SPENCER'S ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 215 



value. Nonconformity may, however, henceforth 

 claim Mr. Herbert Spencer as an honorary member. 

 He affiliates modern Nonconformity to the heresies 

 of every age, congratulates it on the "rebellious 

 movement of the Reformation ; " but regrets " the 

 regrowth of a coercive rule," almost as much as 

 he regrets the recrudescence in modern politics of 

 the military spirit : 



" Calvin (he reminds us) was a Pope comparable with any 

 who issued bulls from the Vatican. The discipline of the 

 Scottish Presbyterians was as despotic, as rigorous, and as 

 relentless as any which Catholicism had enforced. The 

 Puritans of New England were as positive in their dogmas, 

 and as severe in their persecutions, as were the ecclesiastics 

 of the Church they left behind." 



Still Nonconformity is commended for being 

 steadily antisacerdotal, and for having been the 

 cause of the multiplication of sects. Continental 

 writers, according to Mn. Spencer, are quite wrong 

 in reproaching us with this. " Philosophically 

 considered, it is one of England's superior traits." 

 As there are this year two hundred and twenty- 

 five sects actually registered, England is to be 

 congratulated on her " superiority." 



In the last two chapters we find Mr. Spencer 

 posing as historian and prophet in one ; only, 

 unfortunately, his history is not such as to make 

 us place unlimited faith in his prophecy. In 

 ecclesiastical institutions it is well to know tl.at 

 there will be complete autonomy in each religious 



