STATEMENT

OF THE

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

PRESBYTERY OF GLASGOW,

RELATIVE TO THE USE OF AN

ORGAN IN ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH,

In the Public Worship of God.

TO WHICH IS ANNEXED,

AN ADDRESS

TO THE REVEREND JUDICATORIES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES;

By a Lay Member.

PHILADELPHIA :

PRINTED FOR THE PUBLISHERS; AND SOLD BY D. HOGÁN.

VG21
C562

258863

PREFACE

FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION.

TO those who profess to maintain any steady and uniform adherence to the constitutional standards of the Presbyterian church, in these States, or to the purity and simplicity of Gospel worship, it is hoped that the following Discussion, however distant as to local situation, will not prove uninteresting.

In every period of the church of Christ, its truth and simplicity have been invaded, not only by the propensity of the world at large, but even that of its own professors themselves, to a sensual and pompous worship. Not all the express and positive precepts, nor all the blessed example of its divine Author himself, have been, even to this day, effectual for the entire suppression and restraint of these vain and delusive workings of the unregenerated hearts of the children of men. In that tribute of homage and praise, especially, which we owe to our God and Saviour, and that too, in all the renovated and exalted strain of evangelical gratitude, how prone are we, individually and collectively, to listen to the syren sounds of sensual delusion; and even to aim at the wafting of our holiest aspirations to heaven, through the medium of other sounds than those that can issue from the heart?

In Old Testament times, indeed, when mental and spiritual exercise had few, if any, means of being sublimated from the grossness of sensual delusion, it pleased God to indulge his people and worshipping servants, with some condescension to their weakness and imperfection, in this respect. In divine consistency, however, with his most gracious purposes, as well as with his promises of a more spiritual worship, those very means he converted into types and shadows of those more

int of Bloomfield Coll-11/6/62