Sing Psalms or Hymns

Rev Jeffrey A Stivason

The following article is being published as part of a series in this centenary year to mark
the stand taken by the Constitutionalists in 1900 to preserve the testimony of the Free
Church of Scotland. The Church has understood the Regulative Principle of worship to
mean that only the inspired hymnody of the Book of Psalms is authorised in public worship.

This is a position we share with our brethren in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. This
article appeared first in the Covenanter Witness, the magazine of the RP Church of North
America.

It is reprinted with kind permission.

I vividly remember my first encounter with an exclusive psalmodist. I was a hymn singer by
tacit emotional consent rather than by conviction or sound reasoning.

The conflict that ensued was not pretty. I was taken off guard and fighting from a corner. I
was grabbing for any argument I could muster to protect my precious hymns.

Finally, I found relief; I had the solution. There was light at the end of the tunnel. I simply
said, "The burden of proof is on you to show me that I must sing the Psalms exclusively". I
had put my attacker at bay, but I knew I was being intellectually dishonest. I knew I had
barely escaped with my hymn-singing life. Neverheless the battles were not over, not by a
long shot.

The more I studied psalmody, the more convinced I became as to the exclusivity of their
use in worship. Finally, under the conviction of prayer and study, I became an exclusive
psalm-singer.

Since that joyous time I have engaged in many a strenuous debate advancing the exclusive
use of Psalms in worship. What is interesting about all my opponents is the commonality
of their defence: "The burden of proof is on you to show me that I must sing the psalms
exclusively". Every time I hear those words I cringe, the hair on the back of my neck stands
on end, and my opponent believes he/she is off the hook! That is my motivation for
writing this paper.

There are several matters that must be defined before we begin. First, it is important that
we define who bears the responsibility of proving in any intellectual contest. The
participant in a persuasion dialogue with an obligation to prove has the burden (or
obligation) to carry out his task. Simply, he who asserts must prove.

Second, a persuasion dialogue, often called a critical discussion, can be of two basic types.
In an asymmetrical persuasion dialogue, the type of obligation of one participant is
different from that of the other. In the symmetrical persuasion dialogue, both participants
have the same types of obligation. Let us look at examples of both types.

Asymmetrical dialogue

Tom is committed to the pro-choice abortion position and is trying to convince Bob about
the validity of his position. Bob is not convinced by Tom's arguments and raises many
doubts, although Bob is not committed to either pro-choice or pro-life.

Here it is Tom who is asserting; therefore it is Tom who who has the burden of proof. Bob
is a doubter. He is not trying to prove one position or the other. His only obligation is to
raise questions that reflect his doubts about the acceptability of Tom's arguments.

Symmetrical dialogue

Tom is committed to the pro-choice position and again is arguing for the validity of his
position. Joe is committed to the pro-life position and is arguing for the validity of his
position. Each person is trying to refute the thesis of the other.

Not only Tom is assserting but Joe is asserting as well. Therefore, both have an obligation
to prove their respective positions. Both have a burden to prove.

Psalms and Hymns - who proves?

It is often thought in the debate between the exclusive psalmodist and the uninspired
hymnist that the dialogue is a symmetrical persuasion dialogue: in other words, both
participants have the same type of obligation. This is not the case. The dialogue is really an
asymmetrical persuasion dialogue.

How can this be so? Both sides must appeal to a heritage born out of Scripture as a
standard for faith and practice. What was the practice of the apostles and the early
church?

Now, someone will say that the exegesis of Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19 is unclear,
therefore we canot know the practice of the apostles and the early church regarding the
singing of Psalms in worship. It is not my task to develop an exegesis of these two
passages here. Nevertheless, if it can be shown that the practice of the early church was
to sing the Psalms exclusively, then the heritage of the Apostles born out of Scripture is
established. In other words, if it can be shown that the early church from the time of the
apostles exclusively sang the Psalms in worship, then the burden of proof is on the
hymnodist.

How can this be so? Because if we can show that we are simply coming from a heritage
established by the apostles, then we are asserting nothing. However, the hymnodist is
asserting that he may sing uninspired hymns in opposition to the established heritage.
Therefore, the burden of proof is on the hymnodist as the one who asserts.

The evidence

Men more able than I have established this heritage born out of Scripture, but I will give a
brief smattering of the evidence.

First, usually all parties will concede that the Psalms, as well as other Scriptures, were an
essential part of the religious worship of the early Church. Note Eric Werner's comment:
"The paramount importance of the Psalter for the evolution and structure of Christian as
well as Jewish liturgy is too well known to warrant elaboration. Private devotions,
monastic rituals, special religious occasions, such as consecrations, dedications, exorcisms,
etc., were no less replete with Psalmody than the regular worship of the synagogue and
church".

Tertullian, in the second century, and Jerome in the fourth, both testify that "reading the
Scriptures and singing the Psalms" were essential features of religious worship. Because of
their universal use in the early church there was also a universal love for the Psalms, as
noted by Robinson: "Wherever the Psalms came to be known at all, they were sung at all
times; not only in Christian assemblies, but by people generally; not only as acts of
worship, but as men laboured at their tasks, in hours of pleasant recreation and aon festal
and funeral occasions alike".

Referring to the Psalms in the daily life of the people, Jerome writes: "The Psalms were
continually to be heard in the fields and vineyards of Palestine. The plowman, as he held
the plow, chanted the Hallelujah, and the reaper, the vinedresser, and the shepherd sang
something from the Psalms of David. Where the meadows were coloured with flowers,
and the singing birds made their plants, the Psalms sounded even more sweetly. These
psalms are our love songs, these instruments of our agriculture".

So loved were the inspired songs of the sweet Psalmist that in the morning, throughout
the day, and in the evening they were sought after. The early church not only used the
Psalms but delighted in them!

The songs of Zion were also upon the lips of those who suffered violent deaths for their
faith. At Soissons, for instance, in the Diocletian persecution of 288, two brothers, Crispin
and Crispinian, suffered torture and death In their prolonged torments they were
sustained by the words of Psalm 79:9-10: "Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of
thy name ...Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God?'"' How different is
this picture from that of today when men ridicule the Psalms and persecute the singer of
these treasures.

Not only were the Psalms used and loved universally but, more importantly for our case,
there is ample evidence to prove that they were used in both the Temple and the
synagogue. "The church was cradled in Judaism, and borrowed many of its forms of
worship from the temple and synagogue ... Christianity entered into the inheritance of an
already existing pattern of worship, provided by the temple ritual and synagogue liturgy.''
This already-existing pattern of worship did not consist of singing uninspired hymns. In
fact, a close examination will show that the early church took over from the synagogue
the custom of chanting Psalms. Consequently, this "already existing pattern of worship"
establishes the bridge between the Old Testament church, the apostolic church, and the
early church in the 1st Century.

It is apparent from the above quotations that the Psalms were universally used and loved
in public as well as in private devotions; however, it remains to be shown that the Psalms
were used exclusively. Were the Psalms sung exclusively in the worship of the universal
church? Let us permit the able scholar Phillip Schaff to answer that question: "So far as we
are able to gather from our sources, nothing, except the Psalms and the New Testament
hymns (such as the "Gloria in Excelsis," the "Magnificat," the "Nunc Dimittis," etc.), was as
a rule sung in public worship before the fourth century."

As able and as scholarly as Schaff is, he has overlooked something integral to the
argument. Schaff points to a few poetic fragments of the early church as compositions
that possibly could be early hymns. However, there are two serious problems with that
assumption. First, after giving a very hesitant assent to these poetic pieces being hymnic
in nature, Schaff then says that the early church had "a decided aversion to the public use
of uninspired songs." There are four possibilities: 1) Schaff has contradicted himself; 2) he
means that the poetic fragments were only used in private; 3) these fragments found
were not intended to be hymns used in public; or 4) these were written by folks on the
fringe. Consequently, it seems that if the church had "a decided aversion" toward the use
of uninspired songs it would not use them.

Second, Schaff did not mention that because the church had such an aversion ''to the use
of uninspired songs, several church councils anathematized their use. The Council of
Laodicea (c.381) prohibited the use of uninspired songs. The Council of Chalcedon in 451
affirmed this earlier decision. In 561 the Council of Braga, and the Synod of Toledo, in the
7th Century, upheld these resolutions. Therefore, because of this aversion to the use of
uninspired hymns, it seems clear that these poetic fragments were just that-poetic
fragments, not early hymns.
It must be remembered that our task here is not exegetical, but to demonstrate that
exclusive psalmody is from the heritage of the apostles born out of Scripture. We have
indeed shown that the apostles as well as the early church started out singing the Psalms
of David exclusively. Interestingly, Werner writes, "Usually heretics composed new hymns,
spurning the traditional Psalter. Hence heresy was often eager to replace the Psalms by
new hymns."

To summarize, as we said early on, the burden of proof rests on the one who asserts. The
exclusive psalmodist is asserting nothing. He is merely following the apostles and the early
church, since they sang the Psalms of David in public as well as in private. It is the
hymnodist who asserts. He, contrary lo the evidence, asserts that the church may indeed
sing uninspired compositions. Therefore, the burden of proof is on the uninspired
hymnodist to prove that he may sing his cherished man-made hymns.

References

Michael Bushell The Songs of Zion, (1993)

John McNaugher The Psalms in Worship (1992)

Eric Werner The Sacred Bridge (1959)

Roland Prothero The Psalms in Human Life (1905)

Rev Jeffrey A Stivason is a pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.

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