24 DECEMBER 1910, Page 27

SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.

[Under this hassling we notice such Books of the week as has. not been reserved for review us other forms.] Principles of the Reformation. By Henry Wace, D.D. (James Nisbet and Co. Ss. net.)—" Practical and historical " is Dr. Wace's description of the treatment which he has given to his subject. He begins by a discussion of the moaning of the word Protestant, and this he illustrates from history,—the history chiefly, let it be noted, of Luther. He devotes, as might be expected, special attention to the doctrine of Justification by Faith, while he supplies a general account of theological development as it worked in the sixteenth century. Everywhere he writes with admirable clearness and precision. Nothing is better than his treatment of the subject of Predestination. " The sense of the weakness of the human will and its dependence on Divine grace is wholly salutary ; it is when men step beyond that practical statement of their experience and speculate on the ultimate philosophical, or metaphysical, causes of their condition" that the mischief begins. The distinction between the Predestinarian theory of Calvin and that of Luther is also very instructive. The chapter on the Holy Communion is written in a hopeful tone; different schools of thought in the English Church are not far from agreement.