Baptism And Lord’S Supper
Sacramental Teaching and Practice in the Reformation Churches, by G. W. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1957, 111 pp., $1.50), is reviewed by L. B. Smedes, Professor of Bible at Calvin College.
The title of G. W. Bromiley’s contribution to Eerdman’s Pathway Series would lead the reader to expect an historical study of sacramental theology in the Reformed churches. This is not his intention, however, as he makes clear in his foreword. He tells us that he has attempted more of a biblical than an historical statement. But as one reads, he discovers a marked ambivalence in regard to both the biblical and historical approach. And as a result, the reader is sometimes hard put to know whether a given view is being put forward as representative of historical Reformation thinking or whether it is the author’s independent exegesis. This is doubtless a weakness in the book’s plan. The work would have been even more valuable than it is had the author stuck more relentlessly to his biblical study and used the exegesis of reformation scholars to buttress his own conclusions. This is only to say that Dr. Bromiley’s method makes it difficult to know how to assess his otherwise creative and instructive discussion of the two sacraments.
The book does very little theologizing on the nature of sacraments in general. Yet it is one of the best English studies of the sacraments to come out of evangelical circles in recent years. There is Dr. Oscar Cullman’s monograph on baptism in the New Testament—on which Dr. Bromiley appears to lean in places—but that is not really an English work. Another Anglican theologian, Dr. E. L. Mascall, wrote a book on the sacraments a few years back called Corpus Christi which had its own merits. But Mascall’s penchant is for the newer Roman Catholic sacramentalism, while Bromiley thinks steadily along Reformation lines. Surely Bromiley’s book is much sturdier stuff than the posthumous study of Sacramental Theology by the late Don Baillie.
The most challenging feature in this book is Bromiley’s discussion of baptism. The author draws a strict antithesis between the subjective and objective references in baptism. He chooses for a consistently objective point of view. Both Roman Catholic and anabaptist theology understand the reference of baptism as subjective. The Roman Catholic sees baptism as effecting a work done in the baptized person by the Holy Spirit. The anabaptist sees baptism as a testimony to a work done in the baptized person at least in part by the baptized person. Bromiley would have the reference of baptism to be wholly apart from anything that happens in the baptized person. Baptism refers only to the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
The Cross, says Bromiley apparently following the exegesis of Oscar Cullmann, was our Lord’s baptism for us all. Our baptism attests to His baptism for us. Our baptism refers, then, not to what God does in us, but to what He did for us. The baptized person is not buried and raised with Christ when he is baptized. He was buried and raised with Christ in His baptism—the Cross and Resurrection. Our baptism attests the objective fact of Christ’s death for us. It signifies the objective fact that we were representatively in Christ back there outside the gate of Jerusalem. It does not attest to a subjective or mystical experience of our own.
In this sense baptism is an effective sign. It really works. It really does something rather than merely signifying something. But this means that our Lord’s baptism—the Cross—really works, really does something. Our baptism only summons us to respond in obedience to His baptism. “The real work of baptism is not a subjective work in us; it is the objective work accomplished in Christ for us” (p. 47).
This consistently objective approach shifts the focus on an old problem concerning baptism, especially infant baptism. Dr. Bromiley discusses the Roman Catholic way of dealing with post-baptismal sin—penitence. But the Reformed view has a problem of its own. If baptism is a seal on the child that he belongs to God, what about those who later lapse into permanent disbelief? Was the seal not a real seal, or was it broken? Was the child in the covenant when baptized or was he not really in the covenant? Bromiley’s approach opens another possibility. The baptism of Christ—his death—for our sins cannot be annuled. There is nothing in the subjective status of the baptized person that has been effected by the sacrament, so there is nothing here that can be a problem. “The only problem of the post-baptismal sinner is that it is a denial of the true reality of the believer, a refusal to be what he is in Christ, or to act as such” (p. 50). A person’s baptism summons him to be what he is. If he refuses, he is acting as though he were not in Christ. But he cannot change what he actually is, a person objectively buried and raised with Christ.
What was said in the first paragraph about the ambivalence of the book’s method comes out here. Are we now to ask whether this objectivism is the teaching of the reformation churches? If so, we should have to be somewhat dubious. Surely Calvin did not avoid the Scylla of subjectivity by accepting the Charybdis of consistent objectivity. Calvin did indeed insist time and again that baptism is never to be isolated from the cross of Christ, that it has its meaning and effectiveness only in correlation to it. In this, Bromiley is on the side of the angels. But Calvin also clearly teaches that our baptism refers to the work of God in us, the washing of our souls. Christ was buried and raised for us—call this his baptism, if you will. But our washing or regeneration did not take place at Calvary. It does not take place in isolation from Calvary, but it does occur in us after Calvary. And our baptism refers to the remission of our sins and the washing of our souls. (See the Institutes IV/15/1 ff.) One is also inclined to ask whether Bromiley’s objectivism does not tend to remove the terrible urgency that lies in the possibility of a baptized person’s falling into real apostasy.
On the Lord’s Supper, Dr. Bromiley lucidly maintains the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. He yields nothing to the Roman Church in regard to the real presence, but rightly insists that, though very real, the presence is spiritual and that, though spiritual, the presence is very real. He underscores the truth that a presence in itself is profitless; it is only because it is the presence of the crucified Lord that the presence is spiritually of value. His exposition of the Roman Catholic view of the substantial presence is a gem of lucidity and a good example of theological fair-play. The chapter on the Eucharistic Sacrifice is not as successful.
One of the exciting parts of the book is the argument that the sacraments have compelling significance for the unity of the Church. In the stubborn refusal to go along with church unity schemes at the sacrifice of doctrinal principle, evangelical churches have sometimes ignored the appeal to church unity that is made in the very act of breaking the bread. Every time that we take the broken bread to our lips we confess that we are one body for we all eat of the one loaf. But we rise from the Lord’s table to insist that we are after all not one body. Or, we revert to the notion that while doing what the Lord commanded we are one body spiritually, but that we rise to accept the fact that we are not one body ecclesiastically. Bromiley’s strong words concerning the Supper’s inherent protest against denominationalism bear quoting:
That the loaf and cup must be one, that the new and true reality of Christians is life in the one body of Christ, demands that the old, sinful, defeated, and outdated reality of schism should be averted or healed as far as possible. The churches are to become and be what they are in Christ. The Lord’s Supper with its one loaf and one cup is a condemnation of their present structure with its many loaves and many cups, and a call to the reformation under the Word of God, … which will not mean the end of the congregations and therefore of diversity and richness, but will certainly involve the end of the kind of division against which we are warned already by Paul’s answer to incipient denominationalism in Corinth (p. 65).
To Dr. Bromiley, the sacrament of the one loaf and cup is our Lord’s own prohibition of needless denominationalism.
To this reviewer, an otherwise excellent book was impoverished by the total absence of notes and references, other than references to Bible passages. It would have aided the reader considerably had he been able to refer to Reformation theologians on points claimed by the author to be reformation thought. One is curious, for instance, to know whether Dr. Bromiley has discovered something in regard to baptism that has been otherwise missed, for instance, in Calvin. Again, there are occasions where the author evidently makes use of the work of contemporary scholars. It would have been helpful to the reader had Dr. Bromiley indicated where this was so. The use of notes and references does more than prove accuracy and acknowledge indebtedness. It helps promote a community of scholarship. It underscores the fact that no one stands alone in biblical study. Christian scholarship lives by fellowship and conversation. The judicious use of notes stimulates the conversation and enables the reader to follow it.
L. B. SMEDES
Diagnoses Without Cure
The Restoration of Meaning to Contemporary Life, by Paul Elmen (Doubleday, New York, 194 pp., $3.95), and The Man in the Mirror, by Alexander Miller (Doubleday, New York, 186 pp., $3.95), are reviewed by G. Aiken Taylor, Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, La.
Every once in a while a book comes along which is notable, not so much for its theme or its thesis, as for the pure reading pleasure it affords. Of such is the first of these volumes. Here is the theme of Trueblood’s Predicament of Modern Man done in the modern, sophisticated manner. The author writes of the Exurbanite, dedicated to the metaphysics of Esquire magazine, who drives through the hills of Connecticut in his Volkswagon, to a home over the mantel of which hangs Vico’s sullen announcement: “We can know nothing that we have not made.” He wonders, through these delightful pages, if men are not hagridden, appalled by something they have not made.
The author paints delicate and effective word pictures to describe how life can be utterly boring when it is without meaning. He then recalls the frightful history of man’s inhumanity to point out how empty lives breed the horrors of hell. Finally, he offers his view of the manner in which meaning can be given to life only in God. The style is unusually readable:
“(The Byronic hero) comes from nowhere and is going nowhere; he is on the Grand Tour and has lost his itinerary. While he is in this town, in order not to die of inanition, he diverts himself with a seduction, particularly enjoying himself if the woman is married and a home is destroyed before he leaves. He kills time and does not even know how much else has died.”
Unfortunately, the author’s spiritual perception is not as acute as his philosophical. For him, the answer to man’s emptiness is “the Glory,” or the addition of the actual presence of God to life. But what is this “Glory?”
“The glory of all created things is in their possibility of becoming what they really are, that is to say, what God intended them to be.” This is the true glory of man. “The function of families, schools, governments and churches is to help him to discover his authentic individuality—and hence his glory.”
This was the glory Saul saw. In his vision on the Damascus road, Saul recognized his true identity—that he was not Saul but Paul. Thus he captured for himself the glory that Jesus had.
Is Jesus’ death important to the restoration of the meaning of life? Apparently not. The author doesn’t say so, but reading between the lines one concludes that the death of Jesus, as the death of a Stephen or a Polycarp, was actually irrelevent to the manner in which He possessed or manifested his glory, although it certainly underscored it, as did their martyrdoms.
What of the book? Its chapters on the glory reflect, in sophisticated speech, the effect of Pentecost and the beauty of the indwelling Spirit, but the author knows nothing of the personal theology of the Cross or of Pentecost. So his book, in the end, springs mightily towards the Son and falls flat on its face.
These two books are reviewed together because they belong to the same “Christian Faith Series” edited by Reinhold Niebuhr. It is not without significance that they brightly reflect the Niebuhrian ability to diagnose the ills of mankind without knowing exactly what to do about them. Such is the fault of the next work, to which is added a style which makes for hard reading.
The Man in the Mirror is about the restoration of self-hood. Essentially the pattern delineated is one of self-realization. Says the author:
“The self’s concern to understand itself is legitimate and inevitable. But to pursue it solely by introspection is self-defeating. Some discoveries are to be made that way … but the seductiveness of the introspective approach to the problems of the self derives in part from the fact that it feeds the self’s preoccupation with the self, and in part from the fact that it lends itself to endless self-deception.”
The author is perfectly willing to seek the solution of acute personality problems either through religion or without it. He tells the story of a profoundly disturbed, married member of his (Presbyterian!) church whose problem he reduced to a case history and sent to one psychotherapist who was a Christian and another who was an atheist. The solutions, when they came back, were identical and precisely what the man needed. The author tells this story to illustrate his contention that religion is not always necessary to successful personality adjustment. Knowing yourself, however, is.
To be sure one will get to know himself best if he has a good mirror in which to examine himself. Thus Christ is brought into the human situation, as a mirror in which man can best see what life ought to be. Christ is the true man, the “proper” Man. We are our true selves in the measure in which we are rightly related to him. The Christian proclamation of Jesus Christ is the proclamation of a true understanding of human nature and of our nature.
G. AIKEN TAYLOR
Popular Atlas
Atlas of the Bible, by L. H. Grollenberg (Thomas Nelson, New York, 1956, 166 pp., $15), is reviewed by Anton T. Pearson, Professor of O. T. Language and Literature at Bethel Theological Seminary.
Nelson’s Comprehensive Atlas of the Bible, by L. H. Grollenberg of the Dominican Order of Preachers, appearing originally in Dutch and French editions, has been translated into English by Joyce Reed of the University of Manchester, and edited by H. H. Rowley, distinguished Old Testament scholar and professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at Manchester. There is a brief foreword by W. F. Albright and H. H. Rowley.
Grollenberg, a lecturer at the Albertinum Theological Seminary at Nijmegen in Holland, has been a member of the French School of Biblical and Archeological Studies in Jerusalem, and for four seasons did excavation work at Tell el Farah, or Sharuhen, a Hyksos center to the south of Gaza.
This atlas contains 60,000 words of text, 408 photographs, many of them breath-taking, plus 35 eight color maps, 11 of which are full page (13¾ × 10¼ inches), 11 are half page, and 13 are smaller or inset maps. The maps have explanatory data superimposed in red. The 26-page index listing every town, village, mountain, valley, region, country, and people occurring in the Bible is invaluable. Modern Arabic names and alternate locations of sites are included in the index rather than on the maps. The spelling of the biblical names is that of the R.S.V. with cross references to the King James, Douay, and Knox versions.
After an introductory chapter, the author traces the chronological history of Israel from the patriarchs to the first century A.D. He holds that the Semites spread out from the Syrian Steppes rather than Noldeke’s Arabian Desert origin for them (maps 1, 5). “The stories of the patriarchs must be based on historical memories” (p. 35), and archeology demands revision of the old notions of the evolution of Israel’s law, history, and religion (p. 52). With Albright and G. E. Wright, he identifies Jebel Musa of the Sinai Peninsula as Mount Sinai, and dates the conquest of Canaan about the middle of the thirteenth century B.C.
He dates Ezra’s journey to Jerusalem in 458, after Nehemiah’s returns in 445 and 433, contrary to the view of most recent critics who follow Van Hoonacker and locate Ezra after Nehemiah, in the reign of Artaxerxes III, 398 B.C. (pp. 96, 100). He equates Daniel’s fourth empire with the Macedonian (pp. 102 f).
The rolling stone before a tomb, Luke’s accuracy, the pool with five porches not of pentagonal shape (pp. 132, 136) are among the many fascinating topics.
One senses neither a Roman Catholic nor a liberal bias in the volume. The book closes on a warm Christological, soteriological note (p. 139).
Written in non-technical language, this atlas will delight both pastors and laymen.
ANTON T. PEARSON
Essence Of Religion
The Primacy of Worship, by Von Ogden Vogt (Starr King, 175 pp., $5), is reviewed by Richard Allen Bodey, Minister of the Third Presbyterian Church of North Tonawanda, N. Y.
Von Ogden Vogt is a Congregational clergyman turned Unitarian, and now minister emeritus of the First Unitarian Society of Chicago. Through previous publications he has achieved recognition as an authority on the subject of worship and kindred themes.
The present volume grew out of the author’s concern over what he believes to be a widening and disastrous breach between the classical and scientific mind on the one hand, and Medieval and Reformation dogmatism on the other. The title pinpoints the thesis of the book, namely, that worship is the essence and center of valid religion. Vogt deplores all religion which revolves around doctrinal or moral creeds. He has an especial distaste for dogma which, he unconvincingly argues, “fosters obscurantism, encourages duplicity, confounds education, promotes aggression, disbars seekers, threatens social order, and stifles growth.” From his viewpoint, the only absolutes are the spirit (love) of truth, the spirit of goodness, and the spirit of beauty. Incomplete and distorted when isolated from one another, these are brought into their appropriate and harmonious relationship by the agency of worship; hence, the thesis.
Curiously enough, Vogt pretends to be a Christian, and includes a chapter here entitled “The True Christianity.” As should be expected, he conveniently clings to the antiquated distinction between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus. He casts aspersion on New Testament texts which are incompatible with his theories, and blurs the obvious meaning of others by wresting them from their contexts. He defines true Christianity as the imitation of Jesus—not of his beliefs or his way of life, which he considers impossible—but of his character and calling, his sonship to God and saviourhood to men! He rejects the Messiahship of Jesus; compares his death to that of Socrates, Servetus, and Nathan Hale; restricts his resurrection to the spiritual sphere; equates human forgiveness with divine forgiveness; repudiates the concept of revelation; and capitulates to an anemic pantheism.
Abounding in fallacies, perhaps the most conspicuous one is this: the author fails to take note of the pivotal role of the intellect in both God and man. The result is his rejection of the fact of divine revelation of ultimate truth to man in comprehensible terms, and also his disdain for doctrine. His one grand achievement in these pages is simply that he forcefully demonstrates the sheer absurdity and irrationality of his own philosophical and religious tenets.
RICHARD ALLEN BODEY
Informative Work
Theology of the Old Testament, by Edmond Jacob (Harpers, 1958, 368 pp., $5), is reviewed by David W. Kerr, Professor of Old Testament at Gordon Divinity School.
The continued popularity of biblical theology in the Old Testament field is evident from the fact that this is the fifth title in that general area to come into the reviewer’s hands this year. Jacob is professor of Old Testament in the University of Strasbourg and this work is an English translation of his Théologie de l’Ancien Testament published in 1955.
Perhaps the most helpful feature of the book is its vast acquaintance with material published in Europe which has been unavailable to American seminarians and ministers, who seem to avoid foreign language studies. Those who would like to be brought up to date on recent scholarly thought in Old Testament theology can hardly do better than to read this book.
That is not to say that the evangelical reader will find his task thoroughly enjoyable. He will, probably, find it quite disagreeable at a number of points. The general view of the author is that of the comparative religions school with its several weaknesses. For instance, the meanings of words or terms in non-biblical sources may be used to interpret the Bible, to the neglect of statements in the Bible itself. Tsedek was a deity worshiped in Jerusalem served by the priesthood of Tsadok (or Zadok). The source for this conclusion is the El Amarna letters. According to the biblical account, Zadok was a priest of the Lord who officiated first at Gibeon, not at Jerusalem. Here is illustrated another weakness of some modern approaches to biblical theology, which is that they make the Bible say quite the opposite of what it does, as a matter of fact, say.
Jacob accepts the old Wellhausen view that the Law, in its literary form as a whole and in its origin in part, is later than the prophetic writings and is therefore not a unifying principle in the Old Testament. This means that the Mosaic covenant, which is used so often as a point of reference by the writers of the historical books as well as by the prophets, is relegated by him to the place of minor importance in the faith of the people. One must not be unkind in his judgment, of course, for it is not always easy to distinguish between what Israel’s faith was and what it should have been. It is clear, nevertheless, that for the writers of the Bible the Mosaic law and covenant precede the ministry and writings of the prophets and were considered normative for people and prophet alike.
The position is adopted in the book that El and Shaddai along with other titles for the Deity were originally different gods whose functions were later fused in the person and work of Yahweh.
While the author maintains that the Bible is revelational, one is left with a strong uneasiness that it is not in the least authoritative, since the purpose of biblical theology, it is said (p. 20), is to describe what the authors thought concerning divine things. One is reminded of the statement of a well-known liberal of this century who, in denying one of the Pauline teachings, said that his own thoughts of God had as much authority as the apostle’s.
It is hoped, however, that such criticism of Jacob’s position will not obscure the many excellencies of his work. The reader will gain some fine insights into the meanings of some biblical terms, especially where Jacob has used the Bible itself, in the absence of secular sources, as a key. There is a helpful discussion (p. 155) on the problem of corporate personality and the individual. There is a very suggestive presentation of the meaning of chesed, which is translated as “stedfast love” in the R.S.V. An interesting, if not at all conclusive, argument about the image of God is found on p. 168 ff. It is indeed satisfying to find a discussion of such classical passages as Genesis 49; 2 Samuel 7 and even Daniel 7 under category of the Messianic kingdom.
DAVID W. KERR
Madison Avenue Methods
Crisis in Communication, by Malcolm Boyd (Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, London, 128 pp., 10/6), is reviewed by S. W. Murray of Belfast, Ireland.
The attitude of the Christian Church to the advent of mass media continues to provoke discussion and enquiry. Here we have an examination of mass media from one who worked in commercial radio before he was ordained to the Christian ministry.
The far-reaching activities of the Institute for Motivational Research in New York and the commercial advertizer have done much to shape the demand of the consumer in the modern world, and it might be questioned whether the presentation of the Christian Gospel would be appropriate to like methods. Indeed Dr. Dichter, president of the Institute, has pointed out that the departure of the public from its “puritan complex” had helped the power of three major sales appeals: desire for comfort, for luxury, and for prestige.
When the attack upon the human mind and emotions by all that Madison Avenue can devise comes to be regarded as exploitation, Boyd pertinently raises the question: “When does evangelism become exploitation. When is the church free to ‘exploit’ for Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.” Dr. Billy Graham has answered: “Why should not the church employ some of these methods, that are used by big business or labor unions to promote their products or causes, in order to win men for Christ?”
Comparison is made between various methods of using the radio in communicating the Gospel. The primary objective of religious broadcasting in the words of the Director of religious broadcasting of the B.B.C. “is to communicate the Christian Gospel to listeners with whom the churches have few other effective means of contact.”
Boyd considers there have been few honestly effective church, radio, or TV presentations bearing in mind Gospel content and techniques. He instances the success of Bishop Fulton Sheen on TV as that of a “dynamic, intelligent personality, ideally suited to the video medium.” He concludes that the church must make full and wise use of the mass media of communication which are such a feature of the present generation.
S. W. MURRAY
Reference Handbook
An Introduction to Christian Education, by Peter P. Person (Baker Book House, 1958, 215 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Tunis Romein, Professor of Philosophy at Erskine College, Due West, South Carolina.
Professor Person, teacher of psychology and Christian education at North Park College in Chicago, has written this book for college, Bible Institute, or seminary introductory courses in Christian education. The church school teacher should find it a useful book.
The text is partly a summary of the author’s lecture notes developed over a number of years in teaching Christian education courses. He has arranged a study outline at the beginning of each chapter as well as a concluding set of review questions at the end of each chapter. The content includes a wealth of information about Christian movements and agencies which makes the text not only appropriate for classroom use but also as a reference handbook for the student after he gets into the field. Some of the general topics discussed are: the Christian church, philosophies of Christian education, the Sunday church school, the vacation church school, the weekly church school, Christian youth camps, and so on.
Commendable is the author’s precaution to make clear the point of view from which the book is written, namely a conservative and evangelical standpoint, although he tries at the same time to avoid “being antagonistic toward more liberal educational philosophies and pedagogical patterns.” He also makes an effort to be “denominationally … neutral without denying the place and purpose of denominations.” These aims are evident throughout, but the result is sometimes a juxtaposition of secular psychological principles, progressive educational outlooks, and conservative Christian faith in a way which does not seem to indicate some of the tensions which exist between Christian faith and secular outlooks. Possibly a fuller acknowledgment of these stresses would also constitute valuable and stimulating aspects of an introduction to Christian education.
The author’s tolerant spirit and tendency toward eclecticism also manifests itself in his enthusiasm for recording lists of aims and objectives drawn from many sources, not the least of which must have been progressive educational texts. Most Christian education majors are probably not so fortunate as to escape some of the routine education courses in which aims and objectives are laboriously outlined for almost everything. And now yet another exposure to the same intellectual fare could conceivably dampen the enthusiasm of the Christian education initiate, especially if he is a superior student.
TUNIS ROMEIN
Religious Classics
In recent years publishers have been making available religious classics of which only few copies have previously existed. Many of these were written by Scotch and English Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although these works provide difficult reading (because they employ a scholastic style) the effort provides rich rewards. The classics abound with gold nuggets that will not only enrich the preaching of the minister but deepen his devotional life. The following are among the most recent reprints:
THE EPISTLE OF JUDE, by Thomas Manton (Banner of Truth Trust, London, 376 pp., $4.25). The late Bishop J. C. Ryle writes of Manton: “As a writer his chief excellence consists in the ease, perspicuousness and clearness of his style.… He is never trifling, never shallow, never wearisome, and never dull.” Manton’s work on Jude has never been surpassed for homiletical help.
AN EXPOSITION OF JOHN SEVENTEEN, by Thomas Manton (Sovereign Grace Book Club, Evansville, Indiana, 451 pp., $5.95). He who would know the mind and heart of the Lord as expressed in his high priestly prayer would do well to study this work of Manton. With love and deep reverence the author opens up the glorious and blessed truths of this intercessory passage.
HUMAN NATURE IN ITS FOURFOLD STATE, by Thomas Boston (Sovereign Grace Book Club, Evansville, Indiana, 360 pp., $4.95). The book treats of the four states of man: innocence, depravity, grace, and glory. This volume is heavy reading for those without theological background.
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD, by Stephen Charnock (Sovereign Grace Book Club, Evansville, Indiana, 802 pp., $8.95). Here is theology that gives people a deeper, richer knowledge of the living God. Those who would go beyond the superficial religious knowledge that characterizes the present century would do well to meditate on the attributes of God through the medium of this volume.
THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH, AN EXPOSITION, by Thomas V. Moore (The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 251 pp., $3.25). Dr. Moore was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church in 1867. He brings great exegetical skill to this portion of God’s Word. Scholarship and devotion are blended together, and extravagant literalism is avoided.
THE SONG OF SOLOMON, by George Burrowes (The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 453 pp., $4.25). Dr. D. M. Lloyd-Jones of England writes: “It has everything that should characterize a good commentary—learning and scholarship, accuracy and carefulness, but, above all, and more important than all else, true spiritual insight and understanding. It provides a key to the understanding of the whole and of every verse, which the humblest Christian can easily follow.” A BODY OF DIVINITY, by Thomas Watson (The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 221 pp., $3.25). C. H. Spurgeon writes: “Thomas Watson’s ‘Body of Practical Divinity’ is one of the most precious of the peerless works of the Puritans. Watson was one of the most concise, racy, illustrative, and suggestive of those eminent divines who made the Puritan age the Augustan period of evangelical literature. There is a happy union of sound doctrine and experience.
