Musical Instruments in Divine Worship XII.
James Dodson
Page 90
CHAPTER XII.
THE TIME NOT AUSPICIOUS FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF INSTRUMENTS.
We do not believe that, as compared with the past, the church has retrograded. We are not of those who are given to say, “What is the cause that the former times were better than these?” For they were not. In her outward condition it is perhaps true that the church was never more prosperous. In the application of her material resources, she has never been more generous. It is possible, however, that such a condition may exist in the church as the result of other causes than the simple manifestation of spiritual life. There may be a “multitude of sacrifices” and a fullness “of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts,” when “the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint.” The principle of reaction in the progress of human affairs exhibits itself in the church, perhaps, more manifestly than anywhere else. An ecclesiastical historian has said that a pure state of religion has scarcely been known, in any case, to continue longer than forty years. The truth of the statement is verified at least in the history of the Jewish church. Even when all the safeguards were thrown around the reformation wrought in David’s time, by the institution of the temple worship and by the establishment upon the throne of the wisest king that ever reigned, how soon did the spirit of true religion take her flight as evidenced in the close of Solomon’s reign, and the turning of the ten tribes to the idolatry of Jeroboam. In the whole history of that church, defection and reformation followed each other in such rapid succession that it became a history of reactions. The history of the church in New Testa-
Page 91
ment times has only been different in the long continuance of her corrupt state during the dark ages. It is remarkable how many and grievous were the corruptions that stole into the church under the very eyes of the apostles. Paul enunciated a principle in his address to the Ephesian elders which is general in its application: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, of your own selves, shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” Acts 20. A glance at two or three centuries of the beginning of the present dispensation shows how rapidly the church traveled toward the corruptions of Romanism, notwithstanding the persecutions to which she was subjected. It was only one hundred years after Luther’s Reformation until a second was rendered necessary to prevent the church from returning almost in bodily form to the old Romish corruptions, notwithstanding the influence of such lights as Calvin and Knox put forth to perfect that reformation and perpetuate it in its essential principles. Separated, as the church is now, from that Second Reformation, by nearly two centuries and a half, have we not reason to suspect that the church has lost much of its spirit and power? Are there not evidences of spiritual weakness in the church that should cause “trembling for the ark of God?” She has a larger mass in her membership than was ever at one time enrolled upon her books. That membership embraces not only the poor and the obscure, but very many of the most brilliant lights of human society in the circles of science, intellectual culture, wealth and political position. She has a ministry that in scholarly attainments and training for the preaching of the Gospel was never equalled in all the phases of her existence. In comparison with all this her power against the crying evils, with which she is in continual contact, seems to be very weakness. Never perhaps was there a sadder exhibition of the want of spiritual power than has been witnessed in
Page 92
our own land in her prostration before the villainous slave power. She is so interwoven in her membership, and her external interests with the great industrial corporations of the world, that she is unable to bear effective and hearty testimony against their many glaring violations of the divine law. She has so far identified herself with the characteristic forms and fashions of a progressive age, that it is boastfully intimated that the church can no more go back to her old principles and habits than can the world go back to her old modes of locomotion. That reformation which went backward for more than a thousand years to find the simple forms of divine appointment, with which to give expression to the renewed spiritual power of the church, is treated as almost insignificant in comparison with the boasted attainments of the present. The fathers, whose work and sufferings for the truth of Christ evinced so much of the presence and power of the Spirit of God, are charged with being zealous beyond their knowledge, and thus putting out of the church a precious institution of divine worship that by divine warrant belonged to her. The author, whom we have been noticing, occupies no less than six pages of his pamphlet with an odious comparison of these reformers with the Baptists, of England, in their condemnation of the ordinance of praise. We may safely defy him to show that in any reformation that ever occurred under the evident presence of the Spirit of God in ancient or modern times, the work was carried too far. Frequently it has come short of what was demanded by the clearest authority of the divine law. Notwithstanding the general unconsciousness of the fact usually attending a decline of the spiritual power of the church, there are many who are feeling and lamenting it. The evidence of the fact is often noticed in the reports of the various ecclesiastical bodies. The want of spiritual life in the church is frequently spoken of by ministerial brethren as the great discouragement with which they have to contend.
Page 93
The question occurs: How does this want of spiritual life manifest itself in reference to the worship of God? History inspired and uninspired furnishes but one answer—by discontent and restiveness under the simplicity of divine appointments in that worship. It is not pretended that an increase of spiritual power in the church to-day makes necessary an addition of means to give it expression, or that there is such a revival of spiritual life in the church as to lead to the discovery of an element of strength that has long been neglected. If there were manifestly pervading the church the evidence of the progress of a thorough reformation, carried forward by the Spirit of God, the movement for the introduction of instrumental music need be looked upon with less suspicion. The mode of its introduction, at least, would most surely not be that which has already transpired in the United Presbyterian Church. If it is so that instrumental music is an innovation, it comes in at a time and under such circumstances as give it the common characteristics of such institutions. There can be no doubt that the church needs more spiritual power—needs a renewal of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But will she likely obtain it by a distracting effort to secure the introduction of that with regard to the use of which its advocates generally profess themselves to be indifferent? Is it not most probable that the formality that is so manifest will be increased by the introduction of an additional element into the form of worship—that the want of spiritual life will be increased by the employment in her service of a thing without life? We cannot discern either in the employment of instruments or in the spirit with which they are advocated, the promise of that which is the great need of the church—an increase of spiritual power—a reformation that will exhibit itself in more fervent piety and godliness.