77. We do not consider the use of organs in the churches to be good especially for the preaching (services). Therefore, we judged that ministers should labor, even though organs are tolerated for a time, that they be removed at the earliest and most suitable time.
National Synod of the Netherlands, German, and Walloon Churches…held at Dordrecht…1578 in The Church Orders of the 16th-Century Reformed Churches of the Netherlands Together with their Social, Political, and Ecclesiastical Context, trans. and collated by Richard R. Ridder with the assistance of Rev. Peter H. Jonker and Rev. Leonard Verduin (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1987), 220.
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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“Organs to be removed ASAP”…. amen! Nothing worse for drowning out the voices of God’s people when singing…. (okay, maybe trombones).
There seems to be a patina of Synodical infallibility being applied here?
Allan,
Reporting on and giving some patient consideration to the conclusions of a Reformed synod is hardly “Synodical infallibility.” Rather, it’s the practice of reading the Scriptures with the visible, institutional church that Christ established. She does err and when she does, she must be corrected by God’s Word—sola Scriptura but I’ve seen not much evidence in the comments so far of any sort of patient investigation.
Have you investigated the history of exegesis of 1 Cor 14? What did the Fathers say, the medievals, the Reformers, the post-Reformation theologians and synods?