SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as hem not beer reserved for 'IMMO in other forms.1 A History of Creeds and Confessions of Faith. By William A. Curtis, D.Litt (T. and T. Clark. 10s. 6d. net.)—Professor Curtis has incorporated in this volume much of a very able article on " Confessions " which he contributed to the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. He takes a comprehensive view of the whole subject, from the Apostles' Creed, which can be substantially traced back to tho beginning of the second century, down to the "Articles of War" of the Salvation Army, which may be assigned to the year 1872. The simple chart of these documents with some of their variants occupies twenty pages. We do not pretend to have exhausted the study of Professor Curtis's treatise, but we have seen enough of it to be able to say that he is admirably fair, judicial in temper, and moderate in expression. In a notice which has to be of the briefest we can touch on one subject only. The Anglican Articles have been described as Calvinistic. But they were not Calvinistic enough to satisfy the Elizabethan divines. Archbishop Whitgift gave his sanction to the Lambeth Articles in A.D. 1595. They were never authorized, and there are but few Anglicans, we imagine, who do not feel thankful that this burden was not laid on their consoiencea. Article 1 states : "God from eternity has predestined some to life and hath reprobated some to death " ; Article 3 runs thus : "Of the predestinate there is a prearranged and certain number which can neither be increased nor diminished." What does Professor Curtis say to this ? "God reprobates from eternity human sin that is unrelieved by penitence and faith." Is this, we would ask, an adequate explanation ? It seems to us wholly inadequate,
especially in view of the numerical limitation of Article III. "It has been persistently misunderstood," says Professor Otitis, and in view of this fact he counsels a practical suppression, for not only do opponents misrepresent but adherents distort. Such a doctrine "well deserves to bo either set aside or hedged about, as in all Calvinistic Confessions, by grave warnings against its light or frequent handling." What a Gospel !
Previous page
