THEOLOGY.—The Parabolic Teaching of Christ. By Alexander Balmain Bruce. (Hodder
and Stoughton.)—This "systematic and critical study" is a book which all students of theology should wel- come. Professor Brace brings to his task the learning, the diligence, and the liberal and finely sympathetic spirit which are the best gifts of an expositor of Scripture. Here is an admirable comment on those mysterious words which seem to say that the purpose of the parable was to darken the minds of those who heard it :— "We must be careful not to misunderstand the temper in which such words might be spoken by Jesus, or by any true servant of God. No true prophet could utter such words in cold-blood as the expres- sion of a deliberate purpose. All prophets desire to illumine, soften, and save, not to darken, harden, and destroy ; and without entering into the mystery of Divine decrees, we may add, God sends his prophets for no other purpose, whatever the foreseen effects of their labour may be. But a prophet like Isaiah may, nevertheless, feel as if be were sent, and represent himself as sent, for the opposite pur- pose. And when he does so, it is not in the way of expressing direct aim or deliberate intention, but in irony and in the bitterness of de- spairing and frustrated love. Baffled love in bitter irony announces as its aim the very opposite of what it works for, and it does so in the hope of provoking its infatuated objects to jealousy, and so defeating its own prophecy." Professor Bruce divides the Parables into three classes : Theoretic Parables, Parables of Grace, and Parables of Judgment ; and he supplements each book with a study of what he calls "parable- germs," short parable utterances, such as that about "the Wise and the Foolish Builders," and "the New Patch on the Old Garment." His treatment of his subject is vigorous and original, and, though he is evidently well read in the literature which belongs to it, he avoids the capital mistake of overlaying his exegesis with a mass of other men's views.—A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. By Joseph Agar Beet. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—This is a very fall and elaborate commentary, marked by all the diligence and erudition which Mr. Beet, by his similar work on the "Epistle to the Romans," had before shown himself to possess. The writer is well acquainted with the newest results of criticism, and deals with them in a candid and judicious spirit. Some of his conclusions we cannot accept (e.g., his interpretation of the "sowing" of the natural body, in I. Corinthians, xv., as referring to burial), bat they are always well weighed and powerfully defended. Some very useful supplementary matter is added,—comparisons of the Epistles with that written to the Roman Church and with the "Acts of the Apostles," dissertations on the "Chronology of the Three Epistles" and on "Pant and the Church at Corinth," and an appendix descriptive of Clement's "Epistle to the Corinthians." We hope that in a new edition he will rearrange his matter into a more convenient form, and will add to his own transla- tion (which, however valuable in point of scholarship, is so cumbrous and harsh as to be repulsive to an ordinary reader), the text of either the Authorised or the Revised Veraion.—The Polity of the Christian Church, by Alexius Aurelius Pellicia. Translated from the Latin by Rev. J. C. Bellett, M.A. (Masters and Co.)—This very elaborate book, the work of a Neapolitan theologian of the last century, deals with the ritual and discipline of the Church, early, medireval, and modern. The writer is admirably candid. While thoroughly loyal to Rome, he never attempts to claim for any peculiarly Roman practice an anti- quity which does not belong to it. He thinks, for instance, that the withholding of the cup from the laity was done for "very just reasons," but he does not pretend that it was done before the fifteenth century. He admits that in "old times the Liturgy was celebrated in the vernacular or vulgar tongue," though he attributes the Roman Rractice to "great zeal for the honour of the worship of God." The translator very rightly commends the work to his readers on this ground, and draws a conclusion which, to those who think with him, must have an irresistible force,—that it is well to know "whether this or that point of ritual, about which we, perhaps, indi- vidually feel strongly, is Catholic or not ; whether, as being Catholic and primitive, its retention in our Prayer-book must be contended for at any cost, or whether, as being merely local or mediaeval, it may well be abandoned, for the sake of peace." The vestments would disappear. Daring the first three centuries, clergy and laity wore the same garb, though differing in colour ; and no colour but white was used till the ninth century. The chasuble was worn by the laity up to the sixth century. In its present form, it dates from the sixteenth. The biretta is equally modern. —The Jesuits : a Complete History of the Order. By Theodore Griesinger. Translated by A. J. Scott, M.D. 2 vols. (W. H. Allen and Co.)—This is a very fierce attack on the Society of Jesus. To examine it in detail would be to go far- beyond our present limits, and we mast be content with ehronicling its first appearance in English. The book was originally published in 1866.—Faith Victorious : the Life and Labours of Dr. Johann. Ebel, by J. L. Mombert, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton), gives a. curious picture of one side of religious life in Germany. Dr. Ebel was " Archdeacon of the old Town Church of Konigsberg," and belonged, it seems, to what may be called the pietistic.
school. He was fiercely and, if his biographer is to be trusted, wholly unjustly attacked by the Liberals, among whom the commentator Olshausen is mentioned. A curious exhibi- tion of their animosity (here, again, we depend on Dr. Mom- bert's authority) was to bring about the demolition of the- ancient church in which he officiated.—At about the opposite pole- of Christian biography, we find Lacordaire's Life of St. Dominic, translated by Mrs. Edward Hazeland (Burns and Oates), a work too- well known to need criticism.—The Evidences of Natural Religion,. by Charles McArthur (Hodder and Stoughton), is an argument of considerable ability, conducted, for the most part, on the familiar- lines, but dealing in more detail than is usual with the scientific facts that bear on the question.—With this work we may mention Litimations of Immortality, by W. Garrett Horder. (Eliot Stock.) Mr. Horder has collected here a number of facts and expressions or belief bearing on the subject. One chapter he devotes to "Intima- tions from the Unseen Realm," not without good reason, we think.. One well-established instance, say, of the appearance of the dying in some remote place, commonly called the "wraith," would be a tremendous blow to Materialism. It is a fact that the Materialists refuse to examine the evidence on this subject.—In. Defence : the Earlier Scriptures, by H. Sinclair Patterson, M.D. (J, F. Shaw), is a contribution to Christian apologetics which will doubtless- be satisfactory to those who occupy what may be called the right wing of orthodoxy.—The Millennium, by the late H. T. Adamson, B.D- (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.), deals with speculations into which we cannot profess to follow the writer.—The Hope of the World,. by Walter Lloyd (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.), states without any reserve the doctrine of Universalism. We cannot but think that the writer is far too dogmatic, and that he neglects to take into account much that is found in the teaching of Christ and the Apostles. Mr. Lloyd cannot get beyond the conclusion that the final judgment will bring the wicked to shame and repentance. This does not seem to account for all that we read in the New Testament, and we must say that a rational faith in the "Larger Hope" is anything but- strengthened by such extremes.—We may commend to such as may be looking for such a book an excellent little volume of sermons for the young, under the title of St. George ,for England, and other. Sermons to Children, by the Rev. T. Teignmouth Shore, M.A.. (Cassell and Co.)
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