Neither do the Quakers believe that ministers of the
church ought, under the new dispensation, to be a separate people, as
the Levites were, or to be distinguished on account of their office from
other men.
The Quakers differ from other Christians in the rejection of psalmody,
as a service of the church. If persons feel themselves so influenced in
their private devotions, [139]that they can sing, as the Apostle says,
"with the spirit and the understanding," or "can sing[140] and make
melody in their hearts to the Lord," the Quakers have no objection to
this as an act of worship. But they conceive that music and psalmody,
though they might have been adapted to the ceremonial religion of the
Jews, are not congenial with the new dispensation that has followed;
because this dispensation requires, that all worship should be performed
in spirit and in truth. It requires that no act of religion should take
place, unless the spirit influences an utterance, and that no words
should be used, except they are in unison with the heart. Now this
coincidence of spiritual impulse and feeling with this act, is not
likely to happen, in the opinion of the Quakers, with public psalmody.
It is not likely that all in the congregation will be impelled, in the
same moment, to a spiritual song, or that all will be in the state of
mind or spirit which the words of the psalm describe.
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