It is a disconcerting experience to read a book on what is perhaps the most important subject in theology, to be aware that one is making contact at every stage with a powerful mind ranging easily over the whole of the Biblical data, to be grateful for a number of profoundly true observations, and yet to find oneself at the end seemingly very little nearer the heart of the matter. The cause of this failure may be no further to seek than the present reviewer's obtuseness, or at least his habitual inclination to approach these problems in a manner quite different from that of the author; but it is not perhaps only the vanity of self-justification which looks for some other explanation. Dr Thornton is a difficult and obscure writer, but he is never unintelligible; given the necessary sympathy, there is significant meaning to be found in all that he says; there is also much that is rewarding.