The Hymn Question.
James Dodson
A REVIEW
OF THE SPEECHES OF THE REV. J. MACNAUGHTAN AND THE
REV. T. Y. KILLEN, AT A MEETING OF THE BELFAST
PRESBYTERY ON THE 19TH APRIL.
BY THE
REV. R. NEVIN.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
LONDONDERRY:
PRINTED AT THE STANDARD STEAM PRINTING WORKS.
1875.
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The Hymn Question—A Review.
SPEECH OF THE REV. J. MACNAUGHTAN, A.M., on Hymnology, delivered at the Presbytery of Belfast, on 19th April, 1875. Belfast: R. Carswell, 27, Donegall Place. 1875. pp. 16.
HYMN-SINGING in Accordance with Scripture, Reason, and the Practice of the Church: A Speech delivered in the Belfast Presbytery on the 19th April, 1875. By the Rev. T. Y. Killen. In opposition to an overture in favour of exclusive Psalm-singing, by the Rev. J. D. Crawford. Reprinted from the Witness of April 23rd, 1875. pp. 12.
At a meeting of the Belfast Presbytery, on the 19th April last, the Rev. J. D. Crawford introduced an overture, the design of which was to get the General Assembly to use its authority for having uniformity in the public service of praise by the employment of the inspired Psalms exclusively. This gave rise to a debate, in which the Rev. J. Macnaughtan and the Rev. T. Y. Killen constituted themselves the champions of hymn-singing, and their speeches present some curious specimens of sentiment and attempts at reasoning. Both have published in separate form; but, while Mr. Macnaughtan’s publication professes to give “the substance of the statements he made,” it is very different from his speech, as reported in the newspapers of the next day. A great many of his “statements,” as reported—a very little criticism on which would have placed the speaker in a rather ridiculous light—have been either omitted altogether or greatly modified. We will not take advantage of this, although we think it but justice to note the fact, but will confine our criticism to his tract, which has evidently been written out with some care.
Mr. Macnaughtan professes great reverence for the inspired Psalms, and protests that he has no desire to exclude them in the worship of the sanctuary. We have no doubt he is perfectly sincere in this. But we know at the same time what is the result, when a hymn-book is introduced in any denomination of professing Christians. The Psalms, in the course of a little time, come to be almost or altogether disused. When does one hear a Psalm given out among Wesleyans or Congregationalists? How often now in
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the public services of the larger Presbyterian bodies in America? The Presbyterian Synod of England have the Psalms bound up in the front of their hymn-book, but already it has come to it that we may ask, How often, or rather how seldom, is that part of the book opened in the pulpit? Of Scotland we cannot say more than that the process is commencing there too.
Other utterances of Mr. Macnaughtan’s are not very consistent with the reverence he expresses at the outset. He thought proper to make several quotations from an edition of the Psalms in metre published in 1578, nearly 300 years ago, which we venture to say not one in ten thousand living persons has ever seen or heard of. The phraseology is certainly uncouth to our ears now, but probably sounded very differently in 1578. This was in wretched taste, to say the least of it. Why was it done? No doubt it was designed to be an offset to Mr. Crawford’s criticisms on Mr. Sankey’s hymns, but one fails to see what 300 years ago has to do with the present. Then it served to raise a laugh—no great achievement that. Beyond this it is difficult to perceive what end could be secured by it, unless one could believe that it was the set purpose of the speaker to diminish in the minds of his auditory due reverence for the Word of God, and, if one were to judge by the conduct of some present, according to one report we have seen, there was little need for putting forth an effort in that direction. Chaucer would have been treated with more respect. Mr. Macnaughtan characterizes Mr. Crawford’s remarks on some of the paraphrases and Sankey’s hymns as “small criticisms.” It may seem a very small thing to Mr. Macnaughtan that the doctrine of a universal atonement is preached and sung by those who have signed the Westminster Confession of Faith. We need not wonder at this on the part of those who either themselves preach the new gospel emanating from Chicago and Hull, or give all aid and countenance to those who do. But it is re-assuring to know that there are not a few ministers and godly people in the General Assembly itself, besides “some small sects in Scotland with narrow views,” and the “insignificant” Covenanters, who reckon the quibbling criticisms of Messrs. Macnaughtan and Killen on the Scottish Metrical Version of the Psalms as infinitesimally “small,” in comparison with such unscriptural doctrine.
But Mr. Macnaughtan goes further. There are some portions of the Psalms which he thinks it would be positively wrong for a Christian to sing. It seems impossible for any one to vindicate hymn-singing in public worship without avowedly or by implication disparaging the Psalms. The very talk of supplementing the Psalms, or of the need of such supplementing, implies that they are an imperfect vehicle of praise, although praise is a spiritual exercise substantially the same for all time, and although the Psalms have been
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given by the Most High Himself for the purpose. It seems to imply that men now regard themselves wiser than their Maker, or, as good old Romaine, of the Church of England, put it, that they imagine they can make better songs than those provided by the Holy Spirit. Dr. Isaac Watts considered he had a vocation to make a Christian of David, and Mr. Macnaughtan so far sympathizes in the sentiment that he thinks “many passages in the Psalms are not suitable for New Testament worship.” He refers, of course, to “the imprecatory psalms.” At the same time he is, somehow, constrained to admit that “they were suited to a Jew.” Translated into plain English, this means that it would be very wrong for a Christian to entertain and express personally vindictive feelings, but this was perfectly right and proper for a Jew. “He could ask and pray for destruction and ruin to his adversaries.” He actually contrasts the spirit of the one dispensation with that of the other by “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” on the one side, and “Love your enemies” on the other, thus pitting the Sermon on the Mount against the Mosaic legislation even in things moral. It is amazing to find such a man as Mr. Macnaughtan giving utterance to such crude views. Love is the fulfilling of the law; but was it not always so? David, in the cave, where he cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe, and on another occasion, when he took the cruse and spear from the head of his sleeping foe, but would not permit a hair of his head to be touched, though strongly urged to slay him, was a better Christian than, we fear, many of those who object to the imprecatory psalms would have been, had they lived in his day and been placed in his circumstances, with their present “spirit.” Is the God of the Christian a different being from the God of the Jew? The Old Testament declares that He is a holy and a jealous One, who will not give His glory to another, nor His praise to graven images. The New Testament tells us that He is a consuming fire, One whose wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Where is the difference? The Old Testament proclaims, and the New re-echoes it, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. And this is made the very ground of the exhortation, “Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” The law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was a law for rulers in dispensing Justice. The Sermon on the Mount was designed to set aside false glosses that had been put on the precepts of morality, not to cancel jot or tittle of these precepts, and was for the regulation of the conduct of private individuals. Would Mr. Macnaughtan really have us to believe that, under the Christian dispensation, there should be no such thing as criminal jurisprudence, or penalties of any kind, for offences of any sort whatsoever? That is
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what his statements clearly lead to. The circumstances of the peculiar people of old rendered it necessary, perhaps, that the list of punishable offences should be more extended, and the degree of punishment greater, than would be proper now. But we really think our present criminal code criminally lenient in some particulars—a reaction, it may be, from the opposite in times past—and a little infusion of Mosaic rigour would be salutary, and even merciful, in the interests of society at large. Elijah called down fire from heaven on one captain with his fifty, and then upon another. This was under a divine impulse, no doubt, and designed to strike terror to the hearts of the idolaters. When the third captain begged that his life and that of his fifty might be spared it was at once granted. It is said of the two Apocalyptic witnesses that, “if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies,” and that they “have power to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.” What would Mr. Macnaughtan make of that, in accordance with his views? Had he been standing by Peter when he denounced instant death upon Ananias and Sapphira, or looking over Paul’s shoulder when he was writing to Timothy, “Alexander, the coppersmith, did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works,” would he have “wisely reproved their Jewish (!) notion, and said, ‘Ye know not what spirit ye are of?’” Would he have dared to hint such a thing?
The imprecatory Psalms, like all the rest, may, and ought to be, sung as the word of God, not as the word of man. They are God’s denunciations against the workers of iniquity. Viewed in this light, it is only a puling sentimentalism, springing from “narrow views,” that refuses to sing them. It is thus that He would have us to praise Him as holy and just in all His ways. The humble and contrite Christian, who trembles at God’s word, will sing them, with dread lest the threatening should fall upon himself. There is little danger of any well-instructed Christian perverting them into curses upon his personal foes. If there be any one in such danger, Mr. Macnaughtan is clearly not the man to set him right. Besides, all such denunciations have a plainly implied proviso. They proceed on the supposition that those against whom they are directed persevere in unbelief and impenitence. In that case it is surely the duty of the Christian as much as the Jew to acquiesce in the just judgments of heaven. Even in those Psalms which manifestly refer to Judas Iscariot, he is referred to, not merely as an individual, but as the type of a class.
A poet has truly said, “A God all mercy is a God unjust.” But a God all mercy is the God of the hymn-books. If His justice is referred to in them, it is relegated to the future, in connection with
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the judgment of the last day. Meanwhile the strain is such as the following:—
Jesus, thou art all compassion;
Pure, unbounded love thou art.*
Thus the God of the hymn-books is a different Being from the God of the Bible; and, had we no other reason, we should decline to use them on that account.
Mr. Killen says, “I don’t believe that there is such a distinction between the ordinance of praise and the ordinance of prayer as some suppose. The Bible makes no such distinction; neither does the Book of Psalms.” “Such distinction”—what is it? Mr. Killen does not condescend to inform us, or tell us wherein his supposition differs from the “some” to whom he refers. What is really his distinction? or does he make none? He leaves us to infer as much. Does he put a tune to his prayers in Duncairn and sing them? Does he run the two exercises into one? If so, we may expect soon to hear of his having an organ to play the Amen at the close, or perform the whole for him. There is no part of the Psalms but can be sung as praise, if not directly, yet constructively. But how the 49th Paraphrase can be construed as praise to God surpasses our comprehension.
The utter misrepresentation and perversion of history on the part of those who advocate the use of hymns is rather marvellous. Pliny’s letter to Trajan is sure to be brought up by every one of them who opens his mouth on the subject, although—we might say, perhaps, because—it really proves nothing to their purpose. He wrote to the emperor that the Bithynian Christians were accustomed in their assemblies to sing a song (carmen) to Christ as a God. That is a very good proof that the Christians of Bithynia believed in the proper deity of Christ, but proves nothing as to the source from which the song was drawn. It is needless to show that the Psalms could be used, and were used, in this way. Mr. Killen, indeed, informs us that “at Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem it is expressly stated that the multitude praised God; and it was not with a Psalm of David, but a song improvised for the occasion.” A different case that was surely from the formal exercise of praise on the part of Christians assembled for the very purpose of worship. And, yet the expressions made use of by the multitude, as they “cried” on that occasion, were taken, as every reader of his Bible knows, from the 118th Psalm. These they addressed to Christ. Does not that throw some light on the expression in Pliny’s letter, and on the manner in which we should understand and use the Psalms? for the multitude then, we may suppose, acted under a divine impulse, as in the case of Caiaphas’ prophecy. But Mr. Killen must needs reason on this letter of
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* Hymn-book of the English Presbyterian Synod—Hymn 466.
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Pliny. Reasoning is his weakness in more senses than one. Better he let it alone. “That it cannot have been the Psalms of David to which he refers is evident, because these were sung by the Jews, and their use would have been in no way distinctive of Christian worship.” Wonderful logic! The Jews prayed to God, THEREFORE it is evident the Christians never prayed, for that would have been in no way distinctive of them! He might as well argue, the Jews had tongues in their heads, therefore the Christians must evidently have cut theirs out, for it would have been in no way distinctive of a Christian to have a tongue in his head.
Again, Mr. Killen says, “Tertullian, the earliest of the Latin fathers in the second century, speaks of the Christians singing hymns of their own composition after the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.” Where does Tertullian say this? We challenge Mr. Killen to produce the passage verbatim, and give us his literal translation of it. We know he cannot. Tertullian speaks in one place of a practice in some places, and in private convivial parties, of calling one into the midst to sing songs drawn from Scripture or from their own resources. In another place “he expressly mentions the fact that in the African church the 133rd Psalm was uniformly used at the administration of the Lord’s Supper. Nor does he compliment those who only used it at that solemnity.”* Some one, we suppose, quoting from memory, and bringing these two statements together, as things come together in a dream, manufactured the statement which has come to be rehearsed by one after another, down to Mr. Killen. But it is not Tertullian’s.
The heretic Paul of Samosata is a great favourite with the hymn-singers, with what reason a few sentences may show. Mr. Killen thought Mr. Crawford “particularly unhappy in his authorities,” with allusion to this very case. It is he and Mr. Macnaughtan that are thus unhappy, if this case be the test. The council that condemned Paul did so for this, amongst other reasons, that “he put a stop to the use of the Psalms in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, as if they had been (hōs de, quasi in the translation of Valesius) modern, and the compositions of modern men, and prepared women to psalmodize in honour of himself, in the midst of the church, on the great day of Pasch; which any one might shudder to hear.” By mistranslating two particles—as being, instead of as if they had been—and omitting the part of the sentence we have put in italics, it has been sought to prove that this Paul set aside hymns to make way for the Psalms. The very reverse is plainly the meaning. We know not who is originally responsible for this discreditable jugglery. It was exposed long ago by Dr. Pressly of America, and the repetition of it now is wholly inexcusable on the part of men who profess to be seeking after truth, when that exposure is within
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* M‘Master’s Apology for the Psalms.
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easy reach. Those who can believe that David’s Psalms were written for the very purpose of celebrating the praises of the heretic Paul may agree with Neander, a great authority on the subject with the Belfast gentlemen, that “he probably suffered nothing but Psalms to be used.” Most Christians in their senses will be unable to see an atom of probability in such a preposterous conclusion.
Neander, we have said, is a great authority with these gentlemen. They quote him as testifying to the use of hymns in the Primitive Church. This he does without, however, giving any direct proof. But he also testifies to the use of the Psalms, and, when writing of the Western church at a later period, he represents the introduction of hymns in addition as meeting with “much opposition.” They do not quote that.
Mr. Macnaughtan says, “It was the men who desired to pare down and fritter away the doctrine of the Incarnation and Divinity of Christ who objected to hymns in the early ages of Christianity.” The only conceivable ground for this statement is the Paul of Samosata imposture. If he has any thing else for it, let him produce it. We shall be curious to see it. But he adds, “it was the growing power of the Arian party that cast out hymns from the early Presbyterian Church of England.” We have met a similar statement ten years ago in an article from the pen of the late Dr. James Hamilton of London—an article containing some of the weakest and most outlandish things ever he wrote. For the statement he gives no authority. We do not believe he was capable of inventing it, but some one must have done so, and he was content to take it on trust, just as Mr. Macnaughtan takes it from him. That unitarians objected to use hymns exhibiting a pronounced trinitarianism we can understand and well believe, but that they ever objected to the use of hymns in general, or were sticklers for the exclusive use of the Psalms, is utterly incredible in the nature of the case, and the statement carries its own refutation on the face of it. Dr. Hamilton was not living 150 years ago to be able to speak from personal observation or knowledge, any more than he was then living to hear how the people “snivelled” in their singing of “drawling tunes” to the “dreary doggrel” of which he speaks. But then Dr. Hamilton had a very exuberant imagination. Some one may ask in astonishment, And did Dr. James Hamilton actually speak of any version of the inspired Psalms as dreary doggrel? Yes, verily, however it vexes one to think he could do so. See what prejudice and “narrow views” will bring even a good man to say. The eagerness exhibited to connect pleading for the exclusive use of the Psalms with the introduction of heresy is a strange way of showing reverence for the Word of God, while it has not an atom of fact to rest upon. The facts are
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all in the opposite direction. The matured views of Isaac Watts, the father of English hymnology, were Sabellian. Had his hymn-making nothing to do with that? We think it had. Orthodox hymn books are ultra-trinitarian, tritheistic, in their tone. The natural recoil from that is some form of unitarianism. Isaac Watts was not the first who thought he could make better psalms than David, or rather than the Holy Spirit speaking by David. Bardesanes of Edessa, a Gnostic of the 2nd century, was before him in this. He composed an Imitation of the Psalms, consisting of precisely the same number of pieces, 150. He, Paul of Samosata, Arius in the 4th century, and the followers of Arius in succeeding times, all composed hymns with the very design of propagating their doctrinal errors. A flood of Arminianism came in with the Wesleyan hymns, and the development of English unitarianism was contemporaneous with the use of those of the Sabellian Watts. There are unscriptural notions on doctrinal subjects even now abroad, and we believe the present craving for hymns is connected with these both in the way of consequence and cause.
The late Dr. Gibson of Glasgow presents in a few sentences all that can be truly derived from history on the subject. Speaking of a Report by a Committee of the Free Church in 1869, he says—“The paper gives a variety of something like proofs that hymns of some kind had been written by various parties as early as A.D. 139, 200, 220, &c., and on to the Council of Toledo in 663. It proves that some Councils forbade the use of ‘private psalms.’ This prohibition continued till the 16th century. All this while there is no proof that the Church, in any sense that could be called a Church authority, either enjoined, or sanctioned, or even practised the use of human hymns in the public worship of God; still less is any attempt made to connect such use with either apostolic practice or Scripture authority.” What, then, is gained by perverting history and having recourse to garbled quotations? It must be admitted that the Psalms were in use from the earliest period. There is positive proof of that. Hymns were composed at an early period, and were sung in some places, it may be even in public worship. If any one doubts that, we certainly do not, for we know that there were greater abuses than that in the practices of some Christians, while the apostles were yet living. If any such scene were enacted anywhere in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper now, as could have been witnessed in Corinth, where each person brought his own bread and wine, and one who had none to bring was hungry, while another was drunken, all Christendom would be scandalized. But Paul condemned this, why did he not condemn hymn-singing, if that be an abuse? The answer is simple—There was no such thing in his day to condemn. As regards post-apostolic times it is remarkable that there are only two as
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or three fragments of hymns that can be traced to a higher antiquity than the third century, when manifold corruptions had already crept into the Church. There were, we may suppose, many effusions of the kind, but probably very silly and not worth preserving, like some that were extensively in use in 1859, but now forgotten, and like some very popular at the present time, but destined to be forgotten, it may be even sooner. History, were it even all that the apologists for hymns try to make it appear, proves nothing as to what the practice should be. We must have Scriptural sanction. That, too, they think they have. Let us glance at their arguments.
We are reminded that even in Old Testament times worshippers did not restrict themselves to the Book of Psalms. We are reminded of the songs of Miriam, of Deborah, of Hannah, of Hezekiah, of Habakkuk; and, in New Testament times, of such as that of Mary and that of Zacharias. But these were composed for special occasions, with special adaptation to individuals, extraordinary circumstances, and under inspiration. We are asked, Why can we not sing these? The question is already answered. Take the song of Mary, for instance. Cameron’s rendering of this into verse is the 161st in the English Presbyterian Hymn-Book. Is Mr. Macnaughtan or Mr. Killen prepared to sing this in the way of appropriation, and describe himself as the “humble handmaid” of the Lord? Will either have the presumption to say or sing of himself that henceforth all generations shall call him blessed? If they sing it at all in worship, but do not intend this, what else means the service? Popish Mariolatry; we could put no other construction on it. Apart from what is local, individual, temporary, and extraordinary in these songs, we find the substance in the Psalms. None of the Old Testament songs we have mentioned are transferred to the Book of Psalms. But there are some songs occurring elsewhere that are so transferred, with some variations. Surely this has its own significance.
There are prophecies about singing in both Testaments, that in the 26th chapter of Isaiah, for instance, and some in the Apocalypse. These are plainly to be understood, after the manner of prophecy, as presenting what will be the substance of the praise—rather the cause for it than the subject matter or very words. If a literal fulfilment be insisted on, there are insuperable difficulties in the way of finding any such thing. As to the talk about “new songs,” it is a mere literalizing quibble. Some of the Psalms are described in themselves as new songs, and this continued to be sung as part of the Psalm still, even when ages had passed away. Christ said to His disciples, “A new commandment I give unto you.” Yet it was an old commandment—old in one sense, new in another. So John refers to it—1 John ii. 7, 8.
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Coming to the New Testament, we find that our Lord and His apostles “hymned” after the last Passover. It is generally conceded that what was employed on the occasion was, in accordance with immemorial custom, the great Hallel, in whole or in part—Psalms only. Mr. Macnaughtan rashly ventures to set aside the force of this as an example for imitation. “It is associated,” he says, “with the ceremonial institutes. The legal economy was not yet ended, as the great sacrifice was not yet offered; and this service of song belongs to the Levitical economy, and cannot be adduced as an instance of congregational singing under the New Testament dispensation.” There are two considerations strangely overlooked here. 1. Praise is not a legal or ceremonial ordinance, but a spiritual; and is not peculiar to any economy or dispensation of grace, but “belongs” to all alike. 2. It was not immediately after the Passover, but, as it would seem from the narratives of the Evangelists, immediately after the institution of that Supper which is commanded to be observed by Christians till the end of time, that the singing took place. Is the Lord’s Supper, then, to be set down among “the ceremonial institutes”? Does it belong to the abrogated “Levitical economy?” If there be the slightest force in the reasoning, that is what it comes to. We were aware that some Presbyterian ministers have become tinged to a considerable extent with Plymouthism. Are we to have an infusion of Quakerism next? Certainly if our Lord ever set an example for His disciples to imitate, He did so when He instituted the ordinance of the Supper.
Paul writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xiv. 26), “When ye come together, every one of you hath a Psalm, hath a doctrine, &c.” Mr. Macnaughtan tells us that “this was manifestly an improvised hymn, delivered by the individual, and not joined in by the assembled church.” So, we are to have the apostle forced into giving his sanction to the “manifest” abuse of solo-singing! The whole statement is “manifestly” a pure fancy, without a particle of evidence to rest upon, however many they be that concur in it. But here Mr. Killen comes to the rescue, with his ponderous reasoning. “Some have said that this means that a member of the church might select one of the Psalms of David and give it out to be sung. But it is absurd to suppose that it would require inspiration to enable a man to select a Psalm.” Not a doubt of it. And it is very “absurd” to suppose that every member who rose to speak in the church in apostolic times was either inspired or possessed of some other supernatural gift. But who is guilty of this absurdity? The Rev. T. Y. Killen. We are not aware that any other holds such a view. Did it require inspiration to state or expound a doctrine? The argument is so very absurd that it is suicidal. That the Psalms were used in the church in those days
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who will venture to deny? But if all who rose to speak in any way were inspired, according to this view, then he who gave out a Psalm must have done so by inspiration. Either this was the case, or the Psalms were not used at all. The apostle is condemning in that chapter, as any one who reads it may see, the practice of several getting up to speak at the same time. “God is not the author of confusion,” he says, ver. 33. Would Mr. Killen trace this confusion to inspiration as its real source? That would be something more than “absurd.”
In James v. 13 we read, “Is any merry, psalletō, let him praise.” Mr. Macnaughtan asks, “Is there any scholar who will say that that word means ‘let him sing psalms?’” No, not the Word in itself, but that such was the apostle’s intention in using it we have not the slightest doubt. “It may mean,” says Mr. M., “let him play on an instrument; it may mean let him be joyful” (i.e., Is any merry, let him be joyful—wonderful scholarship!); “it might mean let him play a psalm with an accompaniment” (not play the accompaniment, observe, but play the psalm—what the accompaniment is beyond this must be a profound mystery known only to such accomplished scholars as Mr. M.); “it never can be adduced as an argument for a congregation singing the Psalms of David.” Well, it has been so adduced, and we adduce it once more. If Mr. Macnaughtan sets us down as no scholar for that, we will not be overwhelmed with shame. We had thought the shallow criticism on the word psallo was fairly exploded. It neither may, might, nor does, in itself, bear any of the meanings Mr. Macnaughtan has given to it. Will he venture to set down Dr. Glasgow as no scholar? But some absurdities are hard to kill, especially with those whose reading is all on one side of a question, and limited at that.
Mr. Macnaughtan has not much to say about the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs in Eph. v. 19 and Col. iii. 16, and the little he does say is very silly. He thinks he finds in these Scriptural sanction for “singing the Gospel.” “Teaching and admonishing by singing is at least as old as the days of the apostles, and is sanctioned by their injunction.” A little reflection might have shown him that this is a mistake, and that the received punctuation makes a confused mess of what the apostle wrote. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” is one exhortation. “In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another” is a second. “In psalms and hymns and odes inspired singing gratefully with your hearts to the Lord” is a third and distinct one. Conybeare understood this, and Alford wrote acute and learned nonsense in rejecting it. “I say the Scriptures are not characterized by redundancies,” writes Mr. M. That depends on what is meant by redundancies. Would Mr. M. favour us with his precise logical definition of the
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distinctions in iniquities, transgressions, and sins, or statutes, judgments, and commandments? But the remark is totally irrelevant. Redundancies have nothing to do with it. The apostle uses the three terms found in the descriptive titles prefixed to the greater number of the pieces composing the Psalter in the Septuagint, which was the Bible to the Greek-speaking people he was addressing.
Mr. Killen, however, has more to say about these two passages, and makes himself as ridiculous as one could wish an opponent of the truth to do. He has no less than four arguments, such as they are. 1. “‘It is absurd to say” (what a judge of the absurd he is!) “that all these three terms refer to the Psalms of David, which in the New Testament are always spoken of as the Psalms or the Book of Psalms, but never as hymns or songs.” “Always,” “never”—that is a bare-faced begging of the question, to begin with. The question is, Does the apostle in these two passages quote the titles in the Septuagint? and it will not do to answer, The Psalms are never so referred to. All that can be said with truth is that they are not so referred to in other places, and that proves just nothing to the purpose. How many words or phrases occur only in one place, with little or no difficulty in ascertaining what is meant? In Luke xxiv. 44 the word Psalms is used to signify a division of the Old Testament. In no other place is the word so employed, yet who doubts the meaning? In how many other places of the New Testament are the Psalms referred to at all? Just four, exclusive of the last-mentioned, and in none of these is the object of the writer, as it is in the two passages under consideration, to exhort Christians in relation to the subject matter of their praise. 2. Mr. Killen has discovered that the word in the Septuagint titles is not in the nominative singular, but “in the dative plural,” and therefore he would try to make it appear it does not apply to the composition at all. One does not know which to admire more in this, the vast erudition and research, or the crushing logic! Seriously, if we must treat it so, it does not require much intelligence to perceive that the circumstance of the word being in the dative plural has the effect of extending the application indefinitely. Five Psalms have en humnois, one ek humnois, that is, among or from among the hymns—one out of many. Besides there are no less than twenty Psalms, according to the division and numbering in the Septuagint, that have Alleluia prefixed as the sole title. When this word is used thus as a noun, it is the precise equivalent of humnos, for humnos according to its derivation means a song of praise, and Alleluia means praise ye the Lord. There are 97 Psalms out of the 150 that have one or two of the titles, Psalm, Hymn (or its equivalent) and Ode. 3. The “dative plural,” Mr. Killen informs us, is used “as the rendering of the
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Hebrew Neginoth, stringed instruments; and if, therefore, our brethren are right in their affirmation that these terms are taken from the Septuagint titles, we have Paul exhorting us to praise God with psalms, stringed instruments, and spiritual songs.” Now that is really ingenious. An Indian juggler could scarcely beat it. It so happens that in one instance—Ps. lx., Sept., lxi. of the Heb. and Eng.—The Hebrew word is not neginoth plural, but neginath singular. The Septuagint translators knew their own language at least better than to imagine that humnos ever meant a stringed instrument. Mr. Killen does not venture to assert that it ever did, though he may seem to insinuate it. But that is out of the question. Had he adduced the rendering as an instance of the incompetence, or free and easy method of the Alexandrine translators it would have been apposite. We have no very exalted opinion of the abilities of the Septuagint translator of the Psalms, but surely he was not so utterly void of sense as to confound a verbal composition with a stringed instrument, and give the name of the one as an exact rendering for the name of the other. Such confusion was reserved for an educated Belfast minister, 2,000 years afterwards. 4. The last argument is drawn from the word spiritual, and caps the climax of ‘absurdity.’ “This term implies that they were given by the Spirit; but as all the Psalms are inspired, there would be no sense in designating a particular class of them ‘spiritual’ songs.” Mr. Killen in his blindness did not see how hard he was hitting himself here. He had before given us to understand that all who spoke in church assemblies in apostolic times were inspired. At all events the psalms they used, though not David’s, were all inspired. There could be no sense then, according to his own showing, in designating a particular class of them by a term implying this. But the assumption is, that the adjective rendered spiritual was designed to qualify only the one noun. This we believe to be a mistake. There could be no reason for qualifying the one class thus more than the other two. The apostle surely did not mean to give tacit permission to Christians to sing profane or idolatrous hymns in their worship. The adjective in the original follows the whole three nouns, an unusual thing in Greek composition, and although by grammatical attraction it agrees in gender with the last of the three and nearest to it, was designed we believe to qualify all. The exhortation then was to sing “psalms and hymns and odes inspired.” The more these two passages are canvassed and criticized, the more thoroughly do we become convinced that the apostle was referring simply to the contents of the Psalter and nothing else, just as when we open our Hebrew Bible we find on the title page Torah, Nebiim, Ukethubim, i.e., The Law, The Prophets, and the (other) Writings. We have seen many attempts to define distinctively what are psalms, what
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hymns, and what spiritual songs or odes, but all such are vague, unsatisfactory, and unintelligible. By this simple explanation we are under no necessity to make such attempts, so far at least as these two passages are concerned. We turn to the titles in the Septuagint, and there they are. That is enough.
Some of the arguments employed by the apologists for hymns, if indeed we might not say all, prove too much. If they had any force, it would go to the exclusion of David’s Psalms from Christian praise altogether. If these are such Jewish things as they are sometimes represented, they ought not to be sung. Speaking of the Apocalypse, Mr. Killen says, “it continually describes the representatives of the Church as singing new songs, but never the Psalms of David”—as if some of the Psalms were not called within themselves new songs, which some would interpret to mean in some instances excellent songs, and what could excel the Psalms? The plain inference here is, “that the Psalms of David should ‘never’ be sung by Christians.” We were aware that, in point of fact, the introduction of hymns has the effect sooner or later of banishing the Psalms. There is a sort of consistency in the argument tending to the same result. It is in the same direction that we find Mr. Killen challenging Mr. Crawford to produce a Greek metrical version of the Psalms of David. There is, of course, no such thing, and the inference plainly insinuated is, that the Psalms were not sung by the early Christians at all. There is historic proof, however, of the reverse. The explanation is easy, and the inference the contrary of what he wishes. Hebrew poetry had neither rhyme nor measured feet. Yet the Psalms in Hebrew were chanted in the temple and the synagogue. What we read of as singing in ancient times would now be called chanting. Not even the Greeks and Romans had any idea of harmony. The customs of the synagogue passed over to the early Christian Church. But, says Mr. Killen of the Septuagint version of the Psalms, “it is unsuited even for chanting.” How? It requires not metre of any kind to have musical notes with words. In what metre are the anthems of which everybody knows something? What makes the Greek version more unsuited for chanting than the Hebrew original? In this Mr. K. shows that he knows not whereof he affirms, and speaks “without rhyme or reason.” The very fact that there was no early metrical version of the Psalms in Greek shows that the primitive Christians made a wide difference in their practice between the Psalms and those metrical hymns which began to be composed, at whatever time, in imitation of the method of their heathen neighbours.
By way of peroration Mr. Killen urges the numbers in favour of hymns, “with the insignificant exception of a few Covenanters in Scotland, Ireland, and America,” and tells his auditory that if the proposal to sing Psalms only were adopted, “instead of being the
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great Presbyterian Church of Ireland, they would just sink down into a little sect of narrow bigoted Covenanters, and all the great evangelical Churches of Christendom would be laughing at them for their narrowness and bigotry.” Now there never was a more transparent delusion than the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus principle. There is only one thing in which it is really applicable—All men are sinners. But when one is going astray it is always pleasant to do so in plenty of good company. Whence this bitterness against Covenanters? Have they ever sought to injure him in any way? When taken to task for it, he replied by a short letter in a daily paper, in which he sought to justify his abusive epithets. The tone of his letter, indeed, was such, while professing respect and even “esteem and love,” to leave the impression that he considered the “insignificant” Covenanters should regard themselves as rather honoured in being noticed by him at all, even in the way of abuse. Then he must have a fling at their Terms of Communion and Testimony. He “was rejoiced, when in New York, to hear the venerable Dr. Hodge proclaim the principle that no Church has the right to exclude from the Lord’s table (for it is not the Church table) any one whom Christ has received.” The allusion is to an expression in the 14th and 15th chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. That expression has been wholly misunderstood. The apostle exhorts, “Receive ye ONE ANOTHER, as Christ also received us.” That cannot be reception into Church membership. It is brotherly “reception”—i.e., treatment mutually on the part of those who are all members already. Nor can Christ’s reception be understood of the reception of individuals to saving favour, but of declaratory and class reception. Saintship is not the criterion of membership. It would be impossible for men to apply it, and the attempt to do so must tend to the destruction of discipline. These things we are prepared to show, but cannot enter on here. It is not by one Scriptural expression, and that misinterpreted, that such a question is to be decided. There are other Scriptures bearing upon it. Here is one from this same epistle—Rom. xvi. 17—“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them.”
Covenanters have not been altogether unused to such compliments as those of the Rev. T. Y. Killen, and we can assure him they are able to appreciate them at their worth. But next time he takes it into his head to pat them on the back and call them his much respected, highly esteemed, and dearly beloved friends, who are laughed at for narrowness and bigotry, we would suggest as a great improvement, that he translate his compliments into Greek, and put all his nouns in the dative plural. If that should make arrant nonsense, no matter; it will be all the more appropriate on that account, coming from such a quarter.