Chapter III: Section II: The Lutheran Hymn Book or the Arrangement of the Hymns in the Hymnal

Two different hymnological methods of disposition have arisen historically within the Church, namely, the _dogmatic_ or the _dogmatic-ethical_ method, and the _liturgical_ method. The former method came into existence in the eighteenth century. By this method the hymns in the hymnal are arranged according to the usual order of dogmatics. For an illustration of this method of arranging the hymns, look into almost any good hymnal of the Reformed Church; The Methodist Hymnal, for example. The liturgical method is the original, the standard, and the correct method of disposition. In support of this assertion, it may be well to observe that since the Lutheran hymnal is a liturgical book, a book intended for the needs of the worshipping congregation, the succession of the hymns as well as their content and character should reflect the spirit of the Church, as it finds immediate expression in the cultus and its various acts, and as it seeks indirectly to exert a hallowing influence on social life in larger or smaller circles.

It may be well to take a general view of the main factors or stages of this liturgical work of the Church, so as to see more clearly what subjects may be considered in the hymn book and in what order the various subjects or rubrics may follow each other.

The reason and the vital basis for the existence of the Church is God’s revelation of salvation through Jesus Christ, i. e., the incarnation and the work of redemption of the Son of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit; and these divine works of salvation are the great objectives of the three great church festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, around which the cycles and days of the church year are grouped. The Church is the result of this revelation. Therefore our attention turns towards the Church, her nature, her establishment, and her extension in this world through missionary activity; further, toward her inner growth, by which she gives expression to her religious and harmonious life as a communion in solemn divine worship, and through her sacred acts and order consecrates human life unto a vessel for divine life. But this self-edification is brought about in the Church only through the Holy Spirit who dwells and lives within the Church and in and through the Church and her institutions of grace produces in the hearts of the redeemed personal conversion, sanctification, and salvation. Thus the Church grows both outwardly and inwardly and proceeds towards her eternal perfection. But the Church has to do not only with purely spiritual conditions, things divine and eternal. By her life she seeks to permeate, sanctify, and glorify all conditions, even the temporal. The Church seeks to penetrate, in a highly beneficial way, the civic community, to ennoble its affairs and impart support and exhortation both to the governing and the governed, in times of prosperity and in times of trouble. The Church is deeply interested in her educational institutions, these nurseries of time and eternity; the Christian school is not only a creation of the Church, but it needs the whole-hearted support of the Church. The Church is also deeply interested in the welfare of domestic life—she seeks to make the home a happy Christian home. The Church also desires to support and accompany the individual member throughout his course of life, especially in its more difficult stages, so that this temporal life may lead to eternal life.

If these are the most important factors in ecclesiastical-liturgical activity, and if the church hymnal is to be in perfect harmony with the life of the Church, then the hymns in the hymnal may be arranged as follows: 1. _Festival Hymns_, arranged according to the festivals, cycles and holy-days of the church year—Advent, Christmas, New Year, Epiphany, etc. 2. _Hymns about the Church and ecclesiastical acts_: the Word, the Church, Missions, ecclesiastical acts (worship, Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, confirmation, ordination and installation, dedication of churches, etc., also marriage and burial). 3. _Hymns about the Christian life_: repentance, faith, justification and state of grace, sanctification (the fruits of regeneration, prayer, cross and consolation), the completion (the resurrection, judgment, eternity). 4. _Hymns for certain people, times and circumstances_: the Christian community (fatherland, the authorities and the subjects, judges and those suing for justice, temporal necessities, war and peace, plagues and calamities, etc.), the Christian school or Christian education, the Christian home (husband and wife, parents and children, master and servant, morning and evening hymns, etc.), conditions in the life of an individual (health, sickness, death, etc.).

GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH HYMNS