ARCHAIC OR ACCURATE, edited by John Thackway.
WORDS OF TRUTH, edited by John Thackway.
Two booklets, each 48 pages and £1.00. Published by the Bible League. Obtainable from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom, Glasgow.
THE reason for issuing Archaic Or Accurate, a collection of eleven essays, is the increasing use of “you” and “your” in addressing God both in new translations of the Bible and in prayer: a fact that indicates a “modern Downgrade”. Some of the essays show the irreverence of using the pronouns “you” and “your” in addressing the Most High. Others demonstrate the especially important fact that the use of “thee” and “thou” in Scripture, irrespective of who is being addressed, is to give an accurate translation and make clear those distinctions that “you” and “your” do not, and cannot show. The full treatment of the subject given by these essays is most helpful.
In Words of Truth, there are two articles: “The Guilt of the Higher Critical Movement” by Maurice Roberts, and “Reopening the Wells” by John Thackway. The Higher Critical Movement is shown by Maurice Roberts to have been guilty of rejecting the testimony of the church to the infallibility of the Bible, undermining confidence in the Scriptures, contradicting Christ and His apostles, and robbing us of our glorious theological heritage. The author ends on a note of hope, believing that there is a beginning of a recovery of the “old Reformed theology”, but emphasises our need of a day of divine power.
John Thackway bases his article on Genesis 26:18, “And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father.” He demonstrates how the wells of salvation of “soul-saving biblical truth” have been stopped up not only by the deadly rationalism and unbelief of the Higher Critical movement but also by these three movements: Ecumenism, New Evangelicalism, and the Charismatic Movement. Having shown that the fight for truth is on a few fronts he proposes several steps towards reopening the wells, including the rejecting of “moderate Calvinism”.
The booklet gives a useful overview of the low state of the professing church, and highlights our need of divine aid as well as our responsibility to reopen the wells of truth. “If we have reopened some of these wells,” says the author, “or helped to keep them open and have lived upon the water our lives and ministries will not have been in vain.”