posed to be written by Origen. In 1842 a copy of the ɛрì roʊ avtos was discovered in the monastery of Mt. Athos, in which the Philosophumena appears as the first book. This work is described by Dr. Schaff as, next to the anti-gnostic work of Irenæus, the leading polemical theological production of the anti-Nicene church, and as shedding new light, not only upon the ancient heresies and the development of church doctrine, but also upon the history of philosophy and the condition of the Roman church in the beginning of the third century; and as affording valuable testimony to the genuineness of the Gospel of John, both from the mouth of the author himself, and through his quotations from the much earlier gnostic Basilides, who was a later contemporary of John. Another discovery (this is an age of discoveries in sacred and patristic literature) is that of a commentary on the Book of Daniel by Hippolytus, in which "he quotes the four Gospels as the very words and teachings of Christ."

These writings of Hippolytus bear testimony to the following facts: 1. The widespread prevalence of heresy in the latter part of the second and the early part of the third centuries, proving the utter worthlessness of that early period as an authority in Christian doctrine. 2. That two popes contemporary with the writer, namely, Zephyrinus and Callistus, were involved in these heresies, especially the Patripassian, a form of Unitarianism, thus overthrowing the claim of papal infallibility. 3. That the moral character of these two Romish saints rendered them unworthy of respect; Zephyrinus being "illiterate, unlearned, and a receiver of bribes," and Callistus 'crafty in wickedness, and versatile in deception." 4. That the Bishop of Rome was not regarded by Hippolytus as having any precedence over him, though he was a mere presbyter; in fact, expressions are quoted from Hippolytus which seem clearly to imply that the so-called pope was only the pastor of a single congregation in the city of Rome, and Hippolytus. the pastor of another.

The testimony of Hippolytus to the apostolic origin and divine authority of the books of the New Testament settles that question as far as it can be settled by historical evidence. He was born only fifty years after Christ, and quotes every book of the New Testament as sacred Scripture. Irenæus, his teacher, quotes every book of the New Testament except the third Epistle of John and the Epistle of Jude, seven hundred and sixty-seven times. Polycarp, nearly forty years contemporary with the Apostle John, quotes thirteen books of the New Testament in his one short Epistle to the Philippians. Moreover, in Hippolytus' Refutation of All Heresies we find that heretics of his day, and before his day, appealed to the Gospels in proof of their false doctrines, perverting their meaning of course, but recognizing their inspiration. In that work Tatian is classed among the hereticsperhaps his was a mild form of heresy-and yet Tatian about 150 A. D. wrote a harmony of the Gospels, a work which was supposed to be irrecoverably lost, but a copy of which has recently been discovered. But more wonderful still is the recent discovery in a monastery on Mt. Sinai of a Syrian version of the Gospels, made in the interests of the heresy of Cerinthus, who was a contemporary of the Apostle John. The Cerinthians are described by Hippolytus as denying the supernatural conception of the Son of Mary, and this version changes the original text in order to sustain their views.

These facts and others e e adduced by our author to refute the infidel theories

of Baur and Renan about the origin of the books of the New Testament; and it is difficult to understand how any person, with the slightest pretensions to candor, could rise from the perusal of this work without the conviction that the genuineness of the New Testament writings is better authenticated than that of any other writing of antiquity, authenticated, indeed, by all the evidence of which such a subject admits. As the work is written in a most agreeable style, we anticipate for it a large circulation among ministers and intelligent Christians, and are confident that it will strengthen their faith in the integrity and divine authority of the Christian Scriptures. The recognition of the author's scholarship and ability, and the value of his work as a contribution to an important department of sacred learning, by his election to membership in the Victoria Institute, a society of English scholars, is no more than his just due. ROBERT PRICE.

Clarksville, Tenn.

MCCLURE'S "ANOTHER COMFORTER."

"ANOTHER COMFORTER": A Study of the Mission of the Holy Ghost. By Rev. A. D. McClure, Pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, N. C. Fleming H. Revell Co., Chicago. 1897. 12mo, cloth, pp. 127. Price, 50 cts. This choice little volume is from the pen of one of our best known, best loved, and most successful pastors. In the course of his stated ministry he is led into the study and exposition of the manifold work and offices of the Spirit. From the conviction that there is much neglect in our pulpits of faithful preaching on this subject, and much ignorance or vagueness of apprehension among Christians as to the nature, necessity, and preciousness of this work, he ventures to issue this brief volume as his contribution to the quickening of a deeper and livelier interest in the wide subject of the Spirit's office and operation. The earnest piety of the author breathes through every chapter, and every page is redolent of the fragrance of his zeal and consecration. It is clear and Calvinistic in its theology. It rightly conceives and places the work of the Spirit in relation to that of the Father and the Son and in relation to the agency and efficiency of man. It is comprehensive in its scope, but makes no attempt to be exhaustive. It gives the full doctrine of the church under each head, and presents in terse, popular style the standard arguments by which its positions are maintained or elucidated. Ꭺ lady once grieved to me over the loss of a little pamphlet work on the Holy Spirit, as being the most prized of all the books in her library. Such as she will relish this volume from Mr. McClure. It is a book that the spiritual will read with delight and that will strengthen our young and growing disciples. Its brevity invites perusal. Its contents will stimulate study.

The author is not as clear in the seventeenth chapter as he might have been. He seems to teach that gifts of the Spirit to individuals to-day, to enrich and equip them for service, different and specific gifts to different individuals, are generically one with those "spiritual gifts" which marked the apostolic age. But these latter, though intended for edification, were, in our judgment, distinctly evidential, and as such are not perpetuated in this day.

The author further holds that the "gifts of the Spirit," emphasized by the apostles, are not the same as that enduement of power promised and waited for as the blessing of Pentecost, or the work of the Spirit in regeneration, or that in

sanctification, or the enduement of power and its effects. As gifts they are particular and individual, a clear display of the Spirit's power. They constitute the talent for which we are severally responsible. Every Christian has his special gift, some "qualification to serve." How far these gifts are innate and anticipatory, that is, natural, the author thinks we may not know. But of this he is sure, that every child of God has a gift, and some have several gifts, the bestowal and efficiency of which are alike of the Spirit. It is by reason of these "gifts" that some become specialists in experience and example, eminent in single lines, or distinguished for leadership, or for particular phases of work. By allowing and acknowledging manifest workings of these special gifts we are estopped from charging presumption on those who possess them, without at the same time encouraging in others what would in them be presumption. Here, our author says, is the secret of eminence. He adds (p. 99): "We may boldly say that such men as George Müller have the gift of faith and prayer for the needy and desolate; men like J. Hudson Taylor have the gift of faith for support and supply of all temporal wants, in venturing upon God's work without any visible means of securing what they need to go out into the regions beyond.' Their gift is to trust and go. To some the gift of faith and prayer for bodily healing is bestowed. In this way we shall find men and women with gifts, differing according to the grace that is given them, for some special service or testimony. Some of these may work as rebukes of those who fail in regular methods, for they do deeds of daring and bear heavy burdens, and suffer much, still bringing the helpless to Christ and crying after Christ, and taking Christ to the needy in irregular or unconventional methods, and by means not appointed by the doctors of the law." The exhortation of the apostle, "Quench not the Spirit," has reference, he says, not to the sinner's resisting the Spirit, but to Christians not using the gifts of the Spirit. It refers not "to the loss of eternal life, but the neglect or abuse of gifts and the depreciation of the Spirit's work." He distinguishes between the graces and the gifts of the Spirit. Gifts are qualifications or talents for use in service. Graces are the manifestations of personal religious experience. The latter commend to others the excellences of holy living. The former are made effective by the mighty power of the Spirit.

We do not question that the Spirit equips with ample gifts each chosen instrument for the sphere of service to which the purpose of God destines him, or that God chooses with discrimination his instruments for each work. But the spiritual equipment of such is general. We hesitate to say that the gifts to each are in character and operation as sharply differentiated from each other, and from the common graces of a holy life, as were the gift of tongues, the gift of healing and the gift of prophecy, or as these were from that indwelling of the Spirit which was to secure personal holiness and spiritual growth. So liable is man to mistake the promptings of his own zeal for the movements of the Spirit summoning him to a special line of work for which he has been called and furnished by the Spirit, that he is in danger of erecting his own ardent ideas into positive indications of the will of the Spirit within him, and will plead his inward call and his supposed "special gift" as authorization to act on his own ideas and notions. There is danger that such, misreading the mind of the Spirit, yet aiming to be loyal to the Spirit, will look lightly on ecclesiastical restraints and plead a mission superior to that of ordinary and ordained servants, a mission peculiarly their own. The pos

sessor of such gifts being human would be subjected to serious temptation to impatience, if not to bigotry and dogmatism. It would make him a specialist in his line who would chafe at the restraint, should others not gifted in that line seek to moderate his zeal. This is an age when ecclesiastical authority is lightly esteemed. The religious world abounds with independent workers who prefer directing their own labors apart from the agencies and machinery of the church. Lay-evangelists crop up on every hand who openly say that do not desire ordination, since they believe they can be more useful in preaching Christ unordained than if they were ordained. In assuming to have a better way they not only rebuke the regularly organized church as divinely constituted, but they foster a spirit of dissatisfaction with ordained agencies among the people and diminish the respect and reverence these should justly receive. The ultimate harvest of these extra ecclesiastical efforts to do the work of the church is, we fear, a dearth that more than offsets the temporary splendors of the success which seems to follow upon such irregular workers, and to follow them in a measure because their work is advertized and regarded as extra-ecclesiastical. Is there not danger that this idea of a Spirit-call to each particular service with a gift of power and preparation definitely measured out and fitted to that particular service will run away with its possessor? The doctrine of a definite call to special work with corresponding "charismata" brings the Spirit and the work into such close contact as virtually to eliminate human efficiency and make the efficiency of our service to be that of God. We do not charge all these views and consequences on our author. He seems to see them and to feel the danger of abuse. He says, p. 100: "Irregulars may be more regular than regulars, if the latter follow only the letter and the former be led by the Spirit. These irregulars are not necessarily right. They are not thereby justified in self-assertiveness. They will prove the possession of gifts by humility and patience. They will not assert that all who work in a regular way are wrong. The regular way is normally the right way, and most are called to exercise their gifts in an orderly manner and under wholesome restraints. The exceptions are called to prove the rule, not to destroy it. The gifts of the Spirit are to make servants of all to the Lord Christ, so that the many may serve in the regular way, and the few may have place even in irregular ways."

Yet others less guarded and less grounded than our author will go the length of the tendency, and we cannot but deprecate the inculcation of an idea or mode of statement that we fear is more fanciful than scriptural or useful.

Mr. McClure has put the whole church under debt to him for his tender, spiritual, and comforting book. Its perusal brings the Spirit into our hearts. May we see further fruitage from his chaste and glowing pen.

Clarksville, Tenn.

W. A. ALEXANDER.

TERRY'S THE NEW APOLOGETIC.

THE NEW APOLOGETIC. Five Lectures on True and False Methods of Meeting Modern Philosophical and Critical Attacks upon the Christian Religion. By Milton S. Terry, D. D., LL. D., Professor in Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. New York: Eaton & Mains. 1897. 12mo, pp. 200. 85 cts. The author declares his purpose in these lectures to be to guard agairst erroneous methods in apologetics, and to suggest a few outlines of arguments

which may prove useful. They are, therefore, of the nature of introduction to apologetics rather than apology itself. The first lecture deals with definitions of terms, the occasion for apologetics, and the nature and scope of the subject. In its historical aspects it is shown to have grown out of the struggle into which Christianity entered at its very beginning with certain kinds of philosophy, represented by Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, and others in the earlier ages; English deism, French infidelity, and German philosophical rationalism in later years; out of the literary-critical movement, begun also by Porphyry in his attempt to discredit the Book of Daniel, and continuing down to the present-day activity of the rationalistic school of higher criticism; and to the contending claims of the so-called department or science of comparative religions. The next three lectures develop each of these lines of thought more elaborately. The fifth lecture is a more positive statement or suggestion of the arguments with which the defenders of the faith may overthrow their opponents. With the exception of here and there some disparagement of the methods which have been successfully used in the past, and an occasional corresponding conceit of the new over the old, the author's ideas and suggestions are timely and serviceable. In his last lecture he maintains that the Christian apologist can do more than merely stand on the defensive, that he can become aggressive, and boldly and persistently declare and urge the claims of the Christian faith, saying with the Master, "Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship." Among the considerations which he thinks we may duly urge are that Christianity is not simply one of the great religions of the world, but the religion, the only one which has in it all the elements essential to the spiritual needs of man; that it has survived the many errors and follies of its adherents; that it is the religion of freedom of thought; that it is the great missionary religion of the world; that it develops in its genuine disciple a life of inward peace and purity and outward activity and beneficence and holiness which no other religion claims to impart; that it has a marvellous and happy adaptation to the necessities and longings of man's spiritual nature; that it has blessed and elevated human society, and looks towards the regeneration and restitution of all things.

The author's selection of a title for his work is unfortunate in view of the fact that this title has been used quite recently by another eminent apologete, Dr. Watts, the learned and able Belfast professor, who died but a year or two ago. Dr. Watts uses the term, "The New Apologetic," which he gives as a title to his book (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1890), to describe the attempt of the various classes of writers and thinkers, philosophical, critical, and others, to adjust the Bible to the ideas and theories of those whom he characterizes as being on "the down grade" in criticism, theology, and science. Dr. Terry uses it to describe the method, which he calls new, which he advises in meeting these destructive or antagonistic positions.

JOHNSON'S SKETCH OF THE UNITED SYNOD.

A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE UNITED SYNOD. By Rev. Thomas Cary Johnson, D. D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Polity in Union Theological Seminary, Hampden-Sidney, Virginia. Reprinted from Vol. VIII., American Society of Church History. 8vo, pp. 38. 1897.

This pamphlet, while small and unpretentious, preserves valuable history. The amalgamation of the New and Old School bodies in the South has been so