THE SCRIPTURAL AND DIVINE RIGHT FOR USING MECHANICAL AS WELL AS VOCAL INSTRUMENTS IN THE WORSHIP OF GOD.

A DISCOURSE

BY

REV. THOMAS SMYTH, D. D.,

of Charleston, S. C.

Published in the Southern Presbyterian Review.

THE SCRIPTURAL AND DIVINE RIGHT FOR USING MECHANICAL AS WELL AS VOCAL INSTRUMENTS IN THE WORSHIP OF GOD.

Part I.-GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY, THE NATURE OF DIVINE WORSHIP, CHRISTIAN LIBERTY, AND PRESUMP

TIVE PROOF.

It would be well for those who "seek to expel from the house and worship of God all the lovers and devotees of Jubal, who was a descendant of that wicked one Cain," to consider that it is by no means improbable that the mystic words attributed to Jubal (see Gen. iv. 23,) may be a penitential song, to which he was led to adapt the pensive tones of the harp and the ORGAN, by the guiding providence of God's redeeming mercy; and that from the beginning, therefore, instrumental music, both mechanical and vocal, has been consecrated to God's worship in the aid of penitence and piety. (See Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Art. Jubal.) Certain it is, that such instruments as the harp and organ have been always regarded as sacredly associated with God's worship and the praises of his redeemed people, under every economy of the Church militant, and that they constitute an essential part of the symbolic minstrelsy of heaven.

"Music's language of the blest above;

No voice but Music can express
The joys that happy souls possess,

Nor in just rapture tell the wondrous powers of love."

And hence, among the attractive representations of heaven, it is written: "The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there (that is, in Zion). As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there." And thus the apostolic seer in his vision "beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain. . . . And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps. . . . And they sung a new song, saying," etc. "And I saw as it were a sea of glass, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses and the Lamb." "And I heard a voice from heaven, as

the voice of many waters, and as the voice of the great thunder; and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps; and they sang as it were a new song. . . . and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth."

We find, therefore, that among the very first arts given by God to man-when he sent him forth to inhabit and cultivate the earth, and had imparted to him, by divine communication, language and all that knowledge of natural history, science, and art, which was necessary for a state of incipient civilisation, which was undoubtedly the primeval condition of the human family (see Whatley's Lessons on Worship, ch. i., Political Economy, and elsewhere)-was not only the mechanical knowledge necessary for pastoral life, but also for its social and religious enjoyment. And hence among the few hints given us of this period, it was thought of sufficient importance to record (Gen. iv. 21) of Jubal-who was no more really wicked, though in a different form, than his apostate parents, Adam and Eve-that "he was the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ." In connexion with this, it is said, in verse 26, that "then began men to call on the name of the Lord," which cannot mean that, for the first time, they then began to worship God, (of which we have previous recordsee chapter iv.,) and must, therefore, imply some more perfect and developed form of worship; and this, the context leads us to believe, was the introduction of the harp and the organ as auxiliary helps in God's worship.

The term here employed to designate the organ has, says Prof. Bush, "the import of loveliness and delight, and the word translated 'call upon,' in ch. iv. 26, includes the whole worship of God-prayer and praise," and necessarily teaches that this worship was then revived, and more perfectly, publicly, and solemnly established. "In the Old Testament, the words, 'cal! on the name of the Lord,' always," says Prof. Bush, "means an act of solemn worship, and denote all the appropriate acts and exercises of the stated worship of God." In general confirmation of this interpretation, it is to be observed, as is remarked by Kitto, that the corruption of the race did not spread till near the time of the flood, and that when it did become general it contaminated not only the posterity of Cain, but the posterity of all the others except Seth. Oriental traditions trace the origin of fire and all the arts, including musical instruments, to the ministration of angels, and the glory of God, as exhibited in the providential introduction of invention, has given rise to able and most interesting treatises. Du Bartas, as well as Montgomery, has therefore celebrated the praise of God, whose goodness and wisdom were so richly manifested in

the invention of musical instruments as first introduced by Jubal. Du Bartas says of Jubal:

"Thereon he harps, and glad and fain some instrument would find
That in accord all discords might renew."

James Montgomery, in his "World Before the Flood," also renders homage to Jubal:

"Jubal, the prince of song, (in youth unknown,)
Retired to commune with his harp alone,
For still he nursed it like a secret thought,
Long cherished and to late perfection wrought;
And still with cunning hand and curious ear
Enriched, ennobled, and enlarged its sphere,
Till he had compassed in that magic round
A soul of harmony, a heaven of sound.
Thus music's empire in the soul began-

The first born poet ruled the first born man."

The word huggab, here translated organ, was derived from a word expressive of the sweetness of tones, and is again spoken of in Job xxi. 12, and probably in Dan. iii. 5, and in Ps. cl. 4, and Ps. lvii. 8. This was undoubtedly a wind instrument, composed of an indefinite number of pipes, from five to twentyfive, and is found in some ancient representations enclosed in a box-form, so as to give the original essential idea of the present perfected organ, which is called THE ORGAN just as the Bible is called THE BIBLE, to indicate that in comparison with all other organs or instruments of music, it is the most perfect, both as it is the most harmonious of all and the most ancient of all, and because it includes within itself the sounds of all other instruments.

"Music, the tender child of rudest times,
The gentle native of all lands and climes,
Who hymns alike man's cradle and his grave,
Lulls the low cot, or peals along the nave."

Let it be borne in mind that God has adapted man to music and music to man

"There is in soul a sympathy with sounds,

And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased;
Some chord in unison with what we hear

Is touched within us, and the heart replies."

"Our joys below, music can improve, and antedate the bliss above; and breathing divine, enchanting ravishment, can take the prisoned soul and lap it in elysium.' Let it also be borne in mind that as music was thus, by the constitution of man's nature and by God's gracious purposes towards him, made most essentially ministrant to his greatest happiness, so it is designed by Christ to sanctify this most sweet and powerful instrumentality to the services of redeemed humanity and of his Church militant here upon earth. In accomplishing our salvation, Christ, by his Spirit, works in, by, and through the constituent