September 30, 2009

Long since disrelished

The usage of Instrumental Musick in our Public Worship of GOD, hath been long since disrelished among His Faithful People. Justin Martyr long ago exploded it. Yea, Aquinas himself, as late as less than Five hundred Years ago, decried it. Indeed it was one of the Last Things which the Man of Sin introduced, in the Worship of our SAVIOUR, which he had already fill'd with a Multitude of Superstitions. We will then for the present look on the Jewish Trumpets, and Organs too, as a part of the Abrogated Pedagogy.

—Cotton Mather, India Christiana (1621)

That's it: from now on, every prelude and postlude gets listed in the church bulletin as "Abrogated Pedagogy."

1 comment:

PC said...

http://www.firstchurchbostonmusic.org

Cotton's church is now rockin'.