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geological inquiries to a period still more remote and mysterious, than they have ever done. "Proceeding in direct opposition to rules that have never yet been violated with impunity, and mistaking the true objects of a theory of the earth, they carry back their inquiries to a period prior to the present series of causes and effects, where, having neither experience nor analogy to direct them, they pretend to be guided by a superior light."* In animadverting on the geological schemes of Kirwan and Deluc, with just severity, he says, "With a spirit as injurious to the dignity of religion, as to the freedom of philosophical inquiry, they have disregarded a maxim enforced by the authority of Bacon, and by all our experience of the past. Tanto magis hæc vanitas inhibenda venit et coercenda, quia ex divinorum et humanorum male-sanu admixtione, non solum educitur philosophia phantastica, sed etiam religio hæretica. Itaque salutare admodum est, si mente sobria, fidei tantum dentur, quæ fidei sunt."

"If vain conceits," says Bacon, come to be held in veneration, the understanding succumbs as if seized with the plague. Some moderns have indulged in this vanity with so little discretion, that they have endeavoured to establish a body of natural philosophy, on the first chapter of Genesis, the book of Job, and some other of the sacred writings; thus seeking the living among the dead. vanity merits castigation and restraint the more, as from the mischievous admixture of divine and human things, there is compounded at once a fantastical philosophy, and a heretical religion. It is therefore most salutary, with a sober mind, to render to faith, what belongs to faith."+

This

The censure here bestowed on those who construct schemes of philosophy on scripture texts, is perfectly just, but it does not apply to those who endeavour to prove, by

Playfair's Works, Vol. I. p. 467. + Novum Organum, Aphor. LXV.

INTERCOURSE OF SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

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inductive evidence, that the conclusions of philosophy are not discordant with the order of physical events, recorded by Moses. The object of Bacon's reprobation is not the besetting sin of the present age. Science must now be built up on its own foundations, by its own rules, and with its own materials. The individual who would attempt to deduce a single principle in science from any phenomenon described in the Bible, would be regarded as no friend either to philosophy or religion. But when the principles of physics are fairly established on their own bases, it becomes a subject of interest, to examine how far certain. natural phenomena related by the inspired historian, are conformable to our digest of the laws of nature. If a accordance can be clearly made out between things so distinct and independent, as ancient testimony, and the results of modern research, faith and reason will enjoy a joint triumph, propitious to their mutual influence on mankind.

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This procedure is just the inverse of what Bacon reprobates. We do not seek the living among the dead; we do not determine the existing or actual properties of matter, from a few brief notices of mighty revolutions which it anciently suffered. But like Cuvier, confronting the bones of fossil animals, with the bones of their living types, we compare certain phenomena and results of early occurrence, on our globe, with the sequence of phenomena passing before our eyes, drawing from the records of faith, only such facts as belong to faith; viz. such as can be learned from inspiration alone. Surely those who frame a system of Cosmogony which removes entirely out of sight, the Creator and Governor of the world, tend as powerfully as ever Deluc and Kirwan did, to form a fantastical philosophy and a heretical religion.

Theologians are much more open to Bacon's censure, than philosophers. If any one will compare the diversities of meaning which have been assigned to the Hebrew words contained in the first verses of Genesis, by such of our com

mentators on the Bible, as have theorised on the phenomena of creation, he will be convinced that no solid foundation for geological science, need be sought for in the field of Hebrew criticism. Yet on this basis, all our early, and many of our later Bible scholars, have created schemes of accordance between nature and revelation, producing too often a male-sana admixtio of divine and human things. I humbly conceive that the only concern of the biblical student with Cosmogony, is to ascertain that the results of physical research in the earth and the heavens, do not essentially impugn the Mosaic text in its plain interpretation, as addressed to plain men of all ages and nations. They ought, therefore, to inquire first of all, by the rules of inductive logic, what are the scientific results most unequivocally established, and next to examine, whether any of these be irreconcilable with the commonly adopted version of Genesis. In following this course with discretion, no rule of right reasoning need be violated, if we be duly sensible of the difficulties of the subject, the imperfections of science, and the fallibility of human judgment. On the contrary, I hope to convince the candid reader of the following pages, that the Divine Spirit in furnishing two guides to man, revelation and reason, has benevolently given them so many points of affinity, that a diligent search may cause their accordance to become manifest to every docile mind, showing them to be really close and powerful allies, instead of lukewarm friends, or open foes, as their common enemies would allege.

Such is the perversity of human judgment on subjects the most momentous, that one hardly knows at times whether to regard it more in ridicule or sorrow. The classical scholar, for example, will pore over Herodotus and Xenophon with a sort of superstitious reverence, while he is too ready to view Moses with indifference or even contempt. Yet for sublimity and depth of thought, set forth with simplicity and pathos of recital, neither the father of

HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF MOSES.

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profane history, nor its most eloquent son, can vie with the legislator of the Jews. In the authentic stamp of consistency, the prime merit of historians, the civil can certainly bear no comparison with the sacred. The former contradict each other broadly on the greatest characters and transactions, such as those of Cyrus, though at no great distance from their own times, while the latter is always in perfect accordance with himself, as well as with ancient monuments and traditions. To Moses we are indebted, moreover, for the only rational account we possess of the origin and filiation of the different tribes of men. As to the alleged absurdity of his code of laws, and the cruelty of his injunctions for exterminating idolatry, if we measure them on the great scale of Providence, we shall admit, that the establishment of a pure and perfect Theism, among a central nation of the earth, was not too dearly purchased by the ritual observances of the Jews, or any punishments inflicted on the cruel and licentious Canaanites. Let us bear in mind that in the ordinary course of nature, 30 millions of individuals, annually fall victims, over the face of the globe, to disease, old age, famine, the sea, or the sword, and that, therefore, the destruction of a thousandth or even a hundredth part of that number for a great moral purpose, affords no peculiar ground for impeaching the wisdom of God, or the veracity of his interpreter. The results eliminated from the physical researches of the present volume, display the primary developments of the material system, and the great revolutions of the earth in such surprising harmony, with the master touches of the Hebrew prophet, as to constitute, in my opinion, incontestable evidence of his being endued with a knowledge more than human; for he has indicated a style and sequence of natural phenomena, gainsayed or disowned by all human learning, till the profound and novel investigations of these latter days, have unveiled their truth.

Holding in due reverence, therefore, the Mosaic record,

and ready to recognise the finger of Providence directing every event of the material world, we are not on that account called upon to renounce or fetter the exercise of our intellectual powers, on any subject, competent to their tribunal. The rhapsodies of fanaticism, and the bigoted subjugation of science, to certain figurative expressions in scripture, are alike to be shunned. Revelation was certainly not imparted to mankind, for the purpose of instructing them in any principles of philosophy, which reason can explore. When the phenomena of nature are described, it is always' in popular language, corresponding to the informations of sense. Thus the sacred writers, in common with practical astronomers of every age, speak of the sun and stars as rising, setting, and moving, in the firmament, yet neither our astronomers, nor the scriptures, are thereby supposed to pronounce a judgment on the actual motion or repose of these luminaries. This is a proposition left to science to investigate. The heavenly bodies apparently revolve in determinate orders and periods, with regularly recurring phases. These have been laid open to the observation of man since the origin of his race, offering him every requisite instruction as to the times, distances, and paths of their revolutions, as well as to the magnitudes, densities, and figures of the spheres. Whatsoever lessons these phenomena have given to the present age, were held forth to the past, and will be exhibited to the future. Astronomy never reverts to a state of repose, antecedent to their actual condition. It contemplates the velocities and mutual equilibrium of moving bodies, but does not venture to speculate on a former or a future state, an origin or an end of the actual appearances of the heavens. In this respect, astronomers differ widely from our two famous geologists Werner and Hutton, who do not confine their inquiries to the existing cycle of phenomena, but boldly remount to a hypothetical order very different from the present, which no human eye ever witnessed. They do not scruple to

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