AN ORGAN IN THE CHAPEL ROYAL.
James Dodson
The King, however, went on with his undertaking. “Upon the 19th August,” writes Calderwood (Cald., vol. vii. p. 277), “Mr William Cowper, Bishop of Galloway, Deane of the Chappell, preached. Then was playing of organs and singing of men and boys, both before and after sermon.” This must have been grossly offensive to those by whom psalms had been sung “after the Genevan fashion, all the congregation, men, women, and boys singing together” (Strype’s Memorials, Sept. 1559). “On the 25th of December (Calderwood, folio ed. 691), Mr William Cowper, Bishop of Galloway, preached as Dean of the Chappell Royal, when there was playing upon organs. So the Bishops
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practised novations before ever they were embraced by any General Assembly, and therefore ought to have been secluded from voting afterwards, and in that matter condignly censured.” “The Bishop of St Andrews preached in the Great Kirk of Edinburgh that day (Calderwood, Wodrow Society ed. vii. p. 288). Before he entered in his sermons he commendit the King for his care to maintain the purity of religion, and circumspection that nothing be brought into the Kirk but that which is indifferent of itself. He laboured to prove that festival days were observed with preaching and prayer not long after the apostles’ times. Mr William Cowper, Bishop of Galloway, preached as Deane of the Chappell Royal where the organs were played upon. Mr Robert Wallace, minister of Trauent, being somewhat diseased before, and hearing what the Bishop of St Andrews said, took the news heavilie to heart and said, ‘God, if my eyes were closed before I see the miserie that is to come,’ and while he was regretting to his wife Mr David Calderwood’s case, departed.”
The first of the above quotations, from Calderwood’s smaller History, shows that organs were then ranked among the “novations” so bitterly resented by the Church and people; for while the observance of Christmas Day is the immediate grievance, it is an aggravation of it that so notorious a breach of the purity of worship, which needs only to be mentioned to be condemned, as the use of organs, accompanies the keeping of the festival. The second may fairly be held to prove that the tolerating of things foolishly
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considered indifferent in themselves, such as the observance of saints’ days or the use of organs—a contention made by more modern innovators—was then repudiated and detested by Presbyterians.
The following year, 1618, the unlawful Assembly at Perth was held, and its five obnoxious articles forced on an unwilling people.
Regarding now all the movements in the affairs of the Church up to the point of the suppression of Presbyterianism by James and Charles, its constitutional basis and the Continental source of its doctrine and discipline under the supreme authority of the Word of God, on the one hand; on the other, the increasing efforts of James VI. and his successor to unite it with the Church of England, and the manner in which organs were introduced as a step in the process, it seems impossible to doubt that their employment—so far as it went—was essentially bound up with the attempts made to subvert the existing and established ecclesiastical order and worship. They appear, however, to have been very sparingly introduced, (“Hetherington,” vol. i. p. 259.) In 1631 orders were sent by Charles to erect them in cathedrals; but only in 1636, the Town Council of Edinburgh, giving tardy obedience to the order, despatched Dean Hannay to Durham to see the choir there, (Introduction by Sprott and Leishman to “Book of Common Order,”) so that he might superintend the putting up of an organ in St Giles. The organ, however, was erected in the Chapel-Royal of Holyrood, where the coronation of Charles
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was afterwards fixed to take place. On the existence of the hostile feeling against organs all are agreed. Principal Lee (“Church History,” vol. ii. p. 225), a high authority on the arts of the time, says, “The innovations which were dreaded at this time were the use of organs, liturgies, and ceremonies, to which the people entertained the strongest possible antipathy.” No special Act was then passed against them, it is true; but no Assembly, lawful or unlawful, had ever sanctioned them like some other innovations, and their prohibition was without doubt comprehended within every measure which had for its object the restoration of Presbyterian order and the suppression of innovations. They are treated by every Presbyterian writer who records the occurrences before 1638 as part and parcel of the revolutionary “novations” of Kings James and Charles, and their disuse as therefore of vital importance to the subsequent purity of the Church. After 1638 none were used. (Sprott and Leishman’s “Book of Common Order.” The editors belong to the innovating party, and exhibit decided leanings towards a restoration of Knox’s Service-Book).