of our anomalous position is by legislation, and supposing that such could be undertaken in a large-hearted spirit, so as to give freedom to earnest and enthusiastic men, who passionately long for the restoration of the beauty and dignity of worship, as well as to protect the fair rights and privileges of those who shrink from changing forms and habits to which they have become wedded, we should rejoice to see it carried out. Until that time we are content to wait. Every day the virtual and consensual legislation of Churchmen in their Synods and their Conferences is gaining form and substance, and the extent to which it may be profitably used has never yet been adequately tested.

ART. II. THE FOUR GOSPELS AND MODERN SCEPTICISM.

1. The Holy Bible with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary. Edited by F. C. Cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter. New Testament. Vol. I., S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke. (London, 1878.) Vol. II., S. John and the Acts.

don, 1879.)

(Lon

2. A New Testament Commentary for English Readers. Edited by CHARLES JOHN ELLICOTT, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. Vol. I., The Four Gospels. (London, 1879.)

THE recent appearance of these and many other Commentaries upon the New Testament in whole or in part—each, in its own department, of very considerable value and interestbears witness to two wants of the age deeply felt by different classes of minds. The first is the want of those who are rendered sceptical, in the strict sense of the word, by the general spirit and tendencies of the age; who are in a state of suspended speculation, of almost equilibration of critical judgment upon the written records of Christianity, and especially the Gospels. To these we will not say that the Speaker's Commentary is addressed; but, at least, it bears them habitually in mind. And it aims at doing so by a process, and in a form, which renders essential service to a different and much wider class of readers. Many educated laymen hear a passage of Scripture in the course of conver sation canvassed and criticized. Anxious to form an opinion

for themselves, they enquire for a competent commentary. They are referred, say to Stier's beautiful Words of Jesus, and after reading ten or fifteen pages upon a single word come halfdespairingly to the conclusion that life is too short, and human. business too urgent, for an investigation which is yet admittedly of vast importance. The great German Commentaries are, generally speaking, repugnant in their form to the tastes of English people, and most unhappily translated into the bargain. The brain reels at the very sight of the mass of quotations--the lumps of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin-the interminable prolixity, the infinitesimal subtlety, the labyrinthine sub-divisions. Enquirers long for the clear ringing tone of truth; for a few decided monosyllables above the hubbub of disputatious voices. They want to know what the text really means, not what fifty different people say about it. The bell of modern Biblical criticism may be a big bell; but, however large, it is of lead, not of silver, and its tones are neither musical nor sonorous. The Speaker's Commentary aspires to meet the wants of such readers by disencumbering the pages of the Commentary proper of all but the most absolutely necessary references and quotations; by cutting as short as possible curious researches into the question what schools and commentators have written, and going curtly and directly to the real question-what Apostles and Evangelists meant. The work aims at giving the result, without too much display of the apparatus, of criticism. Of the two books, whose names stand at the head of this Article, the first is mainly for those who wish to learn, in a succinct and intelligible shape, what is said about the meaning of the Bible itself by those who may fairly be supposed to know most about it; for the thoughtful layman, the scholarly man of the world immersed in business, anxious to ascertain the conclusions at which experts have arrived, without a circuitous process, which makes too large a demand upon his time.

The Commentary for English Readers is, of course, intended for minds of a different mould. Were it not so, it would scarcely have enjoyed the enormous advantage of the editorship of one who stands so high in the department of Biblical exegesis, and who might be supposed to have a peculiar interest in the other great undertaking. Bishop Ellicott observes 'many earnestly seeking for that which we are here endeavouring to present to them-the father of the family, the up-growing children, the teacher in the Sunday-school, or the instructor of the Bible-class, and, last and chief of all, that large class of English readers who feel themselves more and

more drawn to God's Word by the very restlessness of the times in which they are living. Yet to draw the distinction between these two Commentaries too sharply upon the line which we have indicated might lead us to do scanty justice to either undertaking. The Commentary for English Readers may frequently claim the merit of presenting its readers with the most solid results of the most advanced scholarship. The Holy Bible with Commentary often affords the purest food for devotion, by bringing the words of Christ a little closer to the hearts of men.'

We shall begin our reflections apparently outside the class of books, the titles of two of which we have prefixed as a starting-point, yet keeping them in view throughout. In order to estimate them more completely, we propose (I.) to attempt a general view of contemporary scepticism, as it exists outside those quarters of the world of thought, where it is vaunted and professed. Such a survey, it will be seen, must lead us to the Gospels, and so to the Commentaries before us. We shall conclude (II.) by a comparative estimate of portions of the two works before us, which, we hope, will at least be found impartial and dispassionate.

1.

The kind of scepticism of which we have spoken above is suspended speculation, equilibration of judgment, the mental condition of those who seem to exclaim-'There is a great deal to be said for this, but there is also a great deal to be said against it. Speculatively we are perplexed. Practically, we adhere to that which is so venerable, beautiful, and useful.' This is scepticism, not of the first intention, not of professed sceptics, but of thousands of amiable and well-educated Christians. It is a scepticism, not of iron, but of haze; it has, so to speak, neither point nor density, Yet, for that very reason, it may be more dangerous; as it is more terrible to live day after day in a medium where we inhale the germs of zymotic disease, than to be lunged at by an assassin, whose thrust may be parried or his weapon broken, once for all. These symptoms, we repeat, are largely felt at the present moment inside all Churches and Communions of Christians. Only the position of the sceptic inside is- There is something to be said against this, but a great deal for it.' The position of the sceptic outside is 'There is something to be said for this, no doubt, but there is a great deal more to be said against

Preface, p. vii,

it.' All great impulses of the general human mind are felt, and strangely sympathized with, even when they are angrily rejected in words. In marshes near the sea, when the tide runs strong towards the coast, we observe the waters seething and bubbling on the land-side of the embankment.

Scepticism inside comes from two sources, science and literature of which the first is anti-Theistic rather than anti-Christian; the second, anti-Christian rather than antiTheistic.

1. The scepticism inside which is of scientific origin is not directly connected with our present discussion. Yet completeness demands some notice of it; and, in one point at least, it will bring us directly into contact with the Gospels.

The remedy against this form of scepticism does not lie in resisting, with inadequate weapons, the power of an attack, which we are impotent to defeat. It will be found in firmly holding our own at the points where the invader is manifestly weak. Thus if evolution is strong, when we view it as a just account of what the animals and vegetables now on the surface of the earth have become, it presents points of fatal weakness when it is put forth as an absolute ultimate theory of what things are. It may explain how certain things have been moulded, and slowly adapted to their environments; it does not, and never will, account for their origin. Nay, even as regards the process of moulding and adaptation, in the absence of forms proved to be the minuter transitional links between the present and the past, the message is wild and incoherent as that which comes along an interrupted submarine telegraph wire. It is a tale-in worse condition than

'His who left half-told

The story of Cambuscan bold-'

for it is inconsistent as well as incomplete. Because while it amazes and delights the curious with innumerable anecdotes of the variations of species, it can find, in all the explored chronicles and museums of Nature, no accredited instance of mutation; which is the very thing it would require to establish before Creation can be superseded. In all that constitutes the superiority of man, the mere physiological school breaks down. It can give no real explanation of conscience. In the obscure life of the dog its ingenuity may detect some faint image of the self-approving or disapproving faculty. But the question is one of things, not of words. We may call by the same majestic name, if we will, the apprehension of punishment

which a pointer feels who has run in upon a bird, and the infinite sorrow which fills the soul as it recognizes the disproportion between its condition and that law, at once so mysterious and so practical, which is its standard. We may call the former conscience, if we will: but it is the conscience of a dog, not of a man. The evolutionist à outrance stands puzzled again, with almost self-confessed failure, before the glories of human language. Of utilitarian self-adaptations in Nature he may produce an overwhelming catalogue. Can he work into the narrow woof of his theory the law of Beauty, which is as truly a law of the universe? Things have their symbols for us. One class of symbols is given by forms and colours, thrown upon canvas, or cut in stone. Another finds a vehicle in words, interpreting and expressing the significance which things possess for thought and feeling. But these symbols in painting and sculpture, in speech and writing, are always created by Intelligence. No picture, no statue, no poem, is conceivable without Mind in the background. The 'shadows of the things' are the creation of a finite poet or artist. The 'very things themselves' are the creation of an Almighty Poet, of an Infinite Artist.

The moral of the long conflict between Theology and Science was drawn, now many years ago, by the great historian of the Inductive Sciences, Dr. Whewell. It may be summed up in two propositions. (a) Every new, or apparently new, interpretation of Scripture, necessitated by the progress of true philosophy, ends by being accepted in every Christian school; and, when thus accepted, is found to be perfectly consistent with Scripture, and with the whole analogy of the Faith. (b) Those who, whether from the 'sancta simplicitas,' or from a genuine piety, or from more questionable motives, have endeavoured to defend exploded physical theories, have invariably been censured by later Christian generations.

It seems to us that a third proposition may be added to these, viz. (c) that facts and laws which appear to tell against Christianity in one direction give it important support in another. Of this let us adduce an instance, which we do not remember to have seen articulately drawn out.

The law of heredity is one which has been, not certainly discovered, but formulated by modern physiology. The influence of physical antecedents upon individuals is immense. Each infant brings into the world with it a flesh and blood which have been specialized by the channel in which they have been moulded since man appeared upon the earth. They have been manufactured in a family factory which has