Nevin Preliminary
James Dodson
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INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.
A REVIEW.
Instrumental Music: its Place in the Worship of God the Same under all Dispensations. By the Rev. HENRY WALLACE, Professor of Christian Ethics, Presbyterian College, Belfast. Belfast: C. Aitchison. London: James Nisbet & Co. Edinburgh: A. Elliott.
Instrumental Music: no Place for it in the Public Worship of God under the Gospel Dispensation. A Review of the preceding. By the Rev. WILLIAM DOBBIN, Minister of the Second Presbyterian Church, Anaghlone. Belfast: James Cleeland. 1872.
Christian Worship. Praise pure and perfect without Instrumental Music. A Review also of Professor Wallace’s Pamphlet. By the Rev. J. GARDINER ROBB, Minister of Clogher. Belfast: C. Aitchison; James Cleeland. 1872.
The Law of Liberty in Worship. A Lecture. By Rev. ANDREW CHARLES MURPHY, M.A., Londonderry. Belfast: C. Aitchison, &c., &c. 1873.
The largest section of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is now fairly launched into what promises to be a somewhat exciting controversy on this subject. We believe it to be of no small importance as affecting the purity and spirituality of Gospel ordinances, and that, in consequence, it cannot be too well ventilated, provided always that the controversy be conducted in a becoming spirit, of which we think there is no reason to complain as yet.
In common with many friends and admirers of Professor Wallace, we felt both surprised and grieved when we read a report of his speech on the subject at the meeting of the General Assembly in 1872—more surprised when we read his pamphlet—and a second perusal has not abated the feeling, but increased it. Every one who has
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any acquaintance with the Professor is prepared to expect that whatever may be spoken or written by him will give token of great ability, and there are not wanting some evidences of this in the present pamphlet; but we confess that, if we had nothing else by which to form a judgment, our estimate must be vastly lower than what it is. Arguments, no doubt, we have in it, physical and metaphysical, logical, analogical, and philological; but the strongest argument of all, to our apprehension, is the author’s name on the title-page. There is scarcely one of his leading statements that we would not see reason to dispute; some of them are so plainly and palpably wrong that we cannot conceive how, or by what process, one of his judgment and discrimination has been led to utter them; while one main principle that runs through and underlies the whole is decidedly non Protestant.
It is with pain we say these things. We will yield to no one in esteem and affectionate regard for Professor Wallace, but love to truth and the purity of worship constrains us. The very eminence of the man is a strong reason why he should be withstood to the face when he is to be blamed, because it gives the greater weight of influence to his utterances. Smaller men will repeat his fallacies, as though they were established verities which could not be gainsaid or refuted. Nor can we be properly charged as intermeddling in a quarrel which does not concern us. It does concern all who love the truth and peace too.
The replies which the Professor’s pamphlet has called forth are exceedingly creditable to their authors. While both Mr. Dobbin and Mr. Robb exhibit a consciousness that they have a most formidable adversary to contend with, they are fearless. And well they may be. Truth is mighty, and must ultimately prevail. We look upon either—though the manner of treatment is considerably different in the two—as containing the elements of a conclusive refutation. In the remarks we have to offer we purpose to pursue a somewhat independent course. We shall not scruple to touch upon some of the ground already gone over by them, as we desire to present our readers with a compendious view of the arguments as a whole—it were impossible, indeed, to avoid this altogether if we discuss the subject at all—while on some minor points of detail we shall exhibit some views of our own, where greater amplification may not only be allowable but required. One reviewer’s line of thought and argument may have a greater influence with one class of minds among readers, and another’s with another class.
The Professor is understood to be a recent convert to his present views. The zeal of new converts is proverbial, leading them, at least, to very strong, and sometimes very rash statements. At page 24 “the song with its musical accompaniment, vocal and instrumental,” is unhesitatingly presented to us as “the only kind of
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service of praise known to the Old Testament Church.” It would appear from this unqualified assertion that there never was a single instance known in the Old Testament Church of any one attempting to praise God without the help of an instrument! Afterwards, at page 28, there seems to be a sort of exception made in reference to the passover. “It is not to be assumed without evidence that instruments were not employed at the passover supper by the people assembled at Jerusalem. In every other service in which singing formed a part instruments were used; and the presumption, therefore, is that, when it was practicable, the passover songs would be sung to an instrument, as in the temple.” A curious statement all over. An exception has the effect of establishing a general rule. It is very questionable, it seems, whether those passover songs were really an exception, but, if they were, there is the usual effect—the rule is established, as regards other instances. “In every other service in which singing formed a part instruments were employed.” What is the proof of this historical fact? Why, Professor Wallace says it—that is all. “And the presumption, therefore, is.” Aye, verily, it is only presumption throughout. Then, are we to understand that the passover was observed by any within the precincts of the temple, unless, it might be, by a few families of priests in the comparative privacy of their cloisters? That the passover songs were ever sung to an instrumental accompaniment is what we do not believe. There is not a particle of evidence for it.
Not content with representing the use of instruments as allowable and warrantable in Christian worship, as a part of Christian liberty, our author would make it a matter of moral obligation, and actually dilates on this theme. Of the gift of music he says, page 30, “The conscious possession of this gift by the Church of God now obliges to its highest use;” and this highest use cannot be attained in its highest degree, according to his theory, without instruments. “This is a purely moral obligation, binding on us on the same grounds on which it was binding upon Adam in Paradise, and on believers before the Flood.”* “The exhortation of Paul” is so construed as to make it a positive injunction to employ instruments in praise, and their use, “after the due cultivation of the gift,” is pronounced to be not only “right” but “dutiful.” What is dutiful cannot be neglected or omitted without sin. It follows from this, inevitably, that every one of us who is not cultivating his natural gift, if he have it at all—every one who is not learning to play upon some musical instrument, if he can, and who is not introducing the instrument in the service of praise—is chargeable with a dereliction of duty, with a sin of omission, the guilt of such being sometimes
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* The idea of Adam playing on a musical instrument in Paradise is rather a novel one, but it is far from being the only outlandish idea suggested in the Professor’s pamphlet.
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quite as heinous as that of a sin of commission! It is true that we are very considerately and somewhat condescendingly informed (p. 37) that “there is no obligation upon the Christian Church to use either the instruments or the music, even if we knew them, which were employed in the temple service,” just as we are informed, with equal considerateness, that he who has not the natural gift is not bound to cultivate that which he has not. Perhaps the caveat was not unnecessary. But why not? If the argument were worth the paper it was written on, then the obligation must be taken to cover the excepted ground—the temple service being all arranged by one who acted under inspiration from on high, we are bound to find out, if we can, both the kind of instruments and the music that were employed in it, and to copy these to the minutest particular!
It is oftentimes a happy circumstance that those who take up a wrong position are led to indulge in rash and sweeping statements like those we have noticed—statements which might well be left to be their own refutation. Readers who might otherwise be led astray are thus put upon their guard, and induced to examine rigidly and sift every other utterance from the same source, however plausible it may be. And how hard it is for those who make sweeping assertions to avoid self-contradiction and preserve common consistency. From the same hand that penned “the song with its musical accompaniment, vocal and instrumental, the only kind of service of praise known to the Old Testament Church,” we have the following, page 27—“It is not to be presumed that instrumental music was cultivated to the same extent as vocal, so that in many tabernacles of the righteous, and in synagogues too, there may have been singing without the accompaniment of instruments, because in both the family and the synagogue it was a matter of perfect liberty, as there was no law upon the subject.”