his hand on his mouth" to keep it closed, forces and compels himself to silence, though he has still somewhat to urge "an if he would," could he but give his thoughts words and run the hazard of speaking amiss. But that he no longer dares to do. Once, twice, an impulse had risen within him, prompting him to suggest some plea in his own defence or to indicate difficulties which, to his mind, were still unresolved. But he will no longer venture to criticise, much less censure, ways which he feels to be too wonderful for him, dark only through their very excess of light. Long since he had begged (Chap. xiii. 20-22) that, should God deign to enter into controversy with him, He would lay aside his majesty, lest, terrified and overwhelmed, he should be unable to answer Him a word. But so far from conceding that request, Jehovah has appeared to him arrayed in the full panoply of his glory, with pitiless and yet most pitiful severity abating no jot of his state, thus making Job more and more deeply conscious of his own insignificance and temerity, and of his inability to answer his Divine Adversary "one in a thousand." Hence all that he can do is to confess that, as compared with his Antagonist, he is but as dust on a balance, and to hint that he is being surprised, dazzled, overwhelmed, rather than answered and convinced.

He has yet to learn—or, at least, he has not yet fully learned that no logical and conclusive answer can be given, even by Jehovah Himself, to the questions of the inquisitive and sceptical intellect; or that no such answer can be rendered in terms which the intellect of man, while under its present conditions, can grasp: that, when all has been said which can be said, much must still be left to reverence, to faith, to love. Our

"intellectual part" is but a part of our being, not the whole. And when we demand a simply intellectuai solution of the mystery of the universe, we demand that which God would not indeed grudge to give us, but which we cannot take. It is not, as some divines have put it, that He resents our "desire to be wise above that which is written;" for doubtless He would have us wise to the farthest limit of our power: but that when we ask to have the secret of the universe, and of his government of the universe, put into our hand, we ask more than our hand can grasp, more than our intellect, while working under its present limitations, is able to receive; more, too, than it would be good, even if it were possible, for us to have while our moral nature, which is of even greater moment than our intellectual part, is so imperfect, and needs the very training which only faith, only the ventures of a reverent and affectionate trust, can supply.

To know God is one thing; to know all about God, all that He knows of Himself and of all things, is another. And, happily, we may know God, and so know as to trust and love Him, without knowing all that He is and all that He knows. And when once we really know Him, we shall learn the enormous insolence of the demand we are so often tempted to make; viz., that the key to the whole course and aim of his Providence should be placed in our feeble and unready hands. This was the lesson Job had still to learn, and for the learning of which that deeper consciousness of his own "smallness," "lightness," "weakness,”-in one word, his own "limitations"-which we have heard him confess, was the best and inevitable preparation.

S. COX.

171

BRIEF NOTICES.

MESSRS. CLARK of Edinburgh could hardly have enriched their Foreign Theological Library with a more valuable and delightful work than Dr. Godet's Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, of which the first volume has been recently issued by them. The Introduction contains more, and is more suggestive, than many a popular "Life" of the great Apostle : and even those to whom the man and his writings are most familiar may here find much to render their conception of his character, spiritual growth, modes of thought and of teaching still more vivid and complete. The Commentary proper, although it does not always put the largest and most generous conception on St. Paul's words of which they are susceptible—and this we hold to be the supreme canon of interpretation in dealing with the utterances of so large, generous, and catholic a mind-is nevertheless marked by the broad sympathies and delicate penetrating insight which have made Dr. Godet one of the most popular, esteemed, and influential expositors of the day. All who are content to move within the lines of Augustinian theology in its most modern and advanced forms will find themselves in full sympathy with this exposition of St. Paul's greatest Epistle, while even those who take an occasional excursion beyond those lines may yet learn much from it, and cannot fail to find in it much to love and admire. In fine, with this and Mr. Beet's Commentary at hand, every orthodox preacher of the Word may deem himself furnished with all he needs for the study of the grandest and most difficult Letter in the New Testament.

Canon Farrar's contribution to THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL BIBLE is one of the most valuable yet made. His annotations on The Gospel according to St. Luke, while they display a scholarship at least as sound, and an erudition at least as wide and varied as those of the editors of St. Matthew and St. Mark, are rendered telling and attractive by a more lively imagination, a keener intellectual and spiritual insight, a more incisive and picturesque style. They are marked, in short, by the very qualities most requisite to interest and instruct the class for which this work is designed. His St. Luke is worthy to be ranked with Professor Plumptre's St. James, than which no higher commendation can well be given.

The Household Library of Exposition makes a capital start with The Life of David as reflected in his Psalms. By A. MACLAREN, D.D. The idea of illustrating the life of David, as the life of Cowper or Burns might be illustrated, by his songs or poems, is itself a happy one and it is here carried out very happily and skilfully. The life grows fuller and richer from the suggestions of the psalms, while the psalms kindle into new force and meaning when interpreted by the history of the poet, by the circumstances which prompted them. Real gems of exposition are to be found in this slight work which might be sought in vain from more erudite and ponderous tomes-as the reader may easily convince himself by noting the treatment of Psalm xxiv. in pages 174-184, Psalm cx. in pages 190-199, Psalm li. in pages 216-227, and Psalm xli. in pages 234-239. The defects of the work are a somewhat overstrained orthodoxy and an occasional over-intensity of expression. An instance of the first may be found on page 190, where the fact that Christ quoted "David" is not only expanded into the assertion, "Christ says that David wrote" the Psalm from which He quotes— an assertion much to be questioned, as Dr. Maclaren must know; but is followed by the comment, "Some of us are far enough behind the age to believe that what He said He meant, and that what He meant is truth "-which sounds too much like an insinuation that those who hold that to quote "David" was a common way of quoting the Psalter, and carries with it no specification of authorship, do not believe that Christ said what He meant, or do not defer to it as true. Instances of the second defect are more frequent, as might be expected; for the very intensity which is one of the finest qualities of Dr. Maclaren's work easily slips beyond restraint: and, when it does, we find too much sound and fury in his words, though even at the worst they are far, indeed, from signifying nothing. Yet the book would be improved if some of these excesses were to be corrected— such, for example, as the "cataract of calamities" which fell on David's head in his old age; or the "two earthquakes in his life”— viz., his anointing and his call to Court; or the description of the new Divine Name of Psalm xxiv. as "crashing like a catapult" at the gates of Jerusalem-here, indeed, the author needs to be reminded that gates do not turn or even grate back on their brazen hinges " when they are crashed in by a catapult. These blemishes apartand they are but blemishes-we have nothing but admiration and praise for this valuable little reprint.

66

WRESTING THE SCRIPTURES.

In my last paper I tried, in the briefest compass, and from instances at once simple and salient, to shew that, without incessant caution, we may easily be led by ignorance of the text of Scripture, and exclusive dependence upon the English Version, not only into multitudes of minor errors, but, in some instances, to the adoption of opinions which are contrary to truth, and in others to the defence of tenable opinions by untenable applications of particular texts. I wish in this paper to offer a few slight hints upon the subject of other dangers to which the popular and controversial use of the Bible is peculiarly exposed. To give to these scattered hints their due significance it would be necessary to write much of that History of Exegesis which in the last number of THE EXPOSITOR I sketched in its broadest and rudest outlines. But my present object is far humbler. It merely is to point out different tendencies by which at all times the interpretation of Scripture has been led astray. Theoretically, most readers would be ready to admit that the necessity for avoiding such tendencies has been proved again and again in the history of the past; but many will perhaps declare that the progress of knowledge has now rendered such warnings superfluous. This is a great mistake. It would be easy, though it might be invidious, to prove from modern sermons, and modern commentaries, and from the daily