ersons for enlightening the fanatical
religionist, making no reserve of any seemingly harmless or apparently
serviceable superstitions of their own. They should also endeavor to
supply to the negative theologian some positive elements in
Christianity, on grounds more sure to him than the assumption of an
objective "faith once delivered to the saints," which he cannot identify
with the creed of any church as yet known to him."[183]

V. ON THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. By C. W. Goodwin, M. A. The assumption is
made that the Mosaic account of creation is irreconcilable with the real
creation of the earth. We do wrong in elevating that narrative above its
proper position, and orthodox geologists have grossly erred in attaching
much importance to the language of the first chapter of Genesis. There
is nothing poetical or figurative in the whole account; it contains no
mystical or symbolical meaning, and is a plain statement of just so much
as suited the Jewish mind. All attempts, however, to find any
consistency between it and the present state of science are simply
absurd. The theory of Chalmers and Buckland, and afterward that of Hugh
Miller, are not tenable, for Moses was ignorant of what we now know, and
his alleged description is contradicted by scientific inquiry. If then
it is plain that God has not thought it needful to communicate to the
writer of the Scriptural Cosmogony the knowledge revealed by modern
researches, why do we not confess it? We would do so if it did not
conflict with a human theory which presumes to point out how God ought
to have instructed man.[184] The writer had no authority for what he
asserts so solemnly and unhesitatingly, for he was an early speculator
who stated as facts what he only conjectured as probabilities. Yet he
seized one great truth, in which he anticipated the highest revelation
of modern inquiry; namely, the unity of the design of the world, and
its subordination to one sole Maker and Law-giver.[185] But no one
contends that the Mosaic view can be used as a basis of astronomical or
geological teaching; and we must therefore consider the Scriptural
cosmogony not as "an authentic utterance of divine knowledge, but a
human utterance, which it has pleased Providence to use in a special way
for the education of mankind."[186]

VI. TENDENCIES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ENGLAND, 1688-1750. By Mark
Pattison, B. D. We are surrounded with a Babel of religious creeds and
theories, and it is all-impor