Musical Instruments in Divine Worship I.
James Dodson
Chapter I—Page 7
Musical Instruments in Divine Worship.
CHAPTER I.
IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION.
The United Presbyterian Church has now thrust upon her the discussion of a question which in a very great degree affects the mode of divine worship. It cannot therefore be one of minor importance to the church at large, and to herself especially. It is a question which involves the proper interpretation and application of the second commandment—a moral principle applicable alike to all dispensations. The precept itself comes to us with a sanction higher than is attached to any other precept of the moral law: “The Lord thy God is a jealous God.” It is an expression of special concern for the preservation of his worship as he has prescribed it, and his holy indignation against anything in that worship that bears not upon its face the impress of divine authority. It indicates unmistakably the danger of pollution with an unholy touch. The sanction has been enforced with terrible emphasis in those periods of the history of the church that were epochs in her condition, and stand as an index, pointing to the necessity of the scrupulous observance of this principle in all ages, and warning every man and every church of the fearful consequences of its violation. This was the lesson taught in the first act of religious worship on record by Cain’s disregard of Divine appointment, and by the result in a punishment which he confessed was greater than he could bear. When the Levitical ceremonies were arranged, the tabernacle set up, Aaron and his sons consecrated, and the people assembled for the first time to offer formal worship according to the new order, the principle of divine appoint-
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ment was again sanctified by the sudden striking down of Nadab and Abihu in the presence of the vast assembly, by the divine hand, because of what would seem to have been a very small variation from the prescribed order. Closely connected with this was the fearful visitation upon Korah and his company for assuming the appointed prerogatives of Aaron—a visitation that needs specially to be considered in our day in reference to the question of ordination for the public ministration of gospel ordinances. Upon the eve of the introduction of the temple worship, when David presumed to remove the ark according to his own judgment of propriety, without reference to the due order prescribed by divine authority, Uzzah was stricken down in the presence of the great concourse of people. It was such a manifest visitation of divine indignation that David and the whole multitude seem to have been at once paralyzed, and what was undertaken under such apparently favorable auspices was abandoned at once. The transgression involved, among other things, an improper use of musical instruments, as we shall afterwards see.
At the outset of the New Testament dispensation there was another terrible visitation of the jealousy of the Lord, in the sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira. It was not now a question so much respecting the form as the spirit in which offerings were to be presented to the Lord. The judgment pointed to the false-hearted and hypocritical spirit in which the offering was made, and indicated the necessity of scrupulously observing both the form and the spirit of divine appointments—and particularly in a dispensation to be distinguished for its greater spirituality.
These examples, illustrating God’s jealousy of His own appointed worship, are as warning beacons, set up in the outset of the original observance of divine worship, and of every change that has been introduced into that worship till this day. They stand before us to-day with the same threatening aspect, assuring us that the innovator is
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not less guilty, though he escape the temporal judgments inflicted upon those whose examples are written for our warning. Anything, therefore, that God has appointed must be preserved just as He has made the appointment, until He change it. Instrumental music cannot, therefore, be put in the same category with tunes, the necessity of which is implied in the obligation to sing, nor with any of those things necessary in divine worship, which, being circumstances too minute for specification by particular precept, are summed up in the injunction, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” It has been the subject of special divine enactment, as tunes never were. The mode of rendering it and the persons by whom it was rendered, were as particularly determined by divine command in the worship of the temple as any other part of that worship. It has affected the life and power of the churches in which it has been adopted in too great a measure to be a matter of trivial import. The efforts of both the advocates and the opposers evince an agreement upon the question of the importance to be attached to its introduction and use. However the conscience of either party may be directed, we are bound in charity to admit that it is a question of conscientious conviction with both. The object, then, should be with all to investigate the question simply in the light of divine truth.