THE ULU ItCH OF ENGLAND AS CATHOLIC AND REFORM - RD.
The Church of England as Catholic and Reformed. By the Rev. W. L. Paige Cox. (Elliot Stock. 3s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Cox describes his book as an " eirenicon," nor is the description inappropriate. We do not agree with all that he says ; but we feel that if all the divines in our Church were as moderate as he is, there would he a great diminution of strife and trouble. It will be better, perhaps, not to go beyond this general commendation. A dis- cussion of details might provoke the strife which it is intended to allay. It might be as well, however, to define more exactly the regard which we ought to pay to Christian antiquity. It may bo conceded that writers to whom Greek was a living language had an advantage over the moderns in certain provinces of interpreta- tion. On the other hand, criticism in what may be called its literary aspect scarcely existed. The priority of St. Mark's Gospel, for instance, an inference drawn from peculiarities of style and subject-matter, was not so much as thought of. St. Augustine had no doubt that he was an abbreviator of St. Matthew. Now the priority of his Gospel is a starting-point. Of course when verbal inspiration was held, as it was held almost universally in primitive times, such questions bad no importance.
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