24 JUNE 1893, Page 12

William Law's Defence of Church Principles. Edited by P. 0.

Nash, M.A., and Charles Gore, M.A. (Griffith, Farran, and Co.)— William Law, best known as the author of the "Serious Call," published, in 1717-19, three letters addressed to Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, in defence of what may be briefly called the High Church view of the Ministerial function. (Law, it will be re- membered, was a Nonjuror.) Law had, of course, a tremendous argument urn ad hominem, in the formularies to which his antagonist was committed. And generally, his reasoning is very cogent and expressed with admirable vigour, though not, considering the character of the time, with remarkable asperity. The editors' introduction is very interesting. It may be noted that William Law, beyond whose principles "any, even the extremest, disciples of the Tractarians do not want to go," to quote the words of Mr. Gore in his preface, never objects to the word " Protestant," but uses it ail a matter of course.