The Amazing History of Instrumental Music: Part 4

Allen Webster

Topic(s): Denominationalism, God's Will, Worship

Links to this entire series:

• The Amazing History of Instrumental Music: Part 1
• The Amazing History of Instrumental Music: Part 2
• The Amazing History of Instrumental Music: Part 3
• The Amazing History of Instrumental Music: Part 4
• The Amazing History of Instrumental Music: Part 5
• The Amazing History of Instrumental Music: Part 6

METHODIST CHURCH. The Methodist church once opposed instrumental music. The noted 18th century Methodist commentator and widely respected Bible scholar Adam Clarke (1762-1832) is chiefly remembered for writing a commentary on the whole Bible. It took him forty years to compile, and has been “a primary Methodist theological resource for two centuries.”[1] Wayne Jackson penned an interesting article on Clarke that revealed some anecdotal information:

Adam Clarke was the most famous commentator the Methodist Church ever produced. As a child he was judged to be rather dull; however, from about eight onward he began to excel in learning. Though his father was of the Church of England, and his mother a Presbyterian, he became a Methodist when he was about sixteen.

As his studies progressed he became a master of both Hebrew and Greek, as well as several other languages. He was proficient in the Greek classics, patristic literature, and various disciplines of history and science.

Clarke labored for forty years to bring to completion his erudite eight-volume work (now available in three volumes), A Commentary on the Bible. His studies were so rigorous that he eventually wore himself out in these pursuits.[2]

Clarke wrote in his notes on 2 Chronicles 29:25, “And he set the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of the LORD by his prophets”—“Moses had not appointed any musical instruments to be used in the divine worship; there was nothing of the kind under the first tabernacle.” That is, Clarke felt that the Lord had commanded the Levites to praise the Lord and that David had commanded the use of musical instruments in “the Divine service.” Clarke thought David was wrong to use instrumental music in Old Testament worship. However, he goes on to say that even if some Divine authority could be found for musical instruments under the Law of Moses, they still ought not be used in Christian worship. Clarke wrote

...the whole spirit, soul and genius of the Christ religion are against this [use of instrumental music]: and those who know the Church of God best, and what constitutes its genuine spiritual state, know that these things have been introduced as a substitute for the life and power of religion; and that where they prevail most, there is least of the power of Christianity. Away with such portentous baubles from the worship of that infinite Spirit who requires his followers to worship him in spirit and in truth, for to no such worship are those instruments friendly.

Clarke states his views more clearly in this passage:

I am an old man, and an old minister; and I here declare that I never knew them [musical instruments] productive of any good in the worship of God; and have had reason to believe that they were productive of much evil. Music, as a science, I esteem and admire; but instruments of music in the house of God I abominate and abhor. This is the abuse of music; and here I register my protest against all such corruptions in the worship of the Author of Christianity.[3]

In his commentary on Amos 6:5, Clarke was still plainer in his teaching against instrumental music —“the use of such instruments of music, in the Christian Church, is without the sanction and against the will of God; . . . they are subversive of the spirit of true devotion, and . . . they are sinful.”

In Christian Theology (p 248), Clarke again wrote on the subject:

The church of Rome, in every country where it prevails or exists, has so blended a pretended Christian devotion with heathenish and Jewish rites and ceremonies, two parts of which are borrowed from Pagan Rome, the third from Jewish ritual ill understood, and groosly misrepresented, and the fourth part from other corruptions of the Christian system. Nor is the Protestant Church yet fully freed from a variety of matters in public worship which savours little of that simplicity and spirituality which should ever designate the worship of that infinitely pure spirit which cannot be pleased with anything incorporated with His worship that has not a direct tendency to lead from the heart and sensual things to heaven, and to that holiness without which none shall see the Lord. The singing, as practiced in several places, and heathenish accompaniments of organs and music instruments of various sorts, are contrary to the simplicity of the gospel, and the spirituality of that worship which God requires, as darkness is contrary to light. And if the abuses are not corrected, I believe the time is not far distant when singing will cease to be a part of the divine worship. It is now, in many places, such as cannot be said to be any part of that worship which is in spirit and according to the truth. May God mend it!

John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist church. Clarke includes this interesting exchange about his views:

The late venerable and most eminent divine . . . John Wesley, who was a lover of music, and an elegant poet, when asked his opinion of instruments of music being introduced into the chapels of the Methodists said, in his terse and powerful manner . . . “I have no objection to instruments of music in our chapels, provided they are neither heard nor seen.”

Clarke then adds his comment, “I say the same, though I think the expense of purchase had better be spared.”