Finding Their Voices - Amherst College

calling for the re-introduction of notated music to the Bay Psalm Book. First, however,
the American colonists needed to sort out whether they should be singing anything at all.
Not all Puritans believed in the value of singing. Even among those who wanted
to keep the tradition of singing in worship there was a wide variety of opinions on what
exact text should be performed and in which manner it should be sung. Some interpreted
sections of the Bible on singing figuratively, meaning “song of the heart” rather than
song of the voice. Some thought it wrong to sing the Psalms of David. Others thought
that any sacred text was fair game to set to music. Some believed the entire congregation
should sing, while others thought only one should sing while the congregation listened.
A sizable contingent thought women should never sing in Church, citing lines in the
Bible that forbid women from speaking during service.
In 1647 John Cotton, a respected colonial religious figure, published a tract on
singing in churches, intending to reconcile these differences and clear opposition to the
impending publication of the revised Bay Psalm Book. Cotton broke the issue of church
music into four parts: first, concerning the worth of singing in church in general; second,
concerning what words should be sung; third, who should sing them; and fourth, how
they should be sung. The solutions he laid out in the publication came to be widely
adopted by churches of the period.
Cotton believed that the singing of psalms was a “holy duty” of worship, but
made sure to clarify that it only counted when the heart of the singer was involved, for
“God is a Spirit: and to worship him with the voice without the spirit, were but liplabor.”
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To convince those who thought singing had no basis in the Bible he presented
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179 John Cotton, Singing of Psalms a Gospel Ordinance (1647). The following quotations from Cotton are
also from this source.
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