You know not what it is to be a man, if you know not that God hath made all the senses to be the inlets of objects, and so of holy pleasure into the soul. Would he have given us eyes, and ears, and appetites, and made his creatures sweet and beauteous, that all might either be sin or useless to us? No: all things are sanctified, and pure to the pure.[374] The sense is the natural way to the imagination, and that to the understanding; and he that will have no sensible and natural pleasure, shall have no spiritual pleasure: and he that will have none but sensitive pleasure, were better have none at all. It is therefore a foolish pretence of spirituality, to dream of acting without our senses, or avoiding those delights, which may and must be sanctified to us. Harmony and melody are so high a pleasure of the sense, that they are nearest to rational delights, if not participating of them, and exceedingly fitted to elevate the mind and affections unto God.
And as it is the very nature of true holiness, to be so suited to holy things, as that they may be our delight, and he is the genuine saint, and the best of christians, who most delighteth in God and holiness; so that is the best means to make us the best christians, which helpeth us best to these delights; and if any thing on earth be like to heaven, it is to have our delight in God. And therefore if any thing may make us heavenly, it is that which raiseth us to such delights. And therefore a choir of holy persons, melodiously singing the praises of Jehovah, are likest to the angelical society, Psal. cl.
[373] Luke xii. 17-19; xvi. 20-22.
[374] Rom. viii. 18, 32; Tit. i. 15; Rom. xiv. 20; 1 Cor. iii. 21; 2 Cor. iv. 15.
Quest. CXXVII. Is church music by organs or such instruments, lawful?[375]
Answ. I know that in the persecuted and poorer times of the church, none such were used (when they had not temples, nor always a fixed meeting place). And that the author of the Quest. et Resp. in Justin Martyr speaketh against it (which Perkins and others cite to that purpose). And I grant,
1. That as it is in the power of weak, diseased christians, to make many things unlawful to their brethren lest we be hurtful to them, and to deprive us of much, not only of our liberties but our helps; so in abundance of congregations, church music is made unlawful by accident, through their mistake. For it is unlawful (cæteris paribus) by an unnecessary thing to occasion divisions in the churches; but where one part judgeth church music unlawful, for another part to use it, would occasion divisions in the churches, and drive away the other part. Therefore I would wish church music to be no where set up, but where the congregation can accord in the use of it; or at least where they will not divide thereupon.
2. And I think it unlawful to use such strains of music as are light, or as the congregation cannot easily be brought to understand; much more on purpose to commit the whole work of singing to the choristers, and exclude the congregation. I am not willing to join in such a church where I shall be shut out of this noble work of praise.
3. But plain, intelligible church music, which occasioneth not divisions, but the church agreeth in, for my part I never doubted to be lawful. For, 1. God set it up long after Moses' ceremonial law, by David, Solomon, &c.
2. It is not an instituted ceremony merely, but a natural help to the mind's alacrity: and it is a duty and not a sin to use the helps of nature and lawful art, though not to institute sacraments, &c. of our own. As it is lawful to use the comfortable helps of spectacles in reading the Bible, so is it of music to exhilarate the soul towards God.[376]