Luther on the Noble Art of Music

"I, Doctor Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ!

I truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given to mankind by God.

The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them.... In summa, next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits...

Our dear fathers and prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in the churches. Hence, we have so many songs and psalms.

This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God.

However, when man's natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace.

A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs."

Martin Luther's foreword to Georg Rhau's Collection, "Symphoniae iucundae".

All of Grace

Here are the words to the hymn I read on Sunday by Isaac Watts. One of our musicians has written a new melody for this hymn and is recording it for a record to soon be released.

All of Grace

Lord, we confess our many faults,

How great our guilt has been!

Our thoughts were vain and full of pride

And all our lives were sin.

But praise our God, forever praise,

Forever love His name,

Who turns our feet from dangerous ways

Of folly, sin, and shame.

He raised us from the depths of sin,

The gates of gaping hell,

And fixed our standing more secure

Than ’twas before we fell.

The arms of everlasting love

Beneath our souls He placed;

And on the Rock of Ages set

Our slippery footsteps fast.

It’s all of grace, by Your sov’reign hand,

Through His death which long before was planned

That we can come before Your throne

And in Your presence stand,

It’s all of Grace.

It’s not by works of righteousness

Which our own hands have done;

But we are saved by sovereign grace

Abounding through His son.

It’s from the mercy of our God

That all our hopes begin;

It’s by the water and the blood

Our souls are washed from sin.

It’s through the purchase of His death

Who hung upon the cross

The Spirit is sent down to breathe

On such dry bones as us.

Raised from the dead, we live anew;

And, justified by grace

We will appear in glory too,

And see our Father’s face.

Ain't no sunshine...