The KJV
What Presbyterians Used to Think
An 1855 Resolution Against Modern Versions
The Committee on Bills and Overtures made the following reports which were severally adopted:
Your Committee report [sic] an Overture from the Synod of Missouri, respecting the common version of the Bible. The said memorial sets forth the fact that strenuous efforts have been made for years, and are now made, especially in the West, to destroy confidence in, and set aside, our common and most excellent version of the Bible, as very defective and sectarian, and to introduce a new one.
The Memorial, moreover, sets forth, that we, as Presbyterians, have been misrepresented, and the idea conveyed that some of our ministers favor this scheme. Our silence on the subject has resulted in making the impression, among some of our people, that the common version of the Bible is not worthy of confidence. Therefore,
Resolved, 1. That we have unshaken confidence in our common version, and a firm belief that a better one on the whole, for common use, cannot be had.
Resolved, 2. That we deprecate the incalculable evils that would inevitably result from such an attempt, by any denomination or denominations, to introduce a new version, destroying, as it would, confidence in our common version, ejecting it from our schools, opening the way for conflicting, sectarian versions, and sadly wounding and marring our beautiful Protestantism.
Resolved, 3. That, in the judgment of this Assembly, not one of our judicatories, and not one minister, approves of, or sympathizes with this injudicious sectarian movement.
Resolved, 4. That all our ministers be careful, in expounding the word publicly, so to expound, as to inspire and sustain confidence in our excellent version, as truly the Word of God; believing, as we do, that the honest-hearted inquirer searching after the truth, with a teachable spirit will find it.
Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, May 25th, 1855 (pg. 28) [read online]
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