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in iv. 1, 2, the pool of Bethesda. In the first "there was, of course, not the least reference to baptism. But John remembered how the Lord had shown His Divine power by this means." John's hearers and readers, over against the false teaching of their days, might make the obvious application to Christian baptism. In the Nicodemus scene Christ does not expressly name baptism; "but 'water' here can only refer to the water-baptism of John. The Lord lays the greatest stress on birth of the Spirit, but still He separates the two." The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (vii. 39). "But when John wrote, the Spirit had come, and the Glorified One gave Him by baptism with the laying on of hands. Hence the Evangelist could now apply that saying to complete Christian baptism." In vii. 37 ff., John explains what Christ meant by the water in the conversation at Jacob's well: "This he spake of the Spirit, which they who believed on him were to receive." The miracle of Bethesda, that Jesus can save without the agency of outward means. "This may be noted by those who would exalt baptism and its effects beyond due measure; for thus the Saviour in case of need could give His salvation without baptism, as He had healed the sick man without the healing waters." 'Now, if all these accounts either require or permit a reference to baptism, it is not to be supposed that John in them proceeds on a definite plan. Following up the baptism of Jesus, the necessity of emphasizing the nature of genuine baptism perhaps only floated generally before his mind, and led him not to pass over, in his recollections of the time to which the first five chapters are devoted, the passages referring to water, since these bore on the main purpose of his Gospel."

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The meaning of the other sacrament is equally inconsistent with the false teachings of John's days. If Christ was a mere man, how could He in the Supper give His body and blood to believers and so become one with them? The exposition of Christ's teaching on the subject quite harmonizes with the main purpose of the Fourth Gospel.

The miracle of the Five Thousand and the Loaves is related by the other Evangelists, but it is related by John in a special connection. And whatever reference the teaching of the sixth chapter has to the Supper, the same reference must belong to the miracle in the fifth chapter. If any one objected in John's days that it was impossible for Christ, even at God's right hand, to multiply Himself in the Supper to meet the wants of all believers, the miracle seems to give the answer; "an inference, which has its force still in our day, although John does not draw it, but in his own way leaves it to the reader."

In regard to the teaching of the sixth chapter, we must distinguish between Christ's purpose and the purpose of the Evangelist in recalling the discourse. As to the first, Christ knew of the death which lay before Him. Because His hour was not yet come, He remained awhile in Galilee (vii. 1). The thousands whom He fed consisted in part of the crowds going to the Passover, to which He was to go up presently, and at which He was to die. John's words (i. 29) must have been in His thoughts. In such circumstances He gives His teaching about Himself as the bread of life, and about the necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His blood in order to salvation. He simply affirms the fact, saying nothing about the how. His power to give His flesh and blood to eat He grounds on His ascension to heaven (ver. 62). Christ did not speak of the Lord's Supper as such, but only of the spiritual truth it expressed. The disciples, therefore, could only have understood Him in this sense. "But when John wrote his gospel, the Supper was general throughout the Church. Therefore John might assume that his readers would apply directly to the supper what he had remembered of the Lord's personal teaching about the actual eating

of His flesh and drinking of His blood." "If John does not relate the institution either of Baptism or the Supper, he does not the less but the more imply that he thought it necessary in the first six chapters, alongside his chief purpose, to impress on the Churches the true nature of the two sacred ordinances."

THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND MINISTERIAL TRAINING. By DR. R. SEEBERG, Erlangen (Neue Kirchl. Zeitschr, 1892, No. 5).-Professor Seeberg is somewhat concerned at the cry raised in some quarters for less theology and more “practical" teaching in universities and colleges. The followers of Ritschl would make short work of the old theology, but others have joined in the cry. All teaching should of course be practical. Ministers must know how to deal with the unbelief and socialism and criticism of the day. Those who raise the outcry against theological study seem to think that answers to all conceivable questions and solutions of all conceivable difficulties can be taught and learnt like the alphabet. The true practical training is rather the training of faculty, power of inquiry and judgment, ability to deal with questions as they arise. The objectors seem to forget that the system of training which they desire is already at work in the Roman and Greek Churches. Are the results satisfactory? Individuality is suppressed, memory and will are subjected to military drill, the minister is a talking machine. Dr. Seeberg sketches a ministry of this type: "The young man is turned out quite ready for official life; he knows how to go to work; the phrase comes pat to his lips; he has the formula for every case. He has the most correct political and ecclesiastical views; he knows so well the magical formulas in which to curse the social question. He is able to bring out such striking anecdotes to illustrate his views; he can so cleverly turn history into a snare in which to catch opponents. He knows how to preach practically. It is a pleasure to hear him roll out edifying passages, Bible sayings and verses of hymns, verses of hymns and Bible sayings; he has all sorts of maxims for quarrelsome husbands and wives, afflicted widows and orphans. The young man is, perhaps, twenty-three years old, and may become anything. Certainly such figures would be new in the Protestant Church; but, perhaps, the twentieth century may produce them." In short, study is one thing and learning by heart another; to have ready-made rules is different from finding our own rules. "Culture is secure freedom of spirit in judgment. But this is never attained by drill, however well intentioned; it is only reached by the labours of study." "And further, it is foolish to suppose that such a wise candidate is fortified against all difficulties. He is a Protestant, and must know that the opus operatum is useless, that there is no spiritual magic. May it not soon occur to him how little life is adapted to be stretched on a Procrustes bed of forms and formulas ? And if he once begins to doubt them, he is far worse off than the awkward, shrinking youth who took his first service stumbling and trembling, but who is really instructed in his work, whose spirit has learned to move freely among the questions and problems he meets with in life. Believe me, if this capacity exists, words will fit thought like a wellfitting garment. Words will then be original, coming from the heart and going to the heart, and not mere dead forms which are declaimed instead of preached."

The following is the ideal given of university and college lecturing. "It must guide to independent labour, thought, to the forming of the judgment. Our results become obsolete; hand-books certainly give much in riper and compacter form than many a lecture. One who only seeks material can certainly get it just as well from hand-books. But one thing manuals do not give-stimulus to seek and strive after truth. This requires the moral stimulus which proceeds from person to person.

The teacher must teach how to seek. He puts himself at the hearer's standpoint, goes over authorities with him, draws him up into the air of seeking, the joy of finding." "Perhaps a word of one's own experience may here find place. I labour in the field of historical and exegetical theology, and recall my teachers in this and other fields of theology. When some hero of the past was brought vividly before one's own spirit and before the hearers, when the leading thoughts of an age were seized, or when after careful examination of the words and context of a Biblical passage a new idea or even a clear putting of an old truth was won, the effort to illustrate the truth discovered led of itself to think of the times in which we live and the experiences with which we are familiar. This holds good especially of systematic theology. How many a word has rung with a hundred-fold echo in our heart, and how many a thought, like a sunbeam, has rent the cloud-veil above us, so that we again lifted our heads joyously to a clear sky! Believe me, one such glance, earned by honest toil, is more effective and more precious for inner growth than whole hours of purely practical introductions."

"We know well that there is no panacea for making the young pastor a true shepherd of souls; but we are also firmly convinced that earnest, severe scientific study is an excellent preparation for practical duties. The young theologian has not too much science, rather too little. But however high we put the value of academic study, we know that there is another more glorious means of preparation — the hidden life of the soul with God in Christ. Our lectures will not give it to our hearers; His glory and power we will commend as well as we can. can do more, save the one Teacher without rival?

it ?

What teacher

Can practical teaching give
To the Lord of the Church

Have Church authorities the power? We doubt it. we commit the souls of our young theologians. May He make them weapons of righteousness in the sacred battles of His Church! To Him be thanks from the depths of our heart, if it be granted to our academic toil to forge the steel necessary for conflict and victory in the holy war!"

THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND IN JOSIAH'S DAYS. BY PROFESSOR KLOSTERMANN, Kiel (Neue Kirchl. Zeitschrift, 1892, No. 6).-The writer argues that the book so discovered was not, as has been commonly supposed, the entire Pentateuch, but Deut. iv. 45 to xxix. 1. His object is to get a safe starting-point for Pentateuch criticism. The result he arrives at is that 622 B.C. is the upper limit of the period during which the Deuteronomic law-book was inserted in our Pentateuch in its present form. We touch a few points in his elaborate argument.

First of all, he makes it appear very probable that the covenant referred to in Jer. xi. 2, 3, 6 is identical with the book found in the temple in Josiah's days. We know that Jeremiah prophesied from the thirteenth year of Josiah onward (Jer. i. 2). It is therefore extremely improbable that the two books, described in similar terms, are different. The prophet does not describe the contents of the covenant, but simply relates how he was commissioned to publish them far and wide. In 2 Kings xxii., xxiii. we are told of the remarkable discovery. Hilkiah, the high priest, finds the book during the temple repairs, hands it to Shaphan, the deputy, who again delivers it to the king. Upon this a great religious reformation follows. It is obvious that the king with his ministers was satisfied of the authenticity of the book. There can be no question of fraud or deception on the part of the priests, although this is asserted in modern days, and our essayist argues at length against it. "We should have to suppose that an ingenious author transplants the old pilgrim Moses, after his wanderings in the early foretime, into the Court of King Josiah, that he may there

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raise his voice in warning and complaint against the existing state of things, and that Josiah may think that the old Moses gave a detailed view of the Jerusalem of the day, and declared the kingdom to be a sink of wickedness and devoted to destruction." As if such a pious fraud had the least chance of success. "Moses was no unknown person; how he thought, acted, taught, was part of a rich vivid tradition. If the forger kept within the tradition he could make no impression, for he only stated what was known. If he contradicted it, he was at once detected and condemned." But now the question arises, What was the book so discovered? It is highly improbable that the whole book of the law was ever lost. There is nothing to suggest, but much to contradict this. 66 The literature before Josiah's days everywhere testifies that Israel possessed the law of Jehovah given through Moses, although it was despised." What we have to do is to distinguish between the entire law of Moses and parts of it. It should be noted that the writer in the Kings never describes the book found as "the law of Moses"; this phrase is carefully avoided. It is " the book that was found," "this book of the covenant." Chap. xxii. 11 indeed says "the book of the law," but the context fixes this to the book found in the temple.

It is thus clear that "by Hilkiah's discovery, to the law and covenant bɔɔɔks of Moses already existing and used, there was added a law or covenant book of Moses hitherto dead and buried in oblivion; and Josiah felt himself called up to introduce it into public life, making it a national code, and swearing by it. The conduct of the king and people, the testimony of Jeremiah and the narrative, show that the lawbook introduced by Josiah was identical as to contents and structure with the literary treasure discovered."

The next question is, With what part of the law of Moses is this book to be identified? We find signs of four law-books-the Sinaitic one, the Book of the Toroth, the Law of Holiness, the Deuteronomic Covenant-book. The second is put aside at once as containing only ritual precepts; the third, because it does not bear the title "covenant-book," as the one in Kings does. This title belongs only to the first and fourth; but the first one is without the curses which evidently terrified Josiah. "On the other hand, all the features suit the Deuteronomic covenant-book, which, reading from Deut. v. to xxviii., is expressly separated by the heading (Deut. iv. 45 ff.) and the subscription (xxix. 1) from all that precedes and follows as a corpus existing by itself and taken over by the authors, and is described as a covenant which is to be added to the one established at Horeb. But this corresponds so strikingly to the fact that the book of Josiah, as the last revelation of God's covenant-will by Moses, was added to those formerly known, and to the distinction which Josiah made between this covenant-book' and one already well known, that there remains no doubt that the portion Deut. iv. 45-xxix. 1 is the edition published by Josiah of the book found in the eighteenth year of his reign." Compare the injunction Deut. xxxi. 26.

Dr. Klostermann points out that while the language of the Deuteronomic lawbook resembles that of Jeremiah and the Kings, the contents describe Israel in a condition no longer existing in Josiah's days. He explains the contrast by supposing that on the discovery and publication of the book the language would be revised and adapted. Such is a brief outline of the thesis apart from details. The inference drawn we have already indicated.

NEW WORKS ON OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. The Theol. Literaturblatt for June 24th contains a review by DR. VON ORELLI (Basle) of Cornill's new Einleitung in das A. T. The review acknowledges the author's learning and acuteness, which

makes the work " a reliable manual of the most advanced criticism of the present day." At the same time certain serious faults are pointed out. The work gives only the "results" of the writer's own school, without regard to the objections brought against them or the teachings of other schools; positions are described as unassailable which are very far from being generally acknowledged; the analysis is so microscopic as to include details and conjectures taken from the latest reviews, which even the author does not always accept. These are, indeed, serious defects in a book intended for beginners, who will only get one side of questions and will be in danger of mistaking mere knowledge of statistics for insight into Scripture. With those who bring independent knowledge to the subject, the effect, Dr. Orelli thinks, of Cornill's book will be the opposite to the one intended, because it exposes to view the violence necessary to establish the conclusions advocated. "Any one who looks, without prejudice, through the tabular review at the end and compares it with the preceding text, will scarcely think that he has before him the real line of progress of Biblical literature. For example, that Deuteronomy must be so much cut up so as not to clash with the whole theory; that the Priestly Codex was the work of exiles staying in Babylon, because they had not sufficient attachment to their country to return thither; that the bulk of the Psalter springs from the fourth century (a mass of production in this field at the time when it was least likely!), whereas only Ps. lxxxix. is put with a sign of interrogation in the pre-Exilian period (so that hymns of pre-Exilian Israel, which even according to the author had sung Deborah's song in the time of the Judges and Hannah's under Josiah (?), either did not exist or had unaccountably perished); that the sublime book of Job belonged to the Greek period, like Koheleth; this and much besides not only point to single mistakes in chronological arrangement, but to a wrong method in treating these portions of Scripture, especially to a false conception of the pre-Exilian religion of Israel, by which they are judged."

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Remarks of Dr. Orelli in the same notice on another work deserve attention. Representatives of the Church have a right also to point to the dogmatic and practical consequences of a prevailing theory: it is often helpful to scientific inquiry to pay no regard to such considerations; but no theologian can utterly disregard the bearing of his views. And after Old Testament criticism has professed to arrive at so many unassailable results, it is quite time for the critics, so far as they are theologians, to ascertain for themselves and others how the relation of Christian faith to the Old Testament is affected by their conclusions. It is a gross error to suppose, as is often done, that it is merely an obsolete idea of inspiration, untenable on other grounds, which is altogether set aside by these new discoveries. Rather, it is the moral worth of the Bible that is in question. If the Old Testament consists of an almost unbroken series of falsifications as that criticism to-day boldly asserts, its moral worth is gone as soon as its origin is learnt. And we, for our part, think far too highly of the moral sense of Christianity than to imagine that it can have any interest in maintaining a view of the religious past of Israel which has been proved false in the proper sense of the word. And if the representatives of this criticism, although they pass this harsh judgment on by far the greatest portion of the historical (and a good part of the prophetic) books, nevertheless seem not to scruple at these books keeping their authority for the Christian Church, we attribute this to the continuance of a piety due to the impression made by the lofty teachings of Scripture. But then, critical analysis should not entirely ignore this element. Criticism should go to work in a less external and mechanical spirit; and it should not be reckoned a scientific virtue to shut the eyes to the greatness and beauty of Scripture. Then many a conclusion would perhaps be different."

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