CONMENTARIES.—The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture. By George T. Ladd, D.D.
2 vols. (T. and T. Clark).—The bringing of this great work—for it is really nothing less—within the reach of English students of theology, is another of the very considerable services which Messrs. Clark have rendered to this class of the public. So much we may say in general terms ; and we may add a regret that we cannot giVe our readers the detailed estimate of the book which it deserves. Such an estimate would require the space and time at the command of a quarterly rather than of a weekly reviewer. We do not profess to have done more than to dip into these two stately volumes, with their fifteen hundred pages ; but we have seen enough to make us admire the lucidity of statement, the logical method, and the learning, and above all the liberality of the author. The question which he sets himself to answer is nothing less than " What is the Bible ? " We may take specimens of his manner of dealing with the problems which arise in the course of this great investigation. How far, for instance, did our Lord authenticate the story of Jonah by His quotation of it ? Is the story of the prophet being for the three days and nights in the whale's belly to be accepted as historical because Ile made it the basis of a comparison to His own Resurrec- tion ? Dr. Ladd does not think so. He asks very pertinently, " Shall it be claimed that if He knew the book to be allegorical, he must distinctly aver it to be so when speaking among a people whose daily speech dealt largely in allegory ? Or that, if not for the sake of hearers of his own time, at any rate for the sake of readers in this occidental and unfignrative age, he must have given full notice of his opinion as to the Book of Jonah ? We prefer to believe that Jesus spoke in perfect freedom from these ties of mere criticism, and also in large indifference whether His enemies or His disciples were guarded from the possibility of misunderstanding." And here, again, is a quotation illustrating the writer's general conclusions :—" The Bible is the unfailing and sufficiently trustworthy source of the his-
tory of the Divine work of redemption The Bible is the unfailing source of those etbico-religious truths which were revealed by God to His inspired servants during the process of the biblical his- tory, and which, taken together in their due relations to one another and to the central truth of revelation, constitute the word of God to man. The Bible is the unfailing,—and when its facts are sifted by critical and historical research, and its truths are apprehended and developed in the Christian consciousness,—it is the perfect and complete source of the true doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ."—The Message to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. By the Rev. Andrew Tait. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—This " exposition of the first three chapters of the Book of the Revelation" is a laborious work which may be trusted so far as historical and such-like aids to exegesis are concerned, but not, we are inclined to say, farther. A writer who knows no better than to classify together, as belonging to the same "school of interpreters," " Renan and Baur, and Maurice and Strauss," is clearly deficient in the insight which it is necessary for a com- mentator to have. We do not demand that he should accept Mr. Maurice's views on the interpretation of the Apocalypse ; but not to see that Maurice and Renan are distant from each other toto redo, argues a strange want of appreciation. Dr. Tait is a determined " futurist;" but it is not necessary to confound all " practerists " together, and to include them, as we understand this writer to do, under the condemnation of those " who say that the resurrection is past already." We are not surprised to find a writer of this temper dogmatising with the utmost confidence and with the " light heart" which few even of those who think with him can maintain about the everlasting misery of sinners. But surely he might have known better than to quote the writer of Ecclesiastes as a final authority in such a matter. He claims, we suppose, to be critical. Does he, then, think that the words " in the place where the tree falls, there it shall be," are to rank with the utterances of St. Paul on the condition of the soul after death ? Granting that they refer to the subject (and this has yet to be proved), is he prepared to accept all that this writer says about death ? Surely it was Christ who brought life and immortality to light;" and wherever a preacher may seek the ornaments of his rhetoric, an interpreter who goes to Jewish moralists for teaching on this subject is as inexcusable as a physicist who should go for his science to Heraclitus or Empedocles.—Exegetical Studies, by Paton J. Gloag, D.D. (T. and T. Clark), contains sixteen essays (some of which have already appeared in magazines) on various difficult passages of Scripture. They are careful and valuable pieces of work. The most important views that have been taken of the difficulties are lucidly and distinctly stated. If Dr. Gloag does not always command our assent in the conclusions to which he comes, he at least makes us feel that he has fully and impartially stated the case. The words, " Why are they then baptised for the dead ?" he takes to refer to "one set of Christians succeeding another ; when their ranks were thinned by death, others rushed in to supply their places." About the " preaching to the spirits in prison," he is unable to make up his mind ; but he is not disinclined to the view that it may mean a visit of Christ to the abode of the dead in the interval between the burial and the Resurrection. As to St. Paul's " thorn in the flesh," he prefers to leave the matter in doubt, arguing that the application is more general as long as we do not know what was" specially referred to. Oar own feeling is that the arguments in favour of this " thorn " having here been blindness, or at least a painful ophthalmia, are exceedingly strong.—The Law of the Ten Words, by J. Oswald Dykes, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton), is an expository treatise on the Ten Commandments. It is not easy to say anything new on this subject; but Dr. Dykes has put much sound and sensible teaching into a conveniently short compass. Here is a statement which is scarcely considered enough, but which it seems difficult to controvert. " The First Commandment condemns false gods, and, by con- sequence, plurality of gods ; since in any polytheism, all save one must be false. The Second condemns worship by means of images, or the representation of God for purposes of devotion under any material emblem (the worship of the actual image being a degradation even below idolatry)."—One of the bye-ways of Biblical knowledge is fully explained in Scripture Botany a Descriptive Account of the Plants, Trees, Flowers, 4-c., Mentioned in Holy Writ,. by Leo H. Gusidon (F. Pitman).
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