" Tax shadow of the Roman Empire," writes Professor Ramsay
in the beginning of his ninth chapter, "rests over the whole of the Apocalypse." This indicates the point of view from which he regards his subject. He cannot be said to belong either to the praeterist or the futurist school of interpreters. A praeterist looks about for the fulfilment of Apocalyptic prediction in the centuries that have elapsed since the beginning of the Christian era down to his own time ; a futurist maintains that the fulfilments are yet to take place. Professor Ramsay holds that St. John—he identifies the author of the Revelation with the author of the Gospel— describes the actualities of the world which he knew, the great personages and powers of the Roman Empire, under the Apoca- lyptic symbols. He does not apply his method to the whole book, but to that part of it which most easily lends itself to this treatment. We know something from other sources about the cities of the Seven Churches. And he makes us see that what we know in this way fits in with this scheme of interpretation. We may take the Letter to the Church of Pergamum as an example. Pergamum was the Royal city. Its situation still suggests the idea,—Professor Ramsay here brings in his knowledge of the country to illustrate his remarks. Being such, it was the place of " Satan's throne," Satan representing the hostile power of the Empire, and naturally the chief scene of the persecutions, where the proto-martyr Antipas had suffered. St. John speaks as the minister of a mightier Power, of Him who wielded the " sharp two-edged sword." Then the writer turns to rebuke the weakness which he discerns in the Church. Some of its members favoured the Nicolaitans, probably the party of compromise, which endeavoured to reconcile the new faith with the old ways of life and thought, a party which had something to say for itself, but which would have destroyed Christianity as a distinctive force if it had triumphed. The conclusion of the Epistle is very obscure. Possibly the new name has a primary reference to baptism and the name given therewith, and a secondary reference to the familiar cult of the Caesars, established in Pergamum with the name Augustus, for the first time applied to man. The Christian's name would be a more potent force than that of the official idolatry. Professor Ramsay's volume requires careful study, which it will amply repay.
No reader of the Apocalypse, however clearly he may see the references to the present surroundings of the writer, would deny that there is much to which only an eschatological meaning can be given. Such passages have an attraction which the student finds it impossible to resist. There may be no subject where the attitude of the agnostic is * (1) The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia. By W. X. Haman , D.C.L., Arc. London : Hodder and Stoughton. [12s.]—(2) The 1 Saviour- Judge. By James Laughton Clarke. London: John Murray. [9s. net.]— (3) The Forgiveness of Sins, and other Sermons. By George Adam Smith, D.D. London : Hodder and Stoughton. [68. J—(4) Grace Triumphant. By Charles Haddon Spurgeon. London : E.T.S. [38. 6c1.]—(5) Seeking Life. and other &MORS. By the Bt. Bev. Phillips Brooks, D.D. London : Macmillan reasonable, yet few are able to maintain it. Mr. Clarke seeks to find what we may describe as a middle term between the traditional view of unending retribution unalterably imposed when the probation of life is over and Universalism. To the traditional view there has been always opposed the protest of a minority, once small and obscure, now embracing many of the most authoritative of Christian teachers. Universalism, on the other band, has been met by a body of dissidents who declare that, at least in its crude form, it obliterates moral distinctions, and claim a preference for the theory of the annihilation of the finally impenitent. Mr. Clarke's method, put briefly, is to insist on the permanent character of the judicial office of Christ. There is not, he maintains, to be only a Great Assize, to use the common image of popular theology, at which all the human beings that have ever existed will be finally divided into two classes of the Saved and the Lost. Christ will remain the Judge, and, as a Judge, He will also be the Saviour, agyes siovii (a quotation from the Septuagint of Isaiah xix. 20). This thesis is stated with much ability, and affords at least a subject for earnest study.
The transition from this subject to that indicated by the title of Dr. G. A. Smith's volume of sermons is not difficult. Here, too, there are two opposing views of life, as we see it both in the world outside us and in our consciousness, to be reconciled. Can sin ever really be forgiven ? Is this not the same thing as to ask,—Can the past ever be undone P Is forgiveness the remission of penalty. Undoubtedly in the not fully developed morality of the Old Testament there is much that seems to countenance this view. But what is the higher conception that is to be found both in the Old Testa- ment and in the New ? Dr. Smith may be left to answer the question. This he does in a passage which all will feel to have a noble ring in it :— " Amid the many blessings in which through the infinite riches of His mercy in Christ, it consists, this stands out, the most wonderful and inspiring essential of all : that God Himself should trust us when we have lost all trust of ourselves : should believe us capable of standing where we have fallen, of over- coming where we have only known defeat; and of again doing the work, in which we have been lax and unfaithful. For it is just in all this that the tremendous moral possibilities of forgiveness consist. Let a man merely off the consequences of his sin and by that alone you do not give him much more than room and time to grow better : though the goodness of God also leadeth to repentance, and if men's hearts were only more open to the respites and reliefs of His ordinary Providence, they would find in them all the grace, which they are too apt to associate only with the crises of worship and religious feeling. Tell a man in addition that God so loved him that He gave His Son to die for him, and when the man believes it, though his heart was dry and obdurate, you shall indeed have wakened all over his experience—as I dare to say nothing else ever did wake in human nature—the springs of wonder, gratitude and hope. But you cannot make him feel the depths of that love, you cannot carry his gratitude or his hope to their fullest pitch, you cannot add to his affections a new conscience or fortify them past every shock, till you tell him that God's love for him includes God's trust in his loyalty, in his power to make a new start, to stand firm, and, though he should be the most fallen and stunted of men, in his power to grow at last to the full stature of his manhood."
Most of the sermons are of this type; but there are others on "Esau," "Gideon," and " The Song of the Well " in which the preacher's special gift as the great exponent of Palestinian geography comes out to much advantage.
It is probable that Charles H. Spurgeon published more sermons than any other preacher, ancient or modern ; yet he may be said never to have repeated himself. He could not avoid saying the same thing twice, or, indeed, many times, but he gave a freshness to. his restatements of experience or doctrine which made them original. The sermons included in the volume before us somehow escaped publication at the time of their delivery. They have the characteristic merits of the preacher, one of whose many gifts was the power of speaking directly to the 'hearts and consciences of his hearers. And there are not nnfrequent touches that show the orator. So, speaking of the -woman afflicted with " a spirit of infirmity eighteen years,"le says:—" Eighteen years! Well, that is not very long if you are in health and strength and prosperity. How the years trip along as with wings at their heels! They are scarcely here before they are fled! But eighteen years of infirmity, pain, and constantly increasing. weakness ! Eighteen years she dragged her chain until the iron entered into her soul." When the preacher leaves the familiar path we
generally regret it. He finds occasion to state the Calvinistic doctrine of Perseverance, and the language of St. Paul com- forts him,—" lest that by any means, when I have preached to
others, I myself should be a castaway." It does not trouble him. " The Apostle Paul was not afflicted with this fear. He strove lest this fear should ever come near him." Surely to
be afraid of a fear is very like fearing. But he is at his worst when he looks outside his own boundaries of belief. " We have been told that all creeds have something good
in them, even the creed of the pagan and the Romanist
God save us from those who talk in this way ! "
Bishop Phillips Brooks's output in sermons was not much less than Spurgeon's. This is the " tenth series " of his dis- courses, and his literary executors tell us that they think it "better to stop short of exhausting the best of the material in their hands." He, too, had the gift of speaking very directly to his hearers, but we never see any failure in candour or charity. The last sermon in this volume may serve as a good example of his method. The text is the familiar image of the new wine in old bottles. In the mouth of the Master that was the assertion that the worn-out formalism of the religion of His day would be shattered by the might of the new Kingdom. The preacher's application is this,—he is preaching a New Year's sermon. The resolution of purity and nobleness put into an impure or ignoble life avails nothing :—
" What does some man do ? He takes that one religious resolution and sets it down into the midst of a perfectly un- religious life. That daily prayer to God, which implies a complete dependence on the Almighty strength, is flung into the midst of a day that is all hard with self-reliance. That reading of the Bible brings a stray idea of Christ and plants it into the most secular associations. The going to God's House is a solitary, exceptional act, right in the midst of a career that never other- wise goes up or looks up to God. What chance is there for such a resolution ? What wonder if, before the year grows two months old, the prayer has dwindled to a moment's form, the Bible has become a wearisome book, the church a barren duty that will soon drop altogether, that any small excuse can easily dispense with ! It is the commonest of sights. I doubt not many a prayer has been said and many a chapter read to-day, and there are many men and women in many a church from just that new sense of duty. It is clear enough what you need : some comprehensive reverence and faith into which these reverent and faithful acts may enter as its most natural expressions, and in which they shall be able to utter and develop their full life. You must begin by loving and fearing God, and then your several acts of love and fear will find their places and blossom into interest and delight."
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