of our English liberalism, and English "march of intellect," may God, in his mercy, rather throw us backwards into the darkness of the ages that are past, or blot our name and history from the annals of futurity !But, for a test of the "experiment," as exhibited before us, we will briefly state the case of Dr. Cooper.

The College of South Carolina is, it seems, an institution of kindred name and character with our famous " London University," where all things are taught but morals and manners, and the fear of God, and reverence for his word. All religions, it seems, are within the walls of this college of equal sanctity and equal authority; and the worshipper of the dog Anubis, the devotee of Juggernaut, the pilgrim of Mecca, and the descendant of Ishmael, are thought as much of, if not more than, the disciple of Christ.

Students of every religious, and of no religious, denomination are, by a principle (shall we not say, want of principle?) of perfect independence, admitted into this college without any provision for their instruction in any kind of religious knowledge whatever. Such a system, we know, has found able advocates nearer home; and, because the tree of liberalism has not, in this colder climate, yet borne fruit or seed, we are called on to suspend our opinions of its obnoxious qualities, branded as bigots, and abused as tyrants. The silly argument (employed, by the way, on a larger scale, on the question of Catholic Emancipation and the Jew Bill, viz. that, by the constitution of things, neither Catholics nor Jews are likely to obtain the power of government), that mischief is not likely to arise from this universal toleration, is fearfully and disgustingly refuted in the College of South Carolina. As religion is excluded from the college, it is not unlikely that the students may be infidels, and, therefore, according to the common course of all things, the tutors also; for it would be absurd to make that a sine quâ non in the master, which is of no practical use to the scholar. We are not, therefore, surprised-though, most assuredly, shocked to find the office of president of this liberal academy administered by an avowed unbeliever of revelation! Such is Dr. Cooper, the author of this pamphlet, and President of the College of South Carolina! An infidel head of a college is, we are rejoiced to think, not exactly to be found in this corner of the globe; but how long, under the liberalizing spirit of "free institutions," a reformed Parliament, a reformed Church, and a reformed Liturgy, will leave the hitherto toto divisos orbe Britannos" to enjoy their boasted liberty, so bepraised by orators, and besang by poetasters, is not for us to " predicate," as the Times says. Dii avertent pestem, is all we can hope.

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It is a grave charge to make against so responsible a person as the president of a college, to say he is an infidel; but we have the best evidence for the charge-the confession of the individual himself, and

a publication, not only setting forth, but defending and recommending, his views and notions. By this document it appears, that Dr. Cooper has, "by various publications, such as his Political Economy, his Letter to any Member of Congress, and his translation of Broussais on Insanity, unnecessarily advanced opinions respecting religion, offensive to the parents of students committed to his care, and to large classes of citizens, and injurious to the interests of the college: and that he has, at lectures, and on other occasions, interfered unnecessarily with the religious opinions of the students, and inculcated upon them doctrines contrary to those in which he knew they had been educated, and offensive to their parents and guardians." Such are the very words of the charge brought against the president by the board of trustees, on the 5th December, 1832, after a year's delay, and six postponements ! ! from the time when the proceedings of Dr. Cooper first attracted notice.

But we must commence ab ovo. Many of our readers are aware of the high reputation of Professor Silliman, of Yale College, Connecticut, the editor of a scientific journal which, in England, and other parts of Europe, has gained great circulation. Now, Professor Silliman having adopted, as a text-took, "Bakewell's Geology,"* (by the way, an admirable work,) appended to it, for the use of his class, a syllabus, in which he advocates the Mosaic history of the deluge, and applies it in illustration of his geological theories. Dr. Cooper, having openly set at naught the authority of the professor, was in danger of losing his 'credit with his pupils, and, therefore, to support his own views in science, he found it necessary to refute Professor Silliman by an attempt to refute the Bible, which he undertook in a public lecture. This lecture having, as he says, been misunderstood, he deemed it advisable to" state his arguments in detail;" and the result of that determination is the treatise before us.

As our main business in bringing this matter sub judice, is to illustrate our opinions respecting a sister institution in our own capital by a reference to what is going on across the Atlantic, we shall not detain our readers by a lengthened allusion to the arguments of Dr. Cooper. It may suffice, to establish the fact of his unbelief of divine revelation, se teste, and to quote a few statements as they occur to us in a cursory glance at the contents of the pamphlet.

We pass over some of the positions touching the foundations of

* Doubtless some persons may have believed our remarks on "Scriptural Geologists," in a former number (Vol. XV. p. 395), unjust and uncalled for. But as a happy (or rather unhappy) illustration of the correctness of our opinion and judgment on the point, we refer our objectors to the striking case of Cooper v. Silliman, in which the former might be said (if we would be facetious) to have changed name with the latter. VOL. XVI.

NO. VI.

Y Y

arguments for and against "genuineness" and "authenticity," and take the following:

That book is apocryphal, which contains any contradictions;-or, any histories or doctrines contrary to those known to be true;-or, relations ludicrous, trifling, fabulous, or silly. (Genesis passim)!!!!—P. 5.

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The arguments themselves are founded on certain interpolations after the time of Moses ;—on the two narratives of creation in the first chapters of Genesis (which Dr. Cooper calls, after Eichhorn, the Elohim account and the Jehovah account); -on anachronisms; -on contradictions and inconsistencies contained in the book of Genesis in particular;"-"the book," says Dr. Cooper," in which Professor Silliman relies for the geology he thinks fit to teach the young men who attend him, and who ought to call for his proofs," (p. 19); -on the "utter impossibility of writing the Pentateuch by Moses;"-on the "ignorance by Solomon, &c. of any writings of Moses ;"—and on a few other positions, all of which, with the above, have been long ago satisfactorily replied to by our English divines. We say nothing of Dr. Cooper's learning; he has read (at second hand?) a vast deal of pretended argument against Moses, and is ready with the guerilla weapons of Vater and Gesenius, the North American Review, Spinoza, Le Père Simon, Volney, and an anonymous author who wrote "Fabrication of the Pentateuch Proved."!! He says, also (p. 51), that he is " pretty well acquainted with theological controversies relating to the genuineness of the books commonly relied on; but I am not acquainted with any author of repute who has yet ventured to reply to the objections which I have now stated."

We are sorry for the Americans, if this be true;—sorry, because a Paine redivivus seems to demand a Watson redivivus. England must be out of the question; for Dr. Cooper must, we think, allow Adam Clarke, and Thomas Hartwell Horne, notwithstanding his censures (pp. 18, 25), to be "authors of repute." Of the latter, by the way, we have the following, which we quote for three reasons, all satisfactory as to the character to be assigned to Dr. Cooper, as a man of candour, honesty, and devotion:

I would have taken up Horne specifically; but I cannot condescend to argue with an opponent so positive, so wreckless, and so orthodox as Mr. Horne. I have no assent to bestow but for laborious accuracy, evidence, and argument; none for assertion even though boldly hazarded by a divine of the Church Establishment of England. The reviewer above cited (North American), remarks, p. 138, that Mr. Horne makes Adam, Abel, Enoch, Melchisedec, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, the Paschal Lamb, the Manna, the Rock in Horeb, the Mercy-seat, the Tabernacle, the ordinance of the Red Heifer, the Water that issued from the rock, the Brazen Serpent, the Cities of Refuge, Joshua, Jonah in the whale's belly, &c. types of the Messiah! I hope I may be excused from entering the lists against such a thorough allegorizing Origenist, such a

wholesale professor of credulities. I leave him and the Rev. Mr. Grey, the pious commentator on Solomon's Song, and his worthy widow who published them, and the commentators, Henry, Scott, Clarke, et id genus omne, to advance their reveries without hazard of refutation.-P. 25.

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type

Surely the New Testament would have taught Dr. Cooper, and the sage North American Reviewer, who did, and who did not, make "Adam, Abel," &c. &c. " types of the Messiah." But-and this is our proof of our charge of direct infidelity against Dr. Cooper-the Jonah in the whale's belly" as a same authority which uses of the Messiah," also quotes Moses as an author, and refers to Moses as an inspired author! (Matt. xii. 40; Luke xxiv. 27; John v. 46.) We thus perceive that the "gospel" stands or falls with the "law," and that the president of the South Carolina College has as little knowledge of Scripture as he has of logic or grammar, unless the two samples below* be Yankee grammar.

His qualifications for the presidentship of a college might be further illustrated by the following extracts from his pamphlet, which we give abhorrent, but still freely, that our readers may know how far we are justified in placing Dr. Cooper in the same niche of low depravity with the author of the "Age of Reason."

Livy informs us that on one occasion an Or spake while leading it to the sacrifice; and on another occasion it is said that a Crow prognosticated or foretold the misfortunes which attended the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian. The same historian gravely assures us that the marble statue of the gods which had been set up in the temples, at one time sweat great drops of blood. We at once smile at reading these absurdities; but what is there more absurd in these narratives than in the book of Genesis, where we are as gravely told that a serpent and an ass spake; and that all the water in the land of Egypt was turned into blood; that the Lord rained bread from heaven for forty years; and that during the whole of that period the shoes and garments of the Israelites neither needed to be repaired or renewed. Surely, surely these are very doubtful marks of divine inspiration. The individual who is so credulous as to believe all this on the authority of the Jewish books, has no better evidence of its truth than he has of the truth of what the Roman historian has written. If the one ought to be rejected as fabulous, so ought the other.-P. 54.

Surely, surely, Dr. Cooper, after this you need not doubt that an ass can sometimes speak!

Independently of the numerous facts by which it is demonstrated that Moses could not be the author of the Pentateuch, and in particular of Genesis, do not the books themselves afford sufficient evidence that they are unworthy of the countenance of any intelligent being? Is not the book of Genesis a collection of absurd and frivolous tales? Falling within the anathema of Jeremiah Jones? I wish the epithets absurd and frivolous were the worst that might fairly be applied; but they are not. And where is the history to be found that corrobo

"At any rate, every Quaker throughout the Union do now hold the same opinions with Dr. Cooper." (Trial, p. 4.) "Verba secandi et verba scribendi eadem fonte fluunt." (P. 15.)

rates any of the facts related from Genesis to Deuteronomy? Can any man of common sense believe that the Almighty would dictate such ridiculous stories concerning himself, as are narrated in these books? Sometimes he is represented as a labourer, toiling and exhausting himself to such a degree that he requires rest to recruit himself; sometimes as a tailor regulating the dresses of the creatures he had formed; sometimes as a fringe and tassel maker, decorating a box of wood called the ark; sometimes as their warrior, or generalissimo, when without provocation, they invaded and plundered their neighbours. When they prayed he came and talked to them; when they sacrificed, he came and eat with them; and as is even ignorantly imagined, God had nothing to do but to be constantly at the elbows, and to attend to the wants and wishes of a barbarous and ignorant people.-Pp. 55, 56.

I am perfectly aware that although these arguments will be treated by Professor Silliman as a gentleman ought to treat them, and that from him they will receive fair and argumentative replies, yet there are many who will raise the hue and cry of infidelity, and heap calumny, falsehood, and abuse, upon the author, when they find his reasonings not within their power of confutation. All this is so much in the common course that I expect it. But it is high time, in my opinion, to resist the intermeddling of the clergy and their devoted adherents, in matters of science: Philosophy may well appeal to its own exclusive evidence, and refuse to be dragged on as a slave fastened to the triumphal car of orthodox theology. The time has arrived when the votaries of fashionable creeds must expect their tenets to undergo the searching ordeal of free discussion, if they imprudently provoke it. Nor is that man an honest man, who endeavours to keep the rising generation in darkness, for fear they should discover the weak side of his own opinions. The times call for full and unlimited freedom of examination in every department of knowledge without exception; nor ought any opinion, of any kind or description, pass current as truth, unless it be founded on such facts and such arguments as will stand the test of minute and accurate investigation before the tribunal of the public.-P. 63.

May we not again venture, after this, to allude to our opinion respecting the mischief which must ensue from the " zeal without knowledge” of the scriptural geologists? If Mr. Fairholme, or Mr. Bugg, or Mr. Brown, after reading this dissertation of Dr. Cooper, could consider our decision respecting themselves harsh and uncalled for, in these days when Englishmen look to America for models of thought and character, we will consent to be keel-hauled in the Atlantic for our presumption. Fas est et ab hoste doceri, we say again : "Let the Clergy, and the class of philosophers engaged in the pursuit of science, keep each to their own proper occupations. They can get on very easily if they will not interfere with each other." (Cooper, p. 58.) And, assuredly, despite the bold speculations of the president of South Carolina College, or the over-willing-officiousness of tender-conscienced Buggs and Browns, they will not only not" interfere with," but finally will be found to coincide with," each other." Dr. Silliman may be right, and the Pentateuch genuine and authentic, for all that Dr. Cooper and his class of young infidels may say to the contrary.

We come now to the "interesting trial," as the editor of the Columbia Times calls it, and so the London Times might think it.

The charges we have already stated; we shall now briefly epitomize Dr. Cooper's defence, state the decision of the Board of Trustees, and