COLLEGE SERMONS. By the late BENJAMIN JOWETT, M. A., Master of Balliol College. Edited by the very Rev. the Hon. W. H. Fremantle, M. A., Dean of Ripon. Pp. xvi, 348. New York: Macmillan & Co. 1895. $2.00.

These sermons of the distinguished Professor of Greek in Oxford will be a delight to all serious and thoughtful readers. The style is simple and direct, the subjects are varied and important; and the lessons enforced are of the most practical character. In reading them one has the satisfaction of feeling that he is in contact with a master mind, whose heart is as simple as that of a child, but whose range of thought is vast, so that he can write down upon all the subjects of which he treats. Altogether it is a noteworthy volume of permanent interest.

HISTORY FOR READY REFERENCE. By J. N. LARNED. With Numerous Historical Maps from Original Studies and Drawings by Alan C. Reiley. In Five Volumes. Vol. IV. NICEA TUNIS. Pp. 769. Vol. V. TUNNAGE-ZYP, and Supplement. Pp. 807. Springfield, Mass: The C. A. Nichols Co.; Boston: Chas. Jacobus. $5.00 and upward, per volume.

This magnificent work is now complete, and within a few months of the publication of the first volume. When we remember the painful dragging along of some works of reference, so that the matter in the earlier volumes is old by the time the last is published, we are moved to congratulate subscribers for this work that it has been put through the press with such rapidity and care. At the same time, so fast is history made, that a supplement is here necessary, in which "Africa" finds liberal space, with a fine chronological list of explorations; "Arctic" is similarly treated and brought down to 1895; and "Corea" includes the recent war to the 12th of February in that year. A supplementary article on "Germany" is largely made up of translations made for this work, and even "Egypt" and the "Crusades" get some additional side-lights.

Turning from the supplement to the body of the work, one is struck at once with the article on "United States" in the last volume. It contains four hundred and twenty-three large double-column pages. It contains more original matter than many of the articles, but also quotes at length, not only authorities, but original documents,—the text of the Stamp Act, the Articles of Confederation, and other important but relatively unfamiliar documents, being quoted entire, as well as the Nullification law of 1832, the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Fugitive Slave Law and the gist of the Dred Scott decision. The arrangement is chronological, and at the beginning of each decade is given a summary of the census by States. It is interesting to notice in these tables the decline of slavery in the North: in 1830 every Northern State but one having slaves-though Massachusetts had only one,--and the total in thirteen Northern States was 3,568 as compared with about 2,000,000 in fourteen Southern States; while in 1840 four Northern States had no slaves, and the total was only 1,129, Ohio having three of the number, as compared with 2,486,326 in

the South; and in 1850 one only of the Northern States, New Jersey, had slaves, in number 236, against 3,204,051 in the South. We do not know in what history of the United States the information most likely to be wanted can be so readily found as here. In the battles of the Civil War the work is faithfully done, and the result will prove highly satisfactory. We cannot speak at length of other articles, and it is not necessary for us to repeat what we have previously said about the merit of the work. It deserves praise in the superlative degree, and we heartily commend the plan and the result.

KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE. BY HENRY MATSON, author of "References for Literary Workers," etc. Pp. 170. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 1895. 75 cents.

The author of the very useful volume entitled "References for Literary Workers" has supplemented this work by the present profoundly philosophical and practical discussion of the significance of education and of the processes by which its aims can be most successfully attained The book is valuable both for the stimulus of its compact thought and for the wisdom of its practical suggestions.

GREENLAND ICEFIELDS, AND LIFE IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC. With a New Discussion of the Causes of the Ice Age. By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D. D., LL.D., F. G. S. A., author of “The Ice Age in North America," etc., and WARREN UPHAM, A. M., F. G. S. A., late of the Geological Survey of New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the United States. With numerous Maps and Illustrations. Pp. xv, 407. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1896. $2.00.

This handsome volume, whose numerous pictures are real illustrations, addresses a wide variety of readers. The personal experiences on the ill-starred Miranda and the tales from other voyagers make it a graphic book of travels. The expert authors give a full account of the phenomena and effects of present and past glaciers in the Greenland region and of glacial theory. For the naturalist there is a compendious account of the flora and fauna of Greenland. To us the most attractive parts are the illustrations of sociology from Eskimo life and the remarkable testimony to the power of Christian missions.

W. E. C. W.

THE EMPIRE OF THE PTOLEMIES. By J. P. MAHAFFY, Fellow, etc., of Trinity College, Dublin; author of "Prolegomena to Ancient History," etc. Pp. xxv, 533. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 1895. $3.50.

In this volume Professor Mahaffy has compressed into a single volume of 550 pages the history of this important period, so closely related to the development of Christianity. Everything which modern investigation. has done to throw light upon the subject is skillfully wrought into an attractive narrative. An index, a minute chronological table, and abundant footnotes, with occasional reproduction of original documents, render the book serviceable in the highest degree.

THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

ARTICLE I.

SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS CONCERNING CALVIN.

BY O. T. LANPHEAR, D. D.

I. It is asserted that Calvin taught fatalism.

This error arises from the failure to observe that, in considering the being of God, Calvin excludes the order of time. This appears in his view of the divine omniscience, which is immutable. Time effects no changes in the divine mind and thought; such as, that God can be said to be wiser to-day than he was yesterday. He does not go to school to learn either by experience, reflection, or any evolution in time. If the contrary were true, then there would be a day somewhere in the past when God was ignorant, and then there was no God, for an ignorant God is no God. It is absurd, therefore, to admit the being of an omniscient God and assume at the same time that the knowledge of God is conditioned upon the order of time. His knowledge, therefore, must be an ever-present beholding of all things whatsoever that come to pass. As when, standing upon a high tower, one may look down upon a passing regiment, beholding every man at once, so God from the height of his omniscience sees at once from all eternity to ali eternity, all things whatsoever that come to pass in time: all events, all nations, empires, and individuals, the movement of every planet as well as the flutter of every

Accordingly, Calvin held that in the divine mind there is no succession of thought, no relations of thought such as that of antecedent and consequent. Therefore, he says, "When we attribute foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things have ever been, and perpetually remain, before his eyes; so that to his knowledge there is nothing future or past, but all things are present; and present in such a manner, that he does not merely conceive of them from ideas formed in his mind, as things remembered by us appear to be present to our minds, but really beholds and sees them as if actually placed before him. And this foreknowledge extends to the whole world, and to all creatures."1

In this view of foreknowledge, with the order of time exIcluded, there is no place for fatalism. Nor does this foreknowledge lay any necessity on God's creatures, for Ĉalvin says, "I will readily grant that mere foreknowledge lays no necessity on the creatures; though this is not universally admitted, for there are some who maintain it to be the actual cause of what comes to pass."2 Gottschalk, living about the middle of the ninth century, considered all foreknowledge in God as creative, and was therefore amenable to the charge of fatalism, as Calvin was not.

II. The second misapprehension of Calvin is, that though it be granted that the order of time is excluded, yet, fatalism follows from his view of the divine decrees; since all events take place pursuant to the divine will.

The error here lies in the tacit implication that the divine. will and the divine knowledge stand in the relation of antecedent and consequent. But, since there is no succession of thought in the divine mind, no succession of the action of one attribute antecedent to the action of another attribute, it follows that there is no more decreeing from all eternity than decreeing to all eternity. As a court is prepared to issue a decree in a case when the facts are all in, so God is prepared 1 Inst. iii. 21. 5. 2 Inst. iii. 23. 6.

to issue his decrees from all eternity, since the facts are all before him, by virtue of his omniscience. To say that any divine attribute acts in the relation of antecedent or consequent to the action of another attribute, is to assert that evolution is as legitimate in the sphere of the infinite and eternal as it is in the finite and temporal, which is the petitio principii of pantheism, and because this is to assert that the action of the divine mind takes place in the order of time. In bringing in this order after its exclusion by Calvin, his critics are chargeable with the logical fallacy of the ignoratio elenchi, i. e. bringing in a conclusion which is not the one required, but made irrelevant by stealthily inserting in the premise what was not in Calvin's premise. Thus, when Calvin excludes the order of time from his premise respecting the being of God, his critic seemingly accepts this exclusion there, but claps it in again in one of Calvin's subsequent propositions, as respecting the divine omniscience, or the divine decrees, and then, as a conclusion, declares that Calvin is inconsistent in refusing to admit that foreknowledge lays necessity on creatures. Thus the clenchus, or proof, in the critic's contradiction of Calvin, is not Calvin's elenchus, but an ignoratio of Calvin's elenchus.

Many of Calvin's critics are chargeable with the logical fallacy in the form of sorites. According to this form, it is correct to say that A is B, every B is C, every C is D, every D is E, therefore A is E; which is a correct conclusion when no principle has been introduced in either of the subsequent propositions, B, C, D, not in the content of A. But when the critics of Calvin accept the content of Calvin's A, and then adroitly clap in a principle in a subsequent proposition not in the content of Calvin's A, then their conclusion that Calvin's A is their E is false. Thus it is rather amusing to notice the vivacity and assurance of Calvin's opponents in charging him with fallacies and sophistries which are only their own.