II.--BIBLICAL LITERATURE, &c.

(Under the Direction of The Hon. and Rev. W. H. FREMANTLE.)

THE HE Students' Commentary on the Bible (John Murray) is an abridgment of "The Speaker's Commentary." The first volume alone is as yet published, containing the Pentateuch. The work of abridgment has been entrusted to Mr. J. M. Fuller, who is favourably known as the annotator of the Book of Daniel in the larger Commentary. The abridgment is effected partly by leaving out the learned disquisitions with which the larger work abounds, but of which the results are assumed in the smaller; partly by a great condensation of the notes, which are given in a brief and dogmatic form. The Editor has retained, as far as possible, the words of the original contributors, merely making in a very few instances additions of his own. The book, therefore, contains nothing that is new. But the views expressed in the original Commentary stand out more sharply in the abridgment, both in what they assert and in what they concede. The book is handy and useful, and is made more so by giving the text, not in double columns and verses, but in paragraphs, and in distinguishing the poetical portions from the general narrative.

MAgur Beet: Hodder & Stoughton, produce a Commentary which should reflect

R. BEET has endeavoured (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, by Joseph

the mind of his author in a perfectly colourless manner. He does not state what his own position is (though we gather from his use of the words "shall" and "will" that he is a Scotchman or an Irishman); he has but little introductory matter, and the only dissertations are those in which he sums up the argument of certain parts of the Epistle. He neither quotes previous commentators nor acknowledges any obligation to them. He does not even introduce his belief that the Epistle is part of the Word of God, except as an inference at the close of his work. He divides the Epistle into forty-eight sections, in each of which the text is given in a careful paraphrase, followed by notes and, at the close, by a summary of the argument. He divides the doctrinal part of the Epistle into five great divisions, which contain the doctrine (1) of Justification by Faith, (2) of Justification by the Death of Christ, (3) of Sanctification by Christ, (4) of Sanctification by Faith, (5) of Sanctification by the Holy Spirit; he considers that these doctrines are vindicated in ch. ix.-xi., as consistent with God's promises to Israel, and applied to practice in the remaining chapters. These doctrines, he holds, were taught to St. Paul by Christ Himself, and were actually taught by Christ in the Gospels. The treatment of the Epistle is very full and conscientious; but it is lengthy and lacks relief. There is no comparison of the ideas of St. Paul with others, hardly any consciousness of a world outside the circle of those ideas; and, as a consequence of this, the questions agitated are almost wholly those which would have agitated the mind of a Puritan of the seventeenth century. To be justified is still to him to be esteemed righteous rather than to be so; redemption is the payment of a price, the illustrations being drawn from the legal part of the Old Testament rather than from Exodus xv. or Ps. cvii.; the atonement is the enduring of a penalty, and propitiation issues in getting off the penalty. On the other hand, ch. vi. is interpreted, not forensically with Chalmers, but, with the more liberal exegesis, as relating to a sanctifying union of nature; in ch. v. the expositor recognises the assertion of universal redemption; and at ch. ix. he finally breaks with the Calvinistic interpretation. Mr. Beet's volume is the first of a series which, he announces, is to go through St. Paul's Epistles in order. We may hope that the greater variety of the Epistles to the Corinthians will give relief to the somewhat monotonous character of an otherwise meritorious work.

R. WALLER'S book on the Revelation (The Apocalypse viewed under the

by C. B.Waller, M.A., vicar of Woodford Bridge, Essex; author of " Unfoldings of Christian Hope:" (C. Kegan Paul & Co.) is an instance of a method of interpreting prophecy which might have seemed to be obsolete. The book is not viewed from the stand-point of the Seer himself, but taken as a detailed prediction of future events.

There is a curious combination of literalism with allegorical interpretation. The four living creatures are "reservoirs of life, aggregates of pre-existing souls," the earth is the people of God, the sea the uncovenanted peoples, the grass is "all flesh," the white robes are the glorified bodies of the saints. On the other hand, the one thousand years of ch. xx. are literal, though they are identified with the "half-hour's, silence" of ch. viii. The visions are divided into two parts (the parting point being the end of ch. xi.), supposed to be written respectively on the inside and the outside of the roll, the one disclosing the destinies of the elect Church, the other of the outside world: and the visions under the trumpets are taken as relating to a future time of probation beyond the Millennium. Yet the writer, though apparently ignorant of all modern expositions, even of one so accessible as the work of Dr. Vaughan, and quoting Horne and Hengstenberg as recognised authorities, is not insensible to modern science or modern thought. Several of the modern physical doctrines, such as the antiquity of man and the doctrine of evolution, are treated as things well known and admissible; and the whole work is inspired by a belief in universal restitution, in which even the Devil and his angels are to have their share.

T

HE work of the late Mr. Desprez (Daniel and John; or, the Apocalypse of the Old and that of the New Testament, by Philip S. Desprez, B.D., Vicar of Alverdiston, Wilts: C. Kegan Paul & Co.) is prefaced by an introduction by the late Dr. Rowland Williams in the well-known style of that writer, showing somewhat too much of irritation at books like Dr. Pusey's "Daniel the Prophet," and mingling too much the spheres of criticism, dogmatics and apologetics, yet showing his desire to combine a criticism which destroys much, with the faith and work of a clergyman. The book itself is remarkable as exhibiting in the way of detailed exposition the views which it upholds, and which have hitherto been only stated generally by other English writers. 1. As to the Book of Daniel, the author maintains that it was written in the time of the great persecution of the Jews under Antiochus Epiphanes. From the stories relating to the captivity, of which many were current, the writer selected those best calculated to encourage the Jews in their resistance to the oppressor. The story of Daniel and his comrades refusing to defile themselves with the king's meat was apposite to the resistance made by the Jewish patriots to the attempt of Antiochus to force forbidden meats upon them. The pride and downfall of Nebuchadnezzar, and his enforcement of a worship of himself, finds its counterpart in the career of the king who on his coins is styled Oeòs 'Enipavηs. The successive kingdoms of Daniel lead up to the Seleucida, whose wars and intrigues, terminating in the great oppression of the Jews, are minutely detailed in ch. xi. The prophecy of the threescore and two weeks is made to eventuate in the same point; and the words ordinarily taken as applying to the Messiah expected by the Jews, "Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself," are read, " after threescore and two weeks an anointed one shall be cut off, and there is not (a helper) to him," and applied to Antiochus. The resurrec tion of ch. xii. is taken as a bodily resurrection expected to occur immediately, and thus the book has a distinct unity assigned to it, but at the expense of forfeiting all value as a record of the history of the captivity or as an anticipation of the future.

2. The Revelation is treated in a corresponding manner. It is assigned to John, the Son of Zebedee, and to the year 68 A.D. It is believed to have been called forth by the expectation of the return of the dreaded Nero (the Beast), and by the appearance of the pseudo-Nero (the second Beast, or false prophet). The imagery of the later books is shown to be borrowed from the older. For Nebuchadnezzar we have Nero; for the Eastern Babylon the Western; for the magicians the false prophet; for the compulsion to worship the image of gold, or to pray to no God but the King of Babylon, the worship of the image of the Beast and the reception of his mark. Putting imagery aside, the author traces many allusions to contemporary history; but the anticipations of the future he takes in the most literal sense, and pronounces absolutely fictitious. The two Witnesses have no historical meaning, though the idea of them may have been suggested by the deaths of Peter and James. The destruction of Rome is, in the writer's anticipation, to be immediate; Nero is to return with ten Parthian leaders, who will join him in a second and final destruction of Rome; and both he and they will be destroyed by the returning Christ, who will then reign with His saints for 1000 years; after which the New Jerusalem, in all its literal, material details, is to be established, as a Jewish city, round which the believing Gentiles will humbly group themselves. It is needless to point out that such anticipations render the book grounded on them destitute of almost all religious value.

There are several conclusions as to other points which are indicated by the commentator. The Fourth Gospel, he considers, cannot possibly have the same author as the Revelation; the Apocalyptic features of the Synoptic Gospels show a familiarity with the Revelation, and consequently are of a later date; the special views of Christ's divinity accepted by the Church were unknown to the age for which the Revelation was written; and in such an age the Church organization, which is often supposed to be apostolic, would have been impossible. Above all, the notion of the second coming of Christ is an entire and mischievous delusion.

As some of the views here expressed may seem to many incompatible with the position of a Christian minister, it is fair to the author to allow him to speak for himself.

"While Jesus certainly founded his Messianic career on the Apocalyptic model presented by the Book of Daniel, this was neither the essence of his doctrine nor the secret of his power. For these we must look to his sublime conception of the Fatherhood of God, the superiority of his matchless sayings, the loveliness of his pure and devoted life, and the grandeur of his selfsacrificing and heroic death. . . . . Above and beyond all this, its adaptation to the religious instincts and the spiritual wants of man affords at once a proof of its Divine origin and a pledge of its continuance."

HE last three volumes of The Expositor (Hodder & Stoughton) are before us. They include, besides a number cursory articles, articles which, now that the numbers have been bound into volumes, can with much more satisfaction be read consecutively. The Exposition of the Book of Job, by Mr. Cox, the Editor, traces the argument up to chapter xxxi., making it reach its climax (which colours and qualifies all that follows) in the words of ch. xix. 25, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," after which Job gathers strength for his great "Monologue" of personal vindication (ch. xxvii.-xxxi.). The "Studies in the Life of Christ" by Professor Fairbairn, those on the Prophet Jeremiah by Dean Payne Smith, the Exposition of the Epistle to Titus by Dr. Reynolds, and the three articles on the Laws of the Kingdom as indicated in Matt. xx. 25--28, have all of them their distinctive merits. Two articles on the Talmud, by Canon Farrar, show the teaching of the Rabbis as to a future state to have wavered between the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked and that of universal restoration, and point out, by the elucidation of a curious cryptograph, the manner in which they dealt with the advancing Christianity. The controversy between Dr. Roberts and Professor Sanday on the question of the extent to which Greek was used by the Jews in Palestine, and by our Lord himself, leaves us under the impression that the full contention of Dr. Roberts cannot be supported. though, among the educated portions of the people, Greek must have been commonly used, as German is now among the Czechs of Bohemia. It is difficult to define precisely the line which divides exposition from theology. The reprinting of De Quincey's remarkable and convincing paper on the meaning of the word "eternal" can hardly be objected to, since it throws light on so many passages of Scripture. Whether Dean Perowne's interesting article, which maintains that we have outgrown the need for the doctrine of angels, or Mr. Bartlett's paper on the "Letter and the Spirit," and the theory of doctrinal development, are admissible on the same ground, is questionable; but we deprecate the incorporation with The Expositor of subjects like that of "Science and Philosophy," or the "Bigotry of Illumination." The last volume, we incline to think, shows some declension from the standard of its predecessors. The new matter, with the exception, perhaps, of the contributions of Mr. Matheson, is of inferior power, several of the articles, such as that on Psalm xc., and that on the "Hcly Ghost as Dove and Fire," hardly rising above the level of ordinary thoughtful sermons. We may observe that the work, which is not one of merely ephemeral value, would be improved by a table of contents, and that the list of contributors given at the beginning of each volume is incomplete.

THE

THE Expository Essays and Discourses of Mr. Samuel Cox (Hodder & Stoughton) form the third of a series of volumes, of which The Expositor's Note Book and Biblical Eepositions are becoming widely known. Mr. Cox is deservedly esteemed as the editor of The Expositor. His mind has the requisite qualities for an expositor of Scripture,-sympathy to enter into the author's feelings and subtlety to track out his thoughts, together with a comprehensiveness of view which prevents his better judgment being submerged under any peculiarities, either of his own or of the individual writer on whom he is commenting. In the present volume, besides the

directly expository matter, there are more essay-like writings on Prayer, the Atonement, and Heaven. The first of these has a great value, in that it points out distinctly that the first object of prayer is communion with God, and that it is only incidentally an asking for personal good and remotely for temporal good. By this the argument is disentangled from the perplexity with which it is usually surrounded. But it may be doubted whether the entanglement is not brought back again in the attempt to prove that the uniformity of nature is the ground of special petitions, for in this statement the moral uniformity of a just mind seems to be confused with the physical uniformity which we actually find in Nature. On the Essay on the Atonement a similar remark may be made. The Atonement, as unveiling the nature of God, and as having a moral power over mankind, is clearly and convincingly expounded; but these aspects of the great truth are not brought to bear upon its metaphysical aspect, which remains" a great mystery," only relieved by the belief that it is God Himself who has made the reconciliation at infinite pains to Himself. In the directly expository parts of the work, Mr. Cox does not take a passage and go through it verse by verse, but fixes on some central expression (sometimes one which might have been overlooked), and by drawing out and illustrating its meaning, sheds a light on the whole passage in which it occurs. Thus, in the series of papers on the teaching of our Lord in Matt. xix., xx., on the rewards of the Kingdom, the idea of a spiritual possession and enjoyment of life is drawn out by a vivid illustration, in which the contrast is presented between a man who has bought a valuable picture, but through vulgarity of mind cannot appreciate it, and one who, though he rarely sees the picture, thoroughly enters into its meaning. "To which of these men does the picture really belong? In a sense, doubtless, to

them both; in a legal sense to the former, in a spiritual sense to the latter." "Really and strictly we possess just as much, and only as much, as we can appropriate.' This method of exposition, though it does not dispense with the detailed examination of the text, raises the salient point, and gives an interest in the passage which is often lacking to separate notes.

MONG the essays called forth by the revision of our version of the Scriptures, a

A place be assigned to the work of Mr. Nicolson (Classical Revision of

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the Greek New Testament, Tested and Applied on Uniform Principles, with Suggested Alterations of the English Version, by W. Millar Nicolson, M.A., &c.: Williams & Norgate). Its object is stated by the author in the following thesis :-"That the present, or revised English version. may best be amended by the rigorous application of the rules of the Greek Syntax (and that for the most part of the classical epoch)." The Essay is the work of many years, during which the object has been constantly kept in sight, and the passages of the New Testament to which the principle applies have again and again been passed in review. The mistaken renderings in our present version are ranged under their respective heads, such as "Present in Greek Versions wrongly rendered as Aorist in English Version." "Perfect misrendered by Present," Aorist by Perfect," Definite Article wrongly omitted," "Misrenderings of the Prepositions," &c. &c. The list of instances given is, as far as we can see, exhaustive, and an index at the end gives more than 700 passages to which reference is made in the work. This enumeration is the most valuable part of the work, for it is of great use to the translator, whether the judgment formed by the author on individual passages, or on the general question, be sound cr not. The danger of the close grammatical method is that it may lead to the making of vexatious and pedantic changes, where the real sense is adequately, if not better, expressed in the present version. For instance, in Heb. ii. 16, it is, no doubt, more correct to render with Mr. Nicolson, "For, in sooth, he does not lay hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham he lays hold," than, “ For verily he took not on him," &c., as in our version, though this last has the authority of Chrysostom. But the proposed new version would probably set the ordinary reader on a wrong scent. There are, of course, many passages in which an exact grammatical rendering would restore the true sense, as in the well-known passage, Acts ii. 47, "The Lord added to the Church daily such as were being saved;" but even there Mr. Nicolson's rendering, " continued daily to add those being saved," will hardly satisfy those who wish to make the Bible an English book.

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In points where a higher criticism should come in Mr. Nicolson is hardly so successful, and the minute grammatical facts seem to interfere with a sound historical judgment. For instance, at John i. 15, by translating "John is bearing witness of him and has cried, saying," he gives the impression that the Evangelist

is "jotting down on his tablets the events transpiring." But how could such jottings fit in to an elaborate metaphysical preface, which speaks, both before and after those words, of grace and truth coming by the general manifestation of Jesus Christ? And when the deterioration of language in the Apocalypse is accounted for by the assertion that "the date of its composition was probably much later than those of the other books," we see that the grammatical method by itself may make demands which would contradict all the results of sound criticism. Mr. Nicolson has, however, in all but a very few cases, confined himself to points which are the legitimate field of grammatical criticism, and he has undoubtedly made a valuable contribution to the cause of Biblical translation.

PRO

ROFESSOR BONNEY'S Sermons on Questions of the Day are an attempt to remove "the supposed incompatibility of perfect freedom of scientific inquiry and of a sincere belief in Christianity." "As I personally," he says, "have not found very advanced scientific views (to use the common phrase) irreconcilable with a firm belief in Jesus Christ and His teaching as recorded in the New Testament, I venture to hope that. . . . some good may result from showing the way in which certain of the questions and difficulties of the day have presented themselves to my own mind." These questions and difficulties relate to the subjects of Evolution, Inspiration, the Origin of Evil, Prayer, and Resurrection. There are two sermons on simpler subjects -the Imperfection of Knowledge, and Waste in Nature-which are, perhaps, the best. The volume concludes with an Appendix containing the correspondence of the author with Lord Shaftesbury on his former volume, "A Manual of Geology," which was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. This correspondence, which does honour to the earnestness of both the parties, and (with the exception of Lord Shaftesbury's original description of his opponent's work as a book "of a most noxious character") to their fairness, is remarkable for the assumption by each that he is fighting almost alone against an overwhelming tide of popular opinion, the one for an almost forgotten truth, the other for a truth which is struggling for recognition. Lord Shaftesbury says, "My firm belief is that an enormous body of the clergy of all sections are already on your side;" and he expects that the laity will be led by them into "a vague Deism."

No one, however, could bring against these sermons the charge either of vagueness or of Deism. They express the author's conviction with great clearness; and he is equally decided in his acceptance of Christianity and of all that science can be held to have demonstrated, and also in leaving the field open, in a trustful spirit, for all that science has rendered probable.

The sermons should rather be called short religious essays: they are only personal as regards the author's convictions. They almost wholly lack the hortatory element. But this renders them more suitable for the reading of those for whose use they are intended. They were delivered partly at Cambridge, partly at Whitehall. Their candid, liberal, and fearless spirit will commend them, it may be confidently expected, to the consideration of all thoughtful men, though few, perhaps, will be able to accept their conclusions as final. Indeed, there are passages in the book which point to further and more far-reaching views than those which are actually announced. The Evolution hypothesis, to which the first two sermons are devoted, is regarded with favour, as likely, if accepted, to confirm rather than shake Christian faith. But the compatibility of it with Theism is asserted on the ground that "there are steps in the world's history which mark a discontinuity necessitating the action of an external force," and that "the becoming of something out of nothing is inconceivable without a creative act." Yet if, as is said in another place, the author "knows no other force in nature but God," it might seem that firmer ground was at hand on which his argument might rest, in that which he calls "the truer Pantheism which Nature teaches." In dealing with the question of Inspiration, the author vindicates the freedom of scientific investigation by confining inspiration to the moral and spiritual sphere; but the expressions above quoted might have led on to a fuller appreciation of the blending of the Divine spirit with the human in that upward struggle which (as it affects the individual) is well described in the end of the second sermon on Evolution. Prayer, again, the need and reality of which is powerfully described, is dealt with mainly as the making of petitions, rather than as bringing the soul into communion with God and harmony with His purposes. So, too, in speaking of the Resurrection, the argument is conducted apparently on the hypothesis that it was a miracle like the raising of Lazarus or of Jairus's daughter, a return into the ordinary conditions of mortality; whereas, in the sermon imme