True Christians are committed to the principle that Christ is their King, and that their worship and service to Him must be authorized in His word. They believe they have no right to "speak where he has not spoken" (GOD’S WORK IN GOD’S WAY) hence, seek to answer religious questions by citing divine will. (Book chapter and verse)

    We are not under the Old Testament (2Cor. 3: 11-18 nor is our worship determined by figurative descriptions of heaven (Rev. 14: 2); so David’s harp and heavenly "voices" have no bearing upon the subject. We are concerned with New Testament authority for music in worship, and here present all passages that deal with this subject. Perhaps you can decide why we sing and do not play.

• Matt. 26: 30 "when they had sung a hymn….."
• Mark 14: 26 "when they had sung a hymn….."
• Acts 16: 25 "prayed, and sang praises unto God….."
• Rom. 15: 9 "confess to thee – and sing unto thy name…"
• I Cor. 14: 15 "Sing with the spirit and understanding…"
• Eph 5: 19 "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
• Col. 3: 16 "teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."
• Heb. 2:12 "in the midst of the church will I sing…."
• Jas. 5: 13 "Is any merry? Let him sing psalms…"

    Appeals to popularity, love of the arts, church traditions, etc., fall far short of providing divine authority for instrumental music in worship. Secular history points to 666 AD as the date for the first use of mechanical music in worship by church authority—that is far from God’s way.
 

In support of Brother Turner’s article the following quotes are offered for your consideration. jh

THE AMERICAN ENCYLOPEDIA: "The organ is said to have been first introduced into church music by Pope Vitalian I in 666. In 757, a great organ was sent as a present to Pepin by the Byzantine emperor, Constantine Copronymus, and placed in the church of St. Corneille a Compiegne. Soon after Charlemagne's time organs became common." (Vol. 7, p. 112)

SCHAFF-HERZOG ENCYCLOPEDIA: "In the Greek Church the organ never came into use. But after the eighth century it became more and more common in the Latin Church; not however, without opposition from the side of the monks. … The Reform Church discarded it; and through the church of Basel very early on introduced it, it was in other places admitted only sparingly and after long hesitation." (Vol. 2, p. 1702)

JOHN CALVIN, illustrious founder of the Presbyterian denomination says; "Musical instruments in the celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the Law. The Papists, therefore have foolishly borrowed this, as well as many other things from the Jews. Men who are fond of outward pomp may delight in that noise; but the simplicity which God recommends to us by the apostles is far more pleasing to Him. Paul allows us to bless God in the public assembly of the saints, only in a known tongue (I Cor. 14: 16). ….. What shall we say then of the chanting, which fills the ear with nothing but an empty sound?" (his Commentary on Psalms 33)

JOHN WESLEY, an outstanding religious leader in the development of the Methodist Church, when asked about the use of the organ replied, "I have no opposition to the organ in our chapel provided it is neither seen nor heard." (Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Vol. IV, page 684)

ADAM CLARKE, a Methodist distinguished for his famous Commentary on the entire Bible said: "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 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." (Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Vol. IV page 684—his comments on Amos 6: 5)

CHARLES HADDON SPURGON, one of the greatest Baptist preachers who ever lived, preached for twenty years in the Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle in London, England, to ten thousand people every Sunday. Instruments of music were never used in his tabernacle. When asked why he did not use the organ in worship he gave I Cor. 14: 15 as his answer and said, "I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding also" and remarked, "I would as soon pray to God with machinery as to sing to God with machinery.

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, "But I presume to all spiritually-minded Christians, such aids (instruments of music) would be as a cowbell in a concert." (Memoirs of A. Campbell, page 366)