I still retained from my old Calvinistic doctrine a way of proceeding, as if purely moral judgment were my weak side, at least in criticizing the Scripture: so that I preferred never to appeal to direct moral and spiritual considerations, except in the most glaringly necessary cases.

Thus, while I could not accept the panegyric on Jael, and on Abraham's intended sacrifice of his son, I did not venture unceremoniously to censure the extirpation of the Canaanites by Joshua: of which I barely said to myself, that it "certainly needed very strong proof" of the divine command to justify it.

I still went so far in timidity as to hesitate to reject on internal evidence the account of heroes or giants begotten by angels, who, enticed by the love of women, left heaven for earth.

The narrative in Gen.vi.had long appeared to me undoubtedly to bear this sense; and to have been so understood by Jude and Peter (2 Pet.

ii.), as, I believe, it also was by the Jews and early Fathers.