The Expositor's Bible: The General Epistles of St. James and St. JudePlummer, Alfred
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The General Epistles of St. James and St. Jude
Plummer, Alfred
Bible. James -- Commentaries; Bible. Jude -- Commentaries
"Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being
but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition, such,
notwithstanding, is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath
in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been
thereby induced to think that the soul itself, by nature, is or hath
in it harmony. A thing which delighteth all ages and beseemeth all
states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent being
added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity, as being used
when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason hereof is
an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the
mind, more inwardly than any other sensible mean, the very standing,
rising, and falling, the very steps and inflexions every way, the
turns and varieties of all passions whereunto the mind is subject;
yea, so to imitate them that whether it resemble unto us the same
state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary, we are not
more contentedly by the one confirmed, than changed and led away by
the other.... So that although we lay altogether aside the
consideration of ditty or matter, the very harmony of sounds being
framed in due sort, and carried from the ear to the spiritual
faculties of our souls, is by a native puissance and efficacy greatly
available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled,
apt as well to quicken the spirits as to allay that which is too
eager, sovereign against melancholy and despair, forcible to draw
forth tears of devotion if the mind be such as can yield them, able
both to move and to moderate all affections.
"The Prophet David having therefore singular knowledge, not in poetry
alone, but in music also, judged them both to be things most necessary
for the house of God, left behind him to that purpose a number of
Divinely indited poems, and was farther the author of adding unto
poetry melody both vocal and instrumental, for the raising up of men's
hearts, and the sweetening of their affections towards God. In which
considerations the Church of Christ doth likewise at this present day
retain it as an ornament to God's service, and an help to our own
devotion. They which, under pretence of the Law ceremonial abrogated,
require the abrogation of instrumental music, approving nevertheless
the use of vocal melody to remain, must show some reason wherefore the
one should be thought a legal ceremony, and not the other" (_Eccles.
Pol._, V. xxxviii. 1, 2).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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