This question, however, may be liable to misconstruction. The doubt, then (it may be added), is not, whether it is possible that a man may be a believer in Christ, who yet denies the canonical character of the Mosaic record of creation. It would be most presumptuous and unwarrantable to affirm that such an one cannot be a real believer in Christ. The combinations of thought and conviction in men's minds are infinite in variety and often most unaccountable; so diverse are men's temperaments, so subtle the influences of passion and prejudice, so manifold and capricious the obscurations of the understanding through inadvertence or ignorance. It would be in the highest degree narrowminded and rash to assert that a disbeliever in the first section of Genesis cannot be a Christian.

This, however, is not our present question. Our question is this: Is there ground in fair reasoning for the conviction, that there is a vital connexion between the beginning of Genesis and the rest of Scripture, so that no one can reject the former, without being bound by just consequence of thought to reject also the other?

If there is ground for this conviction, then it is clear, that, though individual minds can without forfeiting salvation reject the one while yet by an inconsequence, -to them a most blessed inconsequence, they hold fast by the other, yet such a combination of disbelief and belief is fraught with the utmost danger. It is dangerous to the individual mind which entertains it; for there is cause to apprehend that the same taint of disbelief may work onward upon those salutary convictions which at present are still cherished, and at length poison the very life of the soul. But however, if this result should not befall, as in very many cases through God's grace it may not befall, yet the consequences of

the propounding of such views may prove to others in the very highest degree noxious. The man promulging and arguing for such a mixture of disbelief and Christian faith may himself not be aware of his inconsistency. But there are others who will be ready to detect it. They will not let the matter rest thus. They will adopt the disbelief which he avows, gladly availing themselves of the pleas by which he fortifies his disbelief, and then will press the argument home with fatal consecutiveness of reasoning upon what he still believes. "Do you not see, that the whole revelation as you call it is essentially committed to this part which you reject as untenable and even absurd? Is it not on your part hoping against hope and believing against belief, to affirm, that while this is a mere human utterance full of self-evident untruth, yet that, built though it is upon the other, affirming it, identifying it with itself as essentially one with it, is still a Divine utterance, fit to form the stay of the soul against death and for eternity? If you cannot see the untenableness of your position, we do; and we thank you for showing us so convincingly as you have done the utter futility of the whole pretended revelation." We all know that this in effect has been really said.

It is no more than fair to remark, that not only has Mr. Goodwin not shown in his Essay that he himself adopts such consequences, but that the general strain of his Essay warrants us in believing that he does not. But it is just also to add that he has not been at any pains to guard against them. Now there was a call upon him carefully to fence his whole position as a Christian believer against such attacks from infidelity. There is commonly felt to be such strong reason for identifying the cause of the inspiration of the Mosaic

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record of creation with the cause of all the subsequent revelations purporting to be given in Scripture, that, standing forth publicly as rejecting the former, he was bound to show grounds justifying him in disconnecting it from the latter. As a Christian man, concerned for the precious revelation of hope given to the world through Christ, he owed it to the blessed Gospel which he believes, he owed it to the religious welfare of other men, to explain how it was, that he could reject the "Mosaic Cosmogony" and yet in all consistency hold by the faith of a Christian.

He cannot justly plead that as a geologist that was not his concern. His business as an advocate for Christian truth (for as a Christian he can never abdicate this character), is not inferior in importance to his concern with geological speculation, and claims to be always kept in view. Moreover the volume in which his Essay appears professes to aim at promoting in the best way "the cause of religious and moral truth" (Advertisement to the Reader); therefore the relation in which his denial of the "Mosaic Cosmogony" stands to his holding the Christian faith was a matter, the consideration of which his professed position in this volume forbade him so wholly to evade.

Before endeavouring to determine the place which the First Section of Genesis holds in relation to the rest of Scripture, it will be proper to give its due degree of attention to a warning voice which we may hear addressing us from the quarter of controversial prudence. We may be told that no man is doing real service to the advocacy of Christian truth, who unnecessarily aggravates or multiplies the difficulties of faith; that in connexion with Christianity itself there are already difficulties enough which the spirit of the pre

sent age is only too keenly alive to; and that wisdom would dictate to us not to press to their utmost rigour considerations tending to embarrass yet further the Christian advocate with those peculiar difficulties which belong to the revelations of the Old Testament. My answer to this warning would be, that I do not believe that we really do increase our difficulties by adopting the Mosaic account of the creation. But, however that may prove to be, nevertheless, even if it be really true that by showing the maintenance of this account to be imperative upon the Christian advocate we are adding to our difficulties, it is neither the policy nor the safety of the Christian believer, nor indeed compatible with proper character, to shut his eyes upon such difficulties or to ignore their existence. No good can ever come out of wilful blindness. Faith does not require of us the abnegation of our proper character as rational creatures; neither is she honoured or really served by such intellectual self-mutilation. Christian faith is

his

faith in God as the God of truth; and never is faith more genuine in its character than when, having fairly looked round upon all the realities by which it is encompassed, having taken note of them all, having estimated them all at their proper value, it is yet able and resolved to repose simply upon the utterances of the voice of God. To act otherwise; to be shy of looking at that which really is there; to be uneasy and irritable at the statement of objections honestly and fairly urged; to be anxious to silence all such voices and to refuse them a hearing, what does such behaviour betoken, except a want of steadfast faith, an inward misgiving that possibly after all our cause will not bear investigation? Neither can we expect in the end to gain anything by endeavouring to shelve away

actual facts and to put them out of sight. If the Christian faith really is compromised to the revelations of the Old Testament,-to this particular revelation, for example, which is now in question,—by seeking to suppress the fact, we shall only damage our position in arguing with unbelievers; for they will not be backward in assailing us in what they see we ourselves consider our weak points; while they will also have the opportunity of charging us with a want of argumentative honesty. And more than this: the believer in God's word may feel certain, that, though he may at times. have been conscious of a certain feeling of uneasiness in reference to certain parts of Divine revelation, God's truth will be far better able to maintain itself by being left complete in its own entire being, than if we make bold to lop off this or that part of the fabric under the foolish, God-distrusting notion, that we are thereby giving it a firmer and more stable shape. Would we be wiser than God? Would we build more durably

than He has done?

In estimating the degree in which the First Section of Genesis is connected with the other parts of Scripture, attention is first due to the references made to it in the subsequent writings; for these show that the later bearers of Divine inspiration founded upon it as an

authoritative record.

Some of these are found in the Psalms, in which the phraseology of various passages at once directs our view back upon this primary section.

"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made (Gen. i. 6-8), and all the host of them (Gen. i. 14—18, ii. 1) by the breath of his mouth—[the word of the Lord and the breath of his mouth evidently point to the creative Fiats recorded in this section, upon which the