Theoliogical and Literary Intelligence [pp. 378-386]

i8~~6.] TIlEOLOGICAL AND LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.
Christian Missions, by the Rev. John Robson, M.A., soundly argued, with special
reference to the views of Ni,Iax Mijller in his no~d lecture on missions, and to modern
theories of the Philosophy of Religion. 5. The Protestant Doctrine of Evangelical
Perfection, by Rev. John Rae, M.A. 6. Ultrainontanism in France, l~ Rev. Clement de Faye, Brussels. 7 Tischendorf and Tregelles as editors of the Greek New
Testament, by the Rev. William Milligan, D.D., Professor in Aberdeen, one of the
British Committee on Revision, who is entirely competent to discuss the respective
merits of the German and English critics M~ove named. Ills article is every way
good, and very instructive. He gives, on the whole, the preference to Tregelles, to
whose life and labors full justice is done. "Tregelles," he writes, "stands between
Lachmann and Tischendorf-not so limited in his aim as the one, and neither so wide
in his range of materials, nor so subjective in his use of them, as the other. ills pus1tion is thus a truer one than either." Dr. Milligan thinks that England is now taking
the lead in just criticism of the New Testament text. Scrivener, Westcott, Hort
and Lightfoot, are discussing the whole matter on the grotind of settled "principles."
"`J~he prestige once enjoyed by us in the high field of sacred enticism, l~ut long lost,
becomes ours again."
We should like to make, did our space permit, extracts from several of these articles. That on Evangelical Peffection, by Rev. John Rae, is clear and discriminating. He gives a fair statement of the Romanist and Methodist views, and also of
those of the German Professor Ritschl, who insists too sharply on the distinction between legal and evangelical petfection. Mr. Rae, while differing from him, agrees
on one important point, that "our perfection under the gospel consists in making of
ourselves a whole afler our kind;"this is "substantially identical with the doctrine of
the old divines, that it consisted in a~crfrdio ~o4i~rn, in our being an organic unity,
wasting nothing essential to our nature as Christians, though having, it may be,
nothing in its fullest development." This Acrftc/io ~ar/~tnz is in distinction from
the perfectio graduarn. Mr. Rae sums up thus:
Love to God and love to man, then, are one and the same principle; and this pnnciple of love, which
is only possihle for one reconciled through Christ, is the characteristic and the power of the new life.
It is the single trunk from which all the branches and foliage of that life spread. itly its means, too,
we perceive the essential unity which exists between legal perfection and evangelical, which, in
Ritschl's system, seem put too far out of all relation with one another. The law is the multifarious expression of love in all its many-sided applications. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and he is evangel~
ically perfect whose life, amid many short-comings and failures, is still ruled by this principle of love,
which is the spirit that dictates and traiisft'ses the law. He may fall into many sins, and betray many
imperfections, hut if he understands this principle clearly, and strives earnestly to obey it, he is pursuing the end of his being, and exhibiting the essential character of Christian perfection.
The Theological ~eview, edited by Charles Beard. January. 1. P. H. Wickateed
on Hilgenfeld's Introduction to the New Testament. 2. Dr. Johia Gordon, Review
of Dale on the Atonement. 3. Wm. Binas, Methodism since Wesley. 4. C. Keegan
Paul, Life of Bishop Gray. 5. Alexander Gordon, Hook's Life of Archbishop
Laud. 6. F. R. Conder, The Central Ideas of Semitic and of Aryaa Faith.
Dickinson's Theological Qztarteriy, January, has thirteen articles from Amen can Reviews, etc. Among them are President Woolsey on the Equilibrium between Physical
and Moral Truth; Dr. Peabody, The Sovereignty of Law: Dr. T. M. Post, The Incarnation; Prof. T. Dwight on the Fourth Gospel; Hon. J. D. Baldwin, the Early
British and Irish Churches; Rev. A. J. Lyman, Opportunities of Culture in the
Christian Ministry; Rev. W. D. Wilton, The Origin of Man and his Civilization; a.
translation of Kurtz on the Nature of Angels, etc.