was a ridiculous and unsuitable 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 that 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.”
John Calvin - Sermons on Second Samuel (1562),
“It would be nothing but mimicry if we followed David today in singing with cymbals, flutes, tambourines and psalteries. In fact, the papists were seriously deceived in their desire to worship God with their pompous inclusion of organs, trumpets, oboes and similar instruments. That has only served to amuse the people in their vanity, and to turn them away from the true institution which God has ordained. In a word, the musical instruments were in the same class as sacrifices, candelabra, lamps and similar things. Those who take this approach are reverting to a sort of Jewishness, as if they wanted to mingle the Law and the Gospel, and thus bury our Lord Jesus Christ. When we are told that David sang with a musical instrument, let us carefully remember that we are not to make a rule of it. Rather, we are to recognise today that we must sing the praises of God in simplicity, since the shadows of the Law are past, and since in our Lord Jesus Christ we have the truth and embodiment of all these things which were given to the ancient fathers in the time of their ignorance or smallness of faith.”
Hungarian Reformed Church Confession (1567)
"The musical instruments, however, adopted for the pantomime (saltatrici) Mass of Antichrist, together with images, we abhor. There is no use for them in the church, and indeed they are marks and occasions of idolatry."
Samuel Rutherford (minister and professor, Church of Scotland; Westminster divine), The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication (1646),
“God’s spirit worketh not with Ceremonies, and so they are as the offering of Swine’s blood, and the slaying of a man; and so Abomination to God, Isa. 66:1,2. The holy spirit is merited to us by Christ, Joh. 16:14. He shall receive of mine, and shew unto you: But who can say that the grace of joy in the holy Ghost, wrought by the droning of Organs, and the holinesse taught by the Surplice, is a work of the spirit merited by Christ as our High Priest? Now altars, Organs, Jewish Ephods, or Surplice, Masse-cloaths, and Romish Crossing, bowing to Altars, Images, are badges of Jewish and Popish Religion.”
Richard Cameron (Sermon 2)
"The Jewish way under the law of praising the Lord was upon the timbrel, the harp, psaltery, and ten-stringed instruments, and other instruments of music that belonged to ceremonial worship that is now abolished. Christ, who is the end of the law, has torn or taken away the ceremonies of the law, and there is no warrant now to make use of the organs, as they do in the Popish Church, and in the Prelatical Church of England, and even among them that are more reformed, those over in Holland. Oh, but we have a great advantage in being free of these!"
James Peirce (minister, English nonconformist/Presbyterian), A Vindication of the Dissenters (1718),
“[C]ertainly a man must be blind, who does not see, that trumpets, harps, and such like musical instruments, belonged to the pomp and ceremony of the Jewish worship. Now all these thing are abrogated, together with the law that appointed the worship; unless any of them appear afresh injoined by some particular command.”
Thomas Ridgeley (minister, English nonconformist), A Body of Divinity: Wherein the Doctrines of the Christian Religion are Explained and Defended, Being the Substance of Several Lectures Upon the Assembly’s Larger Catechism (1731-32),
“It is objected that those arguments which have been taken from the practice of the Old Testament church, to prove singing an ordinance, may, with equal justice, be alleged to prove the use of instrumental music in religious worship; since we very often read of their praising God with ‘the sound of the trumpet, psaltery, harp, organ,’ and other musical instruments. This is the principle argument brought for the use of musical instruments by those who defend it and conclude it an help to devotion. But, though we often read of music being used in singing the praises of God under the Old Testament; yet if what has been said concerning its being a type of that spiritual joy which attends our praising God for the privilege of that redemption which Christ has purchased, the objection will appear to have no weight, the type being now abolished, together with the ceremonial law. Besides, though we read of the use of music in the temple-service, yet it does not sufficiently appear that it was ever used in the Jewish synagogues; the mode of worship observed in which more resembled that which is at present performed by us in our public assemblies. But what may sufficiently determine this matter, is that we have no precept nor precedent for it in the New Testament, either from the practice of Christ, or his apostles. Some, indeed, allege that the absence of any such precept or precedent overthrows the ordinance of singing, and pretend that this ought to be no more used by us than the harp, organ, or other musical instruments. But it might as well be objected that, because incense, which was used under the ceremonial law, together with prayer in the temple, is not now to be offered by us, prayer ought to be laid aside; which is, as all own, a duty founded on the moral law.”
Alexander Blaikie (ARP), The Manner of Praise, 1849,
“IX. Was instrumental music employed in Jewish worship by the appointment of God? Yes. Always at the temple, after its erection, on the days of their great and solemn festivals, and at the offering of the morning and evening sacrifice; but never in their synagogues, the usual places of weekly worship. Instrumental music was of various kinds in their solemnities, and bore the same relation to praise that incense did to prayer. The one was always an accompaniment of the other. At the temple worship, or under the Mosaic dispensation, 1 Chron. 23:5; Ezra 3:10-12; 2 Chron. 8:14; Luke 1:10; 1 Chron. 23:13, and both instrumental music and incense were by the sacrifice of Christ superseded together. Psa. 141:2; Mal. 1:11; Rev. 5:8; Acts 10:4,30,31; Rev. 8:1,3,4.
X. Was instrumental music in use when Christ was on the earth? Yes. Both it and the varied sacrifices of slain beasts were in use at the temple.
XI. How long was instrumental music continued in divine worship? By the Jews, instruments were probably used at the temple until the destruction of it by Titus. By the primitive Christians they were never employed. “The weak and beggarly elements” of Jewish “bondage,” sacred persons, places, and things, priests, altars, temple, sacrifices, incense, robes, and instrumental music, all, all alike perished from acceptance in the worship of God, when Emmanuel exclaimed on the cross, “It is finished.”
Robert Candlish as quoted in James Gibson’s, The Public Worship of God, 1869, Pg. 107,
“I believe that it is a question which touches some of the highest and deepest points of Christian theology. Is the temple destroyed? Is the temple worship wholly superseded? Have we, or have we not, priests and sacrifices among us now? Is the temple or the synagogue the model on which the Church of the New Testament is formed? Does the Old Testament itself point to anything but ‘the fruit of the lips’ [Heb. 13:15] as the peace-offering or thank-offering of gospel times? Is there a trace in the New Testament of any other mode of praise? For my part I am persuaded that if the organ be admitted, there is no barrier, in principle, against the sacredotal system in all its fullness -- against the substitution again, in our whole religion, of the formal for the spiritual, the symbolic for the real.”
Can musical instruments be used as circumstances of worship?
First, those things which are elements cannot be circumstances. Instruments were once elements of ceremonial temple worship but no longer in Christ.
The Standards say, “Nevertheless, we acknowledge that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.” WCF 1.6
Singing with instruments is unnecessary for the singing of God's praise. Further, the term "a cappella" comes from the meaning of "in the chapel/church".
Ursinus shows that circumstances in their nature do not involve our approach to God or our response to His word. Those things are elements (word, sacraments, prayer). Circumstances are the times and places at which, and the languages with which we worship, but the way we respond to or approach God are regulated strictly by God’s Word. This is how the Reformed have understood the function of the formal principle of the Reformation (sola Scripture) in worship.
So we see a principle there, circumstances are not elements, nor can they affect those elements of worship, how we respond to and approach God are all part of the elements of worship.
John Girardeau - There are three criteria by which the kind of circumstances attending worship which fall under the discretionary power of the church may be determined: 1), they are not qualities or modes of the acts of worship; they are extraneous to them as a certain kind of actions; [THEY ARE NOT THE ACTS OF WORSHIP NOR INTRICATELY INVOLVED AROUND THEM, they are outside of them] 2), they are common to the acts of all societies, and, therefore, not peculiar to the acts of the church as a particular sort of society — they are not characteristic and distinctive of her acts and predicable of them alone; and 3), they are conditions necessary to the performance of the acts of worship — without them the acts of this society could not be done, as without them the acts of no society could be done.
Thomas Peck defined a circumstance of worship this way, “A concomitant (something that accompanies is associated with something) of an action, without which it can either not be done at all, or cannot be done with decency and decorum.”
Examples of circumstances of worship are the time on the Lord’s Day and place the worship service is held, the order of worship (liturgy), having pews or chairs. None of these things have any spiritual significance, but they are needed for orderly worship. “So soon as you attach a spiritual meaning, a sacred significance, to anything connected with worship, it becomes a part of worship.“1 And no longer a circumstance. For example, candles would be a circumstance of worship if used for lighting, but as soon religious significance is added to them, such as the lighting of Advent candles, it becomes an unlawful element of worship.
Ursinus gives this list of examples of circumstances – “of which kind are the time, the place, the form and order of sermons, prayers, reading in the church, fasts, the manner of proceeding in the election of ministers, in collecting and distributing alms, and things of a similar nature.”
Girardeau addresses circumstances and singing of praise, let us submit musical instruments to his criteria:
First, they are not parts of the acts of worship by which they are modified; but this circumstance is a part of the act of singing praise by which it is performed.
Secondly, these circumstances are common to the acts of human societies, not peculiar to, and distinctive of, those of the church. It is very certain that instrumental music is not such a circumstance. It will hardly be said that all societies play on instruments as well as the church.
Thirdly, these circumstances are conditions necessary to the performance of the acts of worship, without which they either cannot be done at all, or not done decently and in order. That the singing of praise cannot be performed at all without instrumental music will be affirmed by none. But it may be affirmed that it cannot without it be performed decently and in order. Let it be noticed that the question is not whether it may be performed in an indecent and disorderly manner. Granted; but so may instrumental music. The question is, whether it cannot be done decently and in order without instrumental accompaniment. The question can only be determined by reference of the practice to a permanent and universal standard of propriety and decorum. And to say that the simple singing of God’s praise in His house is indecent and disorderly is to say, that for twelve centuries the church of Christ was guilty of this impropriety; for it is a matter of history that for that period not even the Church of Rome knew anything of instruments in her worship. To say that the simple singing of God’s praise violates the standard of decency and order of this age is to censure the glorious Free Church of Scotland and the Irish Presbyterian Church for an indecent and disorderly conduct of this part of divine worship. The ground, therefore, that instrumental music in public worship is one of those circumstances required by the rule that all things be done decently and in order cannot be maintained without a spirit of arrogance and censoriousness which would itself violate the higher principle of Christian charity. It is submitted, with all modesty, that this line of argument ought to be conclusive with Presbyterians, at least, against ranking instrumental music in public worship as one of the circumstances common to human actions and societies which fall under the discretion of the church.
The use of musical instruments in the public worship of the Church is a denial of Christ's final sacrifice. Just the same as if we used an altar today and sacrificed an animal upon it in Christ's worship. [NOTE: This is not saying that those who use musical instruments are not Christians. Only that the use of musical instruments does deny Christ's sacrifice.].
Summary: The Scriptures are clear, if we would be cognizant of the books 1 and 2 Chronicles, that musical instruments were added as an element of the ceremonial temple worship under the time of David to be employed by Solomon upon the building of the temple. It was the duty of certain Levitical priests to carry the ark, etc. as they moved through the wilderness. However, since the ark had come to rest in its final place in Jerusalem at the threshing floor, the Lord instituted a new duty to those same Levites adding an element of singing and instrument playing as a covering of sorts to the gruesome and unending sacrifices offered. It is noted that only a particular group of Levites were to be players of instruments, and the instruments were determined by the Lord not the priests. The common Jew did not play the instruments, only the Levites of particular family groups.
When we come to Hebrews and we come to Christ's final sacrifice everything of the ceremonial temple worship is done away with. So that even in 2 Chronicles 29:25-30 this is foreshadowed in the time of Hezekiah's reforms that when the sacrifices were offered the singers sang and the instrument players played "until the burnt offering was finished" at which time the Levites are commanded to keep on singing praise unto the Lord. So that the final sacrifice offered, instruments cease, while the Levites kept singing the praises of the Lord.
When coming to the NT, we learn that Christ's final sacrifice brings a complete end to the ceremonial temple worship. There is no more temple, altar, laver of washing, and no instruments. Following Christ's final sacrifice we learn that the instruments God's people play are now the strings of the heart ('making melody' is that word for plucking an instrument).
Eph 5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...
And the sacrifice that is offered is praise from our lips, Heb 13:15 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.
If the playing of musical instruments is part of temple worship, and it is fulfilled by Christ’s final sacrifice. To then employ musical instruments in worship when Christ has died once for all is a great affront to our Savior. It is a passive denial of His final sacrifice.
In Church History, the vast majority of the Church did not use musical instruments in public worship until the popularization of it through Moody's revivals in the 19th Century (the Jewish Synagogue didn't until 1950). There are examples of use before this but not in a lot of churches.
Our reformed fathers spoke to the use of musical instruments as well:
John Chrysostom, Homily on Psalm 149 (4th century),
“It was only permitted to the Jews as sacrifice was, for the heaviness and grossness of their souls. God condescended to their weakness, because they were lately drawn off from idols; but now, instead of organs, we may use our own bodies to praise him withal. Instruments appertain not to Christians.”
John Calvin’s Homily on 1 Samuel 18:1-9 1561-3 (As quoted by Porteous, The Organ Question, p. 45),
“In Popery there was a ridiculous and unsuitable 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 that 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.”
John Calvin - Sermons on Second Samuel (1562),
“It would be nothing but mimicry if we followed David today in singing with cymbals, flutes, tambourines and psalteries. In fact, the papists were seriously deceived in their desire to worship God with their pompous inclusion of organs, trumpets, oboes and similar instruments. That has only served to amuse the people in their vanity, and to turn them away from the true institution which God has ordained. In a word, the musical instruments were in the same class as sacrifices, candelabra, lamps and similar things. Those who take this approach are reverting to a sort of Jewishness, as if they wanted to mingle the Law and the Gospel, and thus bury our Lord Jesus Christ. When we are told that David sang with a musical instrument, let us carefully remember that we are not to make a rule of it. Rather, we are to recognise today that we must sing the praises of God in simplicity, since the shadows of the Law are past, and since in our Lord Jesus Christ we have the truth and embodiment of all these things which were given to the ancient fathers in the time of their ignorance or smallness of faith.”
Hungarian Reformed Church Confession (1567)
"The musical instruments, however, adopted for the pantomime (saltatrici) Mass of Antichrist, together with images, we abhor. There is no use for them in the church, and indeed they are marks and occasions of idolatry."
Samuel Rutherford (minister and professor, Church of Scotland; Westminster divine), The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication (1646),
“God’s spirit worketh not with Ceremonies, and so they are as the offering of Swine’s blood, and the slaying of a man; and so Abomination to God, Isa. 66:1,2. The holy spirit is merited to us by Christ, Joh. 16:14. He shall receive of mine, and shew unto you: But who can say that the grace of joy in the holy Ghost, wrought by the droning of Organs, and the holinesse taught by the Surplice, is a work of the spirit merited by Christ as our High Priest? Now altars, Organs, Jewish Ephods, or Surplice, Masse-cloaths, and Romish Crossing, bowing to Altars, Images, are badges of Jewish and Popish Religion.”
Richard Cameron (Sermon 2)
"The Jewish way under the law of praising the Lord was upon the timbrel, the harp, psaltery, and ten-stringed instruments, and other instruments of music that belonged to ceremonial worship that is now abolished. Christ, who is the end of the law, has torn or taken away the ceremonies of the law, and there is no warrant now to make use of the organs, as they do in the Popish Church, and in the Prelatical Church of England, and even among them that are more reformed, those over in Holland. Oh, but we have a great advantage in being free of these!"
James Peirce (minister, English nonconformist/Presbyterian), A Vindication of the Dissenters (1718),
“[C]ertainly a man must be blind, who does not see, that trumpets, harps, and such like musical instruments, belonged to the pomp and ceremony of the Jewish worship. Now all these thing are abrogated, together with the law that appointed the worship; unless any of them appear afresh injoined by some particular command.”
Thomas Ridgeley (minister, English nonconformist), A Body of Divinity: Wherein the Doctrines of the Christian Religion are Explained and Defended, Being the Substance of Several Lectures Upon the Assembly’s Larger Catechism (1731-32),
“It is objected that those arguments which have been taken from the practice of the Old Testament church, to prove singing an ordinance, may, with equal justice, be alleged to prove the use of instrumental music in religious worship; since we very often read of their praising God with ‘the sound of the trumpet, psaltery, harp, organ,’ and other musical instruments. This is the principle argument brought for the use of musical instruments by those who defend it and conclude it an help to devotion. But, though we often read of music being used in singing the praises of God under the Old Testament; yet if what has been said concerning its being a type of that spiritual joy which attends our praising God for the privilege of that redemption which Christ has purchased, the objection will appear to have no weight, the type being now abolished, together with the ceremonial law. Besides, though we read of the use of music in the temple-service, yet it does not sufficiently appear that it was ever used in the Jewish synagogues; the mode of worship observed in which more resembled that which is at present performed by us in our public assemblies. But what may sufficiently determine this matter, is that we have no precept nor precedent for it in the New Testament, either from the practice of Christ, or his apostles. Some, indeed, allege that the absence of any such precept or precedent overthrows the ordinance of singing, and pretend that this ought to be no more used by us than the harp, organ, or other musical instruments. But it might as well be objected that, because incense, which was used under the ceremonial law, together with prayer in the temple, is not now to be offered by us, prayer ought to be laid aside; which is, as all own, a duty founded on the moral law.”
Alexander Blaikie (ARP), The Manner of Praise, 1849,
“IX. Was instrumental music employed in Jewish worship by the appointment of God? Yes. Always at the temple, after its erection, on the days of their great and solemn festivals, and at the offering of the morning and evening sacrifice; but never in their synagogues, the usual places of weekly worship. Instrumental music was of various kinds in their solemnities, and bore the same relation to praise that incense did to prayer. The one was always an accompaniment of the other. At the temple worship, or under the Mosaic dispensation, 1 Chron. 23:5; Ezra 3:10-12; 2 Chron. 8:14; Luke 1:10; 1 Chron. 23:13, and both instrumental music and incense were by the sacrifice of Christ superseded together. Psa. 141:2; Mal. 1:11; Rev. 5:8; Acts 10:4,30,31; Rev. 8:1,3,4.
X. Was instrumental music in use when Christ was on the earth? Yes. Both it and the varied sacrifices of slain beasts were in use at the temple.
XI. How long was instrumental music continued in divine worship? By the Jews, instruments were probably used at the temple until the destruction of it by Titus. By the primitive Christians they were never employed. “The weak and beggarly elements” of Jewish “bondage,” sacred persons, places, and things, priests, altars, temple, sacrifices, incense, robes, and instrumental music, all, all alike perished from acceptance in the worship of God, when Emmanuel exclaimed on the cross, “It is finished.”
Robert Candlish as quoted in James Gibson’s, The Public Worship of God, 1869, Pg. 107,
“I believe that it is a question which touches some of the highest and deepest points of Christian theology. Is the temple destroyed? Is the temple worship wholly superseded? Have we, or have we not, priests and sacrifices among us now? Is the temple or the synagogue the model on which the Church of the New Testament is formed? Does the Old Testament itself point to anything but ‘the fruit of the lips’ [Heb. 13:15] as the peace-offering or thank-offering of gospel times? Is there a trace in the New Testament of any other mode of praise? For my part I am persuaded that if the organ be admitted, there is no barrier, in principle, against the sacredotal system in all its fullness -- against the substitution again, in our whole religion, of the formal for the spiritual, the symbolic for the real.”
Can musical instruments be used as circumstances of worship?
First, those things which are elements cannot be circumstances. Instruments were once elements of ceremonial temple worship but no longer in Christ.
The Standards say, “Nevertheless, we acknowledge that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.” WCF 1.6
Singing with instruments is unnecessary for the singing of God's praise. Further, the term "a cappella" comes from the meaning of "in the chapel/church".
Ursinus shows that circumstances in their nature do not involve our approach to God or our response to His word. Those things are elements (word, sacraments, prayer). Circumstances are the times and places at which, and the languages with which we worship, but the way we respond to or approach God are regulated strictly by God’s Word. This is how the Reformed have understood the function of the formal principle of the Reformation (sola Scripture) in worship.
So we see a principle there, circumstances are not elements, nor can they affect those elements of worship, how we respond to and approach God are all part of the elements of worship.
John Girardeau - There are three criteria by which the kind of circumstances attending worship which fall under the discretionary power of the church may be determined: 1), they are not qualities or modes of the acts of worship; they are extraneous to them as a certain kind of actions; [THEY ARE NOT THE ACTS OF WORSHIP NOR INTRICATELY INVOLVED AROUND THEM, they are outside of them] 2), they are common to the acts of all societies, and, therefore, not peculiar to the acts of the church as a particular sort of society — they are not characteristic and distinctive of her acts and predicable of them alone; and 3), they are conditions necessary to the performance of the acts of worship — without them the acts of this society could not be done, as without them the acts of no society could be done.
Thomas Peck defined a circumstance of worship this way, “A concomitant (something that accompanies is associated with something) of an action, without which it can either not be done at all, or cannot be done with decency and decorum.”
Examples of circumstances of worship are the time on the Lord’s Day and place the worship service is held, the order of worship (liturgy), having pews or chairs. None of these things have any spiritual significance, but they are needed for orderly worship. “So soon as you attach a spiritual meaning, a sacred significance, to anything connected with worship, it becomes a part of worship.“1 And no longer a circumstance. For example, candles would be a circumstance of worship if used for lighting, but as soon religious significance is added to them, such as the lighting of Advent candles, it becomes an unlawful element of worship.
Ursinus gives this list of examples of circumstances – “of which kind are the time, the place, the form and order of sermons, prayers, reading in the church, fasts, the manner of proceeding in the election of ministers, in collecting and distributing alms, and things of a similar nature.”
Girardeau addresses circumstances and singing of praise, let us submit musical instruments to his criteria:
First, they are not parts of the acts of worship by which they are modified; but this circumstance is a part of the act of singing praise by which it is performed.
Secondly, these circumstances are common to the acts of human societies, not peculiar to, and distinctive of, those of the church. It is very certain that instrumental music is not such a circumstance. It will hardly be said that all societies play on instruments as well as the church.
Thirdly, these circumstances are conditions necessary to the performance of the acts of worship, without which they either cannot be done at all, or not done decently and in order. That the singing of praise cannot be performed at all without instrumental music will be affirmed by none. But it may be affirmed that it cannot without it be performed decently and in order. Let it be noticed that the question is not whether it may be performed in an indecent and disorderly manner. Granted; but so may instrumental music. The question is, whether it cannot be done decently and in order without instrumental accompaniment. The question can only be determined by reference of the practice to a permanent and universal standard of propriety and decorum. And to say that the simple singing of God’s praise in His house is indecent and disorderly is to say, that for twelve centuries the church of Christ was guilty of this impropriety; for it is a matter of history that for that period not even the Church of Rome knew anything of instruments in her worship. To say that the simple singing of God’s praise violates the standard of decency and order of this age is to censure the glorious Free Church of Scotland and the Irish Presbyterian Church for an indecent and disorderly conduct of this part of divine worship. The ground, therefore, that instrumental music in public worship is one of those circumstances required by the rule that all things be done decently and in order cannot be maintained without a spirit of arrogance and censoriousness which would itself violate the higher principle of Christian charity. It is submitted, with all modesty, that this line of argument ought to be conclusive with Presbyterians, at least, against ranking instrumental music in public worship as one of the circumstances common to human actions and societies which fall under the discretion of the church.
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