Nevin on the Law of Liberty
James Dodson
THE LAW OF LIBERTY IN WORSHIP.
The question just now is not so much, Is the use of instruments scriptural, lawful, expedient? but, Should it be permitted? Should it be left an open question, to be decided by each congregation for itself? Would not that be Independency? Some say, Yes; some No. We believe it would be, so far. But would it not be to open the door to strife? One prominent advocate of instruments in the Assembly debate of ’72, is reported to have deprecated this, and in a burst of enthusiasm to have exclaimed, ‘Perish the instruments’
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rather than encounter such a result. We have no doubt of his honesty and sincerity in this, and that there are others like-minded. But surely a moment’s reflection might have sufficed to show that the strife and the controversy exist already, and on a wider field than that of a single congregation. That was perhaps unavoidable, but let us consider what the inevitable consequence will be of authoritative permission, or even of a refusal to legislate on the subject at all, which in our estimation would amount to the same thing in effect. A few musical enthusiasts in a congregation get up an agitation for an instrument. By tact and perseverance they manage, after some time, to obtain a majority. Then, no matter how small or how factitious that majority may be, they proceed at once to carry out their design, regardless of the feelings, scruples, prejudices if you will, of the minority, no matter how respectable that minority may be for numbers, and piety, and no matter how much they may be aggrieved. This would be the practical operation of conceding this ‘plea for toleration,’ this pleading for what is called liberty of worship. It resolves itself in effect into a plea for the toleration of intolerance—for liberty being granted to tyrannical majorities to ride rough-shod over the conscientious feelings and convictions of fellow-members of the Church, and trample them under their feet. The action of the U. P. Synod of Scotland on the subject has already led to the resignation of one worthy minister.
The cry is for liberty. Driven from every other refuge, this is the last resort of the Instrumentalist. We also are for liberty, but let us understand the meaning of the term. It is not unbridled licence. It is freedom regulated by law. So much is admitted. But where and what is the law in this case? Is it a law enjoining the use of instruments on Christians? None such is pleaded for. Is it a law forbidding their use in worship? That is precisely what the Instrumentalist will not admit the existence of, though we hold it does exist, constructively. Is it, then, a law providing that we may have the instruments or not, as we choose? There is no such law, as every one knows. When the Instrumentalist, therefore, talks of a law of liberty in the case, he talks of that which is not, in his view of it. If he would understand his own position, it is not a law that he is pleading for, but the absence of law—not liberty, but lawlessness. One of them tells us—“The liberty wherewith Christ has made His people free is not a lawless thing: it is a law, a perfect law, the perfect law of liberty. It is a sacred deposit of the Spirit of God in the mind of man.” What confusion of thought and expression have we here? The liberty is a law—nay, the liberty is the perfect law of liberty! As to the ‘sacred deposit,’ were not the sentence we have quoted followed by something better, we should naturally enough take it for the Quaker doctrine of ‘the light within’—a doctrine which, in effect, makes every man’s
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‘inner consciousness,’ that is, his opinion, notion, whim, caprice, to be the ultimate standard of appeal to him. That is a doctrine into which, not only a large amount of modern sceptical speculation, but also a large amount of what is called ‘the religious thought’ of the age, resolves itself by necessary logical sequence. There is, however, a “perfect law of liberty.” That is found in “the Word of Christ.”
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free:
And all are slaves beside.
The example of Christ, and the approved example of His apostles, recorded in that Word, are of equal authority with express command or prohibition. They sang the inspired Psalms, nothing else—they never used instrumental accompaniment—in worship. We are at liberty to walk in their footsteps. We are not at liberty to deviate from that path, whether to the right hand or to the left. There is our law, and the observance of that law is true liberty. Men may take a liberty which is not granted by the rightful authority, but they can plead no law for that, nor is it true liberty. And we do not hesitate to say, that a Church, which, in such a solemn thing as the worship of God, sanctions, or connives at, and does not positively forbid, what Christ has not sanctioned, is wanting in fidelity to the trust committed to her, and in her allegiance to her Divine Head.