Harper Part Third
James Dodson
PART THIRD.
Ecclesiastico-Political Aspects of the Question.
It now remains for us to inquire how the question of instrumental music should be dealt with by churches in their organized capacity. Especially, our inquiry will relate to the manner in which a denomination of the Presbyterian order should deal with this matter.
Shall the use of an instrumental accompaniment be commanded? or, Shall it be simply permitted, each session being left to decide for the congregation under its care whether to admit or reject instruments? or, Shall it be prohibited?
Of course the answers given to these questions will turn largely on the divergent views held, not only as to the instrumental question in itself, but also touching the form of church government, and the proper terms of ecclesiastical communion. Occupying the ground that the church, organically considered, as well as individually, is under obligation to seek, receive, profess and maintain the truth as far as possible, as revealed in scripture, I shall attempt to answer briefly in the spirit of this principle, the questions proposed.
1. The church ought not to require the use of instruments unless God has
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required such use. That he has not, it has been one leading aim of the previous discussion to prove.
2. The church should not recommend the use of instrumental music in worship. Those, who think God has recommended the use of this music for the present dispensation, will of course answer differently.
3. The church ought not to permit the use of instruments unless the principle be accepted that God has left the matter to human option, which I think he has not.
4. If uncertain, whether God has sanctioned instrumental music in the worship of this dispensation, or not, the church should practically debar the use of it till the matter should be made clear, for any rite or ceremony of worship ought to have a positive divine authorization.
5. If satisfied that God has, by clear implication, forbidden or not sanctioned instrumental music in worship, the church should positively prohibit such music, and state the ground of the prohibition.
Different objections to the course indicated may be urged, and that even by persons who profess to be unfavorable personally to the use of instrumental music in worship. Perhaps most of these objections are embodied in the following proposition:—The unlawfulness of using instruments of music in worship in the present dispensation, is not so clear as to justify the absolute prohibition of such a mode of worship.
To this it may be answered:—
(1.) If the unlawfulness of using instruments of music in worship is shown to be even more probable than the opposite view, though not absolutely certain, it would be a duty to shun the use of them; for we ought to be careful in offering any sacrifice to God, that we have his sanction or approval of it. We must aim at offering in faith, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin; and nothing can be offered to God in faith, unless there be reasonable ground to believe that he will accept the offering. In order to be warrantable a form of worship must not come as an unaccredited adventurer, but have a positive introduction from him who alone can grant, in such a matter, authoritative credentials. Instruments of music must be excluded until a satisfactory warrant for the use of them can be produced. They must be shut out not merely when we are certain that they are wrong, but also when we are uncertain whether or not they are right. It is true, if God in his word has sanctioned the use of them for this dispensation, and we with that word before us, fail to discover his mind in this matter, we are culpable; but we shall certainly be culpable, and that in the form of a sin of presumption, whether or not he has sanctioned the use of instruments in his worship, if we so use them without being persuaded that in doing so we have his approval. Now, if it would be the duty of an individual to abstain from adopting a form of worship without satisfactory evidence that it has the sanction of God, it would be no less the duty of the church in like case to abstain, and if it is the duty of the church to abstain from such usage, it is the duty of the church to prohibit it.
(2.) The optional theory is that which most generally prevails among those who desire instrumental music, and these theorists do not profess to be bound in conscience to have this music in worship, in other words, do not think they inevitably commit a sin in leaving it out. Now, ought not those who feel so, to be willing, for the sake of brethren who object to instruments, to abstain from using them, and to be willing, moreover, that the church should prohibit the use of them, on at least the ground of expediency? Rather than cast a stumbling block in the way of a weak brother, Paul professed that he would be willing to abstain from meat while the world lasted. Would he not have been willing then to forego, for the sake of the weak, a preference for instrumental music in worship, if at least he was allowed to state the ground on which he surrendered his preference and further if he had the prospect that such weak brethren would soon be won, over to his side, or be removed by death, as is the confidence of the advocates of instru-
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mental music, touching the ultimate and even speedy prevalence of their views? But if an individual ought to restrict his liberty out of charity in such a case, ought not an organized company or a church to do so, that is agree to prohibit, at least on the ground of expediency, the doing of that which would be likely to offend a weak brother?
(3.) This is a practical question, which must be decided in some way. In the circumstances which in the present day surround us, a church which does not prohibit the use of instruments in worship sanctions it constructively. If there was a common understanding that no instruments of music should be employed in worship till a general consent to such use had been obtained, it might be less needful to lay an interdict on the use of them; but some, in their haste, will rush recklessly forward in the path of innovation, and hence, if confusion and strife would be prevented, a prohibitory policy must be adopted.
(4.) It may be found, on close inspection, that more can be said against the lawfulness of instrumental music in worship than against many other opinions and practices which most churches condemn, and if we begin to expunge from our “Directory for Worship” an article forbidding the use of instrumental music in worship, we may feel ourselves compelled, by a regard for consistency, to eliminate from our Standards not a few other provisions. Let conservative men, who may lend help in the effort to cancel the prohibitory rule touching instrumental music, take note that there are breakers ahead.
(5.) In a Presbyterian denomination, one conspicuous feature of whose church polity it is that each part is subject to the whole, and that whatever is the profession of one part is the profession of the entire body, to relegate to sessions the right and responsibility of deciding as to the admission or exclusion of instrumental music would be incongruous and suicidal. To do so would be to erect a kingdom within a kingdom, to sanction a system of conflicting local tests and creeds, and break up the unity of the body. Such a condition of matters would be anarchy, and, worse still, legalized anarchy. As an illustration of the working of such a policy, let the case of a minister be taken into account, who is conscientiously opposed to the use of instrumental music in worship. Such a man must be shut out from as many congregations of his own church as shall have in their worship the element to which he is in principle opposed. He cannot accept a call to any of those congregations, nay, can hardly, with a clear conscience, conduct the services of public worship in any of them. He is in good standing, yet he is virtually, on the ground of principle, excluded from a number of the congregations of the same church to which he belongs. Is there nothing preposterous and disorderly in such a state of matters? Still further, it is conceivable that all the ministers of a church having such a policy might become opposed to the use of instruments of music in worship, whereas all the sessions might be in favor of the practice, and might introduce it into the congregations of which they had the charge, respectively. Thus it is supposable that all the ministers might be practically shut out from accepting a call to any of the congregations of the church to which they belonged. This would be a legitimate fruit of the principle that such a matter as deciding in reference to the admission of instrumental music in worship be left to the local option of sessions. But the logical consequence being bad, the premises from which it properly flows must also be bad.
It has been stated, that not only may the use of instruments be forbidden, but the ground of the prohibition may be declared in the standards of the church. There might be circumstances in which it would be sufficient to shut the instruments out of worship practically, without explicitly asserting that they are unsanctioned by God. As a matter of fact, this has been hitherto the attitude maintained by most churches from whose services instrumental music has been excluded. But there may arise such a rage for this music that the church, in resisting it, shall be compelled to state the ground of its opposition. For, the
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question will be continually recurring, “Why do you debar the use of musical instruments in your services?” Opposition forces a faithful church to enlarge its explicit creed from age to age. Step by step, such a church is driven to assume a positive and decided attitude. Never since the world began, was there greater need than now, for a firm and explicit condemnation of instrumental music, as unwarranted by the word of God in the worship of New Testament times.
Having once taken such a positive ground, the church should not readily abandon it. A position calmly and solemnly taken, and only in a calm and solemn way should a position be taken on such a question, is not lightly to be relinquished, lest haply the sin of backsliding from just attainments should be added to the sin of not maintaining the truth. And at such a time as this when the very atmosphere seems to be tainted with the poison of ritualism, as well as of rationalism, we should be doubly jealous of any step backward, especially when the retrogression is in the direction manifestly of one of the dangerous currents of the day. The cautious steersman seeks to brace himself against the wind which is driving him too fast toward the rocky shore, even though that shore may be the very one for which he is bound.
The strong position indicated would not necessarily exclude from membership those who felt unable fully to assent to it. Dissenters, or at least persons feeling unable to assent, might state their mind to church courts, and yet agree to abstain from practical insubordination. In such a case they might be received, or, if already received, might remain as members in good standing. There are questions, such as that pertaining to the supreme divinity of Christ, respecting which the church should not evince such inclusiveness; but in relation to a point of less moment like that under consideration, such a mode as has been suggested of composing difficulties is allowable.