The Dillenburger Synod Abolished Organs In Worship

Latin songs, as well as organs (first introduced into the churches by Pope Vitellianus about 665) are for the most part abolished in the churches of this land.

Not that use of the Latin language or of music is rejected of itself and the youth are rightly allowed these in their place, as in the schools and at home in their houses.

But it is more profitable and more edifying when in the public assemblies, the prayer, singing, and the whole of the service of worship is performed in a known and intelligible language so that the common man is able to retain something from it, and to say Amen.

And this has the apostle Paul commanded the Corinthians in their assemblies (1 Cor. 14), who otherwise highly extols tongues and the variety of languages.

So also the superfluous and unbeneficial costs expended on organs are much better directed to other necessary causes in the maintenance of churches and schools.

THE NASSAU CONFESSION, (1578) in James T. Dennison Jr., ed. Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation: 1523–1693, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008–14), 515.

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  • R. Scott Clark
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    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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One comment

  1. May we all be Dillenburgerians! After the past two centuries of greatly-awakened Christianity, perhaps it’s time to ask if our desires to retain music are truly scriptural and what are the saints being deprived of during the time devoted to music and non-psalter hymns?

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