The pretension to competence in every one who takes it into his head to judge for himself, independently of what God has instituted, is, taken in its most favorable aspect- not an individual pretension which is its real character- the well-known and unscriptural system which has been known since Cromwell's time, that is, independency- one body of Christians being independent of every other as a voluntary association. This is a simple denial of the unity of the body, and the presence and action of the Holy Ghost in it. J. N. D.