I have long said: If someone tries to argue with you against the regulative principle of worship it is always a good idea to ask them what they are going to put in its place (making sure that they provide Scriptural proof for all those “liberties” and ceremonies which they conjure up out of their own brains). Also ask them: By what standard are you binding my conscience to your forms and ideas regarding worship? Where does God institute this? Or, are you just making this up yourself? Because for those who are familiar with the humanistic systems that have already developed in opposition to the Scriptural law of worship, it will soon be apparent “that there is nothing new under the sun.”
These “new” ideas regarding worship vary little (in practice), and not at all (in principle), with the ideas set forth in opposition to the Reformers throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There is no neutrality! You are going to buy into a system (whether you know it or not); and the system you buy into is guaranteed *not* to be new (at the level of principle). You will either worship God according to His appointment or you will do so at the behest of men (Matt. 15:9).
That John Calvin and John Frame hold to diametrically opposed views on worship is obvious to those familiar with both authors. One clear example of a specific point of divergence between Calvin and Frame can be seen in their views of the application of the regulative principle as it comes to bear on the question of the use of musical instruments in public worship (though application to Frame concerning the differences between his and Calvin’s conception of worship could fill a book in and of themselves).
I am deliberately choosing an area that seems insignificant to most Christian’s today (instrumental music) to make this point, for we have seen (in Eire’s book, “War Against the Idols”) that Calvin “constantly warns that it is dangerous to accept even the most insignificant form of material worship in the Church.” I am choosing the instruments question to illustrate Frame’s rejection of the regulative principle because the most important point to remember is not found in the actual practice which I will note (though it is a sin to use instruments in public worship), but in the prior abandonment of the regulative principle which must first take place before this idolatrous practice can be performed.
Frame believes that “we are free to use instrumental music, even without words,” to cover other distracting noises during worship (p. 130). Furthermore, as worship leader in his congregation he encourages individuals in the congregation “to clap, whistle, tap tambourines, or otherwise use their gifts to enhance worship” (p. 148). He also plays instrumental solos, but would in principle “like to see more instrumentalists” than just himself (p. 148). Finally, as if to totally thumb his nose at the Reformers and the regulative principle (and embrace an outright popish heresy), Frame states that he does “not believe that we are limited to the instruments mentioned in Scripture, but in considering how to set hymns to music, the biblical instrumentation can give us some clues.”
In contrast to Frame’s view Calvin says, “To sing the praises of God upon the harp and psaltery, unquestionably formed a part of the training of the law and of the service of God under that dispensation of shadows and figures; but they are not now to be used in public thanksgiving.” (Calvin on Ps. lxxi. 22).He says again: “With respect to the tabret, harp, and psaltery, we have formerly observed, and will find it necessary afterwards to repeat the same remark, that the Levites, under the law, were justified in making use of instrumental music in the worship of God; it having been his will to train his people, while they were yet tender and like children, by such rudiments until the coming of Christ. But now, when the clear light of the gospel has dissipated the shadows of the law and taught us that God is to be served in a simpler form, it would be to act a foolish and mistaken part to imitate that which the prophet enjoined only upon those of his own time” (Calvin on Ps. lxxxi. 3).
I have often said that we (as Protestants) would no more use instruments in worship than we would take a sheep or goat up to the front of our meeting house and slaughter it, as if that had some religious significance for today. Both instrumental music and animal sacrifice were ordained parts of worship originating in the now abrogated Old Testament ceremonial law. If you don’t think this is an accurate statement ask yourself this question: Were musical instruments part of the ceremonial or moral law? — and why? This is why the use of musical instruments in public worship was often called “the badge of Popery” by the Reformers (cf. R.J. George’s “The Badge of Popery: Musical Instruments in Public Worship”). It was also considered a denial of the work of Christ (bringing back those ceremonial shadows which disappeared in the light of the work of Christ).