WE have
not
been able to find The Law
of Silence
in the Sommer
documents. We believe
that this may have been in the Supreme Court's ruling.
All
recorded scholars and founders of denominations defended the
law of
silence: John Calvin called for a "Restoration of the Church
of Christ"
which would exclude anything not commanded or necessary to
carry out
the role of the church: music was NOT necesarry and had
never been used
in the modern sense eve by the Catholics.
The
architect had done business
in peace since 1834 as The Church of Christ although when
the brick
building some became architects and put The Christian
Church on the
building. The wrecking crew began in the late 1800s to
join others
who were "going up town" by attempting to attach the
lean-to of
denominational organization with local sunday school
controlled by an
outside agency and by adding instrumental music. Their
innovations
were truly based on The Law of Silence.
What
he said was that unless it is in the Bible we
can't know that it is the will of God and therefore
have to INFER
:
"But
on the other
hand, whatever is not revealed in the divine testimony
no one can
possibly believe to be the divine will. In other words,
whatever the
word of God declares
with
approbation we can
believe has been or now is the will of God;
but
whatever the
word of God does not thus declare we not only DO NOT
but we CANNOT
believe has ever
been
or now is the will
of
God.
This
discrimination between
testimony and inference, and thus between faith
and opinion has been the peculiar
strength, clearness and power
of the position occupied by the disciples of the
Christ, as every
disciple present today will doubtless confess.
In
respect to the organ, he
assigned the use of INFERENCES and undoubtedly SILENCES to
those
who
added the organ knowing that it would deliberately sow
discord.
"I
read 1 Cor.
8:12, "But when ye sin so against the brethren and wound
their weak
conscience ye sin against Christ." I also refer you also
to Matt.
25th chapter where the Savior said, "Inasmuch as ye did
it unto the
least of these my brethren ye did it unto me."
This
shows beyond
controversy that multitudes are in danger of being
finally rejected
because in this life they have persistently sinned
against Christ in sinning against his
brethren.
In
conclusion on this point I
mention again that in
favor
of
the
organ in
the worship
there may be inferences, opinions, views, nothings, preferences
but
there is not
faith that it is the will of Christ that it should be used
in
connection with the worship.
But "whatever is not of faith is of sin."
Daniel
Sommer and others
insisted on "direct commands" to keep the peace and repudiated The Law of Silence. If
he was an architect it was in resisting The Law of
Silence as
authority to
add old Roman appendages to the "building" even when they
knew that it would drive out
those who did
not obey the new legalism: The Law of Silence.
Daniel
Sommer is not the
authority for anyone I have ever known and David Lipscomb,
speaking
for those who would resume the historic name Church of
Christ used
throughout church history, repudiated division and most
people don't know who Sommers was.
Perhaps attitudes were hardened when the innovators used
the same
psychology they used on Calvin and others: only the
ignorant would
reject our views:
"But
this
is not
all. If those who are offended at the organ were the weakest, most ignorant and least
to
be esteemed in
the church (which
they are not), yet even then it would be a sin to
offend them by
making
an
unauthorized instrument a test of fellowship, as is done whenever
the organ is put
into the
meetinghouse and
used
in connection with the worship,
since
none can
then worship there without seeing it and hearing
it-
I
say, when such a course is
pursued, even if those opposing the organ were the
least and the most
ignorant, yet that course would be sinful in the sight
of heaven." An Address
His
arguments were based on the
fact that the innovators USED THE LAW OF SILENCE to
introduce things
they could never gain by faith.
Do
not infer that I
mean it has been abandoned by them in every particular,
but rather in relation to their
innovations.
While
dealing with
their religious neighbors they declare the difference
between testimony and inference, and the difference
between faith and opinion.
But
when they come to the worship and work of the church they make
matters of
inference, and
thus
matters of opinion,
tests
of
fellowship by thrusting them in upon
peaceable churches,
so
that none
can worship or
work
with them except by practically adopting their devices.
They
have in some instances
even gone so far as to exclude men and women
who would persist in opposing their matters of
opinion."
It
seems that the Church of
Christ believed that the Christian Church faction preached
"direct
commands" but when it came to their own worship they
decided that
"inference" or opinion was good enough to force the
introduction of
instruments.
I
will correct if I have not
read the evidence correctly.
You can take a look for yourself
According
to the Supreme Court
ruling in favor of the Church of Christ who had remained unchanged
against the
Christian
Church who had
tried to force a denominational structure using
inference or The
Law
of Silence to add--
such
as
to the propriety of having instrumental music in the
church during
church services, the employment by the congregation of
ministers of
the gospel for a fixed time and for a fixed salary, the
organization
of missionary societies and Sunday schools as separate
organizations
outside the regular church organizations, the raising of
funds for
the support of the gospel by holding church fairs and
festivals, and
perhaps in other matters of a similar character
The innovators and
progressives created the
sect and then sued to take over the church property even
though they
were in the minority.
The
Illinois Supreme Court
understood it:
When
the members of
a religious congregation divide and one faction breaks
away from the
congregation and forms a new organization,
the
title to the
property of the congregation will remain in that part
of the
congregation which adheres to the tenets and doctrines
originally
taught by the congregation to whose use the property
was originally
dedicated.
Sand
Creek congregation and
the lawful owners of said property (Church of Christ);
and the plaintiffs (Christian Church) in error
having
seceded
from the Sand Creek
congregation
and
effected a new
organization where the innovations are taught and
practiced,
were properly
held by
the court to have abandoned all interest in the
property which belonged to the
Sand Creek congregation at
the time they left the organization
and effected a new organization.
Doesn't
this sound like the
Christian Church faction disfellowshiped the
non-instrumental group
and left?
It
should come as no surprize
that we rebel against those who intend to rule or ruin.
Because we
weren't there it is impossible to be the judge and
overturn the
Supreme Court and brand the Church of Christ (known as such since 1834) as the sowers of
discord rather than
the Christian Church sect. From the beginning the church
had "done
business" as The Church of Christ.
The
view that the innovators
and progressives are the sectarians has perhaps a
universal
historical precedent: The Supreme Court of Illinois
thought so, so I
won't try to retry the the case and brand those who still
resist
instruments as somehow the spawn of Daniel Sommer.
Jack
Guess, Baptist, The
Argument From Silence is Used by Instrumentalists
"Some,
in trying to
get around the plain New Testament teaching on the type
of music to
be used in the church, have endeavored to argue from
silence.
"According
to this method, because the New Testament does not say,
- "Thou
shalt not use the instrument,"
- and
since there is no express condemnation of the
practice,
- it
must be acceptable to God.
"This
is a false conclusion
derived from the erroneous premise that the silence of
the word of
God is as much a guide for men as its positive
commands. In other
words, some wrongly believe that a thing is all right
for worship
unless explicitly forbidden. But it can easily be
demonstrated that
this type of reasoning will not work.
But,
then, Sommer didn't invent
the view:
Tertullian
of
Carthage
(Quintus
Septimius
Florens Terullianus, b. 155 - 160
Carthage - d. 220? AD)
"Fortified
by this
knowledge against heathen
views, let us rather turn to the unworthy reasonings of
our own
people; for the faith of some, either too simple or too
scrupulous,
demands
direct
authority from Scripture for giving up the shows,
and holds
out
that the matter is
a doubtful
one,
because such
abstinence is not
clearly
and in words
imposed upon God's servants.
"Well, we never find it expressed with the same
precision,
"Thou shalt
not
enter circus or theatre,
thou shalt not look on
combat or show; "
........... as
it is plainly laid
down,
"Thou shalt not
kill; thou shalt not worship an idol;
........... thou
shalt not commit adultery or
fraud." Ex. xx. 14.
"But we find that that first
word of David
bears on this very sort of thing: "Blessed," he says,
"is the man who
has not gone into the assembly of the impious, nor stood
in the way of sinners, nor sat in
the seat of scorners." Ps.
i. 1.
Though
he seems to
have predicted beforehand of that just man, that he
took no part in
the meetings and deliberations of the Jews, taking
counsel about the
slaying of our Lord,
yet
divine Scripture has ever far-reaching
applications:
after
the
immediate sense has been exhausted, in all directions it fortifies
the practice of the
religious life,
so that here also you have an utterance which is not far from a plain interdicting
of the shows. Tertullian, De Spectaculis
Gregory
of Nyssa on
Scripture as Authority
- b.
c. 335, Caesarea, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor [now
Kayseri, Turkey]
- d.
c. 394, feast day March 9
And
in this assertion they do
not go beyond the
truth;
for we do say
so.
But the ground of their complaint is that
........... their
custom does not
admit this,
........... and
Scripture does not support it. What
then is our reply?
We
do not think that it is
right to make their
prevailing custom
the
law
and rule of sound
doctrine.
For if custom is to avail for proof of soundness, we too,
surely, may advance our
prevailing custom;
........... and
if they reject this, we are surely
not bound to follow theirs.
Let
the inspired Scripture, then, be our umpire, and
........... the
vote of truth
will surely be given to those
........... whose
dogmas are found
to agree with the Divine words.
John
Locke
in The
Reasonableness of Christianity noted that:
He that
any one will
pretend to
set up in this kind,
and have his rules pass for authentic directions,
must
shew, that
either he builds his doctrine upon principles
of reason, self-evident
in
themselves, and that he deduces all the parts of it from
thence, by clear and evident
demonstration;
or,
must shew his commission from heaven, that he comes with
authority from God, to deliver
his will and commands to the world.
In
a Letter
of Toleration
Locke wrote:
But
since men are
so solicitous about the true church, I would only ask
them here, by
the way, if it be not more agreeable to the Church of Christ
........... to
make the conditions
of her
communion consist in such things,
and such things only,
...........
........... as
the
Holy Spirit has in
the Holy Scriptures declared, in express words,
...........
........... to
be
necessary to
salvation;
(Thomas
Campbell
D&A
compare with John Locke)
By
some twist of logic this
engineer's brain cannot
follow, this it turned around and made to say that if WE have already
"imposed" theatrical performance to
our worship, you are too late to take the high ground.
Now, if YOU try to impose the
NON-use of
instruments on US then you are adding that which is not necessary to salvation.
Therefore, YOU shot Cock
Robin even though the arrow came from our twanging
bowstring!
Don't
you get it? NOT playing
instruments is NOT necessary to salvation. Therefore,
from now 'till
evermore, NOT playing instruments violates the the
freedom of those
who are just trying to EXPERIENCE music as a GIFT OF GOD. For instance, Dr. Rubel
Shelly asks:
"Have
we sometimes overextended our worship
practice
so
as to violate
the freedom of our members to experience and enjoy instrumental
music
as a gift from
God?
Yes.
But
to IMPOSE SOMETHING
you have to ADD something which does not
exist and which you know sows discord because you are
doing it with a
high hand over the objections of others.
If
you have never USED
instruments then it is illogical to think of IMPOSING
something which
has the Bible and all of church history to support its
view.
Overextend:
"to
extend beyond reasonable limits or beyond one's
capacity to meet
obligations or commitments." Webster
I
would interpret this to mean
that if we don't allow our members in their worship
service to enjoy
musical instruments if they so desire to mean that we
are not complying with God's
Will that WE "enjoy" as a way to
worship HIM.
Because WE don't "mole into"
instrumental churches and try to
impose our worship practices perhaps God will not burn
us!
Locke
continues to defend your
rights not to play instruments:
I
ask, I say, whether this be
not more agreeable to the Church of Christ
than
for men to
impose their own inventions and interpretations upon
others as if
they were of Divine authority,
and
to establish by
ecclesiastical laws, as absolutely necessary to the
profession of
Christianity, such things as the Holy Scriptures do
either not
mention, or at least not expressly command?
Whosoever
requires those things in order to
ecclesiastical communion, which Christ does not
require in order to
life
eternal, he may, perhaps, indeed constitute a society accommodated
to
his
own opinion and his own advantage;
but
how that can be
called the Church of Christ which is established
upon laws that are
not His, and
which excludes such
persons from its
communion as He will
one day receive into the Kingdom of Heaven, I
understand not.
Imposing
instruments excludes
from fellowship those who disagree. And those who have
used stealth
techniques and false teaching to impose instruments
without a doubt
exclude others from ever teaching against instruments
again in
your-now-our church house.
In
D&A Thomas Campbell
noted: 11. That (in some instances)
a partial
neglect of the expressly
revealed will of God,
and (in others) an assumed
authority for making
the
approbation of human opinions and
human inventions a term of communion, by
introducing them
into the constitution, faith, or worship of the
Church,
are,
and have been,
the immediate, obvious, and universally-acknowledged
causes, of
all the corruptions
and divisions
that ever have taken place in the Church of God.
