The Puritan Principle of Worship
5
The Puritan Principle
of Worship
Expressed more precisely, the subject of the present study might be formulated as “The regulative principle of Reformed worship in the Puritan writers, and its application to the element of sung praise in worship.”
The importance of the regulative principle of worship for the origin and essential character of the Puritan movement appears from the following definition of Puritanism given by Prof. Horton Davies in his standard work on “The Worship of the English Puritans” (Chapter 1, p. l). “Puritanism is most accurately defined as the outlook that characterised the radical Protestant party in Queen Elizabeth’s day, who regarded the Reformation as incomplete and wished to model English church worship and government according to the Word of God.”
The application of this principle may be said to enjoy a certain primacy with respect to worship rather than to church government; yet in the Reformed conception both are, in their essential structure and procedure, entirely prescribed in Holy Scripture according to the regulative principle as understood by Reformed theologians, and especially the Puritans. In actual historical fact, Puritanism began with the application of this principle to worship and later became increasingly concerned with its reference to church government and relations between church and state. While on the latter issues the Puritans divided into diverging camps, all were of one mind as to applying the regulative principle to the worship of the church, and an adequate understanding of it is necessary for a proper comprehension of the significance of the Puritan movement in the past, and of its relevance to our present problems.
The Puritan principle of worship was no invention of the Puritans, but was that formulated by Calvin and adopted by all the Reformed churches. It stands out in contrast to the Lutheran view which held that what is not forbidden in the word of God may be allowed in the worship of God, and regarded ceremonies in worship as to a large extent things indifferent (adiaphora), i.e. things neither commanded nor forbidden in the Scriptures. The thirty-fourth of the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England follows the Lutheran line in its statement that “it is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times and men’s manners, as that nothing be ordained against God’s Word.”
As opposed to the Lutheran, the Reformed view has uniformly been that only that which is prescribed by the word of God may be introduced into the worship of God. Calvin formulated this regulative principle with clarity and applied it with great consistency in the Reformation at Geneva. It is implicit in his celebrated definition of pure and genuine religion as “confidence in God coupled with serious fear—fear, which both includes in itself willing reverence, and brings along with itself such legitimate worship as is prescribed by the law” (Institutes, 1.2.3). The corruption of pure religion by the introduction of forms of worship invented by man was for Calvin a mark of the vanity and blindness of fallen human nature. In arguing against idolatry and image worship and in distinguishing true religion from superstition he appealed uniformly to this regulative principle, while his discussions of ecclesiastical legislation show how pervasively this principle had penetrated his outlook as the chief ground for rejecting the traditions of men.
Calvin found the regulative principle of worship established by the second commandment of the decalogue, which he expounded thus: “As in the first commandment the Lord declares that he is one, and that beside him no gods must be either worshipped or imagined, so he here more plainly declares what his nature is, and by what kind of worship he is to be honoured, in order that we may not presume to form any carnal idea of him. The purport of the commandment, therefore, is that he will not have his legitimate worship profaned by superstitious rites. Therefore, in general, he calls us entirely away from the carnal frivolous observances which our stupid minds are wont to devise after forming some gross idea of the divine nature, while at the same time he instructs us in the worship that is legitimate, namely, spiritual worship of his own appointment” (Institutes, 2.8.17).
In Calvin’s refutation of the claims of the Church of Rome, the regulative principle of Reformed worship provided a charter of Christian liberty. In his doctrine and practice, as in that of the Puritans in the following century, it was a liberating power, cutting off at the root the tyrannical impositions of men in the worship of God by asserting that the Christian is free from the commandments of men in this matter, for, it was insisted, God is the only law-giver, and His will is the perfect rule of all righteousness and holiness. Consequently, human ceremonies devised for the worship of God and imposed upon the conscience as of necessary obligation, are contrary to the word of the Lord. Though directing his arguments towards abuses prevalent in his own day, Calvin recognised this regulative principle as applicable to all ages, and wrote thus: “But if, without any regard to circumstances, you would simply know the character belonging at all times to those human traditions which ought to be repudiated by the church and condemned by all the godly, the definition which we formerly gave is clear and certain—viz. that they include all the laws enacted by men, without authority from the word of God, for the purpose either of prescribing the mode of divine worship, or laying a religions obligation on the conscience, as enjoining things necessary to salvation” (4.10.16).
The witness of the Reformed creeds to the regulative principle of worship is along the lines laid down by Calvin; and among these the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms contain the consensus of English Puritan and Scottish Presbyterian judgment in this respect. Whatever difference of opinion there was in the Assembly as to church government, there was agreement as to the regulation of worship, and the following statement of the position defined by the Westminster standards may be safely taken as expressing the unanimous Puritan conviction on this subject.
1. The regulative principle is a consequence of the sufficiency of Scripture. Nothing need, nor may, be added to the word of God as a rule of faith and practice. Therefore, only what is prescribed by God’s written revelation may be admitted in His worship.
2. The mode of prescription need not be that of explicit command in a single text of Scripture. Approved example or demonstrably applicable principle warrants an element of worship as surely as does an express precept. For example, all would agree that Scripture principles warrant the admission of women to the Lord’s table, although no express command or approved example can be adduced.
3. The regulative principle does not entail an impossible demand that an indefinite number of minute circumstances concerning the worship of God should be deduced from Scripture. Such details as the time and place of worship for a Christian congregation are not minutely prescribed.
4. Yet this does not mean that all circumstances are adiaphora. The circumstances not prescribed by the word of God are only such as are “common to human actions and societies”—and only some such.
5. The general rules of the word of God are to be observed in the ordering of these circumstances “by the light of nature and Christian prudence.” An act of worship is never a thing indifferent (i.e. something neither commanded nor forbidden by God), though some civil actions and even some circumstances accompanying acts of worship may be thus classed among the adiaphora.
6. With respect to matters of faith and worship, human laws over and above the word of God, even though not directly contrary to it, have no binding force.
In his well-known “Medulla Theologica” (Eng. Trans., “The Marrow of Sacred Divinity,” 1642), William Ames, professor at Franeker, discusses the principle of worship systematically, and the following is a brief summary of certain of his arguments and definitions. He states that instituted worship is the means ordained by the will of God to exercise and further natural worship. That only certain means are permitted is declared in the second commandment, which forbids all means of worship devised by men, under the title of “graven” and “images.” Only God Himself can either understand what will be acceptable to Him or add that virtue to any worship whereby it may be made effectual and profitable for us. We make the Lord our God and give Him the honour due to Him, by (among other things) subjecting ourselves to His authority and ordinances in religious worship. All the means ordained by God for His worship, both general and special, should be observed by us: for God must be worshipped with His own worship, totally and solely, and nothing must be added, taken away, or changed (Deuteronomy 12:32). Opposed to this instituted worship, is “will-worship” devised by men, and its sin may be called under the general name of superstition. This is unlawful in that undue worship, in respect either of manner or measure, or of matter and substance, is offered to God. Religious teaching by images and all those ceremonies ordained by men for mystical or religious signification, are thus condemned.
Jeremiah Burroughs, in his treatise on Gospel-Worship (1648), proceeds from an account of the strange fire offered by Nadab and Abihu to formulate the regulative principle of worship: “That in God’s worship there must be nothing tendered up to God but what he hath commanded, whatsoever we meddle with in the worship of God, it must be what we have a warrant for out of the Word of God” (p. 8). Moreover, Burroughs concludes, it is not enough that a thing is not forbidden in worship, but it must be commanded. He makes the standard Puritan distinction, however, between the elements and circumstances of worship, terming the latter “natural and civil helps” and declaring, “It’s true that there are some things in the worship of God that are natural and civil helps and there we need not have any command: as for instance, when we come to worship God and the congregation meets, they must have a convenient place to keep the air and weather from them, now this is but a natural help, and so far as I use the place of worship as a natural help, I need have no command.” But he goes on to say that if he would put anything in a place beyond what it has in its own nature, then he must have a command, and he sums up thus: “If any creature that you make any use of in a way of religion beyond that it hath in its own nature, if you have not some warrant from the Word of God . . . it is superstition.”
The following brief quotation from further Puritan works show the emphasis placed on the regulative principle in worship:
The work “English Puritanisme containeing the maine opinions of the rigidest sort of those that are called Puritanes in the Realme of England” (1605) by W. Bradshaw, declares, “In primis, they hold and maintaine that the word of God contained in the writings of the Prophets and Apostles, is of absolute perfection, given by Christ the Head of the Churche, to bee unto the same, the sole Canon and rule of all matters of Religion, and the worship of God whatsoever. And that whatsoever done in the same service and worship cannot bee justified by the said word, is unlawfull. And therefore that it is a sinne to force any Christian to doe any act of religion or divine service, that cannot evidently bee warranted by the same.”
W. Perkins in “A Warning against the Idolatrie of the last times and an instruction touching Religious or Divine Worship” (1608) writes, “The second way of erecting an Idoll is, when God is worshipped otherwise, and by other meanes, than he hath revealed in the Word. For when men set up a devised worship, they set up also a devised God . . . ” and later he continues, “The 2nd point, is the role of worship: and that is, that nothing may goe under the name of the worship of God, which He hath not ordained in his owne word, and commanded to us as His owne worship. For we are forbidden under paine of the curse of God either to adde or to take away anything from the precepts of God in which He prescribes His owne worship. Again, the Lord forbids us in His worship to follow after our owne hearts and eyes, or to walk in the ordinance of our forefathers, but onely in His commandments. And He holds it a vaine thing, to teach His worship, and feare by the precepts of men . . . All voluntarie religion and will-service, is utterly condemned.”
Again, Perkins in “A Golden Chain, or the Description of Theologie” (1608) declares, “For God is not worshipped of us, but when it is His will to accept our worship: and it is not His will to accept our worship, but when it is according to His will.”
When applied, the regulative principle provides objectivity in worship, by which is meant in this connection simply conformity to the law of God as opposed to subjectivity, or rather subjectivism, in worship. Subjectivity in a good sense—that is, heartfelt sincerity and reverence—is of the essence of true worship, but this, where it exists, will invariably tend to that worship which is agreeable to the will and word of God. Opposed to this is subjectivism in worship, where the forms followed arise, not from the revealed will of the Lord, but from the desires, inclinations, imaginations, and decisions of men: and to this the Reformers and Puritans applied the biblical term will-worship.
An increasing trend toward subjectivism in worship has marked the practice of professing Protestantism since the seventeenth century, and corresponds with a general trend in modern thought and life. The Puritan principle in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was insisted on in opposition to the tyrannical exercise of power on the part of an authoritarian church. In the twentieth century, while authoritarian churches still display their characteristic traits, the glaring evil especially in Protestant circles is unbridled license on the part of individuals and groups within the churches. The Puritan principle stands as a principle of order and of liberty, between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy in worship. It is not legalism, for it neither inculcates salvation by works nor admits of any impositions beyond the commandments of God. Legalism, whether in Judaism or Christianity, has involved essentially the rejection of sovereign Divine grace and of the sufficiency of God’s word; and Puritanism, far from being legalism in this proper usage of the word, is the one system that has in its distinguishing principle opposed legalism most consistently. If Puritans have sometimes fallen into legalistic errors, this has been in spite of and not the natural result of their allegiance to the regulative principle of worship.
The Puritans were concerned with ceremonies and with the imposition of liturgies, but since the eighteenth century a major deviation from the regulative principle in the direction of unbridled subjectivism (which could also be illustrated in a multitude of other particulars), concerns the musical aspect of the service of worship. The flood of uninspired lyrics which has inundated a declining Protestant church has been matched by other musical accompaniments that have transformed churches into theatres and concert halls.
In the eigtheenth century, William Romaine protested against the crowding out of divinely authorised and inspired psalmody by the introduction into public worship of humanly composed ditties. He referred in particular to Isaac Watts’s compositions, though acknowledging Watts himself never intended to thrust psalms from the worship of the church as some of his followers were to do. But Watts was, in fact, responsible for two innovations in the service of sung praise, both in the direction of subjectivism in worship. He prepared imitations of the psalms to supersede the metrical versions commonly used in the Puritan churches, while his more drastic innovation was the introduction of a collection of hymns of his own composition. In defending both these departures from standard Puritan practice, he attempted to produce scriptural warrant for the introduction of uninspired hymns from Revelation 5:9; 14:39; and 15:3. But his general arguments entail a modification of the regulative principle in worship by transferring the content of praise from prescribed matter to a thing indifferent, and in this, even more than in the innovations themselves with their far-reaching consequences, lies the deepest deviation of Watts from the Puritan position with respect to worship.
Coming now to a consideration of authentic Puritan teaching with respect to the content of sung praise, reference may be made first of all to the witness of the Puritans at the Westminster Assembly of Divines in their mention of singing of psalms as among the authorised elements of worship, and in their concern for a metrical psalter which would bear a faithful rendering of the text of the psalms.
John Cotton, teacher of the church at Boston in New England, in his “Singing of Psalmes a Gospel-Ordinance” (1647) first justifies vocal singing in the worship of God, giving three main proofs. The first is the commandment of the Lord by Paul, in Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 4:15–16. From these Cotton deduces, “that singing of Psalmes in the New Testament is to be dispensed in Christian churches, not only with inward grace in the heart, making melody to the Lord, but also with outward audible lively voice.” He argues also from 2 Kings 3:15 and 1 Samuel 10:5–6, while from Psalms 108:1 and 57:7–8 he finds that singing of psalms honours God with our glory, i.e. our tongue. To the objection that “these gracious effects and fruits of singing Psalmes to plead as much for singing and playing with instruments, as for singing with voyces,” Cotton gives, along his replies, one main ground for the Puritans’ objection to instrumental music in worship. “Singing with instruments was typicall, and so a ceremoniall worship, and therefore is ceased. But singing with heart and voyce is morall worship, such as is written in the hearts of all men by nature.”
Second, Cotton proves vocal singing in the worship of God from the example of Christ Himself and of His saints and disciples in the New Testament, and his third proof is from the prophecies of the Old Testament foretelling with approval that such singing would be practised in the days of the New (Isaiah 52:8). He then proceeds to the heart of the matter, namely, the content of sung praise in worship—and states his view that not only the psalms of David, but any other spiritual songs recorded in Scripture may lawfully be sung in Christian churches; that any private Christian with a gift to compose a spiritual song may frame it and sing it privately; and that if upon any special occasion in the public thanksgiving of a church, a member with a spiritual gift composes a psalm, he may sing it before the church, though the reservation is added that such gifts are not ordinarily bestowed.
Proceeding to the issue as to whether, then, the scriptured psalms are appointed by God to be ordinarily sung in Christian churches or whether they should be laid aside and only spiritual songs composed by church members sung, he declares, “The former we hold to be the Truth, others the latter” (p. 16). In stating reasons for restricting the content of sung praise in worship to inspired songs, Cotton takes the texts Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, and argues, “In both . . . places, as the Apostle exhorteth us to singing, so he instructeth us what the matter of our Song should be, to wit, Psalmes, Hymnes, and spirituall Songs. Now those three be the very titles of the songs of David, as they are delivered to us by the Holy Ghost himselfe . . . Now what reason can be given why the Apostle should direct us in our singing to the very titles of David’s Psalmes, if it were not his meaning that we should sing them?”
Here we should observe that Cotton bases his argument on the regulative principle, taking his reasons for faith and practice “from the commandment or exhortation of the Apostle.” Sung praise is to be restricted in its content to divinely inspired songs, not simply because they are inspired and therefore superior in quality to the best uninspired compositions, but basically because inspired psalms and songs are warranted by express command and approved example, while uninspired compositions lack such warrant. Cotton’s interpretation of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs as referring exclusively to the inspired compositions of Scripture is standard Puritan exegesis (and this is evident from, e.g. N. Byfield’s Commentary on Colossians 3:16).
To arguments for supplanting psalmody by the hymns of uninspired writers, or at least for introducing such hymns, based on the references to singing a new song in Psalm 96:1; Revelation 5:9; and 15:3–4, Cotton replies that there is no estate or condition that can ever befall the church, but that there is a suitable Scripture-psalm provided, and that when these are chosen for each new occasion and sung by God’s people with new hearts, they will ever be found new songs. Moreover, David’s exhortation to sing a new song pertained to those under the Old Covenant as well as to us under the New, and yet they upon new occasions sang the old songs of David. In expounding the song of Moses and of the Lamb (Revelation 15) Cotton argues that Moses’ song (Exodus 15) and the psalms of David may justly bear those titles. And with regard to the new song mentioned in Revelation 5:9–10, he says that this “may either be understood metonymically for a Doxology or Thanksgiving, which the Saints in the Church should give to Christ upon occasion of his revealing a cleare exposition of the Revelation; or else, if it be understood literally that they sang that very song, as it is it here penned by the Holy Ghost, then it appeareth that at such a time that song shall be translated into number and metre, fit to be sung, and shall be sung by the Church . . . And thus, this place onely sheweth, that it will be lawfull to sing other songs, beside that of David and Asaph; but yet such onely as are penned by an infallible Spirit, or else upon speciall occasion, by men of spiritual gifts which we deny not.”
Thomas Manton, in his exposition of James 5:13 (1653) observes that singing of psalms is a duty of the gospel. Although he does not forbid the singing of other songs besides Scripture-psalms, he has no other grounds to give for this except the testimony of Tertullian’s “Apology.” Nevertheless, he proceeds to argue that scriptural psalms may be sung, and beyond this that they are fittest to be sung. Reason, he declares, proves they may be sung, for the word does not set a limit that would exclude them; and they are part of the word of God, “full of matter that tendeth to instruction, comfort and the praise of God which are the ends of singing; and therefore unless we will bring a disparagement upon the Scriptures, we cannot deny them a part in our Spiritual mirth. Besides, thus hath it been practised by Christ himself, by the apostles, the servants of the Lord in all ages . . .” In his further argument that Scripture-psalms not only may be sung, but are fittest to be used in the church, Manton gives as his judgment that “upon the whole matter I should pronounce that so much as an infallible gift doth excell a common gift, so much do scriptural Psalms excel those that are of a private composure.”
To conclude, the importance of the regulative principle of Reformed worship is eloquently proclaimed by John Owen in his work on Communion with God where the third thing in which he states that the saints’ chastity towards Christ consists is “in his institutions or matter and manner of his worship.” He writes, “Christ marrying his Church to himself, taking it to that relation, still expresseth the main of their chaste and choice affections to him, to lie in their keeping his institutions and his worship according to his appointment . . . On this account those believers who really attend to communion with Jesus Christ, do labour to keep their hearts chaste to him in his ordinances, institutions and worship, and that two ways.
“1. They will receive nothing, practice nothing, own nothing in his worship but what is of his appointment. They know that from the foundation of the world, he never did allow nor ever will, that in anything the will of the creatures should be the meas-ure of his honour, or the principle of his worship, either as to matter or to manner . . .
“2. They readily embrace, receive, and practise everything that the Lord Christ hath appointed. They inquire diligently into his mind and will, that they may know it. They go to him for directions, and beg of him to lead them in the way they have not known . . . This I say they are tender in. Whatever is of Christ, they willingly submit unto, and accept of, and give up themselves to the constant practice hereof. Whatever comes on any other account they refuse” (Owen, Works, ed. Gould, I. Isoff).
The following questions were raised in discussion after the paper:
1. If the regulative principle of worship as here expounded as valid in its application to hymns, would it not require us equally to seek in Scripture authorized verbal forms of prayer for use in public worship? Is it a sufficient answer to say that the two cases are not parallel, since God has given us no authorized verbal forms of prayer (the Psalter being a public hymn book but not a public prayer book)? If this answer is not sufficient, is doubt thereby cast on the correctness of the proposed interpretation of the principle in regard to hymns?
2. Is the principle as stated a legalistic aberration, prompted partly by reaction against the licence of those who, like the Quakers, set the Spirit against and above the word, and going, not merely beyond Calvin (though it does: see Horton Davies, op. cit.), but beyond Scripture itself? Is it natural exegesis to equate the psalms mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14:26 with the contents of the Psalter exclusively? If not, does not that text (which contains no hint of censure) prove that under certain circumstances sung praise not contained in the Psalter may be admitted in public worship without dishonour to God? And if so, does not this cast doubt on the interpretation of the regulative principle which the paper expounds? Is it sufficient, in reply to this, to dismiss 1 Corinthians 14 as reflecting the extraordinary circumstances of the apostolic age to such a degree that it yields no guidance or relevant precedent in this mater for public worship in later days, now that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are withdrawn? If not, must we not conclude that there is a risk of quenching the Spirit by ruling out hymn singing in public worship—especially in view of the references to hymn-singing as the natural consequence of being filled with the Spirit and nourished by the word (Ephesians 5:18; Colossians 3:16)?