future so gloomy to the view. The Word of God, left to itself, and not encumbered by any extra-Scriptural theories on Inspiration, the Trinity, the Atonement, the Prophecies, would soon fight its own battle, and return with its vasture dipped in the blood of its foes; but if it must not go forth unless accompanied by a bodyguard of formularies and theories -the probability is, that its energies will be crippled by the very pressure of its retinue. The rabbinical human thinking of eighteen hundred years has well-nigh covered with a stifling heap of rubbish the Divine thinking gathered up in the records of the two preceding milleniums. Those, then, we hold to be the best friends of religion who addict themselves to the careful, independent, honest exposition of the Scriptures; and the second best, those who profess themselves ready to defend by general arguments the Church and the Bible in one indiscriminate assault upon their adversaries. To this second class belong Mr. Napier and Mr. Griffin-two distinguished Irishmen, who remind us sometimes, in their tone of thick-andthin denunciation, of a fellow countryman of theirs, who, hearing the thunder of a distant row, seized his shillalagh, and rushed into the thickest of the fight, exclaiming, the Blessed Virgin grant that I may take the right side of the scrimmage!'

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these ungainly titles great truth, however, lie hid-truths which will prove the spiritual and political salvation of every country which adopts them. They are here expounded with great clearness and vigour, and in the spirit of charity. If this were the proper place to sift any of Mr. Johnson's statements, we should like to ask him our favourite question, how can you prove that a New Testament Church ought to be of the size of a chapel? or that an 'individual society voluntarily meeting in one place,' must never be larger than can assemble in one building ? It is this confusion between one place and one building which lies at the basis of the miseries of modern independency. We admit that in apostolic times each place' had an independent church, but then this 'place' sometimes contained more believers than could meet in one building. Before the name of church was transferred to an edifice, this matter was clearer. There is at this present time at Marseilles a true independent church, but it has five meetings and several pastors; and the result of such 'independency' as this is seen in their wonderful success throughout the neighbourhood. Will Mr. Johnson, who maintains the authority of apostolic example, shew any indication of the existence of the chapel-system, and the one-man sovereignty, in the New Testament. We apprehend that modern independency loses half its power by not proclaiming itself everywhere as the only church-constitution which is ready to embrace in one self-governing fellowship all the believers in a neighbourhood. When independency voluntarily sinks down into a denomination and a single-chapel scheme, it throws its own crown to the dogs, and invites the contempt of the apostacy. New Testament independency is the only remedy for our destructive sectarianism- but, in order to establish this, the theory of congregationalism must be subject to a process of expansion, for which most of its representatives are little prepared.