Blockish Brick-makers all?

The SADist disdain for Genesis 1 is not new.

John Edwards had this to say about the removal of Genesis 1 from the real world: "the fond Notions which had possess'd some men's heads, and had been divulg'd by their pens, viz. that Moses is not to be understood according to the Letter, that he speaks to the capacity of Blockish Brick-makers that were recently come out of Egypt, and scarcely understood common sense, and therefore any Story of a Cock and a Bull would serve them... we must not think that he would trouble the brains (if you can suppose they had any) of a company of Dull Slaves with Natural Philosophy."

(Against William Whiston in 1697 in Thompson, "Before Darwin", p. 160)