The Divines of the Westminster Assembly, conscious of the J. difficulty of the doctrine of Predestination and aware of its power to provoke interminable argument that may be a substitute for the obedience of faith, uttered a warning about its use: “The Doctrine of this high mystery of Predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal Election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel.”

It is often claimed that the problem of communicating the Gospel is the major practical problem facing the Church to-day, as it may also be the major theological problem. This concern is a very healthy sign, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are apt to be so concerned with devising new methods of evangelism as to forget the one factor of supreme importance: the burden of the Gospel itself, that is, to forget that the Gospel is not simply the message of divine love, but the actual way in which God communicates Himself to us in history. No technique that forgets that the Gospel has already been made supremely relevant to sinful humanity in the Incarnation and death of Jesus Christ will ever avail for the communication of the Gospel. This is therefore an attempt to probe into what the New Testament has to say to us about this, and into the way in which, as a matter of fact, the New Testament actually communicates the Gospel to us.

Correction in last issue:

p. 96, line 10: for “futility” read “ability.”

The last number of the Scottish Journal of Theology contained an article of great interest and importance by Professor T. W. Manson under the title “Baptism in the Church”. It was a weighty and illuminating contribution to the discussion of the ordinance of baptism which is now proceeding vigorously in almost every Christian communion. One brought up in the Baptist tradition and adhering to it by conviction read with appreciation Professor Manson's admission of the strength of the case against infant baptism so far as it rests on the New Testament evidence. On the other hand, the general treatment of the subject and the conclusions reached include some rather surprising statements and raise a number of questions.

The thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians loses some of its force through our familiarity with it. It is one of the bestknown passages of the Bible, and many a man who has little interest in the Church, and less patience with Pauline theology, will accept it as a literary classic and warmly express his admiration of it. No one who is responsive to elevated thought or sensitive to beauty of language will deny it its right to a place in an anthology of literary excellence, whether it be regarded as eloquent prose or as lyrical poetry, whether it be read in the original Greek or in the mellifluous music of our English version. But the custom of abstracting it from its setting and treating it as a poem or hymn, self-complete and selfilluminating, brings great disadvantages.

In reading the Gospels it is as well to bear in mind the process of selection which lies behind them; for the stories about Jesus which are included in the Gospels are, as Jn. 20.30, 21.25 remind us, only a small selection from a much larger mass of material. Quite often—and perhaps this is particularly true of the miracle-stories—the most effective approach to the question of an episode's message for ourselves is to ask what feature or features of it would have struck Christians of the fourth to seventh decades of the first century as specially significant and so contributed to its preservation, when so much was allowed to be forgotten. The purpose of this article is to indicate three such features of the episode recorded in Mk. 9.14-29 and to suggest that it is in them that we have also to recognise the significance of the passage for ourselves.

The limitations of a study of ideas upon a purely verbal basis are at once apparent in the case of Christian hope. Hope is conspicuous in many passages of the New Testament where the word itself does not occur. It is a sufficient indication of this fact that the word “hope” does not occur anywhere in the book of Revelation. For a complete investigation of the idea one would, therefore, have to examine not only the passages specially concerned with “hope” but every exhortation, every prayer and in fact every future tense in every book of the New Testament. If, however, we recognise the limitations of our study we may expect to find in the passages where the word itself appears a sufficient if not complete illumination of the characteristics of Christian hope, which is central as it is all-pervasive in New Testament thought.

The conception of the Remnant is a distinctive element in the national consciousness of Israel. It gives expression to the radical faith of that people in their national destiny. From a purely secular point of view it may be regarded as an idea of great survival value, contributing to the spiritual toughness of Israel. Such rationalisations are within limits illuminating and legitimate. When we turn to the particular Biblical witness to the Remnant we find that it divides into two main tendencies. In the optimistic message of the so-called false prophets it was an ingredient in the eschatology of weal which served to soothe the hearts and uplift the hopes of patriotic Israelites. It was a popular belief similar to that faith in the British capacity for muddling through, which at times appears in our own people. On the other hand in the preaching of the canonical prophets the popular conception of the Remnant was subjected to rough and critical treatment and received a fresh content. Our concern is to bring out this new content given to the conception by the Prophets and to determine the meaning and importance of the Remnant for the doctrine of the Church.