The musical instruments, however, adopted for the pantomime (saltatrici) Mass of Antichrist, together with images, we abhor. There is no use for them in the church, and indeed they are marks and occasions of idolatry.
Hungarian Reformed Church, Articles (1567) art. 17 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), 111.
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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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Thank you for the excellent resources on instruments in worship. They have allowed me to give this deep consideration. I’ve become now uncomfortable with instruments and am convinced that we should return to the use of human voice and the psalms. May God be pleased to lead the URCNA in that direction. Honestly, I find singing without instruments difficult, but that is no basis to reject what is proper worship. I can learn. And if I still find it difficult, so what? It doesn’t matter what I find preferable, but what constitutes true worship that pleases God.