Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 54:214 (Apr 1897)
Article: The Ideal Of Church Music
Author: Edward Dickinson

BSac 54:214 (Apr 1897) p. 320

The Ideal Of Church Music

Prof. Edward Dickinson

St. Augustine, in the tenth book of his “Confessions,” speaking of the dangers to the welfare of his soul which lie in the pleasures of the senses to which he is susceptible, thus describes the conflicts which he was compelled to undergo in resisting the seductive influences of music: —

“The delights of the ear had more powerfully inveigled and conquered me, but Thou didst unbind and liberate me. Now in those airs which Thy words breathe soul into, when sung with a sweet and tranquil voice, do I somewhat repose; yet not so as to cling to them, but so as to free myself when I wish. But with the words which are their life do they, that they may gain admission into me, strive after a place of some honor in my heart; and I can hardly assign them a fitting one. Sometimes I appear to myself to give them more respect than is fitting, as I perceive that our minds are more devoutly and earnestly elevated into a flame of piety by the holy words themselves when they are sung than when they are not; and that all affections of our spirit, by their own diversity, have their appropriate measures in the voice and singing, wherewith I know not by what secret relationship they are stimulated. But the gratification of my flesh, to which the mind ought never to be given over to be enervated, often beguiles me, while the sense does not so attend on reason as to follow her patiently; but having gained admission merely for her sake, it strives even to run on before her and be her leader. Thus

BSac 54:214 (Apr 1897) p. 321

in these things do I sin unknowing, but afterward do I know it.”

“Sometimes, again, avoiding very earnestly this same deception, I err out of too great preciseness; and sometimes so much as to desire that every air of the pleasant songs to which David’s Psalter is often used be banished both from my ears and those of the church itself. Notwithstanding, when I call to mind the tears I shed at the songs of Thy church at the outset of my recovered faith, and how even now I am moved not by the singing but by what is sung, I then acknowledge the great utility of this custom. Thus vacillate I between dangerous pleasure and tried soundness, being inclined rather (though I pronounce no irrevocable opinion upon the subject) to approve the use of singing in the church, that so by the delights of the ear the weaker minds may be stimulated to a devotional frame. Yet when it happens to me to be more moved by the singing than by what is sung I confess myself to have sinned criminally, and then I would rather not have heard the singing. See now the condition I am in! … O Lord my God, give ear, behold and see and have mercy upon me and heal me,—Thou in whose sight I am beco...