SOME BOOKS OF TIIE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the weak as have net been reserved for resists in other forms.] In the series of "The Analysed Bible" (Hodder and Stoughton) we have The Epistle to the Romans, by the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, D.D. (3s. 6d.) This volume will be found useful by all who wish to penetrate into the real meaning of this most difficult document. That all the difficulty is done away with we cannot say. If we could take the conception of God bringing about the general redemption by means of the elect remnant, elect, there- fore, for the benefit, not for the exclusion, of the rejected, as covering the contention of the Apostle, we should be content. But can we do so ? "It is perfectly true, and needs to be emphasised, that man could have no right to complain against the absolute justice of God had He swept the sinning race away without opportunity of redemption." This position is supposed to be justified by the argument of chap. i., in which the Apostle seeks to show that "the whole world is guilty." But does he show it ? His argument against the heathen obviously applies to but a small portion of the non-Hebrew world, to the civilised minority with whom the Apostle was brought in contact at Tarsus, at Athena, in fact in almost every city which he visited. But how about the vast mass of savage races ? Can -we suppose that they deserved damnation, not merely being "swept away," but being hurled into unending suffering, because they had failed to recognise the true nature of God in the glories of creation, and had so become morally degraded ?
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