Begg on the Use of the Organ, Chapter 3

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CHAPTER III.

SCOTCH EPISCOPALIAN ANTICIPATIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE ORGAN MOVEMENT—DEAN RAMSAY REVIEWED.

“Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.”—Matt. xv. 13.

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One can scarcely wonder at the surprise and delight with which the Scotch Episcopalians must witness the vagaries of some of our modern Presbyterians, and the smile of grim and cordial welcome with which they must hail such new and unexpected allies. Thirsting as eagerly as ever for the spiritual conquest of Scotland to what they regard as the only true Church, besides the Greek and Roman apostasies, and smarting still under the unsuccessful results of former struggles, although prosecuted with unrelenting cruelty—it must be equally gratifying and unexpected to see any of the children of the stern Covenanters practically abjuring

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former principles, and adopting and defending the leading peculiarities of Prelatical worship. It is not unnatural for Dean Ramsay to defend the use of organs in Christian worship, although a Homily of the Church of England cordially approves of their removal from the house of God. The Episcopal Church, both in England and Scotland, has fully introduced instrumental music; and it is not wonderful, in such circumstances, to find the quiet complacency with which Dean Ramsay augurs great results from the recent inconsistencies of certain Presbyterians, well knowing, as he does, that the line of principle being once crossed, it is impossible to say where a halting place shall be found, short at least of his own goal. The following are his words:—

“From personal feelings and hereditary associations, no one is more concerned for the honour of national Scottish religion than myself, and it is cheering for me to think of our fellow-countrymen being disposed to receive, in a more enlarged sense than has been customary in Scotland, the Scripture argument for the

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use of organs, (certainly, of all instruments the most harmonious and the most majestic,) in the worship of God’s house. I rejoice to think of this mark of difference, or of any mark of difference, being removed between us and our dear countrymen in what belongs to our several modes of worshipping our common Lord and Master. I wish from my heart we could see every mark of difference done away.”* That is, of course, by the Scotch carrying out consistently the recent innovations, and conforming in every particular to the worship and government of the Episcopal Church. The wish is most natural, and most sweetly expressed; but we hope and believe that it will turn out little better, after all, than a “devout imagination.”

The very kind and paternal interest which the Dean takes in us in connection with what he calls the “national Scottish religion,” is partly explained, probably, by the view which

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* “The Use of Organs in Christian Worship.” A sermon preached in Trinity Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, October 22, 1865. By Edward B. Ramsay, LL.D., M.A., Dean [not of] Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Grant & Son. Pp. 19, 20.

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he entertains of our present sad condition, apart from prelatical orders and their supposed advantages. According to his idea, it would be a splendid transition which Scotland would make if she only repudiated all her schisms and heresies with her past struggles and traditions, and joined what he regards as the only true Church. Finding it expedient on one occasion some time ago to explain one of his very kind and charitable speeches about his dear countrymen,* Dean Ramsay came out with

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* Dean Ramsay has the reputation of being a very amiable man, but after all, an intense High Churchman. We do not object to this. Indeed, we always admire firmness and consistency of character. The Dean, however, is aware of one peculiarity in the Scotch people, wherein they differ from the English and Irish. They are grave and stern, and are not much influenced by soft and honied words. Often have we heard them say—“It’s ower sweet. It’s like a frosted potato, ower sweet to be wholesome.” If the Dean has not heard it before, we make him welcome to the copyright of the following good story. In the Free Milton Church, Glasgow, in the days when Dr John Duncan was minister, there sat one of the “men” from Ross-shire—a picturesque man arrayed in a blue camlet cloak, with a bright red handkerchief tied up his cheeks. He was in the habit of walking into the vestry after sermon, and giving the young ministers an advice. A young friend of ours was preaching an early sermon in this church, and after sermon

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the naked truth:—“I have no hesitation in saying,” said he, “that no (ministerial) authority can be pleaded without it (the apostolic succession), and therefore I do not hesitate one moment in affirming the proposition—To whatever extent Presbyterian baptism is available, it is not in consequence of Presbyterian ministers having received ANY ministerial authority from Christ to administer the sacrament of the font;” and, “that it is the religious duty of Presbyterians to renounce their present schism, and be reconciled to the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church where the episcopate exists, and where alone is to be found a Divine right to minister in holy things.”

(Signed.) E. B. Ramsay.

If this view be correct, of course all his friends amongst the Presbyterian ministers, including Dr Clason, Dr Guthrie, and others,

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[continued from p. 73] this extraordinary figure, whom he had noticed under the pulpit, stalked into the vestry, and said—“My young frien’, ye ha’e gi’en us a very sweet discourse the day. But there’s ae thing I would say—a discourse may be ower sweet. I would say to you as Boaz said, Ruth second and fourteenth, ‘Dip thy morsel in the vinegar.’”

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are constantly guilty of the profanity of Korah, by pretending to do that for the doing of which they have “no ministerial authority from Christ;” and since the Dean fondly hopes that his considerate and kind advice is now at last about to be taken, there is a very sufficient ground for his thankfulness and joy.

The Dean, however, proceeds to argue the question, in so far as the use of organs in Christian worship is concerned, and it is always well to hear such a subject discussed by one occupying so high a position. This makes it tolerably certain that we shall have the real strength of the case brought out. Let us then look first at the general argument used by the Dean, and then at some special considerations adduced by him in favour of that argument. The general argument is thus stated—“The use of instrumental music, then, in Divine service, may be defended, and, as I think, may be proved to be acceptable to God, on considerations drawn from these two propositions.

“1. All things in creation (some things espe-

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cially) are to be so made use of that they may ‘praise God.

‘2. There is a marked and express sanction in Holy Scripture for the use of instruments of music in the worship of God’s house.”*

It is so far pleasant to find that the point to be ascertained, as here set forth, is not, as many seem to imagine, what is acceptable to ourselves, but what is “acceptable to God;” He alone being entitled to determine in what manner His own worship shall be conducted, the point to be proved, undoubtedly, is that God Himself has expressed, in some form or other, His approbation of the use of instruments in New Testament worship. Now how is this attempted to be proved? If the Dean looks again at his first argument, we think he will have the candour to admit that it is a mere unintentional fallacy. “All things in creation (some things especially) are to be so made use of that they may praise God.” In a sense, the statement may be admitted; but how? Not

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* Pp. 6, 7.

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in Christian worship assuredly. The fallacy lies in substituting Christian worship for general praise and glory. The worthy Dean does not surely mean, he cannot mean, to say that “all things in creation” may lawfully be introduced into the worship of the sanctuary; and yet this is the only point in debate. If he could maintain his statement in regard to Divine worship, it would go to prove, in a different way, that there is no rule of worship at all—if all and everything may be employed in worship alike. Incense, pictures, images, the firing of cannons charged with incense, as in France, the lighting of candles at noonday, magnificent illuminations—in a word, we know not what forms of worship might be introduced if “all things in creation” may lawfully be employed in the public worship of the sanctuary. The worthy Dean actually quotes the passage in illustration of his first proposition, “Praise ye Him, sun and moon, praise Him all ye stars of light, . . . beasts, and all cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl.” There is a sense, no doubt, and a high sense, in which all things

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are to be made subservient to God’s glory and praise, but the place of many of them is not in the sanctuary. The donkey that brayed through the church window might, according to this theory, have been deemed devout. The Dean is fond of a joke; and it is alleged that the rector was much annoyed by the interference of his long-eared neighbour, whilst one of the hearers exclaimed, “One at a time, gentlemen.” This was formerly thought only a Joe Miller, but upon the new theory of “all things in creation” being entitled to take part in the worship of God, the affair looks a good deal more serious. The ass’s bray might be as good worship, after all, as the rector’s sermon.

We do not wish to speak disrespectfully, but the theory of worship in question seems to have been precisely that of Cain, who applied it, too, in a very mild and natural way. He brought some of the “things in creation,” the fruits of the ground, with which to worship, but without a Divine warrant, and God frowned him from His presence. “To Cain and to his offering God had not respect.” The matter is not,

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therefore, to be settled in this general and sweeping way.

The second proposition of the Dean is, however, more to the purpose, if it can only be proved, viz., “There is a marked and express sanction in Holy Scripture for the use of instruments of music in the worship of God’s house”—of course, he must mean under the New Testament dispensation. Now, if any one will read what we have already written, or the following treatise, he will see that there is no authority for this assertion. The Dean, indeed, admits that instrumental music had no existence in the worship of the Primitive Christian Church, and proves that singing was enjoined. “The congregational services of the followers of the despised and lowly Galilean,” says he (p. 11), “could not at first be expected to have instruments in their services, or that they should consist of more than such simple forms as the hurried and trying circumstances of the times admitted of. Enough for them to have the privilege of meeting at all.”

This admission we hold to be conclusive of

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the whole question. We may say of instrumental music now in the Christian Church, according to Dean Ramsay, what Christ said of the corruptions which the Jews had introduced in regard to marriage, “From the beginning it was not so.”

It is no doubt flattering to human vanity to allege that the simple worship of the Church, as established by Christ, has been improved and, of course, can still be improved by us. But whilst, on the one hand, Christ was omnipotent, and quite able to secure all that was necessary and acceptable in His own worship, even in the earliest and most trying times, we should like to know what right any man since has had to alter His arrangements? Admit, for a moment, that the Christian Church, as a system, was not left complete by its Divine Lord, and that men are at liberty, without Divine warrant, to alter it, and where is such an admission to lead? It will not halt with a presumptuous attempt to “improve” the worship. It opens a wide door to every form of corruption; and, in point of fact, it has been, as we have

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already stated, the origin of all the vast corruptions of the Church of Rome, one of the last of which was the introduction of instrumental music into the services of the sanctuary. The great and corrupt Greek Church has curiously kept clear of this innovation, and even in the Pope’s private chapel the primitive form of mere singing is preserved, instrumental music being wholly discarded.

Some incidental remarks to be found in other parts of the Dean’s sermon are worthy of notice as bearing upon this question. He says, to the congregation addressed, “You have been performing a religious act! in improving and enlarging the musical instrument by which the psalmody of this church has been supported and embellished, and as in the Church to which we belong the employment of the organ to accompany the voice in singing is considered a matter of course wherever it can be attained,” &c. This is a very singular and suggestive passage. If the repairing of an organ be a “religious act,” the organ makers and menders must be a very devout class of persons, being

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always engaged in such acts of religion. It must truly also be a religion of money, wherein rich men are much more able to perform religious acts than poor; nay, wherein certain religious acts cannot be performed by the poor at all.

It is curious to hear, in modern times, gravely of religious acts which it is admitted cannot be universal in the Church, and from which poor congregations are excluded. The Christian Church was intended for the world, and especially for the poor. All are capable of taking a part in its true worship; all have, fortunately, within them the one organ whose music God requires; but here we have a form of worship, and an organ introduced, without Divine warrant, which, in the nature of the case, cannot be universal, so that many are excluded by poverty from the performance of what is regarded as a religious act, and from the enjoyment of a Christian privilege.

The state of the Church when men can purchase “Christian privileges” with money, from which privileges the poor are excluded in con-

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sequence of their poverty, is very like the state described and denounced by the apostle James, whilst it is still more offensive and unjustifiable. James complained that the man with the “gold ring and the goodly apparel” had a preference in the house of God. But here the rich have a monopoly of supposed advantages—a proof itself, were there no other, of the unchristian nature of the theory in question. The poor, however, will imitate and ape their betters. If an organ cannot be had, and men are determined to abandon God’s simple method of praise, other cheaper instruments must be procured. A story is told of a trans-Atlantic congregation which determined to have a violin, when they could not purchase an organ, in defiance of the wish of the minister. The minister put a fool’s cap on the whole affair by giving out the psalm as follows, next Lord’s-day—“Let us fiddle and sing to the praise of God the hundredth psalm.”

Again exclaims the worthy Dean in triumph (pp. 20, 21): “I am satisfied that the use of the organ is a Christian privilege; nor can I

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for a moment believe any injurious religious effects can flow from a usage of church service which formed an element, and an approved constant Christian element, in the devotional services of John Newton, Charles Simeon, William Wilberforce, Henry Martin, Reginald Heber—to say nothing of living characters.” It is hard to say how far this idea would lead if it were once admitted. It would go to establish the perfection of the Church of England in its Erastian constitution, because good men have always been in it. The very faults of its liturgy, also, would be converted into beauties, because such men as Scott and Heber and others read them. The errors of the Romish Church would, moreover, be sanctified by the fact that Pascal, Fenelon, and others were members of that communion. Every peculiarity of the Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational Churches would be placed beyond debate by the fact, which no one will venture to dispute, that many great and good men have flourished in all these denominations. Of course, the worthy Dean is aware that this is not argu-

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ment. The men referred to, however good, were not infallible; and the question at issue is to be settled, not by the practice of men, but by the authority of God. We again refer him to “the law and the testimony,” only reminding him that as the usage in question is an admitted innovation on the primitive worship of the Christian Church, the onus of finding a Divine warrant for its introduction rests with him and others who defend the practice.