Nhac Hoa Tau, Nhac Khong Loi, Instrumental Music, Songs, Beats

Before the Westminster Assembly of Divines undertook the office of preparing a Directory of Worship, the Parliament had authoritatively adopted measures looking to the removal of organs, along with other remains of Popery, from the churches of England. On the 20th of May, 1644, the commissioners from Scotland wrote to the General Assembly of their church and made the following statement among others: “We cannot but admire 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 GREAT ORGANS AT PAUL’S AND PETER’S IN WESTMINSTER TAKEN DOWN (emphasis added), 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.”1 So thorough was the work of removing organs that the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” says that “at the Revolution most of the organs in England had been destroyed.”2

When, therefore, the Assembly addressed itself to the task of framing a Directory for Worship, it found itself confronted by a condition of the churches of Great Britain in which the singing of psalms without instrumental accompaniment almost universally prevailed. In prescribing, consequently, the singing of psalms without making any allusion to the restoration of instrumental music, it must, in all fairness, be construed to specify the simple singing of praise as a part of public worship. The question, moreover, is settled by the consideration that had any debate occurred as to the propriety of allowing the use of instrumental music, the Scottish commissioners would have vehemently and uncompromisingly opposed that measure. But Lightfoot, who was a member of the Assembly, in his “Journal of its Proceedings”3 tells us: “This morning we fell upon the Directory for singing of psalms; and, in a short time, we finished it.” He says that the only point upon which the Scottish commissioners had some discussion was the reading of the Psalms line by line.

GIRARDEAU, JOHN

Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church
“To sing the praises of God upon the harp and psaltery,” says Calvin, “unquestionably formed a part of the training of the law and of the service of God under that dispensation of shadows and figures; but they are not now to be used in public thanksgiving.”Calvin continues: “With respect to the tabret, harp, and psaltery, we have formerly observed, and will find it necessary afterwards to repeat the same remark, that the Levites, under the law, were justified in making use of instrumental music in the worship of God; it having been his will to train his people, while they were yet tender and like children, by such rudiments until the coming of Christ. But now, when the clear light of the gospel has dissipated the shadows of the law and taught us that God is to be served in a simpler form, it would be to act a foolish and mistaken part to imitate that which the prophet enjoined only upon those of his own time.” He further observes: “We are to remember that the worship of God was never understood to consist in such outward services, which were only necessary to help forward a people as yet weak and rude in knowledge in the spiritual worship of God. A difference is to be observed in this respect between his people under the Old and under the New Testament; for now that Christ has appeared, and the church has reached full age, it were only to bury the light of the gospel should we introduce the shadows of a departed dispensation. From this it appears that the Papists, as I shall have occasion to show elsewhere, in employing instrumental music cannot be said so much to imitate the practice of God’s ancient people as to ape it in a senseless and absurd manner, exhibiting a silly delight in that worship of the Old Testament which was figurative and terminated with the gospel.” Written in 1888, this book was highly praised by R.L. Dabney (in a review which we have bound together with this printing). Dabney notes “Dr. Girardeau has defended the old usage of our church with a moral courage, loyalty to truth, clearness of reasoning and wealth of learning which should make every true Presbyterian proud of him, whether he adopts his conclusions or not. The framework of his argument is this: it begins with that vital truth which no Presbyterian can discard without a square desertion of our principles. The man who contests this first premise had better set out at once for Rome: God is to be worshipped only in the ways appointed in His Word. Every act of public cultus not positively enjoined by Him is thereby forbidden. Christ and His apostles ordained the musical worship of the New Dispensation without any sort of musical instrument, enjoining only the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Hence such instruments are excluded from Christian worship. Such has been the creed of all churches, and in all ages, except for the Popish communion after it had reached the nadir of its corruption at the end of the thirteenth century, and of its prelatic imitators.” Arguments from Scripture, history and creedal standards are all considered, while objections are noted and countered. Given the present rejection of the regulative principle of worship in most Protestant quarters, this book is even more valuable today than when it was first written. It contains the best discussion of Biblical and Godly guidelines regarding worship in general, and the instrumental music question in particular, that has come to us out of the 19th century. Defending the Apostolic [and later Puritan and Reformed] position, against Popish innovations, Girardeau clearly lays down what God requires in the area of public worship. Public worship is a most important area of duty and privilege and Girardeau’s is the best book on the instrument question.

CALVIN, JOHN

Necessity of Reforming the Church (1544)
C.H. Spurgeon once said, “[t]he longer I live the clearer does it appear that John Calvin’s system is the nearest to perfection.” (cited in Christian History magazine, Vol. 5, No. 4). Credenda Agenda reviewed this book stating, “the relevance of Calvin’s book today is exceptional. Apart from the grace of God, the human heart never changes. Men have always loved external religion, and unless God saves them, they always will. But God demands heart religion… His writing is relevant because the church today is in dire need of a similar reformation and revival. Like Calvin, some few believers today see ‘the present condition of the Church… to be very miserable, and almost desperate.’ Our context is different in one key respect however. The church needing reformation in Calvin’s day was the tradition-encrusted church of Rome. Shortly after the Reformation, for those leaving Rome behind, two streams became apparent. One was the stream of classical Protestant orthodoxy, represented today by a handful of Gideons in their desktop publishing winevats. The other was the left wing of the Reformation – the anabaptist movement. In the early years, the anabaptists were suffering outsiders. But today the anabaptist church is the Establishment – an establishment governed by a chaos of traditions instead of biblical worship. Everywhere we look we see Christians approaching God with observances in worship which Calvin calls ‘the random offspring of their own brain.’” Though this work is not an elaborate systematic presentation of the foundations of Christianity, such as Calvin’s Institutes, it has still been correctly acknowledged as one of the most important documents of the Reformation. Calvin here pleads the cause dearest to his heart before an assembly perhaps the most august that Europe could have furnished in that day. It has been said that the animated style used by Calvin in this work would not lose by comparison with any thing in the celebrated “Dedication” prefixed to his Institutes. To this day, The Necessity of Reforming the Church remains a powerful weapon, both defensive and offensive, to fight the contemporary battle for Protestantism – the everlasting gospel of truth. Here, in our modern setting, we find the answers to many of the vexing questions which continue to agitate the Church.