CHAP. XII. ] CHURCHMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 169 



proves that the Congregationalists of New England are far behind 

 many orthodox divines of the Church of England, or even the 

 Church of Rome, as shown by Dr. Wiseman s lectures, in the 

 liberality of their opinions on this head, and that the establish 

 ment of the true theory of astronomy satisfied the Protestant 

 world, at least, that the Bible was never intended as a revelation 

 of physical science. No doubt it is most true, that within the 

 last forty years many distinguished writers and dignitaries of the 

 English Church have expressed their belief very openly in regard 

 to the earth s antiquity, and the leading truths established by 

 geology. &quot; The Records of Creation,&quot; published in 1818, by the 

 present Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Sumner), the writings of 

 the present Dean of Westminster (Dr. Buckland), those of the 

 Dean of LlandafF(Dr. Conybeare), and of the Woodwardian Pro 

 fessor of Cambridge (The Rev. A. Sedgwick), and others, might 

 be adduced in confirmation. All of these, indeed, have been 

 cited by the first teachers of geology in America, especially in the 

 &quot; orthodox universities&quot; of New England, as countenancing the 

 adoption of their new theories ; and I have often heard scientific 

 men in America express their gratitude to the English Church 

 men for the protection which their high authority afforded them 

 against popular prejudices at a critical moment, when many of 

 the State Legislatures were deliberating whether they should or 

 should not appropriate large sums of the public money to the pro 

 motion of geological surveys. The point, however, under dis 

 cussion in the Congregationalist Church, to which I have alluded, 

 is in reality a different one, and of the utmost importance ; for it 

 is no less than to determine, not whether a minister may publish 

 books or essays declaratory of his own individual views, respect 

 ing the bearing of physical science on certain portions of Scrip 

 ture, but whether he may, without reproach or charge of indis 

 cretion, freely and candidly expound to all whom he addresses, 

 rich and poor, from the pulpit, those truths on which few well- 

 informed men now any longer entertain a doubt. Until such 

 permission be fairly granted, the initiated may, as we well know, 

 go on for ages embracing one creed, while the multitude holds 

 fast to another, and looks with suspicion and distrust on the phi- 



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