semblance of ordination. Their jus divinum would have at least retreated into the background, since undoubtedly the ordinary congregationalist principle practically tends, be the theory what it may, to democratic authority. Now the leaders of Darbyism were High Churchmen to the core, and the last thing they would have tolerated would have been even a thin end of the wedge of democracy. They ceaselessly insisted that they had more in common with the Church of England than with Dissent; and odd, perhaps perverse, as this sentiment has appeared to most people who have heard of it, there is a sense in which it was true. Cruel circumstances involved them in the loose aggregate of Dissenters, but their abhorrence of Nonconformist radicalism, whether in Church or State, was perfect. They are thus to be ranked as fervent supporters of the High Church conception as opposed to the democratic; and in the great conflict of the two standpoints of which anti-Latin Christianity has for three centuries been the field they fall into line with some very odd associates.
In its entirety this account applies only to Exclusivism. The Open Brethren, in this respect as in some others, resort to a kind of compromise between Darbyism and “Dissent”. Many of them believe strongly in having certain brothers recognised as “taking oversight”; but so far as I can learn, these “overseers” are practically self-appointed, and it would be hard to define their authority. The movement in this direction, however, is interesting as a tacit confession that the earlier principle has been anything but satisfactory in its practical operation.
That the plea that only apostolic authority could validate an appointment to office was really an after-
