Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture

by C. J. Ellicott

when it drew up the fundamental rules in accordance with which all has been done? Can there be any other answer than this? All has been done to bring the truth of God’s most Holy Word more faithfully and more freshly home to the hearts and consciences of our English-speaking people. And if this be so, how are ministers of this Holy Word to answer the further question, When we are met together in the House of God to hear His word and His message of salvation to mankind, how hear we it? In the traditional form in which it has been heard for wellnigh three hundred years, or in a form on which, to ensure faithfulness and accuracy, such labour has been bestowed as that which we are now considering? It seems impossible to hesitate as to our answer. And yet numbers do hesitate; and partly from indifference, partly from a vague fear of disquieting a congregation, partly, and probably chiefly, from a sense of difficulty as to the rightful mode of introducing the change, the old Version is still read, albeit with an uneasy feeling on the part of the public reader; the uneasy feeling being this, that errors in regard of Holy Scripture ought not to remain uncorrected nor obscurities left to cloud the meaning of

God’s Word when there is a current Version from which errors are removed, and in which obscurities are dissipated. Why should not such a Version be read in the ears of our people?

This is the question which I am confident many a one of you, my dear friends, when you have been reading in your church—say the Epistles—have often felt very distinctly come home to you. Why should such a Version not be read in the ears of our people? Has it been forbidden? No, thank God; full liberty, on the contrary, has been left to us by the living voice of the synod of this Province that it may be read, subject to one reasonable limitation. Was it not the unanimous judgement of the Upper House of the Convocation of our Province, confirmed by the voice of the Lower House [122]—“That the use of the Revised Version of the Bible at the lectern in the public services of the Church, where this is desired by clergy and people, is not open to any well-founded objection, and will tend to promote a more intelligent knowledge of Holy Scripture”? And further, was not this adopted by the Lay House of our Province,

even when a few doubting voices were heard [123], and an interpretation given to the word “use,” in the form of a rider, which, I can confidently say, never entered into the minds or thoughts of the members of the Upper House? Indeed, though I do not wish to criticise the decision of the House of Laymen, their appended words of interpretation fall to the ground. If “use” is to mean “occasional employment of Lessons from the Revised Version, where, in the interest of more accurate translation, it is desirable,” can any Lessons be found where the interest of more accurate translation is not patently concerned? If this be so, what meaning can we assign to “occasional employment”?

We see then plainly, if we are to be guided by the judgement of the venerable body to whom the authoritative inception of Revision is alone to be assigned, that the way to its use in the Public Services of the Church is open to us all—where such use is desired by clergy and people. Now let us take these words seriously into our consideration. They clearly mean, however good the Version may be, that there is to be no sudden and precipitate use of the Revised Version in the

appointed Lessons for the day on the part of the minister of any of our parishes. If introduced, its introduction must not be simply when it is desired by the clergyman, but when it is also desired by his people. So great a change as the displacement of the old and familiar Authorised Version—for it amounts to this—in the public reading of Holy Scripture in the Services of the Church, in favour of an altered form of the old Version (though confessedly so altered that the general hearer would hardly ever recognize the displacement)—so great a change ought not to be made without the knowledge, and further, the desire of the congregation.

But how is the desire for the change to be ascertained? So far as I can see, there can be only one real and rightful way of bringing about the desire and the manifestation of it, and that is by first of all showing simply and plainly how, especially in the New Testament, the alterations give life, colouring and reality to the narratives of Evangelists, force and lucidity to the reasonings of Apostles, and, what is of still more vital importance, deeper insight into our relations to our saving Lord, clearer knowledge of His blessed life and work here on earth, and quickened perceptions

of our present and our future, and, to a very real extent, of the holy mysteries of the life of the world to come. When changes of text and of renderings are shown, and they can be shown, to bear with them these fuller revelations of God’s Holy Word, there will be no lack of desire, and of the manifestation of it, in any congregation, for the public use of a Version through which such disclosures as I have specified can be brought home to the truth-seeking believer.

My fixed opinion therefore is this, that though, after a long and careful consideration of the subject, I do sincerely desire that the Revised Version should be introduced into the churches of this diocese, I do also sincerely desire that it should not be introduced without a due preparation of the congregation for the change, and some manifestation of their desire for the change. There will probably be a few churches in our diocese in which the Revised Version is used already, and in regard of them nothing more will be necessary than, from time to time, in occasional addresses, to allude to any important changes that may have appeared in the Lessons and recent readings of Holy Scripture, and thus to keep alive the thoughtful study of that which will be more and more

felt to be, in the truest sense of the words, the Book of Life. But, in the great majority of our churches—though in many cases there may have been passing desires to read and to hear God’s Word in its most truthful form—no forward steps will have been taken. It is in reference then to this great majority of cases that I have broken my long silence, and, before my ministry closes, have resolved to bring before you the whole history of the greatest spiritual movement that has taken place since the Reformation; and also to indicate the untold blessings the Revision will bear to those who avail themselves of it in all reverent earnestness and devotion.