Dr. McCosh, also, more than half agrees with the Positivists, and concedes that the religious society, as such, has no right to judge of the bearings of the conclusions of the scientists on religion. “All this shows,” he says, pp. 5, 6, “that religious men _qua_ religious men are not to be allowed to decide for us the truths of science. Conceive an Œcumenical Council at Rome, or an Assembly of Divines at Westminster, or an Episcopal Convocation at Lambeth, or a Congregational Council at Plymouth, or a Methodist Conference in Connecticut (why not say Baltimore?) taking upon it to decide for or against the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, or the grand doctrine established in our day of the conservation of force and the correlation of all the physical forces, on the ground of their being favorable or unfavorable to religion!” This concedes to the Positivists that science is independent of religion, and that religion is to be accepted or rejected as it does or does not accord with science, and wholly overlooks the fact that religion is the first science, and that nothing can be true, scientifically or otherwise, that is contrary or unfavorable to religion. Religion is the word of God, and every religious man says with the inspired apostle, “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” Dr. McCosh, of course, cannot say this, for, having no infallible authority to define what is or is not religious truth or the word of God, he is obliged to place religion in the category of opinions which may or may not be true, and therefore to deny it as the law for all intelligences. Supposing God has appointed an authority, infallible through his gracious assistance, to teach all men and nations his religion, or the truth he has revealed, and the law he commands all to obey, this authority must be competent to decide whether any alleged scientific discoveries are or are not favorable to religion, and must necessarily have the right to decide prior to all scientific investigation. If this authority decides that this or that theory is unfavorable to religion, we as religious men must pronounce it false, and refuse to entertain it. Dr. McCosh, as a Presbyterian or Protestant, would have no right to say so, but the Catholic would have the right, and it is his duty to say so; because religion is absolutely true, and the supreme law for reason as well as for conscience, and what is or is not religion, the authority unerringly decides for him. Nothing that is not in accordance with the teachings of religion can be true in science any more than in religion itself, though many things may be true that are not in accordance with the opinions and theories held by religious men.