DIVINITY.—The Miracles of Our Lord. By John Laidlaw, D.D. (Hodder
and Stoughton.)—Professor Laidlaw defines the scope of his treatise as " expository and homiletic." Tho apologetic and philosophic side of the subject has, he thinks, been treated with sufficient amplitude. What he seeks to supply is a connected expository view of the incidents which are included under this term. Of course there can be no sharp line of demarcation drawn between the expository and the apologetic. A good exposition will often be the best possible apology. Let any ono, for instance, read the very able account of a miracle which presents very considerable difficulties—the money in the fish's mouth—and ho can hardly fail to find it less of a stumbling-block than it may have hitherto seemed to him. The fact of the Temple tribute being demanded of one who was "the Son of the House" (4v Tar ref; war ptis Moe), and the demand being met by a singular exhibition of power, is very suggestive. Tho student will find Professor Laidlaw's book helpful.—The Kingdom, of God. By Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D. (T. and T. Clark.)—Professor Bruce's book, part of which appeared sometime ago in the Monthly Interpreter, is the "first in- stalment of a projected work on the leading typos of doctrine in the New Testament." It deals with the teaching of the Synoptists, and is to be followed, we hope, by treatises dealing respectively with the Pauline and the Johannine doctrine, and that found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. These typos Professor Bruce denominates "The Righteousness of God," "Eternal Life," and "Free Access to God." We cannot pretend to describe, much less to criticise, Professor Bruce's treatment of his subject. Briefly, we may say that it is characterised by the thoroughness and freedom which we have hitherto been accustomed to connect with German theology. At the same time, we find a sobriety of judgment and a restraining good sense and good taste that are most salutary. Professor Bruce supposes an original book of sayings, and another containing a narrative of acts ; and he states with much acute- ness his theory of show these have been utilised. It will be understood, however, that the variations made by the various Synoptists are subordinate to a great central idea which he finds in the words that supply a title to this book. One cannot help remarking on the vast advance made in Scottish theology during the last quarter of a century. One of the chief subsidiary causes must undoubtedly have been the continuous effort made by the publishers of this volume to supply Scottish students of divinity with a really valuable library. The breadth of selec- tion has been amply justified by results.—Spiritual Develop- ment of St. Paul. By the Rev. George Matheson. (Blackwood and Sons.)---Dr. Matheson treats his subjects at once with courage and reverence. He sees three stages in the Apostle's theological life, which he connects with the three cities, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome, and he traces the progress of his ideas through the Epistles, taken in the chronological order which is commonly assigned to them. One might hesitate, indeed, to accept such a phrase as Paul's first gospel," when we remember how the Apostle denounces all who should preach any other gospel than the one which he had himself delivered ; but there is no con- tradiction ; there is growth in the successive phases of teaching. —Veni Creator, by H. C. G. Moull, M.A. (Hodder and Stoughton), is a contribution to theology dealing especially with the subject of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit. —In The Divine Appearances under the Patriarchal, Levitical, and Christian Dis- pensations, Mr. George Eyler Townesend, M.A. (Nisbet and Co.), discusses successively all the appearances recorded both in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, whether described as of "The Lord," or " The Angel of the Lord." His general theory is to iden- tify the "Johovah-Angel" of the Old Testament with the "Jehovah- Jesus " of the Now.—The Unknown God or, Inspiration among Pre-Christian Races. By C. Loring Brace. (Hodder and Stoughton.) —The author naturally starts from Egypt. He traces an original monotheism under the extravagant and degrading forms which the Egyptian religion had assumed when it was first described by foreign observers. By that time it had doubtless become a thing of a remote past. (It is a strange mistake, by-the-way, to speak of Herodotus as having " visited Egypt in the third century.") From "The Book of the Dead," among other remains of the older Egyptian thought, we are able to correct many misconceptions. The second chapter deals with " The Jews and Egyptians." Thence we pass to the remarkable remains of Akkadian religion ; and thence, again, to Greece,—Socrates and the Stoics, Seneca, Epictotus, and Marcus Aurelius. The systems of Zoroaster, Hinduism, and Buddhism are successively discussed. Finally, we have a chapter on the possibility of the conversion of non- Christian nations, a matter of which the author takes a hopeful view. This is a book in which considerable learning has boon, on the whole, well utilised.—Natural Theology and Modern Thought. By James Houghton Kennedy, B.D. (Same pub- lishers.)—Mr. Kennedy, the Donnellan Lecturer at Dublin, 1888-89, treats in this volume " some points in which the results of modern research and the development of modern thought are supposed to have seriously affected the proofs of Natural Theology." Perhaps the most interesting chapter is that " On Design and Natural Selection." The argument from design, we have often been told, is exploded ; yet it still seems to survive. Professor Helinhols's strange utterance about the human eye is quoted and discussed. The Professor certainly said that the defects in this organ—he enumerates seven—are such that, " if an optician wished to sell him such an instrument, he should think himself quite justified in blaming his carelessness in the strongest terms and giving him back his instrument." But when he goes on to say that "the adaptation of the eye to its function is most complete, and is seen in the very limits which are. set to its defects," he seems to nullify his criticism. As Mr. Kennedy remarks, " the blame applies only to an imaginary state of things ; the praise to the existing constitution of nature." It is at least conceivable that an ideally perfect instrument might have been found not to work so well. The titles of the other chapters aro "The Veto of Positivism," " Design and Mechanical Law," "The Beautiful and Sublime," "Determinism and the Will," and "Kant and the Moral Proof."—Nature and Method of Revelation. By George Park Fisher, D.D. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—N,t the least interesting of Professor Fisher's chapters is that on "The Gradualness of Reve- lation," a teaching which is passing rapidly, it would seem, from the status of a heretical opinion to a truth accepted by all schools. In his Supplementary Essays, Professor Fisher discusses "The Authorship and Date of the Gospels," among other things, and criticises Professor Huxley's common's on the Gospel narratives. —The Living Christ and the Pour Gospels, by R. W. Dale, LL.D. (Hodder and Stoughton), muy be described as a very able com- pendium of apologetics. The argument is twofold, drawn, to use a common phrase, from internal and external evidence, and is very forcibly and succinctly put by Dr. Dale.—In the series of "The Theological Educator" (same publishers), appearing under the editorship of the Rev. W. Robertson Nicoll, we have An Intro- duction to the Old Testament, by the Rev. W. H. Wright. Dr. Wright deals successively with the Hebrew Text, the Targums, the Septuagint, and the Ancient Versions, Syriac, Greek, and Latin. He then discusses the books separately. On all these subjects he has something to say that is well worth reading.—Another useful volume is The Gospel History in a Connected Narrative, in the Words of the Revised Version, arranged by C. C. James, M.A. (C. J. Clay and Sons).— Signe Christi, by James Aitchison (Cassell and Co.), is described as discussing the " Evidences of Christianity set forth in the Person and Work of Christ." After all, this argument is the most forcible that can be used, It must be supplemented by a certain amount of external confirmation. But the " appeal to experience" must be the chief thing in the end.—The Gospel and Modern Substitutes, by the Rev. A. Scott Matheson (Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier), discusses for popular reading the various theories, scientific or social, in which men have imagined they can find the good news which they say the Gospel has not succeeded in proclaiming. Agnosticism ; Science, with its assertion of, first, " The Law of Heredity," and next, " The Law of Variation ; " " Positivism," " Socialism," " Pessimism," and, finally, " Art"—for there are people who fancy that Art will do for mankind all that it wants—are successively discussed.
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