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    spirit of cautious but free inquiry , which refuses to close its eyes to the conclusions to which it has been led , by an examination conducted in the sincere love of truth , and with the use of all the means which are calculated to secure its attainment . In the particular case which we are now considering , obstinately to reject the evidence of an undue contraction of the Jewish chronology ( always supposing that further investigation supplies such evidence ) would be in effect to declare that belief in revelation is inconsistent

    With historical criticism , and that we must choose which we will renounce ; while , on the other hand , it is difficult to see how the admission of it would affect a single truth in the doctrines , or fact in the history , of religion . The records of the human race , from their dispersion to the birth of Abraham , are contained in sixteen verses of the eleventh chapter of Genesis—a naked list of descents—a species of record very liable to alteration , both in regard to the number of its members and its individual dates . It is impossible to

    read the book of Genesis , and not perceive how much its character is changed from the point where the history of the Jewish people begins—the calling of Abraham . From a collection of fragments it becomes a full and connected narrative ; from a style in which the acutest critics have been at a loss to determine in many passages whether they were reading a history or an allegory , it changes to one in which the distinctness , the vividness , the circumstantiality of real and authentic history aTe marked in characters ¦

    not to be mistaken . Now this gradation is precisely what might have been expected , and confirms the fidelity of the historian , by corresponding with the necessary gradation in the copiousness and distinctness of his documents . What preceded the calling of Abraham belonged to the Jews only in common with the other nations of mankind ; what followed it was exclusively their own , and therefore would both be known more perfectly , and preserved with

    greater accuracy . It is very possible that the family of Abraham may also have preserved the chronology of their own descent from the postdiluvian Patriarch with equal accuracy ; all that is contended is , that should subsequent investigations prove that they have not , it will be equally unjust to reject the evidence of history , in order to uphold the inspiration of Jewish genealogy , or to reject the evidence of revelation , because the Jewish chronology of an obscure and primaeval period appears to be imperfect or erroneous . K .

    • circulated in that country , by some who wished to disabuse the Spaniards of their superstition . The object of this work is to prove that Christ was the Sun , his mother the constellation Virgo , the Apostles the twelve signs of the Zodiac or the Dii Majores , Peter with his keys being Janus . Thus it is that the prohibition of reason , in matters of religion , produces a reaction towards the most irrational extravagance of scepticism . The Romish Church has been the mighty parent of infidelity , and some Protestants seem desirous that their churches should rival her fecundity .

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    BiblUal " Gleanings - 321

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  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 321, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/9/