mena which have been assumed as the basis of Geological speculations, and from which the modern theory of the earth is deduced. By some Christian writers, this theory has been adopted with apparent pleasure and satisfaction. In describing it, they seem to bestow a full measure of applause upon the philosophical researches and the intelligent arrangements to which they refer us; and they give the theory their support without suspicion or hesitation. The Author of the volumes before us, however, is of another mind: to him, the theory appears to be erroneous, and the supporters of it to be entirely misled. He is especially alarmed at the countenance which it has received from Christian divines; and in the hope of counteracting the evil tendency of their favourable reception of doctrines which he considers as injurious to the claims of revealed religion, he has produced the volumes before us. Every page of his work vouches for the sincerity and ardour of his attachment to the Scriptures. And every reader must be sensible of the importance attaching to the discussion of the subject to which it relates, as well as of the unsparing diligence with which the Author has laboured in its illustration. It is not a book of declamation and invective against the abettors of a theory which its Author judges to be erroneous and dangerous, but is stored with details of evidence, and abounds with the reasonings required in the investigation of a system which has been sanctioned by the concurrent opinions of sober and intelligent men. Nor can he be charged with concealing the evidence on which the conclusions that he endeavours to subvert, are rested by the writers against whom he has taken the field. In respect to the Christian part of them, he has thought himself fully entitled to assume the unerring authority of the Bible; and considering them as engaged in the support of an unhallowed cause, he does not hesitate to express his feelings in reference to them. Perhaps he has expressed them too strongly, in many of the passages which relate to the attempts of Christian authors to reconcile the Geological theory with the Mosaic narrative, since their belief in the truth of Revelation is not to be doubted. Yet, as there is no denial to be given to him who should assert, that the friends of Revelation have sometimes furnished the occasion of its receiving injury, by their alliances and their concessions, the Author may be allowed, after shewing that the positions taken by the writers in question are untenable, to express his feelings without the restraint which mere ceremony would impose upon them.

Are the phenomena of nature opposed to, or inconsistent with the declarations of the Sacred Scriptures? To this question, no other answer than a negative one can be given by every believer in their Divine authority. Proceeding from the same Au

VOL. I.-N.S.

E

thor, the constitution of nature and the records of revealed religion must be in accordance with each other: the facts which are comprised in the one, or which physical science may discover, and the statements which are contained in the other, cannot then be contradictory. But, though their necessary harmony will be maintained by all philosophical and theological writers recognizing the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures,there is a question of primary importance to be determined, in reference to the manner in which the deposition of these separate witnesses is understood by the examiners. Are the natural phenomena, on the one hand, physical facts, known and established to be such by satisfactory proofs? And, on the other, are the declarations of Scripture with which they are compared, explained on correct principles of interpretation? For if, instead of facts, there should be the assumption of data which may be disputable, and an accommodated sense of expressions, instead of the direct meaning of terms, we shall not have a comparison of physical truth with historical truth, but a comparison of hypothesis with erroneous interpretation, from which no satisfactory conclusion can result. If the phenomena of stratification, as exhibited in the theory of geologists, should admit of fairly urged objections, sufficient to induce powerful doubt of their truth, or be opposed by proofs establishing a different conclusion, the truth of the Scriptures cannot be questioned. Or, if the theory be assumed as a correct one, the attempt to harmonize it with the sacred records must proceed on the fair reading and construction of the Scripture passages which are taken as relating to it. By Christian writers, it will in course be maintained, that the doctrines of the geological school which they adopt, are in harmony with the representations of the Bible. They do not, however, agree in their modes of reconciling the one with the other; and the inference which will be unavoidable in some minds, as these modes are considered, will be, that the geological theory is admitted at the expense of a sound interpretation of the written record;-that such an explanation is given of the narrative, as would not have been thought of but for the exigency of the case, and as cannot be supported by any consistent, intelligible criticism.

The first question in respect to the writers who receive the geological theory, and assert its consistency with the Mosaic record and the representations of the Bible generally, is, Whether they have adopted an explanation of the language of the Scriptures which is warranted by sound rules of interpretation. The author of the "Records of Creation" remarks on the unreasonableness of supposing, that geological discoveries, so far as they have hitherto proceeded, are hostile to the Mosaic account of creation; inasmuch as, according to that history, we are bound

to admit, that only one general destruction or revolution of the globe has taken place since the period of that Creation which Moses records, and of which Adam and Eve were the first inhabitants. Now here it is necessary to inquire into the import of the language which the Scriptures use in reference to creation. Do they recognize more than one creation? Is the reference of the term, or terms, denoting creation, to the primary origination of all things? and is the account in Genesis synchronical and identical with this primary origination? So, again, Professor Buckland speaks of thousands of ages which pre'ceded the race of man, and of thousands of animals that were 'never contemporaneous with his species'! And Mr. Faber considers the six days of the Mosaic creation as six periods, each of immense length. These proposed methods of harmonizing the system with the sacred text, are examined by the Author in his fourth chapter. On the hypothesis, that the six days of the Bible creation are six periods, each of immense length, and that, in the course of these six periods, the universal organization of crude matter was effected, he remarks:

<God made the earth and every thing upon it in six days. Or, according to this theory, it must be, in three days. For the first day was occupied by the formation of light, which could make no change in the physical structure of the globe, or produce any of its revolutions. The fourth day was appropriated to the "heavenly" bodies, which must therefore be exempt from the process affecting the "earth". And the sixth day was engaged in forming man and modern animals; which, however, do not belong to the inquiry concerning the ancient formations. It would seem, moreover, that the work of the second day, namely, the formation of the "firmament", or expanse, was in no way immediately concerned with any material physical changes in the substance of our globe. So that we should have but two, or at most three days' work in the whole creative process.' p. 49.

According to the hypothesis, all the physical revolutions concerned in the formation of the secondary strata, are necessarily subsequent to the production of vegetable and animal beings. The inconsistency of this with the account in Genesis is shewn by the following collation.

THE SCRIPTURES, ON THE PROCESS OF CREATION.

1. The "first day" or period, God created "light".-Gen. i. 3. 2. The second-The "firmament", the expansion; or, as it respects us, our atmosphere.-Gen. i. 7.

3. The third period-The "waters" which hitherto appear to have surrounded the earth, were caused to retire, and the "dry land" appeared. This appears to be the first and only physical revolution.v, 9.

In this third period, the earth brought forth grass, trees, and vege

tables.

4. The fourth period-The heavenly luminaries.v. 16.

5. The fifth period-fish and fowls were created, perhaps both from the "sea.”—v. 21.

6. The sixth period—animals and man were created.—v. 24, 28, This process then affords,

1. One PHYSICAL revolution; The third day or period.

2. Three days or periods-The third, fifth, and sixth, for vegetables and animal productions.

1. Vegetables-in the third period.

2. Fishes and fowls-in the fifth period.

3. Animals and man-in the sixth period.

All then that we can derive from this process is, one revolution in the physical state of the earth,-and three, or at most four successions of vegetables and animals. But what is remarkable here is, that the only revolution which takes place in the physical character of the earth, takes place BEFORE either vegetables, or animals, or fishes are created. And no revolution takes place in the structure of the earth, AFTER even vegetables, which are the first thing, are produced!

This circumstance of itself is utterly destructive of every pretence of agreement between the Mosaic narrative and physical geology.'

pp. 52, 53. According to the hypothesis which makes the Bible history of the Creation to be an account of the preparation of the globe for the reception of the human race, the Mosaic Creation merges in the revolutions which geologists suppose to havetaken place in the Earth, and is one of them. The last of these revolutions was the Deluge; and the one immediately preceding was, the creation which Moses records.' But, as this supposed change was only a process of preparation to accommodate the surface of the earth for the residence of human beings, it could no more be a creation than the Deluge, which is never represented as a creation. Besides, as the Author remarks,

The "Palæotheria", and other land animals, which, geologists inform us, were big as the elephant, and small as our deer, all of which, according to this Theory, lived and died before the creation of man, would need a suitable soil for vegetables, and they could not exist without it. That soil, then, whatever it might be, which supplied suitable food for animals so numerous and so enormous, could not be a soil at all unsuitable for the use of man. Especially as all this food must have grown spontaneously and without cultivation; for, by the very hypothesis itself, "there was not a man to till the ground." "

p. 65.

But what are the representations of the Bible in respect to the Creation? It is quite irrelevant to the consideration of the subject, to propose the query which has sometimes been suggested, Was there no creation till within the limits of the period assigned by the Mosaic History? It has been gravely stated,

that there never was a period in which the Creator existed 'without a creation, though he was prior to any of his works.' It is easy to deliver a dictum like this; but, to render it intelligible, might surpass the ingenuity of its author. Such a proposition might serve as the text for a series of subtile disputations in the schools, to the jargon of which it is well adapted; but it is too much in the form of a paradox, and too nearly allied to the senseless doctrines of the ancient atheistical sects, to be countenanced by Christian divines. A creation is different from an eternal series, and must have had a commencement. The question, therefore, would always be of equal force, whether thousands, or millions of years were assumed as the interval from its beginning. Such objections, the Author very properly observes, are forced upon us by our feelings, rather than by our judgement, and are evidently undeserving of regard. Antecedent and independent existence was clearly in the contemplation of the Hebrew prophet, when he wrote the ninetieth Psalm: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." The formation of the earth is susceptible here of no other interpretation than that which explains it as meaning the absolute production of the globe; inasmuch as the connection requires a reference to the very first of existing objects. In attempting to determine the meaning of creation, it is of but little use to refer to the term employed in the first of Genesis, and rendered "created" in the English versions, there being no proof that the verb signifies to produce from nothing; and it is used to express the formation of man " of the dust of the ground." It is from the current language of the Scriptures that we must ascertain the sense in which they determine the nature of the creation they describe, and to which they so frequently allude; whether original production is intended, or merely arrangement of materials already, and long previously, in existence. The sixth chapter of the work before us, comprises an induction and examination of passages with this design.

On the work of the fifth day, Gen. i. 20-23, the Author comments as follows.

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the mov"ing creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth, "in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales "and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought "forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, say"ing, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let "fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were "the fifth day."