are in sympathy, and before we criticize the teaching on this subject we may indulge ourselves by quoting a passage we think valuable:

'The Kingdom of God is not a kingdom of this world; it is not a society which is in any sense the rival or the competitor of any other social organization which Providence has evolved in the history of man; it does not supplant the family, the nation, the State, the federation of States, the economic or industrial organization; it recognizes the Divine right which all these social forms possess, though it need not regard any of them as perfect; but it is too great-too profound in its principle-to come into collision with them on their own ground. It can render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's without being hindered, for that, from rendering to God the things that are God's. It is not destined, as a visible society, to absorb every other, or to assert its superiority over, and its right to interfere in, every other; but it is destined, by the free action of its members, to give a new character to all. It is destined to carry into all that law of love which Christ has revealed, and, as it does so, to transform, or rather to transfigure, them. The Kingdom of God becomes a conquering and transfiguring power-the leaven exerts its virtue, the salt its savour-in proportion as the citizens of the Kingdom are intensely conscious of their new relation to God, and of the new obligations it imposes' (pp. 176–7).

But while there are passages, such as that which we have quoted, which appeal to us forcibly, the general conception of the Church is, we are very confident, both unscriptural and unhistorical. When Dr. Denny puts aside as 'paltry' the 'Papal interpretation' (p. 178) of our Lord's words to St. Peter,' he does not seem to see that, quite apart from any question about the particular position of St. Peter or the claims of the bishops of Rome, the whole imagery of the passage points to the Christian Church being intended to be a visible society, and that the promise is one which at the least must mean a supernatural guidance and protection for which he does not at all allow. And when the consideration of the place of the Sacraments in the teaching of Christ,2 and 1 St. Matt. xvi. 17-19.

2 See Gore, The Ministry of the Christian Church, p. 40: The intention of Christ to found a social organization is apparent in the solemn ceremonies which He instituted as tokens of discipleship as well as channels of grace. The Sacraments are social ceremonies. Baptism had been in Jewish tradition the ceremony of initiation into the ancient Church. As used by John the Baptist it had been used in distinct relation to the coming of "the kingdom." As adopted by Christ it was no doubt meant to admit into His society, the kingdom which had come, the Church of the new Covenant. And whatever possible ambiguity attends the conception of Baptism in this respect is removed by the other Sacrament. The Eucharist is nothing if not social. Its whole natural

of the general method in which St. Paul speaks of the Church, is added,' there is enough, we think, to make good our contention that any view of the Church which regards it as spiritual only is unscriptural. Nor is it any more in accordance with history to speak slightingly of the 'corporate, legislative, compulsory action of the Christian community' (p. 177); or to say that in the original Christian community' no 'kind of organization' 'seems to have been prescribed ' (p. 187); that the unity of the Church is not in the fellowship of a priestly or episcopal order' (p. 189); and that it was no legally formulated belief, it was no Divinely prescribed organization which legitimated the congregations or guaranteed the Christianity of the Church' (p. 192). To say that 'by the middle of the third century the Church had got worlds away from the ideals of the New Testament, and once embarked on the wrong course it had to pursue it to the end' (p. 197),

does not account for the organized hierarchy, with its apostolic and sacerdotal powers' (p. 197), and for 'corrupted''Sacraments' (p. 198) forming parts of the teaching of Tertullian 2 in North Africa and Irenæus 3 in Gaul at the end of the second century, and of Ignatius in Asia Minor at its beginning, no less than in writers of later date. And, to return for a moment to Holy Scripture, we cannot conceive of the St. Paul who exercised Church discipline and wrote the Pastoral Epistles despising the 'corporate, legislative, compulsory action of the Christian community,' or assenting that no 'kind of organization' was 'prescribed.'

If for the vague notion of the Church which is presented in this volume there be substituted the actual historical Church of Irenæus and Cyprian, Athanasius and Augustine, there will then be good reason for making the doctrine of Holy Scripture dependent upon the doctrine of the Church, and thus assenting to the order of theological thought which is found in the lectures.

Dr. Denny clearly states that

basis as a common meal implies a community. Christ, then, in making Baptism and the Eucharist the Sacraments of His kingdom, just as in making love of the brethren the characteristic of His disciples, emphasized His intention to attach men to Himself, not as individuals, but as members of a brotherhood.'

1

Gore, The Ministry of the Christian Church, pp. 46–9.

2 Tertullian, De præs. hæret. 32, De Bapt., De Idol. 7.

Irenæus, C. Hær. 1. xxi. 1, 2, III. xvii. I, 2, IV. xviii. 5, xxvi. 2, 5, xxxiii. 2, V. ii. 3.

• St. Ignatius, Ad Eph. 5, 20; Ad Philad. 3, 4; Ad Smyrn. 8. 5 1 Cor. v. 3-5; 2 Cor. ii. 7; 1 Ep. to Tim. i. 20.

'The witness of the Spirit, by and with the word in the soul. . · does guarantee the presence of a supernatural element in the history recorded' (i.e. in the Old Testament). 'It bars out a criticism which denies the supernatural on principle, and refuses to recognize a unique work of God as in process along this line' (p. 212);

and that in the New Testament

'the word of God, the revelation of God to the soul in Christ, attested by the Spirit, lives and abides' (p. 209).

Side by side with this belief he is willing to allow a somewhat free hand to the criticism of the day. Not only 'mistakes in dates' and 'in the order of events' are thought to be possible, but also 'mistakes' in reporting the occasion of a word of Jesus' and 'possibly in the application of a parable' are contemplated, as is the assertion of the 'incipient formalism of the second generation' 'here and there, as in Luke' (p. 208). With some teaching of value about the prophets he intermingles statements that the 'coming' and 'work' of Christ are rather 'prefigured' than 'predicted,' that the mechanical correspondences that have been sought out between the Old Testament and the New' are 'as worthless as they are often absurd' (pp. 210-11). Neither in the Old Testament nor in the New Testament does he think that the 'historicity of miraculous details' (p. 212) is guaranteed, and the early chapters of Genesis,' in his opinion, consist of 'myths' (p. 218).

We have written too often, of late, on this subject to make it needful for us, in the present article, to do more than renew our earnest protest against a method of treating Holy Scripture which, beginning by exalting its spiritual value, is calculated eventually to undermine the foundations on which the spiritual value rests, and to point out that in connexion with the statement that from the very beginning' 'the Old Testament was in some sort a problem to the Church' (p. 211) Dr. Denny strangely confuses the attitude of orthodox Christians with that of heretical bodies, and is even driven to cite the views of Marcion as a sample of early Christian belief.

We have already mentioned our gratitude to the lecturer for some parts of his eschatological teaching. We regret that he should have found it possible to say that 'the whole conception of an intermediate state in which our interposition can be real and effective' 'is foreign to the New Testament' (p. 250), and that 'intercessions' for the dead' 'virtually deny the absolute moral significance of this life,' and, since

'we do not truly intercede for a man when he is living unless we put ourselves at God's disposal for that man's service," 'would introduce an unreal idea of intercession itself" (p. 252). Surely, intercession includes not only the devoting of ourselves, but also the calling out of the power of God; and, if there are possibilities of purification from sin and growth in knowledge and holiness for those whose probation is finished and eternal destiny of salvation determined, there is nothing inconsistent either with the 'absolute moral significance of this life' or with the teaching of the New Testament in the use of those prayers for the souls of the faithful departed which the Church has always loved.

It

The importance of the matters on which we have commented is greater even than the separate value of the doctrines with which they are concerned. On Dr. Denny's own showing, Christian theology is necessarily a system. follows that it is an organic whole. In the great tradition of the Catholic Church harmony is found. So far as that tradition is departed from, there is not only the loss of that which is surrendered, there is also danger to that which is for the time retained.

But we do not wish to part from Dr. Denny as critics. We have, we hope, shown in the earlier part of this article the interest and appreciation with which we have read his book. We have not hitherto mentioned the high moral tone and spiritual earnestness which, no less than intellectual capacity, may be observed in it. If there is much in which we differ from him, there is much more in which we agree and from which we may add some support to the hope which no sincere Christian ought ever to abandon of a Christendom in which our present divisions have had an end.

SHORT NOTICES.

Notes on Epistles of St. Paul from unpublished Commentaries. By the late J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Lord Bishop of Durham. Published by the Trustees of the Lightfoot Fund. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1895.)

THIS Volume, we are told in the prefatory note, 'aims at reproducing, wherever possible, the courses of lectures delivered at Cambridge by Dr. Lightfoot upon those Pauline Epistles which he did not live to edit in the form of complete commentaries' (Introductory Note, p. v). The materials found in the Bishop's note books have been supplemented by the notes taken by some who heard the lectures,

and the editor feels confident that the result may be accepted as representing with fair accuracy the Bishop's actual words' (ibid. p. vi). The portions of the New Testament on which comments have thus been prepared for publication are the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, the first seven chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and the same number of chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. To these is added a series of notes on the first fourteen verses of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which was found to be 'written out fully 'in 'the Bishop's manuscript,' 'just as he had intended it for publication in his contemplated edition of that Epistle,' and which therefore 'represents his final judgment on these verses (ibid.). In the case of the four Epistles mentioned first an analysis of the complete Epistle is prefixed. Of the Epistle to the Ephesians there is no analysis at all.

Students of Bishop Lightfoot's commentaries have long been familiar with the tantalizing feeling of being referred to volumes which do not exist. Just before the publication of the Notes we had cccasion to consult some of the comments on the Epistle to the Galatians, and experienced this result. We had the curiosity to note down the references, that we might see whether the new volume should on its appearance supply what was needed, and it has been with no little satisfaction that we have found in the notes on 1 Thessalonians ii. 7 and v. 4 a fuller treatment of peculiarities in St. Paul's use of metaphor than is given on Galatians iv. 19, and in those on 1 Thessalonians ii. 14 a useful statement supplementary to that on the phrase ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Ἰουδαίας ταῖς ἐν Χριστῷ in Galatians

i. 22.

The volume is not free from inequalities, which are probably largely the result of its contents, with the exception already noticed, not having been prepared for publication by their author. Here and there a phrase occurs which Bishop Lightfoot would probably have made clearer on a further revision. Some of the notes, among which we may instance that on tòv ådeλþòv ýμôv in 1 Thessalonians iii. 2, are inferior to similar notes in the commentaries previously published (see on Colossians i. 1). Others do not really make any addition of value to what the Bishop has written elsewhere. An illustration of this may be found by comparing the note on év táoŋ TOTOλy in 2 Thessalonians iii. 17 with the notes on Galatians vi. II and Colossians iv. 18 and the disquisition on pp. 138-140 in the commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians. And while there are in some cases substantial additions to the treatment of the same subjects in other volumes, as in the notes on the 'epistolary plural' in connexion with 1 Thessalonians ii. 4 (compare on Galatians i. 8) and on the phrases eis Kevov in 1 Thessalonians iii. 5 (compare on Galatians ii. 2 and Philippians ii. 16), and TávTOTE Xaípere in 1 Thessalonians v. 16 (compare on Philippians ii. 18, iii. 1, iv. 4), there are also striking omissions on points of importance, among which we may instance the absence of any comment on the words où dedovλwraι in 1 Corinthians vii. 15.

We have said enough to show how greatly the notes which Bishop