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[Editorial Note: I have become increasingly more frustrated with the current status of the Church, especially as it pertains to the utilization of differing genres in the corporate worship service. My personal understanding of the matter leaves little room in my mind that we ought to be singing the word of God and not some man made "love tune" that is better suited for a camp-fire sing-a-long. Certainly these are my personal opinions and should not be construed as an attack or response to any particular church. The matter can be debated and I welcome it. Feel free to do so by utilizing the link at the bottom of this article. This series contains 14 articles that will be taken in order until completion. If interested in reading ahead you may do so at: http://members.aol.com/RSISBELL/psalms1.html -- W. Hill]

Chapter II: May Worship Ordinances Be Distinguished From One Another?

Mixing and Matching

A second objection frequently raised is that there is not sufficient distinction among the various actions of worship to justify restriction to an inspired text in one action, while leaving us with freedom to use our own words in another. Advocates of hymnody have often assumed that if we may draw upon our own words in prayer and preaching, then surely there is no prescribed text for worship song. By arguing that two worship actions serve a similar function, legitimacy is sought for assimilating the content and circumstances of one action to that of another.

This objection is given a large place in the majority report which the Committee on Song in the Public Worship of God presented to the fourteenth General Assembly of the OPC, in 1947. After the Committee's majority report was adopted by the OPC, the chairman of the Committee, Robert S. Marsden, presented to a wider public his justification for the production of a hymnal. "The committee bases its argument that the singing of songs other than the Psalms is authorized in Scripture, in accordance with the regulative principle, first of all, upon the analogy with prayer. Songs and prayers have a very close affinity in Scripture; some songs are prayers, and some prayers are songs. The Psalms themselves abound in prayers, and some of the Psalms are called prayers. But, it may be contended, singing is one part of worship; praying is quite another. It may be contended that while the Scripture does not restrict our praying to a set form of words, it does so restrict our singing. But are singing and praying two such distinct exercises of worship? It would appear that we are not warranted in making a sharp distinction between the word spoken and the word sung. Sometimes, in the Hebrew services, and, later, in the Christian church services, parts of the Bible were sung, and at other times they were read or recited. Sometimes prayers were spoken in an ordinary tone of voice, and at other times they probably were chanted or sung."(59)

The majority report rightly says that no fixed form of prayer is given to us in Scripture. "We are not limited in our prayers, for example, to the words of the prayer of Hannah, to the words of the prayers of David, as given in the Book of Psalms, or to the words of any other prayer given in the Scriptures - even to the words of the special rule which our Lord has provided for us."(60) Then the question is posed, whether the regulative principle prohibits us from taking such freedom with respect to the words used in other ordinances, such as worship song. The report endeavors to answer this question by requiring that Scripture "clearly and specifically prohibit our taking that freedom in connection with those other elements."(61)

The crux of the matter here is that when Scripture institutes a worship ordinance, it gives us the content and religiously-significant circumstances of that ordinance. The essence of the regulative principle is that the Bible is specific in providing us with a pattern of worship. We may not dissociate from a worship ordinance any of the content pertaining to it in the biblical prescription, nor may we attach to it a moral or religious circumstance when the Scriptures have not done so. As Murray writes in the minority report: "Because of this distinction we may not say that the offering of prayer and the singing of praise to God are the same thing and argue from the divine authorization we possess respecting the one to the authorization respecting the other. The question of the divine prescription regarding the songs that may be sung in the public worship of God must be answered, therefore, on the basis of the teaching of Scripture with respect to that specific element of worship."(62)

One religiously-significant circumstance which the Scriptures attach to the preaching of the Word is that the ordinance is not to be performed by women (I Cor. 14:34-37, I Tim. 2:11-12). But what pertains to one action in worship may be inappropriate with respect to another. The preaching of the Word and the singing of Psalms are both means of instruction, but they are distinct ordinances, and it would be improper to argue that since women may sing in the church, they may also preach. A distinction with respect to who may perform the act is an assertion of specificity in the biblical prescription for the ordinance.

Likewise, the reading of the Scriptures is to draw exclusively upon the canonical text; the biblical license to use our own words in prayer and preaching constitutes no justification for setting aside the canon in those worship ordinances for which a text has been prescribed. Writes OPC elder Michael Bushell, "Simply because two particular acts or elements of worship have a number of functional similarities, it does not follow that they are covered under a single biblical warrant. Nadab and Abihu [Lev. 10:1-2] may well have argued that their offering, by virtue of its close functional relationship to other rites of a similar nature, had a divine warrant."(63)

The prohibition against taking the religiously-significant circumstances of one ordinance and introducing them into another is found in the Bible's distinct authorization of each worship ordinance. The Word of God provides us with sufficient specificity that nothing of sacred significance is left to man's determination. Certainly this is the hermeneutic manifested in chapter XXI of the Westminster Confession, where the parts of worship are listed and discriminated, and in chapter I, paragraph vi, where we are told that any circumstances of worship left to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence may not be religious observances. But the method used by the majority report to avoid a prescribed text in worship song is to blur the distinction between two institutions of worship: "If the Scripture itself calls psalms prayer, may we not regard it as reasonable to think that the freedom of content granted in the one case is to be taken in the other also and not to be denied because of certain external or secondary points of difference?"(64)

What Marsden's objection overlooks is that the Bible makes a different provision with respect to worship song than it does for prayer and preaching. We are given only models for prayer (Matt. 6:9) and for preaching (Acts 2:14-40), together with the promise of the Holy Spirit's ongoing assistance in forming our prayers (Zech. 12:10, Rom. 8:26-27), and spiritual gifts for those in each generation who are commissioned to preach the Word (Eph. 4:7-14). If the majority report can say that "this freedom" to draw upon our own words "in relation to prayer is not regarded by the Scripture as incompatible with the regulative principle,"(65) the reason is that Scripture is not silent, but is specific enough to direct us to use our own words in prayer (Matt. 6:9, Phil. 4:6). But a canonical text is supplied for the reading of the Scriptures and for worship song.

The Argument from Analogy

It is worth noting that the OPC's current reprint of the Committee on Song reports, entitled Our Songs in God's Worship, is misleading in one important respect. The report of 1946 (in which the entire Committee concurred) and the majority report of 1947 are printed as one report. This obscures the fact that in 1946 the Committee seemed to arrive at unanimity in their definition of the regulative principle, and that most of the 1946 report was written by the men who composed the minority in 1947. The fact is that the majority report of 1947 does not commence until the middle of section III of the reprint, with the paragraph beginning "Although it is true that the Scripture teaches. " The three paragraphs at the end of section III in the reprint represent the majority's clarification in 1947 of what they understood about the specificity of biblical prescriptions, and their introduction of an argument from analogy.

The majority report of 1947 declares that the Scriptures indicate, by good and necessary consequence, what is appropriate respecting the content of worship song.(66) The report also pleads that "the Word of God makes provision for the exercise of a measure of liberty as regards the content of worship."(67) Apparently the majority use the expression "content" to indicate the message of song, and the reference to "liberty in the content of worship" is a claim that the Lord defines the use of our own words as appropriate in worship song, so long as the message continues to be that of Scripture. In order to substantiate this claim, an analogy with prayer is constructed: "In the absence of any specific statement in the Bible to the contrary, the freedom granted in the case of prayer is certainly to be regarded as obtaining also in the case of songs used in worship. "(68)

The first step in an argument from analogy is the assertion that Scripture is vague on such matters as a text, so that we must fall back on what might be suggested by a parallel with other ordinances. At the second step it is claimed that arguing from analogy is an appropriate method of deducing from Scripture a good and necessary consequence; this makes it appear that the argument is seeking to derive an answer from Scripture. But upon closer examination it will be seen that the argument is another relinquishment of the regulative principle.

The first step consists in a denial that Scripture says anything specific to the question; the consequence of this is that since nothing is prescribed, no alternatives are excluded. The second step proceeds on the basis of the Lutheran and Anglican principle of worship, when it is argued that unless Scripture expressly prohibits an appeal to parallels with other ordinances, such appeals are appropriate. Both steps are used to escape any restriction. The antipathy to the regulative principle is observed in the failure to reach any exclusive specification. What one reaches is an open door. But the essence of the regulative principle is that something specific is commanded, and all other things are thereby prohibited. The "usefulness" of an argument from analogy is that somewhere we can find a parallel in another ordinance which will allow us to escape a restriction; what one ends up with is a general permission, and no definite requirement. And that is precisely the Lutheran and Anglican rule.

Gillespie, one of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, observed: "How absurd a tenet is this, which holds that there is some particular worship of God allowed, and not commanded? What new light is this which makes all our divines to have been in the mist, who have acknowledged no worship of God, but that which God has commanded? Who ever heard of commanded and allowed worship?"(69)

The unbridled character of the argument from analogy becomes apparent when one considers the multitude of consequences which may be drawn, many of them in opposite directions. Under this guise, a biblical license to use our own words in prayer and preaching provides an analogy for worship song to follow; but just as surely, the Bible's requirement that a canonical text be employed for the reading of Scripture provides a parallel to song which leads to a different conclusion. Which alternative does one choose? The point is that the argument from analogy does not provide what the Westminster Confession (I.vi) calls a "necessary consequence" from Scripture; one is left open to all manner of speculative suggestions for correspondence, but no actual requirement. The defect in the argument is that Scripture does not require the consequences which are claimed; there is no single and inescapable conclusion which the argument necessitates. And because they are not necessary consequences from Scripture, they do not depend on God's Word, but on the suggestions of men. The majority report exhibits all of these flaws.

The authors of the Confession were well aware that speculative reasoning might pretend to be a good consequence deduced from Scripture. Gillespie insists upon the value of necessary consequences inferred from Scripture: "Other instances may be given, but these may suffice to prove that what doth by necessary consequence follow from the law must be understood to be commanded or forbidden in the text of Scripture."(70) But the second sentence of his discussion is a caution against presumed deductions. He writes that the assertion of necessary consequence "must neither be so far enlarged as to comprehend the erroneous reasonings and consequences from Scripture which this or that man, or this or that church, apprehend and believe to be strong and necessary consequences."(71)

As Rogers has observed, "The divines were quick to point out erroneous deductions from Scripture. The following incident related by Thomas Gataker offers an illustration of the Westminster Divines' problems with erroneous deductions made by the Antinomians."(72) Gataker (1574-1654) was a member of the drafting committee responsible for writing the Confession. In the spring of 1646, while the committee was at work, Gataker published the following account: "I remember to have visited sometime a religious Lady whom I found somewhat perplexed; the ground thereof arising from some conference that had newly passed between her and a grave Divine of great repute, but in some things warping a little the way that these men now run. Who questioning with her about her estate, upon delivery of such principles as she supposed to have good ground from God's Word for the trial of her faith and interest thereby in Christ, began to chide her, and told her that she went needlessly about the bush, when she had a nearer and readier way at hand.

"Then being demanded what course he would advise her to take, he told her she must thus reason, God will save sinners. But I am a sinner. Therefore God will save me. I told her she might with as good ground thus reason: God will damn sinners. But I am a sinner. Therefore God will damn me. And the conclusion, I doubt not, in this latter, however it follow from the premises, for twenty to one at least, will by woeful experience prove the truer of the twain."(73)

While Gataker could say that "a conclusion necessarily deduced from Scripture is a divine truth, as well as that [which] is expressly found in Scripture,"(74) Rogers cites a passage in which "Gataker accuses his opponent of drawing conclusions which are not based on God's Word at all, but only on his own reason. Gataker says: 'Let us see what stays and supports for men's souls this author himself, therein like the spider that weaves her web out of her own bowels, hath spun us, not out of God's Word but out of his own brains.' "(75)

Notes
(59) Robert S. Marsden, "Song in the Public Worship of God: A Study of Committee Reports," The Presbyterian Guardian 17, no. 5 (March 10, 1948): 72-73.
(60) "Report of the Committee on Song," p. 51.
(61) Ibid., p. 52.
(62) Murray, "Minority Report," p. 59.
(63) Michael Bushell, The Songs of Zion, 2nd ed. (Pittsburgh: Crown and Covenant Publications, 1993), p. 48.
(64) "Report of the Committee on Song," p. 52.
(65) Ibid.
(66) Ibid., pp. 55-56.
(67) Ibid., p. 51.
(68) Ibid., p. 52.
(69) Gillespie, English Popish Ceremonies, p. 258. Cf. Rutherfurd, Divine Right of Church Government, p. 118: "It is a vain and unwarrantable distinction to divide worship in essential, which hath God's particular approving will to be the warrant thereof, and worship accidental or arbitrary, which hath only God's general and permissive will, and hath man's will for its father." Rutherfurd discusses the distinction at length, pp. 118-24.
(70) Gillespie, Miscellany Questions (1649 edition), p. 243, or p. 102 in the 1844 edition. For the Westminster Assembly's use of necessary consequence, cf. John R. de Witt, Jus Divinum: The Westminster Assembly and the Divine Right of Church Government (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1969), p. 130. Important discussions of the role of necessary consequences in the interpretation of Scripture are found in James Bannerman, Inspiration: The Infallible Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1865), pp. 582-88, and Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, topic I, question XII ("The Use of Consequences") (Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1992-), 1:37-43. Cf. Owen, Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, in Works, 2:379; Owen, Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 3:147, in Works, 20:147; William Cunningham, Theological Lectures (London: James Nisbet and Company, 1878), pp. 457-58; James Bannerman, The Church of Christ (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1868), 2:409-13; Benjamin B. Warfield, Westminster Assembly, pp. 226-27; John Murray, Christian Baptism (Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980), p. 69; Edwards, Works, 2:94.
(71) Ibid., p. 238.
(72) Rogers, Scripture in the Westminster Confession, p. 334.
(73) Thomas Gataker, A Mistake or Misconstruction, Removed (London, 1646), pp. 26-27; quoted in Rogers, Scripture in the Westminster Confession, p. 335. Fortescue, Catalogue of the Pamphlets, 1:434, gives April 21, 1646 as the date either of the publication of Gataker's book, or of Thomason's purchase of it.
(74) Thomas Gataker, Shadowes without Substance, or Pretended New Lights (London, 1646), p. 82; quoted in Rogers, Scripture in the Westminster Confession, p. 334. Fortescue, Catalogue of the Pamphlets, 1:463, assigns the date September 11, 1646 to this volume by Gataker. The Westminster Assembly thanked the author, on September 14, for copies of his book presented to the members of the Assembly, as noted in Mitchell and Struthers, Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, p. 281.
(75) Rogers, Scripture in the Westminster Confession, p. 341, quoting Gataker, Mistake or Misconstruction, p. 32