THEOLOGICAL Booxs. — St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. By Charles
J. Ellicott, D.D. (Longmans.)—The carefulness and accuracy of Dr. Ellicott's work is well known. He states, and in a way apologises for, his specialty in the following passage of his preface :—" To many these pages may seem too full of technical matter, and too persistent in their grammatical reference and details. I will ask, however, all who take this view kindly to remember that this professes to be, and is, a grammatical com- mentary, and must be borne with as such. Next I will presume to say this,—that if the student will patiently wade through these details of grammar, he will be rewarded by a real knowledge of the mind of the original, which, so far as I know, cannot certainly be acquired any other way." A practical application of the importance of exact grammatical criticism is supplied by the comment on chap. xv., v. 29, "Else what shall they do who are baptised for the dead," where the possible explanations being re- duced to two, "in expectation of the resurrection of the dead," and "on behalf of dead unbaptised believers," it is pointed out that the former puts a. quite impossible strain on the preposition On the same portion of Scripture (dealing with chaps. ix.-xvi.) we have a Commentary on St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. By F. Godet. Translated from the French by the Rev. A. Cusin, M.A. (T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh.)—This annotation is still more full even than Bishop Ellicott's, a volume of five hundred pages being occupied with but half the Epistle. That it is able and learned need not be said, but we own that we are rather inclined to trust the sobriety and caution of the English divine. No student, however, can afford to neglect Professor Godet's work. This volume belongs to Messrs. T. and T. Clark's "Foreign Theological Library."—Belonging to the same series, we have Vol. III. of Apologetics; or, the Scientific Vindication of Christianity. By J. H. A. Ebrard, Ph.D. Translated by Rev. John Macpherson. —Professor Ebrard discusses in the earlier part of this volume the religious phenomena to be observed among the "races of Asia and Polynesia "—races, it must be understood, other than Aryan or Semitic—and the "peoples and hordes of America." His con- clusion is :—" We have nowhere been able to discover the least trace of any forward and upward movement from Fetichism to Polytheism, and from that again to a gradually advancing knowledge of the One God ; but, on the contrary, we have found among all the peoples of the heathen world a most decided tendency to sink from an earlier and relatively purer knowledge of God." To these words the writer gives the emphasis of capitals. The writer proceeds to deal with the subject of "The Confusion of Tongues," and advances an elaborate proof of what he holds to be the orthodox view. But this we will leave in medio. Professor Ebrard is, we observe, no sympathiser with the views of Canon Isaac Taylor about Islam. Nor is he a lover of the Jews. —From the same publishers we have also The Form of the Christian Temple : being a Treatise an the Constitution of the New Testament Church. By Thomas Witherow, D.D.—This is a contri- bution, on the Presbyterian side, towards the settlement of the great controversy between that system and Episcopacy, and has been called forth, it would appear, by Bishop Charles Words- worth's proposal to reconsider the differences between the two theories of Church government. We do not think that, as far as we have been able to examine it, Dr. Witherow's volume holds out much hope of a settlement. It seems to fail in the judicial temper without which all such efforts only make confusion worse confounded. He has, of course, to deal with the question of the Ignatian Epistles. He holds them to be forgeries, whether in the short, or the long, or the middle form. This is now hardly a defensible view, and is quite opposed to the opinion of the majority of critics. Bishop Lightfoot's careful discussion of the subject really leaves the matter almost beyond question. At all events, enough can be advanced on the other side, to say the very least, to forbid the direct charge which Professor Witherow makes of disingenuous dealing against his opponents. "Ignatius is to supply something that cannot be found in the writings of Peter and Paul. His genuineness, therefore, must be defended at any eoet of time and labour." "Must be defended." Could there be anything more offensive ? Does not Professor Witherow see how easily his charge might be retorted?—' Ignatius supplies something which is inconsistent with presbyterianism, shows at least that Episcopacy prevailed within sixty years of St. Paul's death. Therefore the spuriousness of his so-called Epistles must be maintained at any cost.' Dr. Witherow may not mean to bring this charge of dishonesty. But he certainly has an unhappy way of expressing himself which forbids the idea of his being useful as a peace-maker.- We have also to mention The First Epistle of Peter, Revised Text, with Introduction and Commentary, by Robert John- stone, LL.B. ; and A History of German Theology in the Nine- teenth Century, by F. Lichtenberger, translated and edited by W. Hastie, B.D.—.4 Manual of Introduction to the New Testament. By Dr. Bernhard Weiss. Translated from the German by A. J. K. Davidson. 2 vols. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—In his first volume, Professor Weiss, after a brief introduction on the litera- ture, sceptical and apologetic, which deals with this subject—the new word " Introduction " is something about equivalent to "criticism "—proceeds to consider, first, "The History of the Origin of the New Testament Canon," and secondly, "The History of the Origin of the New Testament Writings." His first volume does not take him beyond the Epistles of St. Paul. He maintains the genuineness of all received by the Canon. The Pastoral Epistles have been made the object of a particularly forcible attack, and there is special value in Professor Weiss's defence of their genuineness. What he says brings out many details in these writings which will have an interest apart from their bearing on the question of genuineness.— Dr. Morrison republishes his Exposition of the Ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—He has rewritten it, and added an exposition of the tenth chapter. The first edition was published forty years ago. "It," says the writer, of chap. ix., "is a marvellous piece of reasoning, and strikes out so vigorously, yet so picturesquely, against the spiritual assumption of his countrymen, and in vindi- cation of the sovereign liberty of God to confer His national and personal favours and privileges as He Himself pleases, that every student of theology, and every minister of the Gospel—indeed, every intelligent reader of the Scriptures—must feel constrained to make, sooner or later, and perhaps repeatedly, a special and serious effort to trace the consecutive steps and stages of the great logician's argument." This is what the writer wishes to help him to do.—The Divine Unity in Trinit j. By Herbert H.
Jeaffreson, M.A. (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—The Sabbatical Best of God and Man : an ExpositEcn of Hebrews iv., 3-9. By Rev. John Hughes, M.A. (Nisbet and Co.)—The People of the Pil- grimage : an Expository Stud.; of " I he Pilgrim's Progress " as a Book of Character. By the Rev. J. A. Kerr Bain, M.A. (Macniven and Wallace, Edinburgh; Hodder and Stoughton. London.)—This is a second series.— Wise Counsels of the Divine Master. By Edward Meyrick G ulburne, D.D. 2 vols. (John Murray.) —Christian Reunion. By the Rev. John de Soyres. (J. and A. McMillan, St. John's, New Brunswick.)— This volume contains the Hulsean Lectures for the year 1885, an interesting exposition of views with which we feel much sympathy. "The only possible reunion will be a federation. The greatest historian of this century [L. von Ranke] spoke here the perfect expression of the idea almost grasped by Leibnitz : 'It can be no longer thought possible to confer universal authority upon any one confession. Each state and each nation, given its own religious basis, must develop its forces : on this depends the
future of the world.' Men will understand that there are necessary differences in practice between the Anglican and the Gallican, a Germanic or a Russian Church ; but they will be members also of a great Freemasonry which will cover all the world, by which none will be a stranger who professes and calls himself a Christian." Nor can we refuse to join in his hope that "to the Church which alone at the present day is alike Catholic and Protestant and National, which accepted Reformation, and
yet never broke with history, there is a mighty work reserved." Pan-Anglicanism : What is it ? or, the Church of the Reconcilia- tion. By Rev. Morris Fuller. (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co.)— The Divine Liturgy, by Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D. (Riving-
tons), is an exposition of the Liturgy as far as it concerns the office for the Administration of the Holy Communion, and is primarily
intended to supply materials for the instruction of communicant classes.—The Analytics of a Belief in a Future State. By L. P. Grataeap, M.A. (James Pott, New York.)—The Infallibility of the Church. By George Salmon, D.D. (John Murray.)—This volume contains a course of lectures delivered by Dr. Salmon
from the Divinity Chair of Dublin, and addressed to the subject
of the Roman claim to infallibility and its relation to Protestant schools of thought.—With this may be mentioned : The Petrine Claims : a Critical Inquiry, by Richard Frederick Littledale, LL.D. (S.P.C.K.) ; and The Council of Trent : a Study of Romish Tactics, by T. Rhys Evans (Religious Tract Society).—Judaism and the Science of Religion. By Rabbi Louis Grossmar, D.D. (G.
P. Putnam's Sons.)—The Story of Genesis. By Frances Young- husband. (Longmans.)
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