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position of Eph. 5:18-"Be filled with the Spirit." The sentiment of the author is very sweet, almost maudlin. But he squeezes this little text so hard! He expresses an elaborate system of Christian experience from it, as though Paul wrote it for dogmatic purposes and not for hortatory reasons. The Spirit is treated as if he were the Atlantic Ocean, and the Christian heart were a quart cup. The author's own figure is that of a horse-trough and a service-pipe. A heart-full of Spirit and a trough-full of water are parallel ideas. To get a heart-full of Spirit three things are necessary: (1) cleansing, (2) consecration, (3) claiming. Clean out the trough, set it under the service-pipe, and demand its filling, and there it is, full to the brim with pure Holy Ghost. But the heart is not a trough, and the Spirit is not water. Both the Spirit and the Christian are persons. It is one person filled by another person, in Paul's mind. It is only a strong figure of speech. There is an interpretation which gets out of the figures of Scripture ideas which the Spirit never put into them. The Christian ought to be completely under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit; that is all the dogma there is in the text; there is nothing here as to the mode of sanctification. This treatise is altogether and viciously mechanical in its interpretation of the mode of sanctification.

THE SECRET OF GUIDANCE. A Companion Volume to "Light On Life's Duties." By F. B. Meyer. New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company. Pp. 125.

Mr. Meyer is superlatively confident that he is divinely guided, whoever else may be wandering in the mazes of error and blunder. "Speaking for myself, after months of waiting and prayer, I have become absolutely sure of the Guidance of my Heavenly Father; and with the emphasis of personal experience, I would encourage each troubled and perplexed soul that may read these lines to wait patiently on the Lord, until He clearly indicates His will." But how does Mr. Meyer know that further waiting will not discover to him that the present assurance is a mistake? He exhorts others to imitate his example and camp with the Almighty until the Lord satisfies them with an infallible and inerrant Guide. In case Mr. Meyer reaches one conclusion and his disciple, imitating him, reaches a different and hostile conclusion, who is to judge between them? The Christian's Guide is a book, plainly written and easy to follow. It is a great blunder, to say the very least, to discredit revealed Guidance for secret Guidance, to discount the objective Rule of Faith for a subjective rule of life. The latter course leaves the traveller free to follow the inclinations of his own heart, and to make his theology and his conduct according to his own pattern, but surely it is not safe. The egotism and self-sufficiency and self-dependence of the school are obvious, though cloaked with all the forms of outward humility and piety. Christ's interpretations of religion and Paul's theology, are safer than Mr. Meyer's mysticism.

THE TWOFOLD Life, or CHRIST'S WORK IN US AND CHRIST'S WORK FOR Us. By A. J. Gordon. New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company. Pp. 289.

Dr. Gordon's aim is to emphasize, from Scripture and experience, the distinction between the Spirit's regeneration and the Spirit's anointing with power. Christian life is two-fold in its very nature, there are two distinct chapters in the volume of religious experience, both written by the Spirit. He calls them "stages"-"the first and second stages of spiritual experience." He has eleven pairs of terms for these two "stages," as follows: Life and Life Abundant; Regeneration and Renewal; Conversion and Consecration; Salvation and Sealing; Sonship and Communion; Righteousness and Holiness; Peace with God and Peace of God; Power of Sonship and Power of Service; Access and Separation; Grace and Reward; Ideal and Attainment. We feel that the author has been enamored of the brilliant antithetical method of statement. It always fascinates, but to be maintained the contrasts have often to be forced in the most mechanical and artificial way. Dr. Gordon defines regeneration as "not a change of nature, but the imparting of a new nature." Before regeneration man has one nature, "Adam nature;" after regeneration he has two natures, "Adam nature" and Christic nature. In the first "stage" the Spirit implants the Christic nature, and in the second "stage" he eliminates the Adam nature. The old tree is not made good, but a new tree is planted in the orchard of human life first, and afterwards, the old tree is cut down, leaving only the new tree. The reader will see the disagreement between Dr. Gordon and Christ. The journey of the children of Israel from Egypt to Caanan is an illustration of Christian life. There are as many and more "stages" in the soul's passage from sin to glory.

THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. York: Eaton & Mains. 1897. This is a very readable little book, written in pleasing style, and with sufficient imagination flashing out in the interpretation, to make it plausible on the surface. It follows the Ideal School of which Arnold of Rugby is the reputed father, as applied to the Apocalypse. It has some resemblance, in the general trend of it, to Prof. Milligan's book of the Expositor's Bible series, but is less vigorous and brilliant.

By A. H. Ames, M. D., D. D. New 16mo., pp. 280. Price 90 cents.

In the Preface, the author gives us good promise as to what he is going to do, by telling us that the subject of the Apocalypse is the Kingdom of Christ, of which John gives us thoughts “derived by him from the Old Testament Scriptures and from the teaching of Christ, as is drawn from direct revelation made to himself." With such an announcement we naturally look for a trail of the development of prophecy as an organic structure, and an exposition of the theory of the book of Revelation that makes it the flower of Old Testament and New Testament predictions as to the organic history of Redemption. But we are disappointed in our expectation. For he tells us, with strange inconsistency, in the next paragraph: "With these theories of interpretation which would make of the book an epitome of history,

either as confined to particular facts or as a whole, and which pre-supposes its design to be the prediction of events, great or small, in the progress of the world or the Church, the writer of this essay is not in sympathy." With this bow, we see the author parting company with præterists, continuists, and futurists. He sets sail on the sea of interpretation without a chart, to go as the breezes of Idealism may take him. Now and then he seems to pay a little court to the objective lines marked out by Old Testament prophets and Christ, but the effect is only to reveal the glaring incongruity of the author's work with his announced conception of the meaning of the Book. Idealizing he is intent on, and idealizing he does. Sad it is, that such vicious methods of dealing with the true word of prophecy should be called spiritualizing. One cannot see any reason for so dignifying a method of interpreting God's word. It is not according to the views of the Spirit, as revealed in the beginnings of prophecy, at any rate. Although the same volatilizing, evacuating process is pursued by this School in the handling of all the prophets, even of the Prophet himself. When one learns to read the Old Testament prophets in their normal sense, and thus to give Israel his place, then only can he read aright what Christ said on Mt. Olivet and what John wrote from Patmos. "Salvation is of the Jews"—in the Future,

THE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE: A Study of Social Sympathy and Service. By Newell Dwight Hillis. New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell. 1898. 16mo. Vellum, gilt top. Pp. 299. $1.25. The author of this work is a young preacher who has recently removed to Chicago to take charge of an independent undenominational church. He was at once recognized as one of the foremost speakers in that great city, and his writings bid fair to give him eminent and permanent place in the esteem of the country at large.

This volume is the fourth that he has published, being a sequel to one immediately preceding it entitled A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and Character-the one forming a discussion of the making of character; the other, of the use of character.

The volume before us is divided into fourteen chapters: I. Influence, and the Atmosphere Man Carries. II. Life's Great Hearts, and the Helpfulness of the Higher Manhood. III. The Investment of Talent and Its Return. IV. Vicarious Lives as Instruments of Social Progress. V. Genius, and the Debt of Strength. VI. The Time Element in Individual Character and Social Growth. VII. The Supremacy of Heart Over Brain. VIII. Renown Through Self-Renunciation. IX. The Gentleness of True Gianthood. X. The Thunder of Silent Fidelity: A Study of the Influence of Little Things. XI. Influence, and the Strategic Element in Opportunity. XII. Influence, and the Principle of Reaction in Life and Character. XIII. The Love that Perfects Life. XIV. Hope's Harvest, and the Far-Off Interest of Tears.

A survey of these titles will satisfy the reader that there is no originality of thought in the book; indeed, who could expect anything new on such a theme as Influence? At the same time, all will be impressed with a most savory freshness of expression in the wonderfully happy choice of titles.

This promise of the title page is faithfully kept by the book; thoughts trite as the tritest are clothed in a beauty that gives them all the grace of novelty and holds the reader a willing captive to the last page.

The one fly in this precious ointment is the fact that the author's somewhat extravagant admiration for the anti-slavery heroes is too frequently in evidence for most readers of this QUARTERLY.

PRIMEVAL REVELATIONS. Studies in Genesis i.-viii. By J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D. New York: American Tract Society. 1897. Cr. 8vo., pp. xvi., 366. $1.75.

This book embodies a series of lectures, on the Davies foundation, in the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church, covering the matter contained in the first eight chapters of Genesis. It is to be followed by two other parts, on Patriarchal Revelation and the Sinaitic Revelation. The first chapter is devoted to a study of the Pentateuch and Criticism, followed by chapters on the Creator and the Creation, Creation and Geology, Creation and Astronomy, Creation and Evolution, the Creation of Man, Man in Eden, Unity and Antiquity of Man, Man's Innocence and Probation, the Temptation and Fall, the Consequences of the Fall, the Protevangel: Dawn of Hope, Cain and Abel: Evil and Good, Antediluvians; Development of Evil, the Deluge: Apparent Triumph of Evil. As will be seen from these topics, the lecturer deals with some of the scientific, critical and theological problems connected with the study of the first chapters of Genesis. He occupies the standpoint of intense conservatism as to all these problems, and maintains his position with earnestness and ability. He recognizes and acknowledges the need for scholarship and proper criticism in the study of the Word, but regards “a good, honest, believing heart" as far better, to enable one to appreciate its teachings. He repudiates all methods of ruling God out of his Word or reducing his work in creation to a minimum. He holds to the immediate creation of Adam from the dust of the earth, inorganic dust. In theology he is in full accord with the Calvinistic system as it regards sin, imputation and righteousness. As to the historico-evolutionary idea, he holds that there has been a retrogression or descent rather than “ascent” of man, from the primeval condition, knowledge, religion, ideas of God, service. Thus it will be seen that one has in this volume a thoroughly sound discussion. At the same time it is intelligent, scholarly, forcible. The book were well worth a wide circulation.

THE STUDENT's Life of JESUS. By George Holley Gilbert, Ph. D., D. D., Iowa Professor of New Testament Literature and Interpretation in Chicago Theological Seminary. Chicago: Press of Chicago Theological Seminary. 1896. 12mo., pp. 412. $1.50.

The author states that the aim of this work is not to discuss the teachings of Jesus in detail, but only so far as seems necessary to à clear account of the character and life of Jesus; and to adapt the volume to the wants of students in particular. He therefore does not either draw out the devotional and practical lessons which are so abundant, or weave together the facts into a

connected story, but studies the facts themselves, critically. The result is a work which is most valuable for the manner in which it brings up and deals with many of the problems of the Gospels. The author is decidedly on the side of the conservative criticism, though here and there appears some disposition to minify the supernatural aspects of some of the incidents. In the Introduction he discusses with some fulness the questions of the sources of the Gospels, their relations to each other, and their historicity. His conclusion is that the writers had to some extent written sources from which to draw their materials, that they are mutually independent, and that the historical value of the Gospels, especially of the Synoptists, is derived not only from the verification which they receive from day to day in the reliable spiritual phenomena which proceed from them, but from their actual records, especially in their unity. He accepts and strongly argues for the trustworthy character of the Fourth Gospel, after a somewhat full exposition of the divergent views. A specially valuable part of his Introduction is a section entitled "The Gospel Outside the Gospels." In this he gathers up all the specific references to Christ which are found in the Acts and Epistles, many of which are earlier in date than the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, and which show that a tolerably complete life of Christ can be constructed from this source. As to the author's position as to many of the mooted questions in the gospel story, we may judge in part from the following: he does not agree with Weiss and others, who hold that one of the genealogies is that of Mary rather than of Joseph. He regards the "star" which the Magi saw as probably some natural phenomenon. He regards Christ's words at twelve years of age as only a pious expression of a general nature falling from his lips, and not as indicative of a consciousness on his part of his messiahship and mission. He objects to the view that the dove and the voice from heaven, at Christ's baptism, were visible to eyes and audible to ears of flesh. He is uncertain whether the forty days of the temptation are to be understood literally or figuratively. As to the length of Christ's ministry, he holds with those who regard it as covering a little more than two years, basing his opinion, of course, upon that interpretation of the famous passage in John v. 1, which makes of the feast in Jerusalem which Christ attended on the occasion when he healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, not the Passover, but the Feast of Purim. His distribution makes the ministry of Christ in Judea longer than that in Galilee. He makes the return to Jerusalem about two weeks after the raising of Lazarus. The arrival at Bethany he places on the Jewish Sabbath, and the supper at the house of Simon the Leper the evening of the same day, and the public entry into Jerusalem on Sunday morning. Being uncertain whether Tuesday or Wednesday was the last day of activity in Jerusalem, he groups together all the events and teachings which are usually distributed between those two days. He discusses the chronological problem concerning the Last Supper, and concludes that it occurred on Thursday night, immediately after the Paschal feast. These positions are sufficient to show wherein the author agrees with or departs from those held by others.

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