Too much singing?

Posted on June 4, 2012 
Filed under History, Theology

Over at Meet the Puritans, Lee Gatiss has been sharing some wisdom from 16th century reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli. Here’s his latest observation:

“In his commentary on Judges, Vermigli has this arresting application concerning music and singing in church. He writes:

Almost everywhere in the papal religion they think they have worshipped God sufficiently in the Church when they have sung and shouted loud and long… There are many priests and monks who think they deserve well of God because they have sung many psalms… Another vice to be removed is that there should not be so much singing in church as to leave almost no time for preaching the Word of God and holy doctrine. We can see this happening everywhere in a way, for everything is so noisy with chanting and piping that there is no time left for preaching. So it happens that people depart from church full of music and harmony, yet they are fasting and starving for heavenly doctrine.

This reminded me of an article by my friend Vaughan Roberts on the same subject, here. Though it is interesting that Vermigli was writing well before the modern charismatic movement. That, it seems, has more in common with early modern Roman Catholicism than we might have thought. How interesting too that Vermigli had such an influence over Cranmer and the composition of the English Book of Common Prayer which like Vermigli (died 1562) is celebrating an anniversary this year (1552, 1662).”

– from Meet the Puritans.