Musical Instruments in Divine Worship VII.

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CHAPTER VII.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN THE PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION.

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It seems like a needless work to pursue the argument further. The house upon the sand must fall. But we are in search of light upon the question, and so proceed to notice more particularly some of the arguments that have been dwelt upon.

First. We return to what is commonly recognized by the advocates of instrumental music as the starting point in this discussion—the exercise of Miriam and the women at the Red Sea. The argument that employs this example may be briefly stated thus: Miriam and the women played and sang an accompaniment to the song of praise that was sung by Moses and the children of Israel. The service was spontaneous, and not in obedience to any formulated law or directory. It was so rendered as to indicate familiarity with such exercises on previous occasions. It was offered and accepted as religious worship. It existed in the Patriarchial dispensation, and was not a peculiarity of the Levitical system, though incorporated with it as sacrifice was, and therefore was not abrogated with it. We think this is all that is claimed for this example. We state it as clearly as we can, for the reason that in the pamphlet which we are noticing, it is made fundamental to the whole structure, in favor of instrumental music. To the argument thus stated we reply. First. There is not a particle of evidence that it was without a divine requirement. On the other hand, there is a moral certainty that it was per-

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formed by a direct and specific command. The greatest prophet of the Old Testament dispensation was present, for the very purpose of directing the people from the Lord, in reference to their whole duty. We are not told how much time elapsed after the passage of the Red Sea until this occasion occurred. It may have been one, two or five days. The song was not extemporaneous. It was one of inspiration, and put in such form by Moses that it could be sung at least by the leaders of the people. The song must have been rendered in that reverential, orderly and intelligent manner that become the worship of God on the most joyful occasion that had ever fallen within the experience of any people since the world began, or that any people could experience until the redemption of Christ was actually accomplished. We have no right to infer anything else than that the whole service was under the specific direction of Moses, as the lawgiver of Israel, and that Miriam and the women performed the part of the service in which they appear, just as it was assigned to them.

Second. The dance was an essential ingredient in the service in which instruments were used, and cannot by any course of reasoning, or any evidence yet obtained, be excluded. The writer of the pamphlet referred to endeavors to prove that there was no dancing on this occasion. The effort comes evidently from the consciousness that, if there was dancing, it must be accepted as having the same place in the example that the instruments have. If instrumentation on this occasion furnished a warrant for the use of instruments in the worship of the present dispensation, and that instrumentation was for the purpose of leading the dance, there is no escape from the conclusion that the dance has at least as emphatic a warrant in New Testament worship as has the instrumentation. The writer’s effort is to show by an array of authorities that “machol” (translated dance) is a musical instrument.

We need not trouble the reader with any examination,

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either of the authorities quoted by him or others not quoted. It is enough to say that the authorities he quotes are so generally against him that he breaks down under the effort, and confesses that he is “not disposed to contend strenuously for the position.” As the authorities to which he refers, whatever may be their view of “machol,” generally admit that Miriam and the women danced, and as the writer admits that “machol was an instrument associated among the Hebrews with dancing,” this feature of the occasion is left just where the mass of Biblical scholars have left it, as an established fact. Rather, however, than give up a position upon which the whole argument is based—a warrant for instrumental music in the Patriarchal dispensation,—he admits the necessary inference, that if the women did dance on that occasion, it furnishes a warrant for the dance in New Testament worship. “In any case,” says he, “it only warrants the exercise, but does not enjoin it. If any worshipper finds that dancing is conducive to spiritual edification, as the Shakers do, he can, under this interpretation, plead the conduct of Miriam in justification of its practice.” In other words, Miriam’s playing upon that occasion does assuredly furnish a warrant for instrumental music in New Testament worship. If she danced, it furnishes a warrant for dancing also in that worship!! We trust the brethren on that side of the question are not ready to assent to the position, even though the pamphlet has been so generally endorsed by them. If the question of dancing, as an act of worship in the present dispensation, be dependent for its warrant upon the fact of Miriam’s dancing, there is “but a step between” us and its realization.

Third. The service in which instrumental music was employed was performed exclusively by the women. This, like the dance, is an important feature in this exercise. It would, indeed, not be so noticeable as an essential ingredient in it, if we had not found it so

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recognized for hundreds of years afterward in the history of Israel. The custom, whether originating upon this occasion or not, was preserved at least until David’s time. The dance in celebration of Jepthah’s victory, was performed exclusively by females. Judg. xi., 30. [This appears to be an erroneous reference. The daughter’s coming out with timbrels and dances is Judg. xi. 34, while Judg. xi. 30 records Jephthah’s vow.] The same is true of the dance which celebrated the victory over the Philistines. 1st Sam. xviii, 6–7. “And the women came out of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy and with instruments of music. And the women answered, &c. This occasion was again exclusively a dance of the women. We have another instance, more significant, perhaps, than any other, of the nature of the exercise of Miriam, in Judg. xxi, 19–23, showing that the dancers were unmarried women—the daughters of Shiloh, i. e., who dwelt in Shiloh, or who were assembled there to perform this service. This dancing was observed at a yearly feast, and there is, in this fact, the evidence that, as a dance of young women, it was observed from year to year. Scott supposes that this yearly dance was at the feast of tabernacles. It was a feast of special joyfulness before the Lord.

Fourth. There was another element in this exercise that is mentioned as common to all these occasions—the procession. In every instance it is positively indicated. They are represented as in forward movement, as well as in the dance.

Fifth. A few words were used in connection with the playing and dancing. Miriam takes the opening expression in the song that had been sung by Moses and the children of Israel, accommodating it to those whom she addresses: “Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.” In the celebration of the victory over the Philistines the words are: “Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.” There is thus seen such common elements in all these examples as to show that it is the same institution wherever it had its origin, descending from Miriam to the

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time of David, and becoming established in the time of the Judges as an annual custom. Now, in the dancing of the daughters of Shiloh there is no mention made of instruments. In the dance the music might vary, according to the nature of the occasion. But the question occurs why the music was not mentioned. We answer, upon the very familiar principle that it was a dance in which the music is implied. When a dance is spoken of, the music may be mentioned or not. It is a necessity. The conclusion, then, to which we are led is that the exercise of Miriam and the women was simply a sacred dance, in the celebration of the great national victory, whose counterpart we have in the yearly dancing of the daughters of Shiloh, and of the women, celebrating the victory over the Philistines. Moses and the children of Israel—men and women—sang the song—sang it through. The efforts to find responsive singing in it are without any satisfactory results. The song closes with the 18th verse: “The Lord shall reign forever and ever.” The 19th verse is no part of the song, but a repetition of the fact upon which the song of triumph was based, intervening between the song and what follows. Then, Miriam and the women take their instruments and enter upon the procession and the dance, while she repeats the words at the opening of the song: “Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”

There was, therefore, no instrumental accompaniment whatever to the singing by Moses and the children of Israel. There is no place in the song itself for preludes or interludes or responses. It stands boldly out as a song of the congregation, delivered in the simple form of singing. It is said, however, that Miriam answered them—the men, as indicated by the masculine form of the Hebrew pronoun. But it is often used in the plural masculine form to denote a plural feminine, as in Ruth i, 22; Exod. i, 21; Zech. v, 10; S. S. vi, 8. The example in I. Samuel, xviii,

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7, confirms the idea that Miriam’s response was to the women. “The women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” The translators supply “one another,” but evidently give the sense. According to the above analysis of the passage, we find two things prominently set forth: First, Moses and the children of Israel, male and female, singing a song to the Lord without instrumental accompaniment; second, another exercise, distinct and separate, in which the women are exclusively employed, whose leading feature is the dance, and which inaugurates a custom or observance, continued in its leading features nearly five hundred years, until the time of David.

Let us now suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the song at the Red Sea was sung with instrumental accompaniment. As a warrant for the use of instruments in the present dispensation, it is admitted to be dependent altogether on the fact that the event occurred within the Patriarchal dispensation. Now, we affirm that it is not true that the mere fact of its being within the Patriarchal dispensation gives it the force of a sanction for New Testament worship. The Patriarchal and the Mosaic dispensations differed in two respects—first, in the form of government, and second, in the possession by the latter of an enlarged and perfected ritual of worship, which included that of the Patriarchal. In one aspect they were identical (and it is with this aspect that we have specially to do in this discussion)—that they foreshadowed a Savior to come. As it is the province of the New Testament dispensation to represent the Savior in his finished work, so it was the province of the Old Testament dispensation, both Patriarchal and Levitical, to foreshadow the coming of Christ and the nature of the work to be finished by Him. Hence, the modes of worship in each dispensation are respectively accommodated to these two aspects of redemption. Accompanying the promises and prophesies of the Old Testament

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dispensation were the substances prefiguring Christ in his work of redemption in all its aspects. Some of these were persons, as Melchizedek, Moses and David, and some were events, as the flood and Noah’s ark, the bondage, the deliverance, and the possession of Canaan. But the ritual of worship itself, traditional or written, from the offering of Abel down to the latest observance of the Passover by Christ and His Apostles, was replete with those substances in which the Savior, in the work of redemption, was presented to the expectant faith of the worshipper. Hence the sacrifice, the altar, circumcision and the passover, were in perfect accord with the nature of both the Patriarchal and the Levitical dispensations, but not with that of the dispensation following the actual completion of the work of Christ. There are acts of worship common to all dispensations, as expressive of the spiritual recognition of Christ as a present Savior. Of these, prayer stands most prominently in the record. But even this was not under the whole Old Testament dispensation formally in the name of Christ. “The way into the holiest was not yet made manifest,” and Christ was not yet seen as the intercessor at the right hand of God.

We cannot but wonder that the author of the pamphlet in question ventured upon the position, as fundamental to his whole argument that instrumental music, having been found within the Patriarchal dispensation, it necessarily remains unchanged. The Melchizedek Priesthood has passed away. Circumcision, the passover and the sacrifice have ceased. They were all instituted in the Patriarchal dispensation—passed over into the Levitical, and were abolished with it. The writer of the pamphlet is pleased to say “that circumcision, as we all believe, was merged into baptism.” Why could he not say that circumcision was abrogated, and another ordinance—that of baptism, was instituted in its place. This is the plain, blunt truth. He does not tell us what became of the passover—another

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Patriarchal institution. We need not tell him it has been abrogated. But it is a pity he did not tell us the fact and explain it. He admits that the institution of sacrifice passed away, and says, “they (the sacrifices) were offered only because God intimated that, for the time, they would answer the end!!” In other words, like circumcision, and the passover, and the Levitical ceremonies generally, they were for a temporary purpose. The two things, (sacrifice and instrumentation,) he affirms, are entirely dissimilar. So it is with circumcision and sacrifice. But, in one respect, they were similar. They were temporary, and ceased with the ceasing of the Old Testament dispensation. It is plain that an institution is not necessarily warranted in the present dispensation because it had its birth in the Patriarchal dispensation. One exception to this rule, in this case, is enough to overthrow the theory, and the author admits more than one. And here, it is due to the memory of the late Dr. John T. Pressly to vindicate him from the fallacious position in which this pamphlet would place him, in quoting from his work on “Baptism.” The Doctor is discussing the question—not as to the mode of an ordinance, but as to the proper subjects of that ordinance. His argument admits, and is predicated upon the principle, that circumcision—a Patriarchal institution—had been abrogated. He maintains that the body—the church—still continues to exist in her perpetual relation to God. That body is composed of believers and their children. “Infants are still members of the visible church, and entitled to the appointed sign of membership, whatever it may be, unless it can be made to appear that God, by a positive enactment, has excluded them.” If circumcision had continued to be the sign of admission to the visible church, there would have been no dispute; but it is because both parties admitted that it was abrogated, that the controversy has arisen, both as to the mode and the subjects. The Doctor admits that the mode of indicating the relation of believers

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and their children to the church has changed, while the relation continues, and is indicated by the institution of a new mode peculiar to the New Testament dispensation, which is baptism. This is the principle that the author of the pamphlet denies. If Dr. Pressly were living, he would be quick to resent such a representation of his “orthodoxy.” The author reasons as if infant baptism were an institution of the Patriarchal dispensation, and upon the same footing on which he tries to place his supposed warrant for instrumental music. He speaks of “the continued lawfulness of infant baptism,” and “the continued lawfulness of instrumental music” in the same paragraph, as if they had come down to us side by side, from the other side of the Red Sea. Has he forgotten his Catechism?

The true principle in reference to both the Patriarchal and the Levitical dispensations is, that whatever institution has in it essentially a moral principle abides through all dispensations—that it cannot die, cannot be abrogated. Its form of administration may be changed, but the moral principle gives it perpetual life. Such is the law of the ten commandments; such is the Sabbath; such is the principle of vows, prayer and praise; such is the relation of believers to Christ and His Church. It is not because these institutions existed within either the Patriarchal or the Levitical dispensation that they are applicable universally in all the ages. They have their perpetuity from another source. The Sabbath was once administered as a seventh day institution. It is now a first day observance. The whole moral law was once embodied in the Jewish code, and every precept of it was administered by peculiar sanctions that have now passed away with the Jewish system. Prayer once had the accompaniment of incense. It is not so now. Praise was once administered with the accompaniment of instrumental music, upon the same principle that prayer was accompanied with incense. But the form has changed; and all these changes were as obligatory when made as the institutions were when first appointed.

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As, therefore, it is plainly evident that institutions that have not in them essentially a moral principle to give them perpetuity, may be abrogated—and such has been the case with sacrifice, with circumcision and the passover, with the Melchizedek priesthood, and with the Patriarchal government itself, so far as applicable to the Church,—it follows that instrumental music may be abrogated. For it has no moral principle in itself to perpetuate it, having been once a mere accompaniment of praise, an ingredient in the form of its expression.

The substance of the argument from the example of Miriam is then,—First, that the exercise was clearly a dance by unmarried women, under the direction of Moses the Lawgiver, in the order of a procession, led by the use of appropriate instruments, and having no immediate and necessary connection with the singing of Moses and the children of Israel—that no reason can be given for a continued warrant for one feature of the exercise more than another. The fact that the other prominent features of this example, in addition to the use of instruments which were continued in Israel for almost five hundred years, are admitted by the advocates of instrumental music, generally, to have no force in the present dispensation, fixes upon them a manifest inconsistency which they cannot evade.

Second. Even if it were an instance of simple instrumental accompaniment to singing praise, it belonged to a dispensation that has been abrogated, and the mere fact of its having been instituted in that dispensation, no more proves the perpetuity of its warrant than it proves the perpetuity of the warrant for the sacrifice of animals, circumcision, the passover, and many other institutions of that dispensation that were temporary and had essentially the typical character.