ment, and the loyalty to what is actually written, which he has taught his readers to expect, he here makes a genuine contribution to the work of re-construction which is now at last going on. There is the same fairness, the same frankness, the same sympathy for an opponent's position except where he is a system-builder, the same confidence in the truth of what he expounds and defends, and the same clear and vigorous writing which have been the characteristics of his former contributions to theological science.

The first step in the discussion is the ascertaining of the sources of Paulinism; and Dr Bruce takes these as contained in the four great epistles which are accepted as Paul's by all serious critics. The chapters on these epistles, preliminary to the detailed topical treatment of the subject, are of the most helpful kind, luminous in detail and laying emphasis on the great sayings after the author's wont, and yet never losing sight of the unity of purpose in the details. "In Galatians," he summarises, "St Paul defends the independence of Christianity against those who would make Christendom subject to Jewish law and custom; in 1 and 2 Corinthians he defends his own independence and authority as a God-commissioned apostle of the Gentiles, against those who asserted the exclusive authority of the Eleven; in Romans, while giving a comprehensive statement of his views on the gospel, he addresses himself very specially to the solution of the problem how to reconcile his idea of Christianity with the admitted truth that Israel had for many centuries been God's elect people." In an earlier chapter, however, there is a summary of the apostle's teaching in the Epistles to the Thessalonians, the view taken of these letters being that in them we have a primer of Paul's teaching as uninfluenced by controversy, and as he presented it in simple untechnical language to nascent Christian communities. That the teaching in these epistles is simpler and less developed than that of the four controversial epistles does not necessarily prove that Paul had not yet worked out his theology when he wrote them, but that he practised reserve or self-restraint in speaking to babes in Christ.

There is another preliminary chapter on Paul's religious history, dealing mainly with the question as to how far he had got in an apprehension of the real issues involved before his conversion, and how far the momentous discoveries which made him the great leader in theology he proved to be, were made immediately after his conversion. Dr Bruce's conclusions, although independently arrived at, are largely a combination of the views of Beyschlag, who lays the emphasis exclusively on the fruitless struggle after righteousness, and of the views of Pfleiderer who, with equal onesidedness, insists on Saul's familiarity with the Christian beliefs about Jesus and the processes of thought which these originated in his mind. In op

position to those who, like Dr Matheson in The Spiritual Development of St Paul, find little or no struggle in the period antecedent to the conversion, Dr Bruce holds that "it would be nearer the truth to say that on the day Saul of Tarsus was converted his spiritual development to a large extent lay behind him." In this connection he makes much of the inexhaustible significance which such a spiritual crisis would have for such a man as Paul. “ Thought is quick at such creative epochs, and feeling is quicker still." "The truth is," he says, "that a whole group of religious intuitions, the universal destination of Christianity being one of them, flashed simultaneously into the convert's mind like a constellation of stars, on the day of his conversion." Not, of course, that Dr Bruce teaches that the apostle's system of Christian thought underwent no expansion in any direction after the initial period. Far from that, he calls on his readers to distinguish carefully between Paul's religious intuitions and his theological formulations as well as between the positive elements in his system and its apologetic elements. All the same, he contends that the preparation for the great change in Paul's life had been so thorough that "for him to become a Christian meant everything."

The sources ascertained, and the main features of the religious history of the apostle, which is so intimately bound up with his theological system, portrayed, Dr Bruce proceeds to deal topically with Paul's teaching on the great themes of Christian doctrine. He discusses at length the doctrine of sin, the righteousness of God, the death of Christ, adoption, without and within, the moral energy of faith, the Holy Spirit, the flesh as a hindrance to holiness, the likeness of sinful flesh, the law, the election of Israel, Christ, the Christian life, the Church, and the last things. There is also an important supplementary note on the teaching of the apostle compared with that of our Lord in the synoptical gospels, a note which is long enough to make readers wish it were longer, and on a theme which still awaits the fulness of treatment it deserves. In a series of discussions, all of which deserve the most serious attention, it is not easy, nor is it perhaps desirable, to single any out as especially weighty. Some readers will come under the power of the author in one connection, and others in another, but there will be few if any who will not come under it somewhere. The discussion on the righteousness of God is noteworthy for a grand description of justifying faith, that on the moral energy of faith for its splendid evangelism, that on the flesh as a hindrance to holiness for its intense moral earnestness. And so on all through the book. The discussion on the "likeness of sinful flesh" will perhaps be less convincing than most of the others; while here and there many readers will feel that it is perhaps a drawback that, like Paul himself in his controversial

epistles, Dr Bruce seems always to be writing with some opponent in view. This may give a vividness to the whole which otherwise it might lack, but his work is never more valuable than when he is expounding Paul after his own fashion without any reference to those who have gone before either as expositors or as assailants of the truth.

All through the reader is arrested by passages of great interest and importance. To enumerate these would be to reproduce the book, but the following are samples :-The passage on page 105 on the imperialism of the Epistle to the Romans; the fresh and luminous exposition of Romans v. 12 on pages 130 to 132; the characteristic discussion on pages 167 to 171 on the word iλaoτýpov in Romans iii. 25; the grave warning regarding the right presentation of the Gospel on page 182; the passage on Paul's religious genius on page 220; the eloquent protest against Weiss' minimising of the function of faith on pages 236 and 237; and such footnotes as those on pages 42 and 137, on Galatians i. 18, and the bearing of the distinction between ἁμαρτία and παράβασις. Nor can we omit the much needed protests against sacramentarianism on pages 137, 148 and 292; the refusals to account for Paulinism by eclectic patchwork on pages 133 and 218, as if Paul had no ideas of his own, but simply pieced together extracts and phrases from his predecessors and contemporaries; and the truly apologetic note of warning on page 142 not to make Scripture responsible for all the popular ideas about the paradise state, which may ere long bring or seem to bring the Church's doctrine into collision with the ascertained facts of science.

In his prefatory note, Professor Bruce informs his readers that he has in view the issue of a work similar to this on The Epistle to the Hebrews, as soon as he can command the necessary leisure. Every reader of this volume will sincerely desire that all obstacles to that leisure and its promised fruits will be removed from his pathway, at least until that successor appears. W. MUIR.

The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ: a Devotional History of our Lord's Passion.

By James Stalker, M.A., D.D. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Cr. 8vo, pp. xv. 309. Price, 5s.

THIS volume will be found worthy of those which have preceded it from Dr Stalker's pen, and which are deservedly popular. In the sub-title it is called " a devotional history of our Lord's Passion," and this is a true account of the contents. The ethical insight and earnestness of the book are perhaps more marked features than its

religious fervour. In his laudable desire to avoid the "oh's and ah's," and declamatory style that characterise many books on the Passion, the author may be thought by some to have unduly repressed the religious feeling that is naturally awakened by the scenes that he brings before the reader. But it is impossible to read the book without being edified as well as interested. It is purely expository, and does not enter on any of the critical questions that have been raised on this portion of the Gospel narrative. The author is content to give a connected account of the trial and passion of Christ, drawing out the lessons as he goes, and applying them with the skill of the preacher who has always his audience in his eye. What strikes the reader is the obviousness, in most cases, of the lessons that the incidents are made to yield. Like the late Dr Liddon, Dr Stalker has the courage to be commonplace, and this, no doubt, is one secret of his power and success as a preacher. In the earlier part of the volume the course and incidents of the trial are graphically told. He unfolds the story as it has presented itself to his mind, without entering on the processes by which he has arrived at results on disputed points. In the table of contents are found references in the Gospels to the passages from which he has drawn in each chapter. The reader may thus peruse the book with New Testament in hand, and see for himself the part that an allowable exercise of the imagination has played in the reconstruction of the story, and the judgment the author has shown in the arrangement of the material. The account of Peter's denial of Christ (chap. 3) is a vivid picture, and whether literally true or not, is a fine instance of the help imagination is in making the scenes of the Gospel real to the reader. It can scarcely be said that there is anything that is new in Dr Stalker's treatment of the character of Pilate, Herod, and the others that the narrative brings before us. The main point he emphasises throughout is a truth which Tholuck's "Light from the Cross " has made us familiar with, that the death of Christ was a revelation of human character, each of the actors, by his conduct in the transaction, discovering, and passing judgment upon, himself. Applying that truth as he proceeds, Dr Stalker points out with much impressiveness the operation in the life of to-day of the principles that dictated the conduct of the murderers of Christ.

The second part of the volume is taken up with an exposition of the seven words from the Cross. The author's treatment of this much-written-about theme is characteristic. Touching rapidly, and with a light hand, the various lessons suggested by these memorable utterances, and their application to modern life, he is always interesting, and sustains the attention to the close of the chapter. It may be doubted, however, whether the variety of topics intro

duced, and the way in which the thought in each case is broken up and illustrated, does not interfere with the unity of impression that is made when one main truth is insisted upon from beginning to end. One is interested and carried along; but the mind is diverted somehow from the central figure of the picture.

But

Dr Stalker does not touch on the theological aspects of the theme, or on the Doctrine of the Cross; he confines himself to the moral and religious truths that are taught by the history. theologians might learn something from the wisdom and sobriety of judgment with which he treats the fourth word of the Cross ("My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me"?).

It is not fair to expect more than our author undertakes to give. The theme is the Death of Christ; but he has a chapter on His Burial. And he might have added another on the Resurrection. To close a book on the last days of our Lord's life in the following way seems to us startling in its abruptness :-"It was evening, and the Sabbath drew on; and the Sabbath of His life had come. His work was completed persecution and hatred could not touch Him any more. He was where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

D. SOMERVILLE.

Life and Letters of Erasmus.

Lectures delivered at Oxford, 1893-4. By James Anthony Froude, late Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1894. Svo, pp. vi. 406. Price, 158. 2nd ed., cr. 8vo, pp. 458. Price, 68. MR FROUDE's study of Erasmus has all the virtues of his earlier works, and it is free from most of their faults. It shows that he preserved in his old age his insinuating grace of style, and that skill in delineating character which might have secured him a place among the masters of fiction, had he continued to make fiction his vocation. But his "Erasmus" has the additional merit of giving a true picture of the man and his times; for it is disfigured by none of the perverse and arbitrary judgments which led some critics to describe the "History of England" as good literature but indifferent history. The reason of this improvement is obvious. With the attitude and opinions of Erasmus he was in complete accord, while his admiration for the Protestant Reformers did not extend to their positive religious faith. For Latimer and Luther, Calvin and Knox, he had an unfeigned admiration; he was attracted to them by their earnestness, their scorn for Romish superstitions, and their hatred of compromise. But as he was out