… hirelings. The joke book and Vaudeville has replaced their Bible preaching!
3. Music and Singing
That leads us to another modern church-destroyer, that of orchestrated and instrumentalised singing and musical atmosphere-making performances in worship. Nowadays, there is little affinity between New Testament worship and our own. The Established Church perverted worship with the organ. Spurgeon deplored this but his denomination followed the bandwagon. Luther called the …
… in others, though they, too, addressed the same problems. Thus Knollys is mentioned for his hymn-singing but the essay on the Father of Particular Baptists, Kiffin, does not mention how he was equally vocal against the singing of man-made rhymes.
Though one would expect all the authors to pull together in a common witness in the work, we have several cases of those in one essay quite contradicting the findings of their fellow-subscribers. Robert Oliver on Gill, for instance, …
… Baptists in drawing up the London Baptist Confessions, combating the Seekers, introducing hymn-singing and establishing a Biblical Baptist heritage. Some insight is then given into the sources Haykin has used for his work and good friends are thanked for their support. In keeping with the re-classification of the past, hinted at in Oliver’s foreword, though the book deals with Particular Baptists and their heritage, this historical and doctrinally sound title has been dropped and not …
Aug 17
… in the Elizabethan period, as Mary’s evil reign had rid the Church of many of her teachers.
Singing for his supper
Henry Bullinger, the youngest of seven children, was born in the Swiss town of Bremgarten on 18th July, 1504. His parents Heinrich Bullinger and Anna Wiederkehr shared a common law marriage. Heinrich, the parish priest, had been chosen by his congregation irrespective of the wishes of the church hierarchy.
In May, 1509, young Henry was enrolled at …
Aug 24
… mouths’ in catechetical work but have no objection to their children learning parts in plays and singing songs and hymns learnt off by heart. Hawker’s questions and answers are Scriptural throughout and as Scripture is the language that tunes the heart to God, Christians should surely not cavil at this means of evangelising their children. Furthermore, Hawker’s catechism provides pupils with a thorough knowledge of the history of the Jews as also a detailed knowledge of the two …
… to prove almost anything. I sympathise with Affirmation I’s stance on both the Sabbath and hymn-singing but I cannot accept their legalism in attaining their aims. Most of the defence of the so-called regulative Principle comes from an appeal (as here) to Westminster or Affirmation I but I have not seen a sound, comprehensive, Bible-only defence from their side yet. Has the phrase any positive meaning these days?
The Danger of Creating Division
Oddly and surprisingly …
Aug 18
… idea but Young apparently approves of it. He concludes with a discussion as to whether or not hymn-singing is according to the regulative principle and ends on the same compromising note for which he rejected the Anglicans.
Braund on Puritan daily life presents us with an unbelievable picture of his subject. Their behaviour was ‘an ordered round’ of ‘ordered hearts’. On awakening, all prayed and meditated individually for four hours before assembling for Family Worship. Then …
Aug 17
… had only barren, off-putting hills and Wales would frighten anyone off because of the constant singing going on there. No, they argued, anyone who visits Britain can do no better than to have a guided tour of the off-shore oil-rigs.
Pro-Christ and the Alpha Course
Believe it or not, many of our modern hirelings-cum-evangelists, preachers and para-church organisations follow the same inane tactics when inviting outsiders to Christ. In recent months two modern ideas to attract …
