part of
Isaiah; that David did not write the Psalms, or the evangelists the
gospels; that there are interpolations here and there in the original;
that there are numerous and serious errors in our translation. What is
all this to me? What do I care who wrote them, what is the date of them,
what this or that passage ought to be? They have told me what I wanted
to know. Burn every copy in the world to-morrow, you don't and can't
take that knowledge from me, or any man."[224]

The Mosaic cosmogony is not a matter of great consequence, but on a par
with other cosmogonies, none of which are of any intrinsic value. "If
all cosmogonies were to disappear to-morrow," says Thomas Hughes, "I
should be none the poorer." The various difficulties of Scripture are
not of sufficient moment to occupy much time or pains. Let the people be
made to understand the liberal interpretations of what the cultivated
teachers have to say, and that will be enough to meet the world's wants.
Perhaps it is with secret admiration of Bunsen's _Bible Work_, the
greatest exegetical triumph of Rationalism, that Kingsley asks: "Who
shall write us a people's commentary of the Bible?"

Redemption is accepted in the Coleridgean sense. It is a term which does
not express a Scriptural fact, but is borrowed from earthly
transactions. Christ's work in our behalf is of no special value in
itself, its known effects being all that make it of moment to the human
family.[225] We should look at the results and not at the cause. The
sacrifice which Christ made was one of obedience to his Father's will;
it does not free us and elevate us above the curse of a broken law, for,
in a certain sense, the law has never been broken to the extent that
the evangelicals claim, nor does eternal punishment harmonize with
enlightened and liberal notions of Divine mercy. Miracles are in danger
of being worshiped by the friends of revelation. They have the
misfortune of an improper term; wonders would be a far better word. Why
not accept them in the domain of faith, since we meet with them in
science?[226] Miracles of this kind, "wonders," are willingly conceded,
for they are not suspensions or violations of the order of nature, but
natural phenomena, whose laws we may not understand. The miracles of the
New Testament are purely natural; but the people did not comprehend the
laws which gave them birth, and hence they magnified them. "Where the
people believed," says Mr. Davies, "rightl