Pro Bono Ecclesiae
A History of the Modern Church. By J. W. C. Wand, M.A.,
Follow of Oriel College, Oxford. (Methuen. Ss. Sd.) An Exegetical and Critical Commentary on the Book of Amos.
By Richard S. Cripps, M.A., B.D. With a Foreword by
The Epistle to the Ephesians. Edited by Walter Lock, D.D. (Methuen. 6s.) MR. WAND'S 15 a thoroughly practised mind and hand, and his History of the Modern Church, a companion volume to Miss
Deanesly's History of the Medieval Church, is as compact and lucid an account of an immense and complicated area of events as could be devised. Emphasis is naturally laid on English developments, but the progress of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe, the vicissitudes of the Eastern and Roman Churches, the influence of Renaissance exploration and discoveries in various climes, the develop- ment of Foreign Missions in consequence, educational, social, and reform movements, and finally the recent efforts towards Reunion amongst the Churches, all get their share, and a most illuminating share, of attention. The student of the modern, as distinct from the mediaeval period of the Christian Faith, must, as Mr. Wand says, be prepared to trace the rise of many attitudes towards life, many conceptions of the faith, and many ecclesiastical systems." Under Mr. Wand's guidance the process is never dull, even though he is careful—a real boon—to indicate his dates, and to explain carefully nearly all historical terms and catchwords. He does even more. Many a side-light, a quotation or passing allusion, is given, and makes the whole account eminently readable. Perhaps we should say that the lights and shadows are put in with too gentle a hand. If justice is done to the remarkable organizing and business gifts of Laud, and his enforcement of " moral and liturgical decency" on rich and poor alike, Cranmer is once more merely presented as the " gentle scholar and Christian gentleman," and the darker side of his earlier Erastian subserviency to that enigma of self-righteousness and crime, Henry VIII, left out. In the glare of his Irish terrorism, it is impossible to assert that Cromwell " permitted no outrages on the part of his troops," and, to come to a later period, we cannot imagine what is meant by the statement that " the Tories invented the story of the Rye House Plot." The original name of Arminius might have been told, and the true significance of " William the Silent " been noted, for it happens to throw a gleam of light on his policy at one crisis.
But the Select Book List " is the really weak feature of a volume that contains much solid work. It shows, indeed, a distinct " list " ; not a single work dealing with mysticism, an immense force from the seventeenth century onwards, is mentioned ; the term, in fact, is avoided in the book itself ; no publishers' names arc given ; one or two books are out of date ; the well-known History of the English Church, in nine volumes, is put under the editorship of the late Dean Stephens, and no mention is made of his collaborator, the Rev. Wm. Hunt, and, under the bare title, " H. 0. Wakeman : The Ascendancy of France, 1923," we surely recognize our old friend, " Period V," in Periods of European History, published in 1894. To select a single name, " John Wesley," in the section, " England," and to omit Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Law's Serious Call, Hodgkin's George Fox, and a work such as Gairdner's Loltardy and the Reformation, strikes the eye as much as the stress laid on Anglo-Catholicism." The Book List, in fact, is rather a pity ; for the book it is meant to illustrate is so good.
A little group of books useful to students of the Old and New Testaments requires notice. Mr. Cripps' Exegetical and Critical Commentary on the Book of Amos, which comes to us with the imprimatur of Professor Kennett, gives us a valuable analysis of the life, times, message and methods of Amos, who is presented to us not merely as the first of the so-called "Minor Prophets "—whose dates are anyhow hopelessly mixed for the ordinary reader—but as the foremost of all prophets." He appeared in the " Indian summer" of. Israelitish prosperity, when, owing to the pressure of Assyria on Syria, the Syrian menace to the Northern Kingdom was suddenly lifted, and Jeroboam II was able to carry the limits of his rule once more to those of the Davidic Empire. In the train of success came the luxury and vice outlined and scath- ingly rebuked by Amos. The prophet himself was of a different type from that of the earlier seers, Elijah and Elisha, who mixed up polities and indeed conspiracy in their mission, and were hardly ever loyal to the reigning dynasty. Moreover, he was no " dervish," nor scatterer of stray sayings, as were Elijah, Elisha and " the Sons of the Prophets." He was a preacher of sustained and vigorous moral power, the fore- runner of such as John the Baptist, and his outlook on events was keen enough to prophesy that the decline of Assyria, which gave breathing-space to both Syria and Israel, would be a very temporary matter. His predictions of coming storm were, of course, fulfilled by the victorious career of Tiglath- Pileser, and the ruin of Israel under the onslaught of Assyria, the cruellest of all Asiatic foes, followed. There is a dis- criminating section on the " visions " of Amos, and on mys- ticism in general (the experiences of Amos are compared to those of the Sadhu), but, in view of the work of Plotinus, Augustine, Tauler, Catherine of Siena, George Fox, or the Moravians, we should not agree that the mystic's experience is self-centred. Eckhart ranked Martha above Mary. Dr. Pileher's Hosea, Joel, Amos (they are not dated in this way) is a book of more elementary character, but gives a wider prospect, historically, and has a more devotional purpose. Mr. Arthur Wood's Epic of the Old Testament deserves quite special praise. He gives us great literary passages from the historical and prophetic books, using various versions, and he is at pains to place them in their true perspective—his- torically and morally. He puts events in connexion with other current secular " happenings, and pleads for the open mind as regards inspiration. Let people read, under whatever sanctions, " for the only gross irreverence towards the Old Testament is to ignore it." But as the Authorized Version presents the Old Testament, the only analogy is Green's History, a play of Shakespeare, some old ballads, some modern lyrics, a few Factory Acts, some laws on naturaliza- tion and public health, and some of Pusey's sermons, mixed together, and divided into exactly similar verses. Now this is not flippancy, but sad truth ; and we thank Mr. Wood for a courageous and skilful attempt to " sort out " a great deal of the Bible, and, we hope, to attract an intelligent study of it.
When we come to the New Testament we are met by the first volume of a valuable series, the Westminster Com- mentaries. The Epistle to the Ephesians is furnished with Introduction and Notes by Dr. Lock, who is associated with Dr. Simpson, Oriel Professor of Holy Scripture at Oxford, in editing the series. He describes its aim as " less elementary than the Cambridge Bible for Schools, less critical than the International Critical Commentary, less didactic than the. Expositor's Bible:' The present volume scarcely reaches its seventieth page, but it admirably fulfils the purposes indicated. We may conclude our notice of useful volumes on the Scriptures by commending a brief commentary on St.
Mark's Gospel, translated from the French of the Very Rev.
M. J. Lagrange, O.P. It is not criticism that we expect here ; but we do meet with some unexpected notes of illumination, and the commentary may be useful to those who are in need of notes at once simple, safe, and, it may be added, shrewd.
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