Bibliographical Notices. 431 



sions of such a people — a point which is admirably elucidated by 

 Dr. Pye Smith in his seventh Lecture. 



The only points in which the discoveries of modern geology are 

 at variance, not with the truths of Revelation, for that they never 

 can be, but with the prevailing interpretations of the Pentateuch, 

 are the three following : viz. the antiquity of the world ; the exist- 

 ence of death before the fall of Adam ; and the partial extent of the 

 deluge. The facts unfolded by modern science unquestionably de- 

 monstrate that the earth is of far greater antiquity than the 6000 

 years usually assigned to it, and they prove with equal certainty 

 that animal life was subject to death during periods long prior to 

 the creation of Man ; there are reasons also, though not of the 

 same demonstrative nature as those above mentioned, yet hardly 

 less convincing to a geologist, for supposing that the Noachic de- 

 luge, instead of covering the whole globe as is commonly believed, 

 was confined to that portion of it which was then inhabited by man. 

 Those friends to Revelation, therefore, who are not content to rest 

 satisfied in the opinion of Dr. Paley, that Christianity ought not to 

 be made answerable for the statements and opinions of every writer 

 in the Old Testament*, will be anxious to seek for such an interpre- 

 tation of the sacred text as will accord with the facts on which these 

 conclusions of science are built. 



Dr. Pye Smith, after reciting at considerable length and in a most 

 candid spirit the various speculations of other authors on this sub- 

 ject, concludes with explaining his own views of the question. 



* " To make Christianity answerable for the circumstantial truth of each 

 sepai-ate passage of the Old Testament, the genuineness of every book, the 

 information, fidelity, and judgment of every writer in it, is to bring, I will 

 not say great, but unnecessary difficulties, into the whole system." — Paley s 

 Evidences of Christianity^ part iii. ch. 3. 



" Our Scriptures afford a valuable testimony to those of the Jews. But 

 the nature of this testimony ought to be understood. It is surely very dif- 

 ferent from, what it is sometimes represented to be, a specific ratification of 

 each particular fact and opinion." — lb. 



Dr. Paley 's view is in accordance with that of other distinguished theo- 

 logians, as will appear from the following extracts : — 



" To rectify men's sentiments in natural, historical, or chronological mat- 

 ters ; to mend their logick or rhetorick where it was defective, but had no 

 ill influence on piety, was not at all the business of Revelation.'* — Bishop 

 Chandler's Defence of Christianity ^ p. 272. 



" The Natural Philosophy of the Pentateuch ought not to induce us to 

 reject it. It is not at all likely that God, in order to enable a man to be a 

 lawgiver of the Jews, shovild reveal to him all the causes of the phsenomena 

 of nature." — Lectures in Divinity y by Dr. Hey, Norrisian Professor, Cam- 

 bridge, vol. i. p. 196. 



" Many serious and thinking Christians have judged that the first part of 

 Genesis is not a literal description of fact, but allegorical." — lb., vol. iii. p. 

 152. 



" Whether the beginning of Genesis is to be understood in a literal or an 

 allegorical sense ? Whether the book of Job be a history, or a parable } 

 being points disputed between Christians, an infidel can have no right to 

 argue from one side of the question in those and the like cases." — Bishop 

 Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, Dialogue vi. § 29. 



