uracies,
interpolations, and forgeries.[176]

II. $1nd Williams, D. D. We here find
the same deference paid to conscience as in the preceding essay. If it
differ from revelation, man's own notions of right and wrong must
prevail over Scripture. Dr. Williams is contented with arraying Bunsen's
skeptical theories before the British public without formally indorsing
them himself; yet, as their reviewer, he is evidently in complete
harmony with the German author. For he carefully collects the
chevalier's extravagant speculations; brings them into juxtaposition;
admires the spirit, boldness, and learning which had given birth to
them; and in no case refutes, but looks with complacence upon nearly
every one. The impression of a candid reader of the essay must be, that
the writer indorses almost all of Bunsen's opinions without having the
courage to avow his assent. Of his hero he says, "Bunsen's enduring
glory is neither to have faltered with his conscience, nor shrunk from
the difficulties of the problem, but to have brought a vast erudition,
in the light of a Christian conscience, to unroll tangled records;
tracing frankly the Spirit of God elsewhere, but borrowing chiefly the
traditions of his Hebrew Sanctuary."[177]

The absence of that reverence to be expected in all whose vocation
enjoins the frequent reading of the sublime liturgy of the Church of
England, produces a depressing influence upon any one not in sympathy
with the doctrines of Rationalism. The Evangelical theologians are
termed "The despairing school, who forbid us to trust in God or in our
own conscience, unless we kill our souls with literalism."[178] The
inquiries and successes of the German Rationalists are worthy of hearty
admiration, for they are so great that the world has seldom, if ever,
seen their equal. Bishops Pearson and Butler, and Mr. Mansel are
seriously at fault in their notions of prophecy, and even Jerome is
guilty of gross puerilities. There is no reason why Bunsen may not be
right when he holds that the world must be twenty thousand years old;
there is no chronological element in revelation; the avenger who slew
the first-born, may have been the Bedouin host; in the passage of the
Red Sea, the description may be interpreted with the latitude of poetry;
it is right to reject the perversions which make the cursing Psalms
evangelically inspired; perhaps one passage in Zechariah and one in
Isaiah may be direct prophecies of the Messiah, an