the best testimony of the recent origin of the present crust of our planet, and of all its organic inhabitants."

The observant reader will perceive that, in Dr. Grant's application of the word creation, he differs in phrase only, not in doctirne, from Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. John Phillips.

(F.)

Referred to at page 226.

THE following extracts are valuable and interesting, as they show the impression made upon the mind of an able Bible critic, the elder Rosenmüller, at a time when geological researches were little known, and when Werner, at the age of 25, was but just beginning his career. He was far from the opinion which his son promulgated, fifteen years after, treading in the steps of Simplicius (in the sixth century) and Hetzel, Hase, and others in our own times, that Moses derived his history of the creation from the Egyptians. The resemblance is indeed remarkable: but I think it is much more rationally accounted for by supposing that the Egyptian and Phenician traditions had flowed from a common source, the family of Noah; and that Moses, under the direction of divine inspiration, placed at the commencement of his great work the very written documents of primeval men which had descended in the Abrahamic line, and which were the genuine records whence the other traditions had been derived.

“The enemies of religion act a very inequitable part when they require of us such explications of all chronological and historical difficulties, as should leave no portion of doubt remaining. Can it surprise any man that, in the most ancient of all writings, many things should be obscure to us, who live in times so extremely remote? -In consequence of the great advances which have been made in modern times, in Hebrew and Greek philology and the languages and antiquities of the east, no small number of dark and difficult-passages have been satisfactorily elucidated, so as to make it perfectly clear that most objections have been engendered by ig, -Every good writer must be presumed to speak according to the custom of the men among whom he lived, and their common use of language.- -I shall not meddle with the question, whether the contents of the beginning of Genesis were by God revealed immediately to Moses; or that he derived them from more ancient re

norance.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.

345

cords. The style, and the entire manner of the description, involve evidence of the highest antiquity. At every step we perceive proofs of that extreme simplicity which must have been the character of our race in its very infancy. With respect to divine subjects, in particular, the first step of human knowledge must undoubtedly have consisted in conceptions of God derived from our own nature; ascribing to the Deity the same properties and perfections which men perceived in themselves, but in modes and degrees infinitely more perfect. Upon this principle are founded the representations of God which are given in the hooks of Moses, and many other parts of the Old Testament. Indeed this is, in my judgment, a very plain argument, not only of the genuineness and truth of those books, but of their DIVINE Origin: seeing that they present to us a method of description concerning God and divine things, perfectly suited to the capacity of men in the earliest times, and yet the most sublime, and, when fairly and candidly interpreted, in perfect accordance with spiritual truth. The scoffers at revealed religion, philosophers as they please to call themselves, betray an almost unpardonable ignorance, when they make stumbling-blocks out of those constantly occurring expressions of the Old Testament which speak of the Deity [anthropopathicis locutionibus] in language borrowed from human properties and actions. What can be a grosser absurdity, and even folly, than to require that Moses and the prophets should have spoken of divine truths, in the very infancy of the human race, according to the philosophy of Descartes, Newton, or Wolf?

"In the beginning God created this universe; the heavens and the earth. But, with respect to this earthly globe, it was not at once the abode of men and animals, as it is now: but there was a period during which it was utterly destitute of such a furniture of things as it now possesses, it did not enjoy the light of the sun, and it was completely covered with water. Whether, at its first being brought into being, it possessed a constitution like that of comets,* being consequently uninhabitable; or whether it was reduced into its actual state, after a vast space of time, by some kind of universal inundation of water, with the concurrence of other causes both natural and extraordinary; cannot be with certainty determined from the Mosaic narrative. But this detracts nothing from the truth and dignity of the narrative. It never was in the mind or intention of Moses, to unfold physical causes, of which he was most probably ignorant, and

* One cannot but observe here the working of a sagacious mind, and the approach which it makes, though on principles purely conjectural, to the Nebular Hypothesis.

which it was no part or object of his divine commission to make known. Nor could the Israelites, for whose immediate benefit this history was intended, have comprehended such matters: for who can suppose that they knew any thing of the nature of comets, or the planetary constitution of the earth?" J. G. Rosenmülleri Antiquissima Telluris Historia, à Mose Gen. i°. descripta; Ulm, 1776; pp. 6, 10, 11, 12, 71.

It is with peculiar pleasure that I copy the following passages of the learned and pious Bishop of Chester; and they are the more estimable as they were written before 1814, at a time when geological facts and doctrines were less accurately known than they are at present.

"Any curious information as to the'structure of the earth ought still less to be expected, by any one acquainted with the general character of the Mosaic records. There is nothing in them, either to gratify the curiosity or repress the researches of mankind, when brought, in the progress of cultivation, to calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies or speculate on the formation of the globe. The expressions of Moses are evidently accommodated to the first and familiar notions derived from the sensible appearances of the earth and heavens and the absurdity of supposing that the literal interpretation of terms in Scripture ought to interfere with the advancement of philosophical inquiry, would have been as generally forgotten as renounced, if the oppressors of Galileo had not found a place in history.- -No rational naturalist would attempt to describe, either from the brief description in Genesis or otherwise, the process by which our system was brought from confusion into a regular and habitable state. No rational theologian will direct his hostility against any theory which, acknowledging the agency of the Creator, only attempts to point out the secondary instruments he has employed." Dr. Bird Sumner on the Records of Creation; vol. I. p. 270, 283.

-

Let us hear another distinguished clergyman.

"As to the first point [the antiquity of the earth,]-not the mere theoretical views of geologists alone, but the conclusions which appear, by the most cogent logical necessity, to result from the phenomena of the structure of the earth's surface, and the variety and order of the very numerous successive series of organic remains imbedded in the strata, do undoubtedly appear to require periods of very considerable duration; and to indicate that very many ages had elapsed before

-" the diapason closing full in man,"-) a new exertion of the Creative Energy made, in its own image, a being of higher intellectual and moral capacities, as the head of its other terrestrial works. Now,

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.

347

the evidence of geological phenomena most satisfactorily agrees with the scriptural record, in assigning to this last great event a very recent epoch: and it is surely very valuable as an independent testimony to this most important fact, which clearly involves the necessary admission of an interference with the previous order of nature, by a new and direct exertion of creative power, and therefore strikes at once at the root of every skeptical argument against MIRACLES. It is surely nowise inconsistent with the fullest reception of revelation, to maintain that it professedly confines itself to the exposition of the dispensations of the great Creator, as they concern his final intellectual creation; that, in a word, the Bible is exclusively the history of the dealings of God towards men." The Rev. W. D. Conybeare; in the Chr. Obs. May, 1834, p. 308.

[F F.]

Referred to at page 231, by error there called G.

"THE modern geologist must and gladly will acknowledge the accuracy of the statement, that, after all things were made, the earth must have been in a state of chaotic confusion; in other words, that the elements, which later were to combine in the present arrangement of the globe, must have been totally disturbed and probably in a state of conflicting action. What the duration of this anarchy was, what peculiar features it presented, whether it was one course of unmodified disorder, or was interrupted by intervals of peace and quiet, of vegetable and animal existence, the Scripture has concealed from our knowledge; while it has said nothing to discourage such investigation as may lead us to any specific hypothesis regarding it. Nay; it would seem as though that indefinite period had been purposely mentioned, to leave scope for the meditation and the imagination of man." Principal Wiseman's Connexion of Science and Rev. Relig. vol. I. p. 295.

"So far then from finding, in the facts and conclusions of Geology, any objections to the Mosaic records, I find in them a striking evidence of the benevolence of the Deity. For, during the long period above spoken of, the globe was evidently preparing for the residence of MAN and the other animals that now inhabit it. Before their crea tion, its temperature was too high, and its surface too liable to be broken up by volcanoes, and drenched by deluges, to be a secure and happy abode for the more perfect races of animals that now inhabit

it. But it was adapted to the nature and habits of such animals and vegetables as we now find entombed in the rocks. The overflowing benevolence of the Deity, therefore, led him to place such beings upon it; and thus to communicate a vast amount of happiness, which seems to be a grand object in all his plans and operations. The vegetables that existed in those early periods have been converted, in the course of time, into the various species of coal now dug from the bowels of the earth; while the remains of the animals of those times have become changed into limestone. Even those violent volcanic agencies, by which the successive races of plants and animals have been suddenly destroyed, have probably introduced into the upper part of the earth's crust, various metallic veins very important to human happiness. And in all this, we see indications of that same benevolent foresight and care for supplying the wants of his creatures, to which our daily-experience of God's goodness testifies." Hitchcock's Geol. of Massachusetts; p. 250.

Prof. Hitchcock having adduced strong evidence to prove that an extensive denudation has, at some time, taken place in the New Red Sandstone on the Connecticut river, proceeds to say: The immense period requisite to wear away such a mass of rock as this theory supposes to have once occupied the whole valley of the Connecticut, will seem to most minds the strongest objection against its adoption: I mean, supposing it to have been effected by such causes as are operating at present. But this is not a solitary example, in which geological phenomena indicate the operation of existing causes, through periods of duration inconceivably long. We may, in this case indeed, as I have already shown, suppose the occurrence of numerous deluges in the earlier periods of our globe. Still, even with the aid of such catastrophes, the work must have been immensely protracted. And why should we hesitate to admit the existence of our globe through periods as long as geological researches require; since the sacred record does not declare the time of its original creation; and since such a view of its antiquity enlarges our ideas of the operations of the Deity in respect to duration, as much as Astronomy does in regard to space? Instead of bringing us into collision with Moses, it seems to me that Geology furnishes us with some of the grandest conceptions of the Divine attributes and plans to be found in the whole circle of human knowledge." Ib. p. 226.