(as the prophet saith) openeth her knees to every passenger. Her Baptism is "adulterate." Not denying baptism to the seed even of whores and witches, she receiveth them all into her covenant. This is their communion of saints, their holy fellowship. Thus are they bound and enchained together in open sacrilege, idolatry, impiety, even all estates, prince, priests, and people. All are received into the Church, all made members of Christ.'

6

It is fast becoming clear to educated modern Independents that the charge against the Church of England, which is repeated hundredfold in the early literature of Independency, was substantially the same as that which the Pharisees brought against the Founder of the Church, 'This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.' The modern Independents have given up the outward coarseness and narrowness of their foregoers. The National Church is no longer Babylon or a harlot, nor is the Archbishop of Canterbury any longer that second beast spoken of in the Revelation,' as Henry Barrowe contended. The historical Church has become one of the Churches,' differing from the 'other Churches' by being 'established over their heads and at their pecuniary and social cost,' as Dr. Allon says; while Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Unitarians, Christadelphians, &c., are the Free Churches' of England. But this new assumption, although it is superficially more tolerant than the assumption upon which Congregationalism was originally built, ignores that fundamental difference between the Church and the sects which is quite independent of the accidents of establishment and disendowment. It is all very well to fall back upon Catholic language and talk of a Christendom.' But the 'Christendom' of history and of the Church and the 'Christendom' of the new Independent hypothesis are differently constituted. The sub-divisions differ, the unit differs. Actual Christendom is composed of National Churches and parochial Churches. A real Church conforms itself to the pre-existing order of the real universe, as developed by the Providence of Him to whom all power in heaven and earth is given. The personal unit in the real Christendom, the Christian or individual Church member, is not the same in each of those great ecclesiastical types' of which Dr. Allon's hypothetical 'Christendom' is composed. A sect pretends to no divine relation to the entirety of humanity, of a nation, or a parish, or a family. It picks men out of each, and it composes its Church,' if it be Calvinistic, out of the 'elect' fragments; if it be Methodistic, out of the 'converted' fragments. The

Church, on the contrary, claims the whole of humanity, nations, parishes, and families, and offers baptism, the instrument of Church membership, according to the Lord's command, to all nations' and to every creature.'

of Independency or ConChurch because she was The attempts of Mr. R.

Robert Brown, the true father gregationalism, quarrelled with the too liberal, wide, and evangelical. W. Dale, Dr. Allon, and others to widen, liberalize, and Catholicize the superstructure of a building which is narrow, exclusive, and intolerant at its foundation, must be disastrous to Congregationalism. They are fast adopting a theology which their fathers detested; they are forced to become casuists; they have lost all confidence in the theological weapons which they have inherited, and have forged new political weapons for their warfare against the Church. Mr. R. W. Dale's statement that 'the members of a Church should be Christians,' and Dr. Allon's statement that 'the postulate which alone makes Congregationalism possible is that every member of the Church society must be a child of God, a personal partaker of the life which Christ came to bestow,' are very thin and feeble echoes of Brown's or Barrowe's ferocious utterances. Besides, they are statements which no bishop or priest in Christendom would dream of denying. They demand a second question, 'What constitutes a Christian?' The Independents, as Dr. Allon tells them, assume that they have a special patent 'for obtaining assurance of religious character before receiving any one to their fellowship.' But have they got it? A society organized out of such constituents,' says Dr. Allon, they conceive to be adequate.' This is a truly portentous apostasy from the tremendous and exclusive jure divino claims of Brown and Barrowe for their system. But experience proves that thousands find out that a Congregational Church' is not so organized, and hence they leave it and found new churches or sects, which are again forsaken by those who detect Babylon in them. The internal history of sects is a history of disillusions. The principle of Independency was mortally wounded when a Congregational Union was organized, and Central Boards of direction were concentrated in London and the counties for the management of missions abroad, for furthering small schismatical interests in villages, for giving advice to 'vacant churches' in the election of new ministers, for making inquisitorial research as to their membership and Modern Independency is already semi-Presbyterian. Dr. Parker has had the courage to tell his fellow ministers

means.

that it is a species of debased Presbyterianism, but Independency it is not. The moment Independency is subsidized by organized bodies it ceases to have any right to the name.' He complains that it has adopted a sort of Episcopacy. 'Independency cannot allow itself to be overlooked, superintended, tabulated, scheduled, and vivisected by any official board, with a view to receiving a donation based on results.' 'Patronage,' he adds, 'implies and necessitates control. But where there is control can there be Independency? and that there is control by the money-giving body is indisputable. What is the meaning of the blank schedules sent down to aided churches to be filled up? The inquiry implies the right (of a centralizing quasi-episcopacy or presbytery) to ask.' It 'gives undue influence to money.' It 'assumes the right to pronounce the answers satisfactory or unsatisfactory.' Dr. Parker contends that in view of such facts 'it would be trifling with language to deny that patronage is followed by control.' The officials at the Bicentenary Memorial Hall send out lists of ministers who are prepared to supply vacant pulpits. Dr. Parker demands 'by what right country secretaries examine and certify ministers who have not enjoyed the advantage of preliminary training?' He asks whether the Congegational Union is to be terrorized into passing resolutions by the fear that if they are not passed certain rich laymen will not contribute their munificent donations. To the infinite shame of Independency,' he says, 'such a suggestion has actually been made in the Union itself.'

It is curious to compare Dr. Allon's idealizing picture of the Independent pastor with Dr. Parker's ruder sketch of 'that ever handy man, the poor rural minister, who is dragged up every May to point the speeches of speakers who are paid five hundred a year apiece to look after him. The Memorial Hall could not live a day but for the poor rural brother: he feeds every secretary, clothes every clerk, and supports every › stationer connected with that thriving establishment.' Dr. Allon reserves his attacks for another establishment,' whose 'prerogative' affixes 'the stigma of social inferiority' upon the wealthier Independent ministers.

ART. VII. THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN AS AFFECTED BY MODERN SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.

1. Final Causes. By PAUL JANET. Translated from the French. By WILLIAM AFFLECK, B.D. (Edinburgh,

1878.)

2. A Lecture on some Properties and Peculiarities of Water: a Chapter in Natural Theology. By J. A. WILSON, M.A., F.R.A.S., &c.

(London, 1881.)

3. Paley's Natural Theology, with Illustrative Notes. By HENRY LORD BROUGHAM and SIR CHARLES BELL, K.G.H. (London, 1836.)

argu

THE advance of criticism and of science doubtless necessitates, from time to time, modifications in the arguments derived from the different branches of Christian evidence. They require to be stated from a somewhat different point of view, and to embrace somewhat different considerations from those formerly adopted. But it were a sad and fatal mistake to suppose that their real force is broken, or that the arguments. themselves have to be withdrawn. It will readily occur to our readers how remarkably this was the case with the ment from miracles, and with that less popular but not less conclusive one from prophecy. It is not too much to say that the abstract credibility of miracles has received important confirmation from recent controversy, whilst the particular evidence for those of the Gospel has been greatly strengthened by the unsparing criticism to which the historical records have been subjected. Yet there have been attempts by recent apologists to minimize as far as possible the miraculous in revelation, forgetting that the occurrence of a single miracle in the evangelical system is sufficient on these grounds to compromise the whole; and that nothing less than the surrender of the essential doctrines of the Incarnation and: Resurrection can avail to relieve Christianity of the burthen of the supernatural, if such it be. In the same way there have not been wanting indications of a willingness to surrender, or at the least of an unwillingness resolutely to maintain what is termed the 'Teleological Argument,' but which may be more simply and not less accurately described as that from Design.

Such surrender were very much to be regretted, and we

are convinced is wholly unnecessary. The argument is in itself so cogent, and is moreover capable of such varied and beautiful illustration, that there is none which can be used with more telling effect, or which is received with greater interest. On the other hand, the very violence of its opponents, and the littleness of the language which they employ, might have suggested the weakness of their cause. The great work of Paley may possibly receive a satisfactory reply, but certainly it were wiser to answer it than to treat it with contempt; nor is there anything in his view, nor in that of well-instructed Christians, to justify such terms as 'a mechanical deity' or 'a carpenter God.'

But leaving expressions like these, which if not unworthy of their authors were at least unworthy of the subject, we imagine that the more serious objections to the argument in question arise first from a proposition originally due, we believe, to Professor Clifford, that adaptation does not imply design, and secondly from a general but not very well defined impression that the teleological argument is itself overthrown by the modern theories of evolution and of natural selection. It is the purpose of the present article to offer some observations upon both these topics, and to show that in neither case is the argument overthrown or its cogency seriously weakened.

First, then, it is evident that the statement of Professor Clifford is ambiguous in form and capable of a twofold interpretation. In the one case it would seem to be at variance with the first instincts of our nature; in the other, though certainly true, it is quite irrelevant to the subject. If the proposition be a universal negative, and it be denied that in any case adaptation implies design, we can only say that we are quite unable to understand the mind so constituted as to arrive at such a conclusion. If, on the other hand, all that is meant to be conveyed is this, that there are cases of adaptation in which the operation of design is apparent only and upon further examination entirely disappears, we willingly admit the truth of the statement, but we do not see that the argument from design is materially affected by it.

Suppose, for example, that a key, evidently of very elaborate construction, fit a lock furnished with equally complicated wards: to the ordinary mind such adaptation distinctly implies design. If by some additional feature in its construction the key be capable of being so adjusted as to open a second or a third lock, each differing somewhat in construction from the first, the impression of design which such more complicated adaptation to an increased number of purposes