_The Origin, and Development of Religious Belief._ By S. BARING-GOULD,
M.A. Part II.--Christianity. Rivingtons.
We have already called the attention of our readers to the first part of
this remarkable work, in which the writer, taking the standpoint of
positive science and the facts of human nature, endeavoured to account
for the developments of religious belief in all ages and places, and
uttered his conviction that they all correspond to some necessity and
quality of human nature. He then hazarded the opinion that the true and
absolute religion would take account of, and embody, and satisfy, the
cravings expressed in the strange worship and religious ideas of all
peoples. He has now pursued his inquiry into the positive dicta of
Christian theology, and seeks to show that they rest on facts anterior
both to the text of Scripture and the very existence of the Divine
Society. Revelation, if it exists at all, must take up into itself all
the varieties not only of Mosaism or heathenism, but of polytheism, of
idolatry, fetishism, and mysticism, because these and many others are
facts of human nature, and have had a great part to play in the
development and progress of human thought. Christianity, to our author,
is true--and by Christianity he appears to mean the whole dogmatic and
hierarchical and social edifice of Catholicism, because it contains in
itself the utterance of all truths. All other religions and all sects
and schism of the one Church, so far as they hold positive truth, hold
only what the Church holds; their negations are to his mind 'nothing,'
and are destitute, therefore, of all vital power. The Quaker, the
Lutheran, the Anglican, the Greek, the Presbyterian, the modern
Christian philosopher, not to say the Pagan, the Arian, the Pelagian,
the Donatist, grasped severally and forcibly some one truth; perhaps
one-half of the antinomy presenting itself in some great synthesis. Let
this be granted, and, according to Mr. B. Gould, Catholicism held the
same great truth. It may be found embedded in her system, taught with
greater explicitness there than by the sectary; but each of these has
_denied_ some truth or placitum of Catholicism, and its negation has
been nothing, has added nothing to the value of belief as positive
truth. Yet with all this, the author falls foul of Rome at a hundred
points. The union between the Church and the temporal power is denounced
with unmeasured terms; the Papacy is a violation and a 'negation' of the
_oecumenicity_ of the Church, and the encyclical of Pius IX. comes in
for a series of terrific blows. The Inquisition and the persecuting
spirit which arose in Rome under the union of sacred and secular powers,
is treated with as sincere a condemnation as is every form of
Protestantism. Still further, when the author comes to deal with the
evidence for the Incarnation, on which his whole theory turns, he
disposes of every vestige of proof which may be supposed to linger in
the New Testament in favour of this stupendous mystery of grace, and
this 'conciliation of all antinomies.' The chapter on 'The Evidence of
the Incarnation' is a feeble _rechauffé_ of the most ultra type of
modern scepticism. Miracles and prophecy, the inspiration, authenticity,
and genuineness of the Gospels, the evidential value of specific
occurrences in the life of Christ, all go to the wall. Much is made of
discrepancies and contradictions, of the silence of contemporary
historians, and all the rest of it, with which we are so familiar; and
our author's conclusion is, that there is no evidence worthy of the name
for the chief fact on which the whole of the religious development of
Christianity turns. Relinquishing every proof of the divinity of Christ
derivable from the New Testament as less than useless, the grounds on
which he calls for a belief in the incarnation of God in Christ (who, by
the way, need not ever have existed as an historical character at all)
are, that 'such a union of divinity and humanity is necessary to me,
that my nature may find its complete religious satisfaction;' 'such a
dogma alone supplies an adequate basis for morals, establishes the
rights of man on a secure foundation, enables man to distinguish between
authority and force, conciliates my double nature, rational and
sentimental, and my double duties, egoistic and altruistic, and supplies
an adequate incentive to progress.'
These several points furnish the matter of several chapters; and while
it must be observed here that Mr. Baring-Gould's 'negations,' as well as
those of other sectaries, are 'nothing,' and his condemnations and
denials of many positions for which the Catholic Christian would be
prepared to die, put him, in spite of himself, among the most extreme
left of the Hegelian school, yet his arguments on the worth of the dogma
of Incarnation, from his own point of view, deserve serious
consideration. After his numerous indications of a negative criticism
and spirit as hardy and audacious as could be well imagined, he sets to
work with a will, to blaspheme Protestantism as the negation of moral
truths. His monstrous perversions of Luther's and Calvin's position
merit severe castigation. Thus, 'Calvin denied free-will, and therefore
denied duty.' Can he have read the 'Institutes?' The statement 'that
Reformers denied the holiness of God,' with Jewel's 'Apology,' or any of
the Protestant symbols in his hand, is too flagrant a violation of
common fairness. The charge in this chapter against Protestants, that
they deny or negative the Personal Christ, and in a later chapter, that
they have only a dead Christ and not a present Christ to worship or
love, comes with a bad grace from one who has thrown away the evidence
of the existence or divinity of Christ as an historical fact. He appears
to glory in the sacramental system of the Romanist, and assures us that
the Protestant sacraments are reduced to two, and these are not baptism
and the Lord's Supper, but the 'Ministry' and the 'Bible;' the latter of
which, in its sacramental character, he pleasingly describes for his
purpose, as just so much 'washed-up rags and black treacle stains,' an
euphuism for the printed page, which is the _matériel_ for the
communication of such truth and reality as we poor destitute beings
possess. We are content. The mighty Word itself, with all its power to
kindle life and instruct intelligence, to stir the affections, and
discern even the thoughts and intents of the heart, is graciously
communicated to us by the printed page, and by the living voice of men
charged with the Holy Ghost; and for an actual communication of the
living Christ to our true nature, it is on an infinitely higher level
than that which can only reach our emotional nature through the medium
of our alimentary canal and gastric juices. When our author holds up to
heartless Protestants certain acts of special worship which Cardinal
Wiseman described so feelingly and poetically, we can hardly refrain
from telling him that such Cremorne splendours of religious awe, such
blendings of fetishism and wax-candles with the stupendous conception of
the ever-present Christ, will have little effect upon those whose
intellectual, moral, and sensuous nature have been brought into their
due relation with each other, who know the Christ, who love Him and
could die for him.
There is much that is worthy of profound consideration in Mr.
Baring-Gould's positive assertions with reference to the Incarnation and
the Atonement, the dogma of immortality and the Christian sacrifice; but
he has a strange habit of putting a few transcendental propositions one
after the other, mounting up from a 'positive' basis to something like
'Catholic doctrine,' and then calling his string of dogmas,
demonstration. He appears perfectly rabid in his hatred of Protestantism
and Protestants, in his dislike of the doctrine of the Atonement, as
expounded in every phase of evangelical Christianity; and he never
wearies of accusing Protestants of worshipping a dead Christ, because
they cannot, after his Hegelian fashion, accept the Tridentine dogma of
transubstantiation and eucharistic sacrifice. With all his rapturous
admiration of the Church and denunciation of Protestants, it is
sufficiently amusing to find him perpetually--when he wants to give high
utterance to his most enthusiastic dream--driven to quote the poetry of
Sectaries; and once he is so far left to himself as actually to make
that heretic, Isaac Watts, do him some service, and say for him one of
his sweetest thoughts. After all said and done, we find him still
outside the Roman Church, and the next thing we may hear is, that his
interesting, eloquent, and original book is placed in the 'Index.' There
is surely scarcely a position of high importance adopted by him which
would not be repudiated by a Catholic theologian.
_The Athanasian Creed, and its usage in the English Church: an
Investigation, as to the General Object of the Creed, and the Growth of
prevailing Misconceptions concerning it._ A Letter to Very Rev. W. F.
HOOK, D.D., from C. A. SWAINSON, D.D. Rivingtons.
This letter is extremely interesting, coming, as it does, on the morrow
after the publication of the Report of the Ritual Commissioners, and
following the courageous articles of Dean Stanley and Professor Maurice
in the _Contemporary Review_, and the long discussion of the subject in
the _Guardian_. Dr. Swainson is well entitled, by his prolonged studies
in this department of ecclesiastical literature, to be heard in defence
of the symbol of Athanasius. The upshot of his argument is, that it is a
'hymn,' and not a 'creed.' Here he does but re-echo the language of Dr.
J. H. Newman, Mr. Maurice, and others. He conceives, however, that he
has proved that it was in the first instance used to prepare candidates
for baptism, and that the damnatory clauses do not belong to it in
essence, and have not the same authenticity or value as the exposition
given in it of the Catholic faith; that their meaning is not intended to
cover every individual clause of the exposition, but to refer to the
Catholic faith as a whole; that they merely assert the grand distinction
which faith makes between those that are being saved and those that are
perishing for ever in the darkness of unbelief; that the inaccuracies of
the English translation are due to the influence of the Greek
translation of Bryling, and to the obscurity introduced by Luther's
version of it into German; that it ought to be 'sung,' in a true
translation, as an addition to the psalmody, and not in place of the
Apostles' Creed; that as 'the articles were never intended originally to
be made a test to be subscribed or enlarged from that point of view,'
the reference to the Athanasian Creed in the Articles does not bind us
to believe that every clause in it is agreeable to the word of God, any
more than a multitude of other propositions in the Articles, about which
it would be absurd to make a similar assertion. These various
refinements will not avail to reconcile the Anglican clergy to continue
much longer the use of a formulary which, though certain portions of it
may, by antiquarian scholars, be severed in thought from the rest, does
yet assume to the majority of those that are called to 'sing' or 'say'
it, the appearance of a homogeneous whole. Dr. Newman's description of
it as a war-song of the Church, is unquestionably true; if so, it does
condemn, in the language of triumphant dogmatism, the opinions of Arian,
Sabellian, and Apollinarian, as well as those who repudiate the Double
Procession of the Holy Spirit; and it declares that, without doubt,
those who hold such opinions shall perish for ever. Scarcely one in a
thousand of the Anglican clergy can believe in the obvious literal
interpretation of the symbol as a whole.
_The History and Literature of the Israelites, according to the Old
Testament and the Apocrypha._ By C. DE ROTHSCHILD and A. DE ROTHSCHILD.
Two vols. Longmans, Green and Co.
The first element of interest to us in this work is, that it is a
history of the Jewish people and their literature, by members of their
own nation and faith. It must ever be of great interest and of great
importance to Christian students of the Old Testament to see the views
of it taken by Jews, who certainly do not bring to it the Christian
preconceptions which so often overlay and perplex its interpretation.
If, as we think, the interpretation of the modern Jew errs through his
refusal to see the relations of its predictions and types to Jesus of
Nazareth, it is certain that the interpretation of Christians often errs
through the excess of Christian allusion which they imagine themselves
to find there. One way of correcting the latter is to see how
intelligent, pious, and conscientious Jewish interpreters look at it.
Many things are placed by them in natural lights, which are not the less
artificial in Christian hands, because Christian thought and meaning are
imported into them. The Messrs. Rothschild, who claim the conjoint
authorship of the book, are accomplished and devout men, and are
remarkably free from polemical one-sidedness. A chaste and gentle
elegance of style, illumined with quiet lights of a poetic but
restrained imagination, make the volumes very pleasant to read. The
work, moreover, is popular in form. Its critical power is not great, and
the criticism that there is, is latent rather than formal, and is
exhibited in its results rather than in its processes. It is sufficient,
if not to determine great controverted questions, yet to give
intelligence to the quiet assumption of conclusions. Nothing is debated,
everything is assumed and affirmed as unquestionable truth, although
there are indications that the writers are aware of the positions of
modern criticism.
The first volume is a simple recast of the Old Testament story; the
ordinary conclusions of popular orthodoxy are accepted. It makes no
pretensions to the rectification and reconstruction of Ewald or Stanley;
Ewald, indeed, is not once referred to. This volume, therefore, which
completes the history, calls for no remark, except that it is written
freshly and pleasantly. The second volume, which deals with Hebrew
literature, presents many more points for criticism. The writers have
arrived at conclusions, some of which are warranted by the most
authoritative judgments of modern scholarship; others of which are so
far from this, that it was almost incumbent upon the authors to justify
their assumption of them. They are such as these,--that there were two
Isaiahs, the first living down to the time of Josiah, the second a
hundred and fifty years later in the time of Cyrus--the one the prophet
of prosperity, the other of adversity; that the Messianic prophecies of
the latter, those contained in the fifty-third chapter for instance, had
reference to contemporary martyrs; that the traditions of Jonah, the
fretful prophet, were handed down through many generations, until they
were embodied in their Biblical form by some able writer of the
Babylonian period; the writers, however, repudiate the idea of its being
a legend, and contend for its historical character--that the book of
Daniel was written about the year B.C. 160; that the canonical book of
Psalms was ever used or intended to be used 'as a kind of liturgy of the
Jewish Church,' and 'that the poems were made to serve this purpose,
however different their original object might have been;' that the book
of Job was an imaginative drama, or dialogue, written about the
Babylonian period, constructed to prove the true doctrine of human
calamity; that the book of Ecclesiastes was written 'in the Persian, if
not in the Macedonian period,' and that the author 'put his ideas very
appropriately into the mouth of King Solomon;' that the 'Song of
Solomon' was 'written not long after the death of Solomon, by a poet
living in the Northern Kingdom,' was supposed to be the production of
Solomon himself, and 'naturally believed to have a religious tendency,'
and that through this misconception it obtained its place in the Canon.
As the writers give no reasons for their assumptions, it is impossible
to indicate the reasons of our agreement with them or difference from
them; we content ourselves with remarking, that the absence of reasons
in matters so greatly controverted, deprives the volume of scholarly
character and critical value. We can only say that, taking it for what
it is, it is an intelligently and agreeably written book. Although
making no pretensions to the ability or historical power of Stanley's
'Jewish Church,' it does not fall into any of his great assumptions. The
general remarks on the office and character of the Prophets, and on the
schools of the Prophets, are very meagre and feeble compared with the
chapters of Dr. Payne Smith, or of Dean Stanley. The work, indeed, must
be commended as simply a popular and uncritical reproduction from a
Jewish point of view of the Old Testament story.
_Present Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology._ Edited by the
Right Reverend ALEXANDER EWING, D.C.L., Bishop of Argyll and the Isles.
Strahan and Co.
These pamphlets have been published separately, and subsequently
collected into a volume. The first bears the title 'The Atonement,' by
the Rev. Wm. Law, a reprint of that great writer's 'Dialogue on the
Atonement,' with an elaborate introduction; the second, by the editor,
is on 'the Eucharist;' the third to the sixth are anonymous, under the
titles 'The Rule of Faith,' 'The Present Unbelief,' 'Words for Things,'
and 'Meditations and Prayers;' the seventh is a translation of Luther's
theses on 'Justification by Faith,' by the Rev. J. Wace. It is
impossible to deal with these papers separately in the compass of a
brief notice. One strong spirit pervades almost the whole of them. The
burden of several is to charge upon Evangelical doctrine the entire
blame of the 'present unbelief,' to represent that which we hold to be
the essence of the Gospel of Christ as little better than blasphemous
misunderstanding of God, as immoral, as defamatory to the true nature of
God and the work of Christ. It is urged that Socinians and infidels
would have had their deadliest weapon wrenched from their hands, if
schoolmen and theologians had not perverted the Gospel by representing
the Atonement of Christ as a means adopted to reconcile the Father to
his rebellious children, propitiate His wrath, or satisfy His justice.
We quite agree so far as this with Mr. Law, and with the spirit of
several of the pamphleteers. If the Church of Christ had been converted
to the view of Christ's work held by the Socini and their followers,
such disbelievers would have gained a great victory. The doctrine of
'substitution' is the _bête noire_ of these writers. Whatever else they
attempt to explain away or refute or repudiate, this hated doctrine
comes in for condemnation. The editor, in his paper on the Eucharist,
devotes great space to show that the 'basis of morality is overthrown by
the idea of a substituted or equivalent righteousness, ... all true
conception of the righteousness and holiness of God is lost, and we are
only saved from profanity ... by our non-observance of its real nature.'
To 'accept the sacrifice of the Son' in lieu of man's righteousness, or
in place of man's punishment, 'is a terrible misconception,' changing
'all that we naturally know and believe about God, as good and right,
into darkness.' The paper on the 'Present Unbelief,' which turns on
man's indisposition to recognise the self-evidencing revelation of God,
and propounds much wise and true remark on the undue reverence paid by
men and Churches to the logical processes once needed for special combat
with evil, but now no longer useful, tells us that 'the definitions of
God too often among ourselves, of God under the name of Christ Jesus, or
the anointed Saviour, have been too similar to the heathen--to Saturn
devouring his children, painted, no doubt, in milder colours, and
clothed in decent cloud, but very near the old heathen conception, the
old pictures of the Greeks.' 'God was not only in danger, but lost by
such a belief.' The author of the paper on 'the Rule of Faith,' after
much vague declamation and mystical enthronement of the inner life, says
what is very excellent on the fact 'that the proof of revelation being
true from the character of its operation, is the highest kind of proof,
and is not liable to the accidents which affect other or external
evidence.' He lays great emphasis on that inner verification of revealed
truth which also makes it to be revelation to each man. 'The God of
another is not my God; He is not my God by authority; I must be the
authority myself.' After developing the older 'rule of faith,' as
understood by the writer, and saying some useful though not very
satisfactory or clear things about the canon of Scripture, he endeavours
to show that the old 'rule of faith and practice in Christ has been
essentially altered.' The climax of the offence of modern theology is
represented here and elsewhere in these papers as a transformation of
the statements, 'God so loved the world that He gave His Son for it,'
into 'God so loved his Son as to give the world for Him.' What the
writer means we are at a loss to understand, but he actually tells us,
with a very grave and solemn look, that 'in the theology of substitution
the way is turned into the end,' 'darkness is brought in at the centre,'
God's 'love for man, as such, and individuals, as such, was lost sight
of, and the soul left to a conventional relationship with Him which
left it entirely outside, and from whence it could draw no nourishment.'
All we can say here is, that the author does not understand the alphabet
of the doctrine of substitution, or has wilfully misrepresented it. The
introduction to the reprint of William Law's dialogue is full of these
misconceptions, and seems utterly blind to the mighty powers of the new
life which, in the reformed theology, are the direct form in which the
justification of the soul by faith in Christ's sacrifice becomes a
matter of experience or consciousness. The paper on 'Words for Things'
is largely occupied with the same theme. That man should not suffer to
the full the consequences of his sins in this world and the next seems,
we suppose, to these writers a fearful violation of order; that the work
of Christ should be adapted to save a man from his sins by guaranteeing
and assuring him of the Father's forgiveness is incomprehensible to
them. To us this state of mind is only explicable on the supposition
that these writers cannot have felt the awfulness, hideousness and peril
of sin against the irresistible order in the midst of which we are
placed. Christianity seems to us a very worthless thing if this key-note
of its melody, this key-stone of its masonry be abstracted. From
Confucius to Marcus Antoninus, from Seneca to Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
from English Deists to French Positivists, we are _told_ by sages and
philosophers of all kinds to be good and self-sacrificing, to love God
and our neighbour, and do justice and love mercy, and that all will be
well. Leave out of Christianity the 'grace' that, to a broken heart and
to a mind conscious of guilt, comes not only with the Divine life that
makes a man a new creature, but with the assured conviction that the
order of God's universe, the will of the Father, the justice of His
rule, are manifested in His infinite love to the world through the death
of His Son; leave out the sublime truth that pervades the whole
revelation, and then the Bible and the Christ have little more to tell
us than we can find in enlightened heathenism and pagan philosophy.
There is much in these papers of which we cordially approve, and for
which we feel grateful; but this dead-set at what seems to us the heart
of Christianity wounds and distresses us. Mr. Wace's translation of
Luther's theses is pitched in another key, and deserves separate
treatment.
_The Theology of the New Testament._ A Handbook for Bible Students. By
the Rev. J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D. Translated from the Dutch by MAURICE
J. EVANS, B.A. Hodder and Stoughton.
_Biblical Theology of the New Testament._ By CHRISTIAN FRIEDEREK SCHMID,
D.D., late Professor of Theology, Tübingen. Translated from the Fourth
German Edition. Edited by C. WEIZÄCKER, D.D. By G. H. VENABLES.
Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.
_The Theology of Christ from His own Words._ By JOSEPH P. THOMPSON. New
York: Charles Scribner.
We anticipate great advantage from the translation of these two
excellent manuals. We are learning in this country to value 'historical
theology' and the genesis and development of Christian ideas. Many
efforts have been made to present to the student the first stages and
earliest forms of this wondrous element of religious thought. Neander in
his 'History of the Planting of the Christian Church,' Reuss in his
'Histoire de la Théologie Chrétienne,' and Dr. Bernard in his Bampton
Lecture, have made us familiar with the fact that the teaching of the
New Testament, though resulting in glorious harmony, is yet not
homogeneous, and reveals throughout a progress from less to more--from
germinant seeds to rich efflorescence, from mysterious reticence to open
secrets, from fundamental principles to elaborate and systematic detail.
The peculiar type of doctrine conspicuous in the Synoptic Gospels
differs from the spirit and burden of the fourth gospel. The Petrine
doctrine is not identical either with Pauline or Johannine theology. We
are, perhaps, too apt to explain the language of James by that of Paul,
or both by that of John, without sufficiently taking into account the
specific teaching of each Evangelist and each Apostle. Dr. Oosterzee's
'Biblical Theology' presents, in small compass, the results of much
careful study, and seeks, at each stage of the inquiry, to place the
student in relation with the authors of the New Testament respectively,
and with them alone for the time being. The references to literature are
ample, and various points of stimulating inquiry are suggested. The
author does not go very deeply into the separate positions, nor does he
attempt any elaborate exegesis of the Scriptures cited in proof of the
induction he makes. The Evangelical bias of the inquiry is not
concealed, and his summaries of doctrine and the higher unity which he
claims for the somewhat divergent forms, reveal very clearly the
dogmatic tendencies of his own investigations. We can most cordially
commend this work--especially to those who have not access to larger and
more voluminous treatises--as an admirable compendium of Biblical
theology, and a valuable preliminary to all honest study of scientific
and dogmatic theology.
The second work mentioned above pursues the same general theme, and
contrasts the Biblical theology of the New Testament with exegesis on
the one hand and systematic divinity on the other. This manual is a
translation by Mr. G. H. Venables of the fourth German edition of the
late Dr. Schmid's work as edited by Dr. Weizäcker, and is a far more
elaborate treatise than that of Dr. Oosterzee. It is divided into two
parts, the one a development of the teaching of Jesus, and the other an
exposition of the teaching of the Apostles. The first part is preceded
by an historical review of the life of Jesus, and the second by a
fruitful and suggestive sketch of the lives of the Apostles. The
strength of learning and high analytical powers of the author are
reserved for the doctrinal review, and very beautifully does he bring
forth the teaching of our Lord under the three divisions--(_a_) the
glorification of the Father in the Son, involving the full sublime
teaching of Christ with reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
(_b_) the redemption of man, including the object of redemption, man and
the world, and the subject of redemption in all His relations; and (_c_)
the whole teaching of Christ about the kingdom of God, which is
identified with the Church; there the author reveals his sacramentarian
proclivities, and his high idea of the function of the Church and
development of the kingdom both in this world, and that which is to
come. In developing the teaching of the Apostles, his chief point is
that that of James and Peter presents Christianity as in living unity
with the Old Testament, and that of Paul and John in its fundamental
distinction from the Old Testament. Great care and skill are shown in
showing how the teaching of Paul and John roots itself in the previous
teaching of Jesus, and the result of the entire discussion affords high
subsidiary proof of the unity of the New Testament, the authenticity of
the later as well as the earlier of Paul's Epistles, and the fundamental
identity of doctrine in the Apocalypse and fourth Gospel.
Dr. J. P. Thompson of New York, in the third work mentioned above, has
confined himself to the high, grand, noble theme of illustrating the
'theology of Christ.' He takes, as we think, higher and broader ground
in his illustration of the 'kingdom of God' than either Dr. Oosterzee or
Dr. Schmid, and admirably states the truth when he represents the Church
as a form of the kingdom of God, embracing the whole 'commonwealth of
believing souls who, through all diversities of race, language, and
ecclesiastical institution, fraternise in the love of Christ.' Dr.
Thompson developes the teaching of Christ under a great variety of
themes which are not concatenated in any such classification as Dr.
Schmid's, though they traverse much of the same ground. Such topics as
'prayer,' 'providence,' and 'eschatology,' occupy much of the space. The
exposition is wise, candid, and eloquent.
_A Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology._ Edited by the Rev.
JOHN HENRY BLUNT, M.A., F.S.A. L--Z. Rivingtons.
We see no reason for modifying the judgment of Mr. Blunt's Dictionary
which we ventured to pronounce upon the first section of it. His
extensive knowledge is beyond all doubt, and his indefatigable industry
beyond all praise. We give him all credit for both painstaking and
conscientiousness; but he sorely lacks the scholarly faculty of using
his knowledge in a dispassionate way. Rash assertion, hasty
generalization, partial and illogical inference, disfigure every page of
his Dictionary. Mr. Blunt is fairly carried away by his sacramentarian
theories; they possess him like a fever, and affect both his vision and
his judgment. Above most of his brethren even, and that is saying very
much, he infuses a polemic into every scrap of antiquarian fact that he
can collect, and into every particle of reasoning that his ingenuity can
devise. We are aware that a statement like this is a very grave
accusation, and that it can be substantiated only by a patient
induction such as a brief notice will not permit; but we pledge our
critical judgment to the assertion that there is not a page in which
statements do not occur, which no judicial mind can accept. Thus, on the
very first page, _sub voce_, 'Laity,' Mr. Blunt chooses to interpret the
Hebrew word [Hebrew character], which Gesenius and all lexicographers
render 'people'--in the sense of nations--by the ecclesiastical word
'laity,' _i.e._, the people as distinguished from the priests. This
enables him to give to a number of instances in which the word occurs
just the twist of interpretation that his theory demands. Surely a
conscientious scholar would refrain from giving a general term such a
special significance for the sake of sustaining an ecclesiastical
theory. It matters not that the term is sometimes used in this sense,
and is applied to the people as distinguished from the priests--Mr.
Blunt treats it as the generic sense. Under the word 'Latitudinarianism,'
among much prejudiced statement, we meet this astounding assumption,
'this article (the 18th of the Church of England) is somewhat loosely
worded; but by comparison of the language used with the use of similar
language in the New Testament, it will be plainly seen to amount to a
statement that salvation is only to be obtained within the boundaries of
the Church.' Under the word 'Lay-Co-operation' we have this unscholarly,
and must we not say spiteful, assumption: 'Puritanism confounded the
idea of the [Greek: klêros] and the [Greek: laos], and if the phrase
"co-operation of the laity" had been known to it, the theory of such
co-operation, as well as the practice, would have been resolved into a
substitution of the laity for the clergy, by setting the former to do
those works chiefly or solely which especially belong to the office of
the latter.' Is it the function of a theological dictionary to utter
hypothetical prophecies founded upon rash and gratuitous statements, and
conceived in a spirit of theological malice like this? Under the head
'Lay Priesthood' we read: 'This sacerdotal function of the Christian
laity is a consequence of the anointing which they receive from God the
Holy Ghost in baptism and confirmation.... The Holy Eucharist is offered
at the altar by the priest ordained for that purpose, and the lay priest
co-operates with him by saying "Amen" at the giving of thanks.' Will Mr.
Blunt permit us to say that no lay scholar could possibly have been
guilty of such desperate assertions?
Passing over the word 'Limbo,' and some regrets that it cannot be used
on account of prejudice, although perfectly unobjectionable in itself,
we find under the word 'Liturgy' the usual assumptions of men of Mr.
Blunt's school, _e.g._, 'the circumstances under which, the Holy
Eucharist was instituted, make it absolutely certain that the Apostles
celebrated it from the first with a considerable amount of ritual
preciseness, and the same circumstances make it probable that they also
used from the beginning some liturgical form. It seems to be unnecessary
to prove that the Apostles used some set form of liturgy in celebrating
the memorial of their Lord.' And yet if Mr. Blunt would condescend to
furnish such proof, it would convert to his views of things one-half of
Protestant Christendom.
Under the word 'Lollards,' Mr. Blunt is disingenuous enough to cite
against Wickliffe the articles prepared for his indictment in the trial
before Archbishop Courtenay; among them, '7. That God ought to obey the
devil;' and then to say, 'Such was the teaching initiated by Wickliffe,
and assiduously promulgated by his followers.' It is surely a new thing
to adduce an indictment of enemies as a witness to character. Does Mr.
Blunt really believe that this was Wickliffe's teaching? If he does,
what are we to think of his scholarship? If he does not, what are we to
think of his candour?
This brings us only to 'Ló,' under the first letter in this division of
Mr. Blunt's work. We need not say that these are fair samples of the
whole. We protest against such gross assumptions and perversions in the
name of simple scholarship. We greatly regret that so much labour and
knowledge are thus perverted to the aims of the fanatical polemic. His
book is not without its value, but it sorely tries the patience of a
simple inquirer after fact and truth. Mr. Blunt has done his best to
make worthless a work that might have been a valuable contribution to
popular ecclesiastical knowledge.
_The Leading Christian Evidences, &c._ By GILBERT WARDLAW, M.A.
Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark.
_The Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century._ By ALBERT
BARNES. Blackie and Son.
We have bracketed these two volumes together, not simply because they
are alike in theme, but because by a peculiar coincidence they are
complementary of each other. Written as we need scarcely say, altogether
independently, they yet arrive by opposite methods at similar
conclusions. From Scotland and from America come the same earnest,
forcible national testimony to the truth of Christianity. There are both
likeness and unlikeness. Each author treats his subject in a clear,
attractive, popular manner, candidly confessing difficulties where such
exist, yet carrying the reader forward by the almost irresistible power
of his reasoning to the most decided conviction. The literary style is
eminently different, as is to be expected when two diverse thinkers
express themselves on a common topic. This, however, arises not only
from the individuality of the writers, but also from the very
circumstances in which their works were produced. Mr. Gilbert Wardlaw
has been 'secluded, during the later years of life, from other
opportunities of service to the cause of truth,' and his book therefore
bears the impress of a thoughtful mind evolving for itself arguments in
support of a faith in which has been found the truest consolation during
years of retirement. We imagine that his very seclusion from active life
has compelled him to re-examine in the light of modern scepticism the
foundations of his belief. His work is characterized by a calmness and
quiet force which we cannot too highly admire, and which must be
productive of the happiest results upon the minds of sincere doubters.
Mr. Barnes's volume, on the other hand, had a different origin. It
consists of a series of Lectures in a Theological Seminary, which are
somewhat elaborate, diffuse, and theoretical, and were evidently
intended to produce an immediate impression on an audience by their
style as well as their matter. Yet each work is admirable. Both should
be studied together, since they look at the argument from diverse
stand-points. Their methods of treatment, not only in manner but
substance, are in harmony with the circumstances in which these volumes
originated. The one may be described as the subjective, the other the
objective method. Mr. Wardlaw, believing that the moral aspect of the
Christian revelation and the attitude of the inquirer are the most
important preliminary questions in determining the truth of
Christianity, commences with the internal and experimental evidences;
while Mr. Barnes deals with external proofs, looking at the Bible as a
book to be accounted for on historical grounds. It has been a real
mental gratification to study these diverse methods, and to watch how,
though travelling by distinct lines of thought, both authors arrive at
the conviction that Christianity is from God. The volumes are in many
ways helpful to each other, for if Mr. Wardlaw's seems to suffer from
condensation, leaving too much to his readers' minds, the same points
are often elaborated by Mr. Barnes with abundance of detail. It would
have been an improvement if, in 'The Leading Christian Evidences,'
italics or some other form had been adopted by which the successive
stages of the argument would have been indicated, so that we could at a
glance gather up the main points discussed. We do not venture on any
criticism of positions which we consider weak or unsound, as our space
is limited, and therefore content ourselves with congratulating these
authors on their well-reasoned additions to our apologetic literature.
_The Brahmo Somaj._ Lectures and Tracts. By KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. First
and Second Series. Edited by SOPHIA DOBSON COLLETT. Strahan and Co.
We have on previous occasions given considerable space to the remarkable
movement in Hindu thought which is known to us under the above title.
Some of these lectures, notably that on 'Jesus Christ--Europe and Asia,'
have long been before us, and offer a remarkable sign of the effect
produced on Indian society, by the truth of Christ's life, and its
sublime ideal of conformity with the will of God enshrined in the
Gospels. The lack, the negation, the blank in the theology of Mr. Sen
need not be wondered at. This is a very different phenomenon from a
similar mental position when adopted by a professedly Christian teacher.
These lectures and tracts will receive special attention in consequence
of the recent visit to England of this remarkable man, whose obvious
earnestness and passionate yearnings after the regeneration of India
have produced so deep an impression. We do not in the least sympathize
with the hasty disposition shown by some to accept Mr. Sen as a prophet
of an undogmatic theism, nor with his somewhat arrogant address to
English Christians from certainly very small acquaintance with them and
their work. All that he knows of the higher life of faith and true
holiness, and all the stimulus that his own moral nature and Hindu
society have received of late years, are so conspicuously due to the
indirect effects of missionary labour and Christian teaching, that his
disposition to ignore the source of the new light that has flooded his
soul is unsatisfactory in the extreme. At the same time, we do rejoice
at the moral dignity and spiritual ideal and religious exercise which he
is proclaiming to his countrymen. His protest against Pantheism, his
grasp of the idea of 'the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,'
of man's sin, and need of regeneration, of man's dependence, and need of
faith and resignation, of self-sacrifice and prayer, are very
instructive. But let us clearly recognise the position assumed by him,
that Hinduism and Mahometanism are themselves, in some purified form, to
'harmonize and form the future Church of India.' The words of Jesus or
His Apostles are often quoted by him with respect, as something
'excellently and wisely said,' but there is no acknowledgment of fealty
to the Lord, no Gospel but what he calls 'the Gospel of Divine mercy,'
based upon his own intuitions and experiences.
'The true faith,' which is expounded in a series of apothegms arranged
under a variety of headings, is intended to appeal to those who are
accustomed to the style of some of the best of the sacred books. There
is much that is most excellent and Christian in its tone of feeling,
beautiful and attractive in form, lofty in conception and ideal, as were
the meditations of Antoninus. He and his friends reveal the potent
influence, the pungent leaven, the grain of mustard seed, that has been
cast into the Oriental mind. They are feeling after God and finding Him.
God has given them by His Spirit some faith. May it daily grow to more
and more!
_Christus Consolator._ The Pulpit in Relation to Social Life. By
ALEXANDER MACLEOD, D. D. Hodder and Stoughton.
_Ad Clerum._ Advices to a Young Preacher. By JOSEPH PARKER, D.D. Hodder
and Stoughton.
_A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons._ By JOHN A.
BROADUS, D.D., Philadelphia. Smith, Elder, and Co.
The literature of homiletics is becoming almost redundant. It is
singular that every man whose business it is to teach this difficult
science is dissatisfied with the text-books and manuals that his
well-meaning predecessors have prepared for him, and tries his hand at a
new one. We cannot see any very sufficient reason for the work of Dr.
Broadus. It is neither better nor more comprehensive nor more helpful
than the well-known treatises of Vinet, Kidder, and Shedd. It is not so
philosophical as M. Vinet's, nor so erudite as Dr. Kidder's, nor so rich
and suggestive as Dr. Shedd's. It goes over the old ground in very much
the old way, and tells some of the old stories, and gives much the same
old advice. Those who can work by rule, and who thoroughly trust the
rule-maker, will find the subject carefully and exhaustively but not
energetically treated by Dr. Broadus. The contrast between Dr. Broadus
and Dr. Parker is great. The 'Advices to a Young Preacher' are racy,
caustic, and stimulating. They are not confined to the great theme, but
wisely condescend to give useful hints on little things. The personal
allusions to living men, the astounding eulogiums passed by Dr. Parker
on some of his brethren, the withering satire pronounced on others, the
conversational criticism on certain printed sermons, and the familiar
epistolary offer to all and sundry to send the respected author a sermon
to criticise, almost take the breath out of one's mouth, and certainly
remove the volume from the range of ordinary literature. The specimen
prayers introduced by the author, though very excellent in their way,
appear out of place. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the book is full
of strong and wise advice. Here is caricature and broad farce, and
extreme exaggeration and violent personal attack under assumed or blank
names, all of which are strangely out of tune with the manly and
reverent tone of the author when he touches the deepest themes. A
preacher of such high reputation and undoubted success must be listened
to by young preachers with great interest. Dr. MacLeod's volume has
greatly delighted us. Seldom have the high functions of Christian truth,
and the possibilities of the pulpit, been more powerfully or more
candidly put. We wish that some of the unsuccessful men whom Dr. Parker
grinds to powder, would ponder with the aid of this volume the sublime
work which may even now be within their reach. Dr. MacLeod has described
with singular power and freshness 'the preacher as an _Elevator_, as a
_Healer_, as a _Reconciler_, as an _Educator_, as a _Liberator_, and
_Regenerator_.' Under these several headings he has touched the sorest
places in our social life, has carried a torch into some of the darkest
chambers of human sorrow and need, and has shown the mission of
Christianity and the function of its minister with conspicuous success.
Dr. MacLeod is wise and stringent, moreover, in his condemnation of
those who only preach fragments of the truth of God. His rebuke has a
loving, helpful peal in it, which makes the heart soft, and calls aloud
for higher effort and more consecrated zeal. There is neither
common-place exaggeration nor rasping personality; it is full of wisdom,
strong sense, and earnestness.
_Culture and Religion in some of their Relations._ By J. C. SHAIRP,
Principal of the United Colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St.
Andrew's. Edinburgh; Edmonston and Douglas.
The volume before us consists of five lectures delivered by the
principal of the United Colleges of St. Leonard and St. Salvator, on a
theme of high interest, at a time when the elevating process indicated
by the rather vague term 'culture' bids high to supersede the divine
claim and authoritative sway of religion. Professor Shairp, though
dealing with the relations of culture and religion in a vein and manner
suited to popular address, reveals on every page his own deep sympathy
with the paramount claims of religious truth and the spiritual life of
man, and a large-hearted appreciation of those aspects of 'culture,'
which its exclusive advocates imagine never to have shed their light on
deeply religious minds. With great dexterity, if, in the present case,
such a term is applicable, our author shows that starting from a fair
definition of 'culture,' 'it must embrace religion and end in it;' and
on the other side, that Christianity is the great harmonizing principle
of human affairs, bringing one region of human cultivation after another
under its sanctifying influence 'to reconcile all true human learning
not less than human hearts to God.' In lecturing on the 'scientific
theory of culture,' our author exhibits the ideally educated man on
Professor Huxley's theory, and quotes and criticises the celebrated
comparison drawn by him between the liberal education he demands, and
the acquaintance which an imaginary chess-player should possess with the
laws of the mighty game with nature, on the success of which his fortune
and his life depend. Mr. Shairp has shown with great beauty and force of
expression, that if there were no other than the fixed laws of this game
determined by scientific investigation, 'men would be more than ever
driven inward, and their natural selfishness be tenfold concentrated and
intensified;' that for the 'tender conscience' which Mr. Huxley
postulates as an element in wisely playing this great game of life the
'theory' makes no provision; and indeed that such conscience, though the
highest part of a man's nature, would be no help, but a hindrance, to
any successful issue of the struggle. The scientific theory of culture
leaves out facts of our nature which are as certain, though not so
apparent, as any fact which science registers. With fine appreciation of
all the excellencies of Mr. Arnold's theory of culture, which he
designates as literary or æsthetic, Mr. Shairp contends that Mr. Arnold
has erred in his estimate of what the spiritual energy really is in
which our highest good is to be sought, 'has made that primary which is
secondary and subordinate, and made that secondary which by right ought
to be supreme.' He argues with much force, that the first great
commandment 'cannot be made subservient to any ulterior purpose;' that
religion is either a good in itself or it is not a good at all. We have
not space to describe the remaining lectures on 'Hindrances to Spiritual
Growth' and 'Combinations of Religion and Culture.' The volume is
charged with weighty suggestions.
_The Witness of St. John to Christ; being the Boyle Lecture for 1870;
with an Appendix on the Authorship and Integrity of St. John's Gospel,
and the Unity of Johannine Writings._ By the Rev. STANLEY LEATHES, M.A.
Rivingtons.
This is the third series of Boyle Lectures delivered by the Rev.
Stanley Leathes. In the first and second series, the author dealt with
the witness of the Old Testament, and that of St. Paul to Christ. In the
volume before us, he pursues a similar method; and taking nothing for
granted, not even the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, nor the
inspiration of this, or of other portions of the New Testament, 'he does
not assume that its conception is true, but he does affirm that if its
message is fraught with substantial truth, certain results will follow,
and--do follow.' In the appendix, there is an effort made to grapple
with the question of the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, and to meet
the difficulties raised by Dr. Davidson, the Rev. J. J. Tayler, and
others. There is nothing special or peculiar in this argument, with the
exception of the detailed effort which Mr. Leathes has made to show the
abundant similarity of theme, doctrine, historical fact, and even form
of expression between the three Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John.
We have never seen this point so well elaborated elsewhere, and the
obvious conclusion is that much too great a stress has been laid upon
the supposed discrepancy of subject-matter and ethical tone discernible
between these documents. We think that both Dr. Hengstenberg and the
Rev. John Godwin have handled the Paschal difficulty more successfully
than Mr. Leathes, but few writers have shown with more sufficiency and
clearness the unity of the Johannine writings. In fact, everything turns
in this discussion on satisfactorily showing the possibility, from a
literary standpoint, of the identity of authorship of the Apocalypse and
the fourth Gospel. The Tübingen school, Dr. Davidson, J. J. Tayler, and
the most thorough-going opponents of the genuineness of the Gospel,
admit, nay contend for the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse. They
uphold the external evidence for it against Lücke and others; they
establish the relations between the John of the Synoptists and the
Apocalyptist. If, then, by accumulation of independent evidence, the
identity of the author of the fourth Gospel with the Apocalyptist is
established, or a belief in it is shown to be perfectly rational, a
great victory is won for the faith of Christ. We commend Mr. Leathes'
argument to the profound consideration of students. The eight lectures
deal with the credibility of the witnesses, the characteristics of
John's teaching, the essentials of this teaching, John's appeal to the
inward witness, the unity of John's writings, their authority, John's
message to the age, and John's place in Holy Scripture. There is much
fine and strong, though rather cold and artificial reasoning in these
lectures. The reader feels a little too much as though he were under the
authoritative commands of a drill-sergeant, or rather of a too officious
guide, who tells him exactly where he must stand, or where he must not
stand, in order to see some glorious panoramic landscape. The hand of
the critic and the logician is always on the shoulder, and forcing head
and heart into the appropriate and rational conclusion. Yet, with this
drawback, every lecture leaves a healthy impression; and the testimony
of the beloved disciple to our Divine Lord seems at length to be so
strong and self-evidencing, that it matters comparatively little when,
where, or by whom the testimony is given.
_Secular Annotations on Scripture Texts._ By FRANCIS JACOX. Hodder and
Stoughton.
This volume is the result of very extensive and discursive reading.
Sixty or seventy passages of Scripture have been annotated by the author
from the copious stores of his secular erudition. Choice fragments of
poetry, philosophy, and history, the analogies of life and thought, with
the high themes suggested by the sacred text, are heaped in almost
prodigal affluence of illustration upon the foundation of each text.
Thus, on 'the Tempter's it is written,' our author quotes in
illustrative vein not only Bunyan, and the criticism on the Dublin Synod
of Irish Catholics, but Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice,' Gray,
Coleridge, Burns, Diderot, Thomas Carlyle, and Charles Dickens. In his
beautiful comment on 'Consider the lilies,' we have Tennyson, and
Justice Shallow, Leigh Hunt and Mr. Proctor, Bishop Copleston, Isaac
Taylor, Shenstone, and Dr. Croly's Salathiel, Mr. Hannay, and Mrs.
Browning, all laid under contribution, and a very charming mosaic is the
result. We might imagine the book to be the work of a life-time, or the
hobby of a highly-cultured and devout man. Many a sermon and many a
platform-speech may hereafter benefit by Mr. Jacox's labour of love; but
none will take the pure delight in it which it must have given to the
author in his quiet hours. The annotations of the words 'Strangers and
Pilgrims,' 1 Peter ii. 11, are peculiarly rich and beautiful.
_Rain upon the Mown Grass, and other Sermons, 1842--1870._ By SAMUEL
MARTIN, Minister of Westminster Chapel. Hodder and Stoughton.
The ministry of the Rev. Samuel Martin has now for nearly thirty years
exerted a spiritual force upon an ever widening circle. Westminster
Chapel has constituted a focus of holy influence, where his varied,
thoughtful, continuous instructions have not only gathered around him
one of the largest congregations in England, but have conferred upon it
a character for wise effort, liberal sympathies, and Christian
devotedness. It would be impossible to measure the circumference of that
influence. Few nonconforming churches in the kingdom have failed at
least to seek Mr. Martin's presence and assistance when any great thing
was to be done; when any difficult enterprise needed a special
consecration, when a young pastor at his ordination, or a church
entering on a new career of usefulness, craved sanctifying counsel and
tender sympathy. It would be difficult to convey to a stranger, or to an
unsympathizing critic, any conception of the strange fascination, the
deep thrill of holy excitement, the solemn hush of spirit which the
spoken words of Samuel Martin have produced on susceptible minds. It is
quite beyond our power to analyze or account for the overwhelming
impression we have known him produce by his mode of quoting some
well-known words of Holy Scripture, or by iterating and reiterating in a
manner almost unique, the key-word or clause of some discourse on which
he has put forth all his strength. His sermons are often characterized
by an exceeding quaintness which from any other lips than his might
provoke a smile; by a subtle ingenuity of illustration which reminds one
of Brooks, or Sibbes, or even of Thomas Adams; by an elaboration of
argument which seems to throw a disproportionate weight on some minor
truth of God's word; by a fulness of illustration bordering on the
efflorescent; and by a tone of meditation, fitted, as it might seem, to
the cloister or some learned leisure rather than to this busy,
world-harassed, distracted age: yet it is almost impossible to listen to
one of those exceptional discourses without an intense desire for a
higher, more beautiful, more self-sacrificing life. The exquisite
sensitiveness of the preacher to all the sorrows of men, his obvious
personal distress over the breaking heart of suffering humanity, his
quivering sympathy with the weak and diseased, the poor, the out cast,
the prisoner, 'the publican and the sinner,' the old man and the little
child, make almost every sermon a lesson in the 'enthusiasm of
humanity.' Much of every good sermon, is beyond the power of
reproduction by the press; and this noble volume of Mr. Martin's
discourses has to some extent the effect upon the reader which a volume
of Beethoven's symphonies might have upon a musical student who had lost
the power of hearing. Notwithstanding this necessary peculiarity
disparaging the printed and revised report of all the noblest
productions of the pulpit, we render Mr. Martin our unfeigned thanks for
the volume. It contains thirty-two discourses. Many of them have been
preached on special occasions, and demand a little imagination from the
reader before he can understand their full significance. Take, for
instance, the sermon preached at the opening of the new church at
Halifax on the text, 'Then the king said unto Nathan the Prophet, See
now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within
curtains.' The three sacred places, 'the home,' 'the grave,' 'the
sanctuary of God,' have never been more admirably described, and the
sketch given of 'the history of places of true worship' has never been
drawn with more graphic force or spiritual beauty; but all the
circumstances of the day and the place of that discourse gave it tenfold
meaning. It would be well for those who disparage the Puritan theology
and its professors, to understand that the high strain with which the
volume opens on the genial influence and character of the Gospel, was
preached with electrifying power to one of the great gatherings of
Nonconformist ministers and churches in the North of England.
The sermons on 'The Saving Name,' 'The Precious Blood of Christ,' 'The
Fulness of God,' show how Mr. Martin handles some of the great
theological problems, and there is hardly one which is not charged with
deep emotion, with carefully expressed thought, and spiritual force.
This last element is the distinctive virtue of a volume which can
scarcely be touched without perceiving some electric flash of light,
some new pulsation of holy, Christ-like feeling.
_The Shepherd of Hermas._ Translated into English, with an Introduction
and Notes. By CHARLES H. HOOLE, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church,
Oxford. Rivingtons.
It is not long since we called the attention of our readers to the
admirable translation, from the Greek test, of the 'Shepherd of Hermas,'
which was published, together with other writings of the so-called
Apostolic Fathers in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library. The Greek text
of this ancient Christian allegory or romance was found, together with
the epistle of Barnabas, attached to the Codex Sinaiticus of the New
Testament; and this may account in part for the revival of interest
among the students of ecclesiastical history in this once popular but
long-neglected fragment of antiquity. Mr. Hoole has executed his task
with great care and painstaking, and has given in his 'introduction and
notes' some very valuable information bearing on its interpretation, and
on its reception by the Ante-Nicene Fathers of the Church. We are
brought by it 'into the earliest period of Christian antiquity.' It was
doubtless quoted by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and
Eusebius, with a decreasing respect; and we can only admire the fine
tact and good sense which ultimately led the later writers and the
Church Councils unequivocally to exclude it from the Canon of the New
Testament. The question of the authorship is enveloped in great
obscurity, and the apparently explicit statements are easily refutable.
It is not even certain, but indeed very doubtful, whether the author was
an ecclesiastical officer of any kind. The supposed Ebionitic tendencies
of his doctrine have been maintained strongly by Hilgenfeld, but refuted
by Dörner and Donaldson. We are surprised that in virtue of the
non-appearance in Latin translations of the main passage on which this
charge rests, Mr. Hoole has thought fit to omit it. Dr. Donaldson shows
at length that there is 'nothing in the teaching of Hermas with regard
to God, Christ, the Church, or the work of salvation, which is contrary
to the truths or spirit of Christianity.' It is interesting also to
observe from various passages, that Hermas identified the office of
bishop and presbyter, and makes no reference to the Eucharist.
_Ante-Nicene Christian Library._ Vols. XVII. and XVIII. Edited by Rev.
A. ROBERTS, D.D., and JAMES DONALDSON, LL.D. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
These two volumes are extremely valuable; one is the third and last
volume of Tertullian, and the other contains 'The Clementine Homilies'
and 'The Apostolical Constitutions.' The Homilies are a translation by
the Rev. Thomas Smith, D.D., by Peter Peterson, M.A., and Dr. James
Donaldson, and the 'Constitutions' have been carefully revised from
Whiston's translation. If Bunsen's theory be correct, that they take us
into the end of the second century or beginning of the third, and can
be almost conclusively shown to be the work of one to whom the
interpolations of the Ignatian literature were familiarly known, we
obtain a valuable additional test of the quality of second century
literature, and another assurance that the Gospel of John must have
preceded them by more than a generation. It is not merely the abundant
quotation from the fourth Gospel, but the profound difference of tone
between these documents, that is so remarkable. If this is the second
century theology and ecclesiasticism, how comes it that an author living
in that century could rise such an untold height above them and omit
what unfortunately had become the chief features of his time? Krabbe, in
his elaborate work on the Apostolical Constitutions, concludes that the
eighth book could not have been written before the end of the fourth or
beginning of the fifth century. Bunsen thinks that the law of
interpolation may account for the several references to later customs
and offices which are to be found there. At all events, throughout the
earlier books, we hear nothing or next to nothing of the sacerdotal
order, and no other officer is mentioned intermediate to bishop or
deacon. In the eighth book we have full-blown sacerdotalism and
episcopacy, and the several apostles are made responsible for all the
innovations. We owe a great debt of obligation to the careful editors of
these translations now approaching their term. The admirable indices of
all kinds greatly enhance the value of the work thus accomplished.
_The Miracles of Our Lord._ By GEORGE MAC DONALD. Straham and Co.
Mr. Mac Donald is well known in the circles of the Church, for the
ministry of which he was educated, as a preacher of remarkable freshness
and power. Whatever judgment may be passed upon some points of his
theology, there are few living men whose words are fuller of high
religious inspiration, and indicate a more reverent and intense love for
the Lord Jesus. This is his distinctive claim as a religious teacher. He
disregards the conventionalities of sermon-structure, and of
sermon-speech, and brings to bear upon his themes the fresh thought of a
man of genius, and the penetrating spiritual insight of a man of fervent
piety. Whether any of these papers have been preached as sermons we do
not know; thousands of readers have become acquainted with them in the
pages of the _Sunday Magazine_, to which they were contributed. Mr. Mac
Donald has no difficulty in accepting the miraculous; nay, he justly
says that if the Supreme Being 'be a God worthy of being God, yea (his
metaphysics even may show the seeker), if He is a God capable of being
God, He will speak the clearest, grandest word of guidance which He can
utter intelligible to His creatures.' 'The miracles are mightier far
than any goings on of nature, as beheld by common eyes, dissociating
them from a living will; but the miracles are surely less than those
mighty goings on of nature with God, beheld at their heart. In the name
of Him who delighted to say, "My Father is greater than I," I will say
that His miracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less
beautiful than the works of the Father they represented, in making the
corn to grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the
hill-sides of the world, with all their infinitudes of tender gradation
and delicate mystery of birth.' Whether we agree with every minute
interpretation or not, this little volume, precious as fine gold, is
full of penetrating spiritual insight, of fine spiritual sympathy, and
of suggestions and inspirations greatly helpful to the noblest spiritual
life.
_Saint Paul: his Life, Labours, and Epistles._ A Narrative and an
Argument. By FELIX BUNGENER. Translated from the French. Religious Tract
Society.
M. Bungener's is one of the numerous books elicited by M. Rénan's
assaults upon Christianity. Such have always produced the effect of
multiplying defensive exposition and arguments. They are therefore not
to be regretted; their resultant good is much greater than their
incidental evil. Untenable positions are tested and abandoned, and
valued defences are strengthened. M. Bungener's argument is the
narrative. He goes steadily through the incidents of the Apostle's
history, parrying attacks, and setting forth evidences and arguments as
he goes. His French brevity and his religious earnestness give a great
charm to the volume.
_History and Revelation: the Correspondence of the Predictions of the
Apocalypse with the marked Events of the Christian Era._ By JAMES H.
BRAUND. Two vols. Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday.
In the exposition of the Apocalypse, literally everything depends upon a
right principle of interpretation. Whether the symbolism of the book has
its solution in historic facts or in spiritual principles, determines
everything that a writer has to say respecting it. Into these two
schools all interpreters of the Apocalypse may be divided. Of the
former, Mr. Elliott is the modern Coryphæus, and he has found in Mr.
Braund a laborious disciple. 'The Horæ Apocalypticæ,' he says, 'will be
found, perhaps, the nearest to perfection of its kind extant;' and these
two volumes are devoted to a patient working out of historical
coincidences and congruities. Mr. Braund confidently trusts that the
proof from such congruity will be so self-evident that it will be
impossible to doubt. But clearly it must depend very largely upon the
historical knowledge and imaginative ingenuity of the interpreter,
whether a fulfilment can be demonstrated or not. For instance, there is
much more of ingenuity than of demonstration in the fancy of Mr. Elliott
adopted by Mr. Braund, that the white horse of the first seal is the
Roman Empire, that the rider is Nerva, and that the bow in his hand is
the symbol of his Cretan origin--the Cretans being great votaries of
Apollo. It may be so; but the mere statement of it does not, in virtue
of its congruity, carry with it demonstrative proof. It is a mere piece
of _ipse dixitism_, which might find a hundred parallels of equally
ingenious suppositions. On what authority, again, does Mr. Braund affirm
that the 'seven horns of the Lamb symbolize his atoning work, because
the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled on the horns of the altar,
and the seven eyes, his mediatorial character between God and men'?
Horns are usually the symbol of power, and eyes of wisdom. The statement
of Mr. Braund, so far from being self-evidencing, provokes our
incredulity.
For ourselves, we hold to the opposite principle of interpretation, as
substantially adopted by Hengstenberg, Godwin, and others, viz., that
the rise, progress, and overthrow of antichristian principles--Jewish,
pagan, infidel, worldly and ecclesiastical--are symbolized in the
Apocalypse, and that with the development of these, national events have
to do in only a very subordinate way. Then much of the symbolism takes
its place as mere parabolic drapery. Whether any specific historical
event find its type in an Apocalyptic symbol or not, we cannot err
seriously if we lay hold upon a great principle; certain it is that
every antichristian power in the history of the world has had its
strength in the domain of superstition, rather than in mere historic
incident; and to be assured of the destruction of this is to be assured
of the main thing. We cannot help thinking that such laborious
demonstrations as Mr. Braund's are, comparatively speaking, exercises of
painful and wasted ingenuity.
_Moses, the Man of God._ A Course of Lectures. By the late JAMES
HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S. James Nisbet.
These lectures have been selected for separate publication from Dr.
Hamilton's MSS. They have all the fascinating characteristics of his
pen--graceful description, imaginative reconstruction, unconventional,
and often very ingenious, sometimes learned, disquisition, with the
light, graceful touch of poetic style and delicate fancy which ally all
his productions with general rather than with sermon literature. As
sermons they seem to us to want point and cogency: they read rather like
chapters of a book; but it is a sufficient commendation to say they are
James Hamilton's.
_Memories of Patmos; or, some of the Great Words and Visions of the
Apocalypse._ By J. R. MACDUFF, D.D. James Nisbet and Co.
Dr. Macduff disavows all pretensions to be a hierophant of the mysteries
of the Apocalypse. We are left to gather incidentally that he himself
inclines to what may be called the spiritualistic, as distinguished from
the historic school of interpreters. His object in this volume, however,
is to present those 'manifold isolated passages of transcendent
grandeur, beauty, and comfort ... which can be see by the naked eye,
without the aid of the prophetic lens or telescope.' His selections are
made chiefly from the opening and closing chapters. Dr. Macduff's manner
of discoursing is too well known to need characterizing; it is enough to
say that in these glorious manifestations of the exalted Christ, he
has, with due regard to exegesis, indulged, wisely and profitably, in
the unction of description and application which have made his books so
popular. No man may discourse of the new heavens and the new earth
without palpable shortcoming, but he has given to devout readers a wise
and edifying book.
_Hours of Christian Devotion._ Translated from the German of A. THOLUCK,
D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Halle. By ROBERT
MENZIES, D.D. Blackwood and Sons.
This excellent manual of devotional thought, the work of one of the
greatest Biblical scholars that Germany has produced, has passed through
many editions, and has been translated into several different languages
with more or less of abridgment. Dr. Menzies has accomplished the
difficult task not only of translating the prose meditations, but the
numerous poetical effusions that enrich and pervade the volume.
Seventy-six brief meditations on personal, experimental, and practical
religion, are of course very varied in their character. Thus one of them
is a running comment of extreme beauty on Psalm xxiii., followed by a
poetical rendering of the spirit of the Psalm, which, even in Dr.
Menzies' translation, is of a high order, as thus--
'I strayed a wild tumultuous road along,
My mind not less tumultuous than the way;'--