Free
Church Presbyterianism, by Rev. James Begg, D.D.
Closing
Address: SPECIAL
DUTIES AND DANGERS OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
Part
10: (Dangers)
NEW STRUGGLE FOR
PURITY OF WORSHIP — INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
BUT
apart from questions of general doctrine or practice, it is very
evident that we are upon the eve of a new struggle, or rather an old
struggle revived, for which I hope our Church will be prepared, for it
is only another form of the Disruption contest, — a
struggle in regard
to purity in the worship of God. [Applause.]
A manifest apostasy on
this subject is evidently afoot in certain quarters.
A
new "pilgrimage
to Canterbury" — [laughter]
— has apparently commenced, the key-note of
which was sounded some time ago from the chair of the General Assembly
of the Established Church, although I for one rejoice that its progress
for the present is somewhat arrested. [Applause.]
The struggle now,
however, is a natural result of giving up high principles in the
Established Church at the time of the Disruption; for if I were
prepared to abandon the Word of God as my only rule, I do not see why I
should occupy a humble Puritan position after I have abandoned my
Puritan principles. Why not make the Church as attractive to human
nature as possible, if I am under no restraint from the Word of God?
Thus men have always naturally argued; and the new struggle may
probably yet take the very shape of the struggle of our ancestors, but,
let us hope, with a like result. Meantime, there are great principles
at
issue, which it is most important that our people, like our noble
ancestors of old, should thoroughly understand.
The
worship of God is
the most sacred thing with which His creatures have to do. It is more
sacred than the government of the Church, more sacred even than
Christian doctrine, for these are, in a sense, merely instrumental in
bringing us into proper relations to God; and if it is true in anything
whatever that God's will must be the only rule, it is especially true
of his own worship. In approaching an earthly sovereign the minutest
rules of the Court are rigidly enforced; and Jesus says, "In vain do
they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Of
unspiritual worship God says, "Who hath required this at your hands?"
Some
preliminary impressions, however, must here be brushed aside. It
is most natural that such blind creatures as we are should imagine that
what is pleasing to ourselves must necessarily be pleasing to God; and
hence have arisen gorgeous cathedrals, the splendid vestments of
priests, magnificent images and pictures to gratify the eyes, clouds of
incense for the nostrils, and peals of instrumental music for the ears.
As the gospel has died out, all this formalism and ritualism have come
in; and it is all part and parcel of the very same system of sensuous
worship, as opposed to spiritual. Yet no man with intelligence beyond
that of a Hottentot — [a
laugh] — can really suppose, on
serious
consideration, that the great Creator of all, the High and Holy One,
who fills immensity with His presence, and inhabits eternity, can be
influenced by such means and appliances as these. When the matter is
really pressed in the form of argument, this must be admitted. God
says, "My son, give me thine heart," and it is therefore only alleged
that the devotions of the worshippers are by this sensuous process
stimulated.
Will this allegation, any more than the
other, stand the
test of reason or experience? Has it not been often remarked, that just
in proportion to the gorgeousness of outward worship, the reality of
worship itself has dwindled and decayed? Man hates direct spiritual
contact with God, and these external additions have become the very
trees of the garden, amongst which he has hid himself, like
Adam, from
Jehovah's presence whilst with the outward magnificence and melting
pathos of so-called worship at Rome, where this sensuous system has
culminated, religion itself wholly disappears. One of our noblest poets
has said of that land of ecclesiastical splendour and the most
enchanting sacred music. —
"Far
to the right, where Appenine ascend,
Bright as the Summer,
Italy extends
But small the bliss that sense
alone bestows
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In
florid
beauty groves and fields appear;
Man is the only growth that
dwindles
here
Though grave, yet trifling, zealous, yet untrue,
And
even in
penance planing sins anew.
While low delights succeeding fast
behind,
In hateful meanness occupy the mind.
My soul!
turn from them, turn
thee, to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display." [Applause.]
It
is not the clime, however — [hear,
hear] — but the
Christian principle and the spiritual worship, that have made the
difference.
Lord Macaulay, in speaking of the
Puritans of England, —
those men of Britain who have left behind them the noblest monuments of
sanctified genius, and who undoubtedly founded civil and religious
liberty on both sides of the Atlantic, in short, the only real liberty
which exists in the world, — says,
"The Puritans rejected with contempt
the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the worship of
the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through
an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on His intolerable
brightness, and to commune with Him face to face. Hence originated
their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the
greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish when compared with
the boundless interval which separated the whole race from Him on whom
their own eyes were constantly fixed."
Look
on this
picture and on
that, and apply to this important question the maxim of Christ
himself, "By their Fruits ye shall know them."
The
truth is, the
boasted effect produced by instrumental music and other similar means,
in religion, is not upon the soul at all, but simply upon the nerves. [Laughter
and applause.] The nervous system of the most
wicked will
sometimes, we are told, be so affected at a theatre, that temporary
tears will be shed, whilst the soul remains hard and insensible as the
nether millstone. At a soldier's funeral, also, it has often been
remarked, that when the "Dead March in Saul" is played, all will appear
most grave and sombre; but when the body is buried, and the troops
return with a merry tune, all the gloom is given to the winds. Even so,
the boasted effect produced in the Church by instrumental music has no
more to do with true, spiritual, or Christian feeling than have the
contortions of a frog under a galvanic battery — [Laughter
and
applause] — whilst in speaking of the
simple and
noble worship of
loving hearts that God has touched, — not a dead
instrument, like the
praying machines of China, but an intelligent soul really worshipping
in lowly reverence before God, — we may well exclaim
with the poet, —
"Compared with this how poor religion's
pride,
In all the pomp of
method and of art
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's
every grace except the heart
The Pow'r incensed the pageant will
desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply in some
cottage far apart
May hear well pleased the language of the soul,
And
in His book of life the inmates poor enrol." [Applause.]
But even
although the state of the case were otherwise, the question still
remains, — What is the principle by which
the
worship of God should be
regulated in the New Testament Church? and on that subject
there cannot
be two opinions amongst honest Presbyterians. "God is a Spirit, and
they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." The
Confession of Faith says, — "The acceptable way of
worshipping the true
God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will,
that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices
of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation,
or in any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture." The Shorter
Catechism says, — "The second commandment forbiddeth
the worshipping of
God by images, or in any other way not appointed in His Word."
Has
instrumental music been so appointed in the New Testament Church? No
one acquainted with the subject will affirm this. Organs and other
instruments were used, indeed, in connection with the temple service,
and abolished along with that system, but had no connection with the
simple worship of the synagogue, upon which that of the Christian
Church was undoubtedly based. That worship was the same in substance as
ours. It consisted of prayer, singing the Psalms of David and of Asaph
the Seer, reading the Word of God, "explaining the sense, and causing
the people to understand the reading." In the New Testament, the temple
service being entirely abolished, we are commanded, in the worship of
God, to read the Word, preach, pray, and sing, but nothing more.
If we
are to go beyond this, we may as well re-introduce the whole Levitical
service, with its priests, vestments, incense, and sacrifices; and, in
point of fact, this is what the Church of Rome, which first, under the
New Testament, introduced instrumental music in worship, has done,
carrying out her principle consistently; the introduction of
instrumental music into the service of the Church being, however, one
of her very latest corruptions, dating as far down as nearly the
eighth century.
Men say, does not the Psalmist command us to praise the
Lord with organs? Yes, let them go on, "organs in the dance." They have
the same authority now for re-introducing dancing in the Church as for
the use of instrumental music.
But do not the Dissenters and
Presbyterians of other countries introduce instruments in Divine
worship? Some of them do; but our appeal is to God's Word, and not to
human example — [applause] — and in every case it is done by
Presbyterians, where done at all, in the teeth of their own principles,
and has tended to smite their Churches with atrophy, and to confuse and
destroy their testimony. [Continued applause.]
The Greek Church has
never worshipped by instruments; and the more thorough of the Reformers
all condemned instrumental music in the Church as a Popish corruption.
Even the homilies of the Church of England condemn it; and some of the
American Episcopalians are seeking to get rid of it. In the Homily
anent the "Place and Time of Prayer," it is said,
"They see the false
religions abandoned and the true restored, which seemeth an unsavoury
thing to their unsavoury taste; as may appear by this, that a woman
said to her neighbour, — Alas! Gossip, what shall we
now do at church,
since all the images are taken away, since all the godly sights we were
wont to have are gone, since we cannot hear the like piping, singing,
chanting, and playing upon the organs that we could before?"
To which
the answer is, —
"But, dearly beloved, we ought
greatly to rejoice and
give God thanks that our churches are delivered of all those things,
which displeased God so sore, and filthily defiled His holy house, and
His place of prayer; for the which He hath justly destroyed many
nations, according to the saying of St Paul, 'If any man defile the
temple of God, him will God destroy.'"
The Church of Scotland from the
first, whilst earnest for good vocal music, disallowed all instrumental
music, as not appointed by God in His worship. The assembled Puritans
of England, with the Hendersons, Rutherfords, and Gillespies,
representing the Church of Scotland at the Westminster Assembly, pulled
down the organs, as part of their great work. The following letter from
them to the Scotch General Assembly is the best declaration of the
principles which they held: —
"We cannot but admire," say they, "the
good hand of God in the great things done here already, particularly
that the covenant, the foundation of the whole work, is taken, prelacy
and the whole train thereof extirpated, the Service Book in many places
forsaken, plain and powerful preaching set up, many colleges in
Cambridge provided with such ministers as are most zealous of the best
Reformation, altars removed, the communion in some places given at the
table with sitting, the organs at Paul's and Peter's in Westminster
taken down images and many other monuments of idolatry defaced and
abolished the Chapel Royal at Whitehall purged and reformed, and all by
authority, in a quiet manner, at noon-day, without tumult."
The same
doctrine on the subject has existed and been acted upon till
now —
amongst the Scotch Presbyterians. Any attempt to proceed in an opposite
direction ought to excite our vigilance and alarm. Is this to be the
miserable end of the whole struggle which has made Scotland so famous,
and marked out our land as especially that of Bible
Christianity, — a
pitiful surrender of the whole principle hitherto at issue?
If organs
are allowed in our parish churches, this is a clear violation of the
Revolution settlement; and, being accomplished without the authority of
Parliament, rather serious questions will arise. Are the civil
authorities doing their duty in allowing this illegal procedure? Will
the people of Scotland be any longer bound to uphold an Establishment
where it is thus so essentially and illegally altered? [Applause.]
I
remember, when the organ was introduced into a parish church in
Glasgow, an opinion was given by high legal authority that it was
illegal. The organ was pulled down, the ministers who introduced it
soon left the city, and at the time there was a caricature of him, with
the organ on his back, and the words, "I'll gang nae mair to yon toon." [Laughter.]
I would like to see the matter terminated elsewhere on some
such thorough way as that.6 But, above all, our simple confidence must
again, as of old, be in the truth of God and the God of truth. Meantime
we must be cautious, and avoid the thoughtless introduction, for
example, of instruments of music, even into our congregational singing
classes, or in extra times of worship, as contrary to sound principle,
and tending to further change.
[Footnote
6: When the attempt was made to introduce an organ into St.
Andrew's Church, Glasgow, in 1806, intimation was immediately made of
this by the Lord Provost to the Presbytery. It is also said, "The Lord
Provost also laid before the Magistrates and Council a letter from the
Rev. Dr Ritchie, minister of St Andrew's Church, and a petition from a
number of respectable inhabitants who possess seats in that church,
requesting the permission of the Magistrates and council, as heritors,
to make such alterations in the seats behind the pulpit as may be
requisite for the introduction of an organ." The opinion of Mr Reddie,
then Town-Clerk, a friend of Lord Brougham, and one of the ablest
lawyers of his day, was then asked on the subject. He intimated that,
whilst personally not unfavourable to the change, it was neither in the
power of the minister nor magistrates to make it at their own hand,
although he reserves his opinion of how the case would stand in the
event of the sanction being obtained of the General Assembly in behalf
of the innovation.
The following are some sentences from this opinion:—
"In the petition, and in Dr Ritchie's letter, it seems to be hinted
that the Magistrates and Council have the power of granting or refusing
the present application merely on the ground of expediency or in
expediency as to the removal of the seats in the church. With me this
opinion has no weight, because I do not conceive it to be warranted by
the law of the land." "Of thepresent application, the Magistrates and Council have a right to judge in two characters, —
as representative heritors and as civil magistrates. As heritors they
have a legal right to insist that their patrimonial interests shall not
be impaired by the proposed measure. These patrimonial interests the
gentlemen of the Magistracy and Council might perhaps, on such an
occasion, be disposed to waive, were they heritors in their own
personal right. But the members of the Magistracy and Council are not
heritors in their own right. They are heritors merely as representing
the community of Glasgow; and to the interests of the community they
are bound, on this, as on all other occasions, to attend." "That there
is any express act of the Legislature prohibiting the use of organs in
our Established churches I am not aware. But that the introduction of
organs into our churches would be a material alteration and innovation
in our external mode of worship, there cannot be a doubt." "As civil
magistrates, you are legally bound to maintain our Constitution in
Church and State in its present condition; and by express statute you
are bound 'to take order that unity and peace are preserved in the
Church,'" "From the language of the petition, it seems to be supposed
that, were not the Magistrates and Council heritors of St. Andrew's
Church, the subscribers might, of their own authority, introduce an
organ. In this opinion I cannot coincide. To the happiness and glory of
this nation, every man may worship God in the manner he thinks fit. But
while unlimited toleration prevails in this country, we have at the
same time an ecclesiastical Establishment recognised by law. Under that
Establishment a certain mode of worship is, and has been for ages,
observed. And to that mode of worship, until altered by constitutional
authority, whatever Dissenters may do, the members of the Establishment
are bound to conform." How completely these sound principles of law and
reason have been thrown to the winds in the late anarchical proceedings
in the Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh, and elsewhere, no one requires to
be told. But if the matter is not set thoroughly right by the Church
courts, by removing the innovations which they have properly condemned,
the people of Scotland may find that they have an obvious way of
redress. They are no more bound to support a church with an organ and
Liturgy in it, than they are bound to pay for a Mosque; and if
difficulties arise on this subject, our ecclesiastical authorities may
now only thank themselves.]