BROOKLYN, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1942

BROOKLYN, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1942

Beloved Brother, — Your letter of August 14th was duly received. I had written to you on July 31st covering some of the points you mentioned, and I hope my letter has reached you. As regards my letter to Mr. Ide, part of which you saw, I will say very definitely that in writing to him I had the general position of the Tract Depot in mind and in no sense was I writing as one trespassed against. Your letter is largely to satisfy me as to possible infringements of my rights, but all you write in this respect is wholly beside the mark. In writing to Mr. Ide I was, as I said, concerned about the submerging of the rights of authors and editors in the extensive way in which you revise and change at will manuscripts sent to the Depot for publication. I am assuming that what I have observed in the papers sent from New York represents what is done on all such manuscripts.

This has come to my attention quite recently, almost entirely through the letter I received from ——— relative to Ephesians 1: 22. ———’s letter led me to examine certain copies of Notes ^[p. 281] which I had revised and also which Mr. Parker had revised and sent to you for publication. I may say that since these New York Readings began to be published, I had never seen a MS. of them after I had made a general revision of it. ———’s inquiry led me to look at several, which Mr. Parker kept, so as to make comparison with what appeared in the printed page which he had questioned. I examined particularly the MS. I had revised and which also Mr. Parker in due course revised and forwarded to you, and found that you had made about eighty changes in the paper after it had been revised by myself first and then by Mr. Parker. Several of the changes you made were deletions of questions and answers, and in one particular case a change of a remark by me relative to Ephesians 1: 22. This alteration I noted in my letter to you of July 31st, and I am referring now not to the rightness or the wrongness of the change you made, but the fact that you made it without any reference to Mr. Parker or to me. I am referring also to the fact that the extent of your revision of articles constitutes you practice a chief editor, and consequently all articles for publication in the Stow Hill Depot not only come under your notice so that nothing in a general way should be published contrary to the truth, but that you edit articles, altering them at will and this to the extent of altering a paper structurally, revising it throughout in the ordinary sense of the word.

I was very thankful when you took on your primary services in the Depot as manager of it, and profited much by help from you from time to time, and had given you liberty to treat my articles in a cursory way so as to prevent mistakes of any kind, but I had no idea that you intended to treat articles as you now manifestly do, and I am thinking not only of your present service but of the office that you have created, that it is not in keeping with a publishing house among the saints, for as I have said, it will obscure authorship and editorship, and hence cause friction among those who serve in these respects. You may not be always available, but the office will stand and whoever takes on the work will in all probability pursue your methods. My exercise therefore in writing Mr. Ide, was that this whole position might be looked into and rectified before it is too late. That general oversight of papers to be published is necessary is quite obvious, and your work, as I have said, at the outset was good and as far as I am concerned it was in my mind good until the papers I have referred to had to be ^[p. 282] looked into. I am covering the whole matter in this letter to you briefly, intending to send Mr. Ide a copy of what I am writing for his own use and that of his fellow trustees, for the responsibility properly devolves on them. You will understand that as already said, I am concerned for the general position of the Tract Depot and that there may be nothing about it to cause friction among those who seek to serve in ministering a portion of meat to the household, for they all should be on mutual lines, each one who serves recognising the rights of his fellow servants to the fullest extent. It was in this sense that I quoted from 1 Corinthians 9 in my letter to Mr. Ide. If what I write is taken seriously by the trustees, it will mean that authors and editors will be required to be more careful in their work and it will be necessary to make it plain to them what space can be supplied for their contributions, and that it is expected that little or no alterations should be needed in any papers. This will tend to improvement all round of the service contemplated, and will prevent undue centralisation in the work which, as I have remarked, can only tend to dissatisfaction and complaint.

Returning to your letter of August 14th I have been distressed to find alterations in MSS. which I had not known of when I wrote you on July 31st. One of the alterations is in ‘Names of Divine Persons’, page 23. When I wrote you I had not seen the revised edition of this book, but on looking at it two days ago, I note that the paragraph has changes which support your view of Ephesians 1: 22, and I am certain I never made these changes when looking over the book in view of another edition. I believe I sent you a copy with what little alterations I suggested, but it is morally impossible that I could have made the changes that I find in the new edition. The old edition reads in the beginning of the last paragraph of that page, ‘In Ephesians He is given to be Head over all things to the assembly’. Whereas, the new edition has, ‘In Ephesians He is made Head over all things and given to the assembly’. Again in that same paragraph the first edition has, ‘He is taken by the exceeding greatness of the power of God out of death and set at His right hand in the heavenlies over all as Head to the assembly’. In the second edition this sentence reads, ‘He is taken out of death by the exceeding greatness of God’s power and is set at His right hand in the heavenlies over all as Head, and given to the assembly’. I became very uneasy when ^[p. 283] I discovered these changes and as I have said, they could not have been made by me. A passage in Readings in New York in 1933 is unquestionable evidence that I did not hold such a view of Ephesians 1: 22 as appears in the second edition of ‘Divine Names’. The passage I refer to is on pages 319 - 320, which you can easily find. But apart from any statements of mine, I am quite certain that I never held this view and that I never quoted intentionally Ephesians 1: 22 save as it appears in the New Translation and the Authorised Versions. As regards Ephesians 1: 22 I need say no more as my letter of July 31st covers the matter fully from my point of view.

Now as to Numbers 21. I have to point out that changes have been made in the New York Readings of August, 1942, contrary to what I hold as to the teaching of verses 16 - 18 of that chapter. The first change is on page 21 of the MS., and page 144 of the magazine. In the former, in answer to a question by A.R., I say, ‘Our hymn singing is very important in assembly service, as helping us to move into the presence of God’. And then in answer to a question of H.H., I refer to ‘the idea of alternate singing’ and that ‘Miriam represented that as a sort of ministerial side’. The magazine reads, ‘Our hymn singing is very important in assembly service, as helping us to move into the presence of God. In Numbers 21: 17 singing conveys the idea of alternate singing: that we respond in song to the Spirit’s movements and suggestions in assembly’. The clause just quoted, that ‘we respond in song to the Spirit’s movements and suggestions in assembly’, is attributed to me, and the phrase does not convey my understanding of the passage in question. Singing to the well, or in type to the Spirit, is not simply responding in song to the Spirit’s movements and suggestions, but the Spirit Himself. “Sing ye unto it”, was quoted by Mr. Hardwick, whose quotation evidently has been deleted by you. The truth, however, is plainly stated in the first paragraph of the page referred to in the magazine, but the words attributed to me already quoted are not mine, and, as I said, do not represent the truth. Another change is on page 145 of the magazine. On page 22 of the MS., in answer to a remark of F.N.W., I say, ‘Rise up well, sing unto it, well which princes digged’. Then I go on to say clearly ‘the well is the objective in the words that are given’. Whereas, in the magazine these words of mine do not appear.

^[p. 284] Further, as to this subject, ^[p. 285] in your letter to Mr. Parker of June 11th, you say, ‘It is a little puzzling to know how it is that J.T. so understands the verse of Hymn 126, and I might mention that it is not the first time that he has so expressed himself. Previously I have just deleted it. And then again, the first line of verse 3 is not an address to the Holy Spirit, but is directed to God for the gift. Further, J.T. speaks of following the scriptural example and says that’,This, however, is sparing ...’. In point of fact it is so sparing that it does not occur anywhere as far as I can see’. I furnish this quotation from your letter to call attention to the liberty you take, as you say, in deleting something of mine off hand. I do not know what passages you refer to as deleted, I only refer to the way you speak of the matter. Then as to verse 3 of hymn 126, you say it is directed to God, whereas verse 2, which immediately precedes, is directed to Christ, not God. Verse 3 in the original primarily referred directly to the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of the hymn plainly shows that even if verse 3 stands, we should keep in mind that the Spirit is to be viewed objectively, and that Numbers 21 supports this. As I said elsewhere, I am not advocating that we should address the Spirit in any formal way, but I do believe that we should keep Him before us as an Object in the Trinity. Numbers 21 speaks of Him typically as viewed in this way in song. You make a great deal of the so-called authorities as to the use of the word “sing” in Numbers 21: 17, but the fact remains that Scripture elsewhere uses the same word for singing in an objective sense. While the original word implies sometimes alternate singing, yet this singing is to some person or thing objectively viewed by the singers as in passages in Exodus 32, 1 Samuel 18, Isaiah 27, and Hosea 2. The fact that it is used far more frequently for the ordinary idea of ‘answering’ does not set aside the fact that the New Translation and Authorised Versions retain it in the text, and that hence there must be good ground for such usage. Strong’s Concordance to which you refer, says amongst other things, ‘specially to sing’ and again ‘singing together by course’. Therefore, as we sing together by course to the well it plainly implies that we sing to the Spirit. Miriam and the women of Israel would sing to Jehovah on that principle, and so will Israel in the future sing to Jehovah on that principle according to Hosea 2, and therefore, the singing to the well is also on that principle.

In your letter to Mr. Parker of August 10th you say, ‘In thinking of such a matter I would look for a basis in some passage in the New Testament and would hesitate to base it on a type, but rather interpret the type by the New Testament’. These remarks discredit the Old Testament scriptures. The Lord says, “the scripture cannot be broken”. Typical language is as intelligible and expressive, if we understand it by the Spirit, as is the language of the New Testament. The types often add to New Testament statements of truth. The subject of the Spirit, as spoken under the symbol of a ‘springing well’ and ‘rivers’, is treated in John 4 and 7, and it is remarkable that the Lord in dealing with this subject in chapter 7 says, “He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. The Lord confirms what He says by referring to the Old Testament. The living water referred to in John 4 is enlarged upon by Numbers 21.

As already remarked I earnestly hope you will take a broad view of what I have written, that on the one hand it is to help as to the services of the Depot, and on the other, to make the truth on the subjects mentioned clearer to us all. Also that any moral issues involved in the facts that have come before us may be fully adjusted. With love in the Lord Jesus, I am,

Affectionately yours in Him,
James Taylor.