Robert Annan on Scriptural Psalmody and the Opposition to It

Robert Annan (AssociateReformed minister, 1742-1819) is the author of a 1787 commentary of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which was republished in 1855 by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and edited by David McDill (1790-1870). Annan was also a friend of Adam Rankin (1755-1827), author of one of the earliest published defenses of exclusive Psalmody in America. 

The section in Annan’s commentary on the WCF pertaining to abuses in worship (which includes profaning the Sabbath, introducing man-made holidays into the church, etc.) is very instructive. He held to exclusive psalmody in stated worship, in opposition to the growing call for the use of Isaac Watts’ hymns in worship, but did not object per se to the private composition and use of uninspired hymns outside of worship. I will quote from it briefly, along with McGill’s editorial comments. He also opposed the use of instrumental music in worship further on in this chapter of the commentary.

Annan: “Whenever we introduce human inventions into divine service, we are apt to lose a zeal for divine institutions, and become enamored with our own vanities. God must be worshiped in a diligent attendance on all his ordinances, and a sincere observance of them. The ordinary acts of the worship of God are, prayer, confession, and praise. ‘Praise waits for thee, God, in Zion,’ says the Psalmist, ‘unto thee shall the vow be performed. thou that art the hearer of prayer, all flesh shall come to thee. Iniquities, I must confess, do prevail against me; but as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away.’ — Psalm lxv. And we are not afraid to assert, and vindicate the propriety of using the psalms and songs of the Old Testament in the praises of God. In these days of prevailing infidelity and atheism, while many with ignorant boldness and absurd effrontery deny the inspiration of the Scriptures altogether, and earnestly attempt to carry us back into their beloved regions of heathen darkness; others, who have only a form of godliness without the power, have become very cool and indifferent about the Word of God, either in whole or in part. And hence arises a great temptation to true Christians, which, if not resisted, may diminish their zeal, love, and esteem for the Word of God. The churches of Christ in different ages and places, had, and still have peculiar temptations, from which great, and often unseen dangers threaten them. The present prevalence of deistical opinions, of Socinian, Arian, and Arminian errors, is a severe trial of the faith and patience of the saints. But blessed is he that keepeth his garments clean.

We are extremely sorry to have observed a growing disrelish in some Churches, for the psalms of David and other songs of Scripture. We could wish for a more finished poetical version of these, than any yet given to the Churches. And we do not mean to say, that hymns of human composition may not be lawfully used in any case whatsoever.*

But we think it is safest, generally to adhere to the Scriptural psalmody; and it is remarkable, that the most erroneous and deluded sectaries are fondest of uninspired hymns, which, doubtless they will take care to have composed, each party on its own peculiar scheme of principles. It is dangerous for the Church, in any important parts of her worship, to drop rule and order; and leave her members to follow each his own inclination. It has much grieved the hearts of tender Christians, to hear the psalms of David represented as in some instances, inconsistent with a Gospel spirit, and unfit for the New Testament dispensation; and such language, we fear, has greatly aided the cause of infidelity. It was wrong-headed wisdom to push forward the foaming torrent.

Christ came not to destroy the books of the prophets; among which prophets, David, Asaph and Ethan were eminent. If he had seen the psalmody of the Jewish Church unfit for the Gospel dispensation, it would have been easy with him, to have given his Church a new system: but we have no hint of this; nay, it is evident, that he and his apostles used the scriptural Psalms in the praises of God; and every one must allow, that the book of Psalms is remarkable for its New Testament style. It comes nearer to the simple evangelical spirit, and style of the New Testament, than most of the Old Testament books. The graces and experiences of God's children in all ages, are there most beautifully delineated; sometimes indeed typical language is introduced, as when it is said; ‘I will go to God's altar. He smote the rock and the waters gushed out, He rained down manna on them and gave them corn of heaven to eat.’ But the Redeemer never appears to us more in his glory, than when shadowed forth by these types, with the light of the New Testament shining on them. In this case, we have both the type and the antitype placed in our view, reflecting and augmenting the light of each other. This is a double light; and in this instance that word is fulfilled, ‘The light of the moon, or of the type, is like the light of the sun: and the light of the sun, that is, of the antitype, is like the light of seven days.’

If it be objected, that there are, in the Psalms, terrible predictions of God's judgments, on the enemies of his kingdom; it may be answered, so there are through all the New Testament. How often does Christ, the meek Lamb of God, pronounce terrible woes against his opposers? Paul says, ‘If we, or an angel from heaven, preach unto you any other Gospel, than that which we have preached, let him be accursed! If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be an Anathema maranatha.’ In fine, as in the providence of God, mercy and judgment are blended; so in his Word, mercy and justice, terror and consolation, majesty and meekness combine everywhere their rays. And is not this infinitely suitable to the constitution of human nature? There are two powerful springs of action in the human mind, hope and fear; Noah, being moved with fear and hope too, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. Moses, moved by fear and faith, kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them. God, therefore, adapts his Word to our rational nature. He addresses our hopes and fears; and they must be very ignorant of human nature, who suppose it can be moved or actuated in any other way. It is absurd to suppose, that anything of the Psalmist's personal resentment breathes in these predictions and threatenings. The very threatenings of God's Word, viewed in their connection with the Gospel, are evidences of his love. ‘As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, says Christ; be therefore zealous and repent.’ They are intended for our warning, and are subservient to the success of the Gospel.

One evil seldom comes alone; it is commonly followed by a gloomy train; as we fear, many have injured the matter of the Church's praise, by forsaking the fountain of living waters, and hewing out broken cisterns; so we are well convinced, that the manner of performing this solemn act of religious worship, is in some Churches greatly corrupted. What unprejudiced mind is not grieved, to see the solemn work of praising God, committed to a few light-headed boys and girls, about whose carriage, there is often little or no semblance of piety or seriousness, while the whole congregation, or nearly the whole, sit dumb? Who is not offended to see the worship of God turned into a mere piece of human art and carnal amusement, the singing of his praise performed with idle theatrical parade? It is certain, that this new mode has as effectually, perhaps more effectually, expelled the praises of God from the lips of far the greatest number in some Churches, than an act of Parliament for the purpose could have done. And it has produced the same effect in many families. It has expelled his praise from the dwellings even of the righteous. They say, they cannot sing; that is, they cannot sing in the fashionable mode, and therefore do not attempt it at all. And along with this the reading of the Scriptures, in family worship, is, in many families laid aside. We wish not to be rigorous or uncandid; but when we see Christians deceived through the subtleties and devices of Satan, turned aside from their duty, and cheated out of their privileges, why should we be silent? The use of the organ, and other instruments of music in the Jewish Church, was agreeable enough to a worldly sanctuary, and the pomp of ceremonial worship; but does not accord so well with the spiritual nature of the New Testament: yet we must grant, that in those Churches where it is retained, it does not work more, if as much, mischief, as the mode of which we speak: the organ leads the music, the people follow: but in a general way, where the new mode is practiced, the people are silent, and commit the whole service to a few delegates. Is not this to serve the Lord by proxy? And if men could be judged too, at the bar of God, by proxy, something might be said. Our sinful nature is very dexterous in inventing apologies for what is wrong. Many justify this evil by saying, in time the whole congregation will acquire the new mode, and consequently all join in the worship. Under this pretext, it has been introduced into several Churches in New England. But experience contradicts this; for in those Churches where it has been longest practiced, the evil seems rather to increase than decrease; the habit becomes more confirmed, and it is generally taken for granted, that the people have no business with the duty, that it belongs entirely and only to the chorister and his train.” (Exposition and Defense of the Westminster Assembly’s Confession of Faith, pp. 180-186.)

McDill adds (p. 182): “* ‘And we do not mean to say, that hymns of human composition, may not be lawfully used in any case whatsoever.’ Candor forbids that any construction should be put on this sentence, which would place it in conflict with the earnest protest which the writer enters against the use of 'uninspired hymns,' in the room of, or in preference to, the ‘inspired songs.’ The well-known views of Mr. Annan, as expressed in a letter to Rev. A. Rankin, of Lexington, Kentucky, and on other occasions, also forbid. We can state from memory how the language was understood and explained by some who had the best opportunity of knowing how the writer explained it, and wished it to be understood. You may read a pious poem in a devotional manner to edification, without treating the Word of God with neglect, provided you do not substitute it for the reading of the Scriptures, in the services of the sanctuary or in the ordinary stated worship of God in the family. Under the same restrictions, you may add the charms of music, and sing it, without displacing the inspired psalmody. But while the writer would forbear to say, that this may never be ‘lawfully’ done, he still thinks it good to administer a caution against it, as not entirely safe.”

The letter to which McGill refers was written in 1785, and had been republished in 1854 in The Evangelical Repository. A portion of what Annan had to say about the principles at stake in the psalmody question that was convulsing the Presbyterian church at that time is reproduced here. (The full letter and the full commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith can be found at Log College Press here.)

Annan to Rankin: “I cannot help ranking the present opposition to the pure scriptural Psalmody in the same class with Deism, Socinianism, Arianism, Arminianism, Universal Salvation, Antinomianism, and that it is a trial of the faith and patience of the saints. May the Lord enable us to stand fast, and to keep clean garments. Conscious of much unworthiness, and that I am less than the least of all saints, yet I should shudder to chime in with the prevailing defamation, not to say blaspheming of that part of the Word of God, the book of Psalms, which indeed falls equally, though indirectly, on the whole of the Old Testament, and from that rebounds with equal force on the New Testament; for without faith in the one, I cannot see how there can be a true and saving faith in the other….I pretend not to be wiser than others, much less to infallibility; but I must judge for myself, and I see no great danger of being too strongly attached to the Word of God, or any part of it, not even to what they call the old, obsolete Jewish Psalms. The danger is all on the other side. Often, too often, my carnal heart has started objections against the book of God; and had not the Lord made me frequently taste the goodness and sweetness of it, I might have been a Deist. And what good fruits have proceeded from those men's innovations and polishings? Now, who were the first offended with the scriptural Psalmody, and most forward to introduce the new? To my certain knowledge, in New York, (where it first began in the Presbyterian churches,) they were the carnal and worldly part of professors, who could find no spiritual delight in any part of Divine worship. And have their attempts been blessed? Have conversions been promoted? Have saints been more edified, united, and sanctified, by their improvements? Is the worship of God more spiritual, heavenly, and holy? Let the fruits declare it.”

Insights Into the Olney Hymns

George M. Ella, William Cowper: Poet of Paradise, pp. 193-195:

The use of hymns in worship

There were still many Evangelicals in the eighteenth century, however, who not only did not approve of using artistic musical measures in worship, but saw little point in using man-made hymns at all. William Romaine (1714-1795), for instance, a man with great backing amongst Evangelicals, saw hymn-singing as a substitute for true worship and a grave departure from the scriptural norm. Wherever there was a lack of 'vital religion', he thought, people left off praying, singing the Psalms and hearing the Word and descended into singing [Isaac] Watts' 'flights of fancy', along with other flippant pastimes. The words of man had become more important to a backsliding church than the Word of God. Romaine thus argued that sung worship dropped to the level of entertainment when hymns were used. He was especially against church choirs who 'sing to be admired for their fine voices' and force the congregation into passivity. To counteract this trend Romaine published his own collection of biblical Psalms to be sung and provided each psalm with a short introduction and devotional application.

Cowper's and [John] Newton's hymn compositions were an attempt to carry the view of church worship fostered by Romaine further than Romaine was prepared to go. Rather than merely supplying their congregation with the Psalms of David with an introduction and commentary, as did Romaine, the Olney friends strove to provide their parishioners with sermon texts from all parts of the Bible in verse form. Romaine compiled his psalm-book to be used in the sung liturgy, whereas Cowper and Newton wrote their hymns for personal edification and instruction rather than for the more formal gathered church worshi

Neither author planned originally to have his hymns sung. Cowper's earlier hymns were composed as poems and Newton's diary entries over a period of years show that his hymns were written for exposition only. Singing hymns is rarely mentioned by Cowper and Newton except at their homes in small devotional circles and in cottage meetings. Indeed, even when the two friends do refer to singing, they often use the word in the old classical sense of reciting.5

Indeed if John Newton and William Cowper were to take part in many a late twentieth-century evangelical Sunday service, the main difference they would notice and, indeed, be shocked at, would be the vast percentage of time devoted to chorus and hymn-singing and musical interludes and the relatively short amount of time taken up by the sermon and spoken exhortations. It would be no use shaking one's head at the two friends' amazement and telling them that 'Times have changed,' and for 'times', in this sense, have not changed in any way. All these Sunday worship 'trimmings' were coming into vogue in the middle of the eighteenth century amongst certain religious groups and, although both Newton and Cowper were fond of singing, and were such good hymn-writers that their hymns are still sung all over the world today, they had an entirely different view of what a hymn was and how a hymn should be sung. Newton criticized the misuse of music and singing in church services in numerous sermons and this topic was often the subject under discussion in the two friends' weekly correspondence with each other when Newton left Olney.

Cowper and Newton were particularly against singing hymns in the main Sunday services as the unconverted present could not possibly join in. They argued that only the redeemed could partake in joint worship. If people sang of Christ's redemption who had not experienced it, what futile bluff! If the congregation sang of God's wrath to unsaved sinners and did not believe it, what folly!

Their chief criticism, however, was of the music rather than the texts. This is one reason why the Olney Hymns were published without any music or any instrumentalization. Up to the latter part of the seventeenth century there was no instrumental accompaniment in church services apart from the larger cathedrals, which had been highly influenced by German court music. There was no organ in the Olney Church and Newton would not have one. When Newton left for a parish in London, some Olney citizens campaigned to have an organ installed in the parish church. They approached Cowper for assistance in their venture, thinking that a hymn-writer would be the very man to head a campaign for an organ. Cowper told them clearly and unmistakably that he would have nothing to do with such folly.

He had already playfully poured scorn on the modern jingle-jangles of church music used with the new versions of the Psalms in an essay in The Connoisseur. In this article he was also probably taking a dig at his cousin Martin Madan and John Wesley, who were responsible for introducing some of these 'new-fashioned' tunes such as Winchester New into church services.

The good old practice of psalm-singing is, indeed, wonderfully improved in many country churches since the days of Sternhold and Hopkins; and there is scarce a parish-clerk, who has so little taste as not to pick his staves out of the New Version. This has occasioned great complaints in some places, where the clerk has been forced to bawl by himself because the rest of the congregation cannot find the psalm at the end of their prayer-books; while others are highly disgusted at the innovation, and stick as obstinately to the Old Version as to the Old Stile. The tunes themselves have also been new-set to jiggish measures; and the sober drawl, which used to accompany the two first staves of the hundredth psalm with the gloria partri, is now split into as many quavers as an Italian air. For this purpose there is in every county an itinerant band of vocal musicians, who make it their business to go round to all the churches in their turns, and, after a prelude with a pitchpipe, astonish the audience with hymns set to the new Winchester measure and anthems of their own composing. 

It might be argued that Cowper wrote the above as an unconverted man and he would have changed his mind as a Christian taking part in communal worship. This is not the case at all. In his poem 'Table Talk', published in 1782, Cowper claims that one simple psalm of Sternhold and Hopkins is better than all the endeavours of later, wittier, more skilled and more polished versifiers.

5. Thus Cowper starts his longest poem, Task, with the words 'I sing the Sofa'.

William Cowper, "Table Talk," in The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper,  p. 24:

A.  Hail, Sternhold, then! and, Hopkins, hail!—
                B.  Amen.
If flattery, folly, lust, employ the pen;
If acrimony, slander, and abuse,
Give it a charge to blacken and traduce;
Though Butler’s wit, Pope’s numbers, Prior’s ease,
With all that fancy can invent to please,
Adorn the polish’d periods as they fall,
One madrigal of theirs is worth them all.
        A.  ‘Twould thin the ranks of the poetic tribe,
To dash the pen through all that you proscribe.
        B.  No matter—we could shift when they were not;
And should, no doubt, if they were all forgot.

Architect of Orthodoxy

Robert Lewis Dabney, besides being a famous Southern Presbyterian theologian, was, among other things, both an architect and an opponent of musical instruments in worship. These features combined to form churches that were built to keep organs out.

While serving as pastor of Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church in Fishersville, Virginia (1847-1853), Dabney authored an 1849 letter to the Watchman and Observer of Richmond, Va. submitted under the pseudonym of Chorepiscopus on the subject of "Organs." (In the July 1889 Presbyterian Quarterly, he also reviewed favorably John L. Girardeau's treatise contra Instrumental Music in Public Worship.)

In 1850, he designed the construction of the present Tinkling Spring church building in the Greek Revival style. Calder Loth of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources wrote of Tinkling Spring (The Virginia Landmarks Register, p. 55):

The present building, the third to serve its worshipers, was designed and built under the direction of its incumbent minister, Robert Lewis Dabney, who was the architect of several churches in the state. Dabney described his design, executed in 1850, as "the plainest Doric denuded of all ornaments." The chaste building, distinguished by its portico in antis, is similar to the chapel Dabney designed for Hampden-Sydney College. Its no-nonsense character appealed to Calvinist austerity and influenced the architecture of a number of Virginia's Presbyterian churches.

The Museum at Tinkling Spring notes, however:

Robert Dabney ardently opposed musical instruments, so not until 1869 did the session vote to permit the purchase of a "Cabinet Organ or Carmonium" and only after a close congregational meeting that saw 49 members vote in favor of musical instruments and 33 vote against such a move....A pipe organ became part of the church's musical offerings with the extensive building renovation under pastor J.O. Mann in 1916....In 1981 a new organ was installed. This was rebuilt and restored as part of the extensive church expansion in 2007 by the organist John Slechts.

Dabney went on design the construction of the Briery Presbyterian Church in Keysville, Va. in the Gothic Revival style circa 1855. He also designed the Farmville, Va. Presbyterian Church in the Greek Revival style around 1859.

Serving both on the faculty of Hampden-Sydney College and as pastor of the College Presbyterian Church from 1858 to 1874, Dabney designed the College Church also in the Greek Revival Style in 1860. The church website gives the following account of its historical design, noting in particular that its architect intentionally designed it to keep organs out, and the description reveals certain biases by its author against his views.

This is the third building to be used by the Presbyterian congregation at Hampden-Sydney. It was designed by the famous 19th century conservative theologian, Robert Lewis Dabney, whose hobby was dabbling in architecture. The structure itself was built of hand-made brick, molded and baked on the site, and the entire building was constructed in the space of the three summer months of 1860. There had been an earlier, box-like wooden church building in the vicinity of Hampden House, near the north gateway onto the campus, and this had served the congregation from the late 1770's until 1820. In that year the congregation purchased four acres of land at the present church site, and a small brick building was constructed "with ugly tudor arches," as an early chronicle editorially stated. That structure was located between the present building and Atkinson Avenue, and it faced south toward the cemetery.

Architect Dabney had earlier used this same design at the Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church near Waynesboro, Virginia, and also at the Farmville Presbyterian Church, except in those cases there was a center entrance, while at College Church there were two entrances, one for women and one for men. The stairways on either side of the porch led to the slave galleries. With the original pews the seating capacity was 400 downstairs, 200 upstairs. Until recent years this space was sufficient for seating the entire student body, and for over a century, most of the all-college events were traditionally held here. These included daily chapel, seasonal convocations and graduations. Dr. Dabney also designed for his family use, a nearby Italiante-style residence, and he was the architectural consultant for the American Gothic design of Briery Presbyterian Church near Keysville. However, he was probably adapting that exquisite design, as well as his own sophisticated Westmerton residence, from 19th Century pattern-books.

Dr. Dabney believed that a church building should display what one believed, and he therefore avoided any symbolic elements whatsoever, as this stern, somewhat Puritan-like, figure abhorred all high church elements as being ambiguous at best and idolatrous at worst. His stern Calvinism was based on the clear light of reason, and he therefore used plain, clear window panes, in the fashion of the New England meeting hourses. He especially disliked stained-glass windows, believing that they obscured God in mystery, whereas the Deity should be explained rationally and orally. He specifically detailed that there should be no "popish cross" on public display in this room, and since he was decidedly opposed to pipe organs he thought that he had designed the room in such a way that no such instrument could ever be installed. However, when a pipe organ was installed in 1920, in the generation following his death, its parts were painstakingly taken up the slave gallery steps, piece-by-piece, and assembled in the balcony. Dr. Dabney never used the word "sanctuary, which he associated with Episcopalians, and he consistently referred to this main room as an "auditorium," a word which underscored his concept of worship as a listening experience. He designed the over-built pulpit as a virtual throne for the preacher, and the plain, hard wall immediately behind the pulpit has meant that the acoustics in the building are unusually bright.

The only decorative features within his auditorium design are: a classical frame outlining the sounding wall behind the pulpit - again "framing the pulpit and preacher with prominence - and the recurring series of panels that are carved into the balcony. The latter may possibly represent the tablets of the law, as given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, since Dr. Dabney was big on the law, and somewhat small on matters of grace. Some believe that the entry doors with their tripartite mullions could possibly be taken as symbols of the Trinity, but if so they were probably unintentional. The left front door, incidentally, still shows the marks of a futile attempt by one of General Sheridan's troopers to break into the church - possibly to steal the Communion silver - when a large part of the Federal infantry and cavalry came through Hampden-Sydney on April 6 and 7, 1865.

Hymns of Their Own Making

Will-worship in song was one of the errors highlighted by Thomas Edwards in his Gangraena (1646). In Part I, he lists 176 errors of the Sectaries, including (p. 27):

138. That all singing of Psalmes, as Davids, or any other holy songs of Scripture, is unlawfull, and not to be joyned with.

139. That the singing which Christians should use, is that of Hymns and spirituall songs, framed by themselves, composed by their own gifts, and that upon speciall occasions, as deliverances, &c., sung in the Congregation by one of the Assembly, all the rest being silent.

In Part I, pp. 44-45, he speaks of the "Prelaticall faction and Court-partie [who] were great Innovatours, given to change, running from one opinion to another, being Arminians as well as Popish...as...putting down singing of Psalmes in some Churches, and having Hymnes." Likewise, "so our Sectaries are great Innovatours as changeable as the Moon," and have brought in "new practices," among which were "taking away of singing of Psalms, and pleading for hymnes of their own making". (See some discussion of this in Matthew Winzer, "Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land.") Edwards identifies a related error in Part III, p. 13:

36. That Organs are a sanctified adjunct in the service of God now under the Gospel, and that if any man in the Church had a gift of making Hymnes, he might bring them in to be sung with Organs or other Instruments of musick.

In Part II, pp. 11-12, Edwards gives an example of one such "hymn of their own making" (HT: Daniel Ritchie):

A HYMNE which some of the Antinomians do sing at their meetings instead of DAVID'S Psalms.

THe newes is good, Christ shed, his bloud,
our peace is made in Heaven;
And now he is gone up to his Throne,
all power to him is given.

2
Our glory is great, we are compleat
in Gods great love we stand,
We are on high exalted by
Christs victorious hand.

3
We once neer lost, to hell did post,
but God in mercy found us,
And now he hath taught us his path,
and with his mercy crown'd us.

4
Shall sin or hell Gods people quell,
or ever keep them under?
No, Christ hath died, sin purifide
and hell bands rent in sunder.

5
The bloud of Christ our great High Priest,
which once for us was shed,
Hath purg'd the blot, and cleans'd the spot
wherewith we were besmear'd.

6
A glorious thing, a wonder strong
that sin should not defile,
And those are all to Christ more dear
that once did seem so vile.

7
All sin we finde is out of minde,
the Saints are made divine
First in the love of God above
in glory they do shine.

8
None are so dear, nor yet so near,
with God they are made one,
Who now doth see them sure to be
as is his only Sonne.

9
Christ is our guide, we cannot slide,
nor never fall away;
Our state is sure, and must endure
though all things else decay.

10
Then let's be bold, our heads uphold,
the time is drawing nigh
When we shall raign, and eke remain
with God eternally.

11
Let all base fears, and needlesse cares
out of our souls remove,
With speed let's fly to God on high
and dwell with him above. Amen, Amen.

The Precentor's Dream

Nicholas Dickson, The Auld Scottish Precentor as Sketched in Anecdote and Story (1894), pp. 146-148:

The foregoing incident reminds us of another sick-room experience in the life of a precentor connected for many years with one of the churches in Glasgow. To the minister visiting him during convalescence, the precentor related the following remarkable dream.

"Man, Doctor, it was sic a real dream that I canna help thinkin' it wasna a dream after a', but something as real as if I seen and read it in the newspapers."

"A dream which was not all a dream," replied the Doctor, quoting Byron.

"Exactly. I thought I was takin' a wee bit daun'er round George Square ae lovely munelicht nicht. I was admirin' the mune in a' her grandeur, but a very singular sicht drew my attention frae her in the heavens an' made me wonder in my dream if I was really dreamin'. Frae east an' wast, frae north an' south, a great body o' men, bigger than the biggest giants I ever heard tell o', cam marchin' into the Square. Round an' round they marched, like the Israelites about Jericho, till the captain at their head roared out in a voice of thunder—Halt!

"In an instant, the giants halted like a weeldrilled regiment o' sodgers, an' waited for the word o' command. What that word was I canna tell ye, Doctor, but no sooner did they get it than the giant regiments a' marched back the way they had come, an' left the Square to the munelicht an' to me. No for lang, however, for back they all inarched wi' the maist extraordinar' bands at their head. What d'ye think, Doctor, the bands were playin' on?"

"Oh, big drums and that sort of thing."

"Not at a'; naething o' the kind, Doctor. Ilka bandsman had a big kirk, a real kirk, below his oxter, like a bagpipe, and the end o' the steeple in his mouth like the chanter—playin' and blawin' away like ten thousand Hielandmen let lowse in Glasgow."

"And what tunes did they play?"

"That's weel asked, Doctor; ye may be sure that was the thing that interested me maist; for as ilka band passed me, I kent the kirk that was being played on, an' the tunes that were played were just the psalm-tunes the precentor o' that kirk sang best."

"A remarkable dream, Andrew," observed the Doctor, rising to go. "Which dream, however, is an allegory and foreshadows things that must shortly come to pass."

"An' what may they be, Doctor?"

"The introduction of instrumental music in our churches, the choirmaster surrounded by his choir, and an empty precentor's desk."

"Amen !" replied the old precentor. " As for me, I'm dune with the desk, an' for the organ an' the choir—they may be very fine. But I'll ne'er forget the auld precenting days wi' the swing o' the Auld Hunder on special occasions, an' Coleshill at the Sacrament."

Art and Music in Puritan Worship

Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, Appendix B, "Art and Music in Puritan Worship," pp. 268-272:

Macaulay has popularized a grave misrepresentation of the Puritans as fanatical Philistines, apostles of gloom, utterly antagonistic to the arts and music.
...
This charge would make all Puritans tone-deaf and colour-blind iconoclasts. Its untruth has been fully and finally rebutted Dr Percy Scholes in The Puritans and Music (1934).
...
The Puritan did not object to the arts as such: indeed, the Puritans numbered amongst their adherents such poets as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The typical attitude is that of John Cotton, who declares that whilst instrumental music is banned in the worship of the Church,

Nor do we forbid the private use of any instrument of musick there-withal.

The Puritans only objected to elaborate church music which did not edify the congregations and, indeed, the very complexities of such music made it impossible for the common people to sing the praises of God.
...
In conclusion, the Puritans must bear their share of the blame for the wholesale destruction of many beautiful monuments at the hands of such iconoclasts as William Dowsing. But their aim was not Philistinism. It might have been misguided, but it was nevertheless sincere. They thus hoped to uproot all idolatrous practices which God had not required in his worship. Their motto, to which they held inflexibly, was: 'Quod non jubet, vetat'. But if beauty was forced to abdicate from the churches, she was accorded a coronation in their homes. The Puritans objected to Sunday dancing, to the use of instrumental music in the worship of the Church, and to ecclesiastical representations of the Trinity and the Saints. But it is utterly untrue to affirm that therefore music, dancing and art were banished from the Commonwealth. Dancing was encouraged by Cromwell, celebrated by Milton in L'Allegro; it was an essential part of the education of Colonel Hutchinson's family, and it was at the height of the Puritan regime that Playford published his English Dancing Master (1651). As to the private encouragement of music, it will suffice to remember that 'Opera, so far as Britain is concerned, was actually an importation of Puritan times'. A group of people who produced Milton, and who popularized the Psalms, are unfairly described as Philistines. Privately they encouraged the arts and, if they objected to the use of the arts in the service of the Church, their conviction was not aesthetic but religious in basis. It was not that they disliked art, but that they loved religion more.

Tennis in Worship

Puritans in general were opposed to antiphonal or responsive reading and singing in public worship. This practice found in Anglican churches to which they objected they likened to, in the words of John Cotton, "Tennisse Plaie." Along with the use of organs in worship, and other ceremonial trappings, Puritans saw antiphonal or responsive reading and singing as a mark of confusion and not edification.

John Field in A View of Popish Abuses (1572) lists as his 13th Anglican abuse:

In all their order of service there is no edification, according to the rule of the Apostle, but confusion, they tosse the Psalmes in most places like tennice balles....As for organes and curious singing, thoughe they be proper to popishe dennes, I meane to Cathedral churches, yet some others also must have them. The queenes chappell, and these churches must be paternes and presidents to the people, of all superstitions.

A confession of faith written by Field while imprisoned at Newgate in December 4, 1572 includes:

Concerning singing of psalms, we allow of the people’s joining with one voice in plain tune, but not of tossing the psalms from one side to the other, with the intermingling of organs

The Puritan authors of A Request of all true Christians to the Honorable House of Parliament (1586) wrote :

That all Cathedral churches may be put down, where the service of God is greviously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing, and trowling of psalms from one side of the choir to another, with the squeaking of chauting choristers, disguised (as are all the rest) in white surplices; some in corner caps and filthy copes, imitating the fashion and manner of antichrist the pope, that man of sin and child of perdition, with his other rabble of miscreants and shavelings.

Increase Mather, A Brief Discourse Concerning the Unlawfulness of the Common Prayer Worship (1686) described Anglican worship services as consisting of:

broken Responds and shreds of Prayer which the Priests and People toss between them like Tennis Balls

Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, p. 68, explains the Puritan rationale:

Moreover, the responses of the people were stigmatized as 'vain repetitions' because of their reduplications. The Puritans frequently cited I Cor. xiv. 16 as a proof that only one person should speak at once, which appeared to them to veto congregational responses, with the single exception of the word Amen.[*]
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It was felt therefore that all responds or responsive reading ('the tossing to and fro of tennis balls') was prohibited by the Word of God.

[*] Further to the view that normally (excepting extraordinary vows, and apart from congregational singing, and the congregation's "amen" at the end of a ministerial prayer or sermon) only the minister should be speaking during public worship, see Thomas Cartwright, The Reply to the Answer of the Admonition, Chap. 2, 21st Division, Sec. 2, p. 109:

For God hath ordained the minister to this end, that, as in public meetings he only is the mouth of the Lord from him to the people, even so he ought to be the only the mouth of the people from them unto the Lord, and that all the people should attend to that which is said by the minister, and in the end both declare their consent to that which is said, and their hope that it should so be and come to pass which is prayed, by the word "Amen;" as St Paul declareth in the epistle to the Corinthians, and Justin Martyr sheweth to have been the custom of the churches in his time.

And also, William Gouge, The Sabbath's Sanctification, pp. 3-4:

Question 11. What duties are done by the people?
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(4.) Saying "amen" audibly to the blessing.
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As for an audible pronouncing of "amen," if the minds of them that pronounce it have been upon that which the minister uttered, and their hearts have given consent thereto, it compriseth altogether as much as the minister hath uttered. This is the only warrantable means for people to utter their minds in a congregation. It must, therefore, be uttered by everyone, altogether, so loud, as the minister may hear their consent, as well as they hear what he hath uttered in their name. For the one is as requisite as the other.

The History of Musical Instruments in American Churches

The question is sometimes asked, when were musical instruments first employed in American churches? Here are the results of some of my research in this area.

Bruce C. Daniels, Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England, p. 59:

[Thomas] Brattle, a devout Puritan and the treasurer of Harvard College, imported the first organ into New England in 1708; he played it in his home to the delight of many friends. At his death in 1713, Brattle willed the organ to the Brattle Square Church, the most liberal Congregational church in town [Boston, Massachusetts]. The church trustees faced a difficult choice -- one that Thomas Brattle must have anticipated -- and planned to force Puritans to rethink their position on the use of instruments in worship. Not surprisingly, the trustees compromised. "With all due respect," they wrote, "[we] do think it proper to use the same [the organ] in the public worship of God." But they were indeed respectful, not scandalized -- and they gave the organ to King's Chapel, one of the Anglican churches in Boston. Thus, through the good offices of a leading Puritan and of a Puritan board of church elders, organ music was introduced to religious worship. Brattle's remained the sole organ in New England for two decades, until an Anglican parish in Newport imported another in 1733. Shortly after, two more appeared in Boston, one each at the other two Anglican parishes, and then in rapid-fire succession a couple of dozen Anglican parishes elsewhere in Massachusetts and Connecticut bought and installed them. In the 1750s, organs began appearing among the household possessions of many merchants, dissenters and Congregationalists alike, and in 1770, the first Puritan church to allow one, the Congregational Church of Providence, installed an organ of two hundred pipes, a truly magnificent instrument for its time. Providence's Anglican church, piqued at being upstaged by the Congregationalists, immediately ordered one, which was installed the following year. The two Providence parishes engaged distinguished organists, Benjamin West being hired by the Congregationalists and Andrew Law by the Anglicans. The breakthrough became nearly complete when the Brattle Square Church, had refused the first organ in New England, bought one in 1790.15

15. Owen, "Eighteenth-Century Organs," 656, 677-681; Hoover, "Epilogue to Sacred Music," 738-39; Sinclair Hitchings, "The Musical Pursuits of William Price and Thomas Johnson," in Lambert, ed., Music in Colonial Massachusetts, vol. 2, 631-32; Joyce Ellen Mangler, "Early Music in Rhode Island Churches: Music in the First Congregational Church, Providence, 1770-1850," RIH, 17 (1958), 1-3; William Dinneen, "Early Music in Rhode Island Churches: Music in the First Baptist Church, Providence," RIH, 17 (1958), 33-38.

Julius Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787, pp. 35, 150:

Some churches which early took the controversial step of installing an organ were First Presbyterian Church of Alexandria, Virginia, in 1817; Independent Presbyterian of Savannah, Georgia, by the 1820's; and First Presbyterian of Rochester, New York, by 1830. Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston, South Carolina, went through a stormy controversy over using a choir and instruments -- highlighted by the padlocking of the cello by some conservatives -- before it finally secured an organ in 1856.[21]

It is worth noting that American Presbyterians preceded those in Scotland by a number of years in making this change in their common inherited pattern of church music. There was no successful introduction of an organ in Scottish Presbyterianism until 1860.[22]

[21] Daniel W. Hollis, Look to the Rock: One Hundred Ante-bellum Presbyterian Churches of the South (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1961), p. 129
[22] William D. Maxwell, A History of Worship in the Church of Scotland (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 167

John Price, Old Light on New Worship: Musical Instruments and The Worship of God, A Theological, Historical and Psychological Study, pp. 133-135:

The first Puritan church to have an organ was the First Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1770.[222]

[222] Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, ed., Encylopedia of the American Religious Experience, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988), Vol. 3, 1292.

Even among the Anglicans, who often had an organ, there were some who stood against its use into the late 1700s. Dr. Tho. Bradbury Chandler, a New England Episcopalian minister, had resisted an organ against the increasing pressure of his congregation. After his farewell sermon in 1785, realizing that the end of his life was near, he told his people, "that it would not be long before he was in his grave -- he knew that before his head was cold there, they would have an Organ -- and they might do as they pleased."[225]

In America, the Baptists were among the last to give way before the rising flood of the use of organs. David Benedict (1779-1874), a New England Baptist pastor and historian, states that the first organ in a Baptist church was about 1820 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

[225] Ezra Stiles, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), Vol. 3, 162.

The Scottish Presbyterian churches, founded by John Knox in the 16th century, maintained their no-instrumental convictions for well over three hundred years, nearly one hundred years longer than their brethren in England and America. It was not until the late 19th century that the organ began to enter the worship of the Scottish Reformed churches. The famous American revivalist team of Moody and Sankey seems to have been one means of eroding the convictions of these churches. In 1873, Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey began an evangelistic tour of the British Isles. Sankey sang solo gospel songs while accompanying himself with a portable organ.