'with authority commanded the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm,' he did not more infallibly prove that it was HIS voice, which on the third day of creation commanded the waters to go into one place, than he gave evidence that 'He is governor among the nations.'

As this first part of the work of the third day presaged the power of the Son of God over the present world and its affairs, so did the production of vegetable life, out of the dry earth,' foretell the power of his voice over the children of the resurrection,' who shall spring up like the grass of the field.' Need we remind our readers, that the most striking proof in nature of it not being a thing incredible that God should raise the dead, is the fact, that the seed sown in the earth dies ere it spring forth? Was there any natural necessity for this? If not, why was such a law implanted in nature ? Was it merely to give us an opportunity of remarking how very singular it was, that seeds, as well as men, required to die, ere they could put on 'newness of life'? How long shall we be prepared to own prescience and contrivance in natural things, and yet be deterred from tracing the prophetic finger of the Author of life eternal, in works, which he not only claims as his own, but which he himself uses as illustrations of the life that is to come?

We should be tempted to anticipate much that will more appropriately claim attention in a more advanced stage of the enquiry, were we at all to enter here on the consideration of the other ORDINATIONS; particularly of the fourth day, when the

light was concentrated in the instruments of light, or heavenly bodies, which were set for SIGNS, as well as for seasons. These are so copiously used, in a figurative sense, throughout the Bible, that the most superficial reader of it, and the most literal interpreter of it, are constrained to own that mere fancy or imagination, on the part of the sacred poets and historians, will scarcely account for the frequency of the introduction of the SIGNS of heaven, or the singularity of their application. The references already made to the earlier works, are sufficient to establish such a distinct allusion to the invisible works of God, at the creation, as prove that 'the time, mode, and disposition of the works' neither arose from any inherent natural causes, existing amongst the materials employed, nor from any indefinite choice (if the term can be used without profanity) on the part of Him to whom all modes were equally open and easy; but had their source in the same unchangeable Divine Wisdom, which provided a pattern for the tabernacle and temple in the same Divine love which fitted every part of the visible creation, as well as of the temple, to utter forth that peculiar glory of God,' which consists in promising mercy, and in keeping it. Those to whom that promise is valuable, will delight to trace it in the works of creation; and, as they trace it, a conviction of the truth and certainty of the inspired record of the creation will arise in their minds, which the smiles or sneers of science or infidelity will in vain assail. They gain, at every step, new assurances, that the purposes of

grace and mercy, which creation TESTIFIES were in the Divine mind when the universe was planned, will continue to be the wonder of all in heaven, when a complete knowledge of the mechanism of creation shall have stripped science of its intricacy, and removed the film from the eyes of philosophy.

We, who are privileged to have the pages of the Bible open to us, do not require to investigate, deeply, the lessons which creation enforces; but we shall neither read the Bible, nor survey Nature, with less interest, if we see reason to conclude, that the finest images with which the Word of God abounds, were originally drawn from a source, enriched for that very purpose, by the hand of Divine wisdom. Neither shall we, in investigating the primeval philosophy or theology (for they were then one), be able to appreciate its great principles or understand its imperishable sayings and leading truths, if we are not so far grounded in the rudiments of early knowledge, as to trace, in the allusions with which it abounds to the visible creation, not fancied coincidences or imaginative allegories, but illustrations of the invisible things of God, implanted on the earth and spread abroad upon the heavens by the finger of God himself, to keep alive his truth, and to perpetuate the memory of his covenant.

Let the philosopher, then, please himself with contemplating the beauty, the order, the infinite extent, and the variety in the universe; let him search for proofs of the Divine wisdom and power in the most minute insect or atom, that floats in the water or in the sun-beam; and carry his reflections to infinity

of worlds, teeming with life, and all upheld by the same Almighty power: we quarrel not with his avocation; it is, in many respects, a delightful oneit is, in many instances, a useful one; and the mind may often thus be led from nature to nature's God. But such reflections come infinitely short of those which fill the mind, when we follow the inspired penman to the birth of creation; and, with him, behold every fiat of the Almighty illustrating more and more, as the works arose, the purposes of grace and mercy stored in the Divine mind; until we see the whole creation finished, and standing to this day a witness to the truth of God; bearing testimony, not only that 'the hand which made it is divine,' but that the same hand made it which penned the Scriptures; and that the thoughts towards man' which dictated the Scriptures, were the thoughts which guided the hand of Omnipotence when it spread forth the heavens as a curtain.

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CHAPTER II.

SCRIPTURE GEOLOGY.

DID philosophy confine itself to reflections and enquiries, merely inconsistent with, not in absolute contradiction of Scripture, we might well decline to allude farther to the objections it has started to the Mosaic account of creation. But when, from a few insulated facts, which the greatest authorities on the subject acknowledge to be totally inadequate to the formation of a theory, it is attempted to throw discredit on the veracity, as well as the philosophy, of Moses, we should have a weak cause indeed, if it did not furnish us with an ample reply to such

reasoners.

By many it would be, and has been, deemed a sufficient answer, that all the operations of nature, in the beginning, were brought about in a miraculous way; and that we ought not to attempt to say how much, or how little, could be done in six days miraculously. This reply is generally followed up with the remark, that the Bible was not given to instruct in science.