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the theologian. And, finding ourselves too far committed to recede, or to advance further to different subjects in the present Number, we shall shortly conclude with the discussion before us, on which we had not intended so fully to enter, adding one or two direct observations.

1. We cannot ourselves but view the subject of Geology, and cannot but wish others to view it likewise, as a subject of immense difficulty. The mere process of digging for subterranean phenomena, through small spaces, and at vast distances, is a labour which, how ever to be surmounted by human perseverance, yet leaves to human ingenuity a most severe task in arranging those phenomena. But, after arranging the discoveries so made, with an apparently sufficient degree of accuracy, then to reason upon the question, who placed the materials there, and when, and how, seems to us quite another grade of difficulty. To enunciate, as a fact, the circulation of the blood, is one thing: to inquire who made it circulate, and when, and how, is quite another. Indeed, in proportion as these remoter geological inquiries are unconnected with human duty, or human benefit, so may it not be reasonably suggested, that their resolution has been placed at the utmost verge of human knowledge-perhaps intentionally left, by the Great Author and Revealer of all things, among "the secret things that belong unto the Lord our God?" For our own part, we know not on which of the two subjects we feel a deeper consciousness of insufficiency, we might say of intrusion, in entering; whether on the plurality of the worlds above us, or the strata of earth beneath us. "Who is it that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it ?" could believe any part of holy Scrip

If we

ture to have been written with an express view to future diversities and stirrings of opinion; we should certainly say, that from the 37th to the 41st chapters of the Book of Job had been of old particularly addressed to the present times. After all that has been revealed, compared with all that is clearly seen, all that is plain and palpable around us; must we not say, enough is provided to make us intelligent, as well as humble, adorers of the power and wisdom of the Sovereign Creator? And will not the believer allow, that some obscurities may still have been left behind, both in Scripture and in Nature, to try our forbearance, and to teach us diffidence before the presence of the Great Supreme? The attempt made by so able and good a man, and so profound a writer, as Mr. Faber, to clear up those obscurities, is indeed no subject for carping: and we should be much rather disposed to offer to such a person a kind of dictatorship in Scriptural Geology, could we believe the attempt in question to be fairly within the grasp of any human understanding.

Si Pergama dextra Defendi possent, etiam hộc defensa fuis

sent.

But the possibility of the undertaking is to us the matter of doubt. And, abstaining intentionally from any critical discussion, may we not still ask, whether a single instance does not warrant our doubt? Does not, for example, the one simple annunciation of the Divine historian, "AND THE EVENING

AND THE MORNING WERE THE

FIRST DAY," outweigh the utmost power of human ingenuity to stretch the meaning of the writer, or the mind of the Holy Spirit, into an indefinite portion of time, of which, at last as at first, it is confessed, we know little or nothing at all?

2. If it be true that difficulties and obscurities are of the very essence of this inquisitive science; it is then to be expected that no prof

fered explanations will, in point of fact, be found a removal of those difficulties. Thus the supposed catastrophes, successively carrying down beneath the surface so many strata in their orderly course, seem to us to have required the same watchful Eye, and unerring Hand, to have guided them to the desired results, as if they had all been summed up in that one known convulsion of the scriptural Flood. Again; that the vegetation created, (and why in seed?) on the third DAY, should have survived so many subsequent millenaries of universal overthrow and submersion, and should still remain to bedeck and enamel the fields and the valleys of the seventh or Sabbatic DAY, seems to us, without another intervening miracle of vegetable creation on the sixth, as great a miracle as all the rest. And, again, the destructive submersions, more especially supposed on the fifth and sixth DAYS, without any bearing, that we know of, on the general benefit of surviving or succeeding productions of creation, would appear to tend rather more to perplex than to satisfy the inquiring mind. Once more; the minute point of time in which the act of creation could have been going forward, even during the very DAYS of work themselves, would seem to bear no proportion to the periods of rest during those same DAYS, after the creation had set the machine to work: so that rest, far from being the exclusive state of the seventh, or Sabbatic DAY, would in fact have been the general state even of each successive DAY, after the opening fiat of creation. From this last consideration, perhaps, might arise a suggestion, how far He, with whom a single day is as a thousand years, might not within the space of an actual day have done the whole work assigned to Him in six thousand years: how far, that is, He might not both have created, and, if necessary, submerged masses, to us enormous, but to Him" a very little thing,"

within the single space literally assigned by the historian, from " evening to morning."

3. Seeing, after all, that a necessity for Divine interposition naturally arises even out of the very attempt to dispense with it, upon any thing like Scriptural grounds; may we not be excused for resorting immediately to that which is the fairest and the humblest solution of all inexplicable difficulties—namely, a primary reference to that Divine Power which we know, and that Divine Revelation which we possess? To contest with the acute and philosophic Cuvier, what exact line of operation any conceivable flood of waters would necessarily take, in arranging or deranging the lower strata of the earth, were a vain and pedantic presumption on our own part But, may it not also lie beyond the sagacity of Cuvier himself, to disprove the possibility of an Almighty Hand, and a Divine Mind, choosing and executing the very plan of stratification in question, as His own foreseen result of a Flood, which He was Himself to bring miraculously upon the earth? Should He have chosen that, in such a process, vegetable matter should sink the first and lowest; that marine exuviæ, being already within the watery bosom, should be deposited the next; that birds and animals should survive the longest, and therefore remain for the third or upper stratum ; leaving at the same time, or providing afterwards for, those unaccountable cracks and fissures through the very strata so formed, by methods best known to Himself*, are we still to suppose, that every difficulty in the way of such an arrangement should have presented a barrier insurmountable to Omnipotence itself?

The non-discovery of human bones or fossils in any strata, or supposed diluvial soils hitherto found, presents a difficulty alike under every system of geology; and proves how short a way either our theories, or our facts, have hitherto advanced towards a complete geological history, or theory of the earth.

Or, might we not more reasonably presume, that the very difficulty we contemplate may be the point provided to try our humility; at least, to rebut our prying, inquiries into the how and the when; and that the grand lesson to be learned by modern oryctology may be this, an acknowledgment, ex post facto, of the effects of the Deluge, rather than a presumption, à priori, that the Deluge can have had no effect in their production?

We have exceeded our own intention in the above episodical discussion, which precludes our return for the present to the really important and interesting subject of these volumes. We trust, however, that the venerable author will excuse the freedom, as well as our readers the length, of the remarks into which we have been inadvertently drawn on the subject of geology. It has forcibly struck us, in considering the subject, to be one of very serious bearing on the general interests of Revelation; and, as it is now expounded, the most hazardous concessions are made to the infidels, even in combating their opinions. Without at all wishing to commit ourselves to the counter expositions offered by an above-mentioned animated author and champion of Revelation as it is, Granville Penn; we still think no Scriptural system of geology complete which does not embrace a full and fair discussion of the views entertained by that respectable writer, and lately developed with an especial view to the present systems in fashion. In defect of any further reference to Mr. Penn, we shall conclude with two quotations;-one from himself, indicative of his general view, we must say in much accordance with our own, of the concessions now made to the unbelieving philosophy; the other is from an author whose mind we conceive to have been in much congeniality with the original bent of Mr. Faber's, and whose writings will lead us to the subject which we hope hereafter

to pursue with a far more willing pace; namely, the connexion of ancient with recent, sacred with profane history, in conspiring to prove the one great object of all Revelation to have been salvation through a Redeemer.

First, for Mr. Penn, who, in speaking of the theory of De Luc, with regard to the indefinite length of the Mosaic days of creation, says, "What is the motive, which he sets forth to allure our will to his fantastical interpretation? For it is not our reason that he addresses, but our will. It is to conciliate unbelievers. To conciliate unbelievers, by supplying them with every needful means of light for discerning the truths which they do not apprehend or recognize, is doubtless a high moral and Christian duty; but, to strive to conciliate them by a surrender of any particle of truth, to modify or change it, to cut and fashion it to the measure and mode of their disposition to conviction, is a breach of trust of the same kind, as to bid our master's debtor take his bill, and write down fifty measures of wheat, when an hundred measures' are the just amount of the score. We are not intrusted with any latitude or discretion, for thus negotiating the good will of inâdelity in the article of revealed truth. We must take care to present it pure and genuine; and unbelievers must then take it as it is, or they must leave it; but, those who attempt a compromise, by an unauthorised concession, are not the champions, but the betrayers, of that truth: non tali auxilio, &c.". (Penn's Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaic Geologies, 8vo. 1822.)

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Next,says the learned Shuckford,in reference to the incipient deviations of mankind from the true faith, by a too speculative inquiry into the mysteries of nature: "The first men of Egypt, according to Diodorus Siculus, considering the world and the nature of the universe, imagined two first eternal gods: so

that it was their speculative inquiries into the nature of things that led them to errors about the Deity; and, if we examine, we shall see that from the beginning to the present times, it has always been the vain philosophy, and an affectation of science falsely so called, that has corrupted religion. The first Egyptians had, without doubt, a short account of the history of the world transmitted to them-an account of the creation, of the origin of mankind, and of the method of worship which God had appointed. As Abraham had received instruction from his forefathers, so also the Egyptians had from theirs: but they

did not take a due care not to deviate from what had thus been transmitted to them. Some great genius or other thinking to speculate, and to establish such speculations as he judged to be true, and therefore very proper to be admitted into their religious inquiries, happened to think wrong; and so began a scheme of error, which others, age after age, refined upon, and added to, until, by steps and degrees, they built up the whole frame of their idolatries and superstitions."-(Shuckford's Connexion of Sacred and Profane History, p.318, vol.i. 1728.) (To be continued.)

LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE,

&c. &c.

GREAT BRITAIN. PREPARING for publication:-The Life, and a Critical Examination of the Writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor; by Dr. Heber, Bishop of Calcutta ;-Collegiate and Parochial Churches; by P. Neale and J. Le Keux ;-Cuvier's Animal Kingdom translated, with additions; - Doctrinal and Practical Sermons (by subscription); by the Rev. J. Bull, M.A.

In the press:-A Second Volume of Sermons; by the Rev. J. W. Cunningham; - Memoirs of Mrs. Sheridan ; Mexican Antiquities, and Curiosities; by Mr. Bullock;-A Sketch of the System of Education at New Lanark; by R. D. Owen;-History of the Dark Ages, by C. Chatfield;-Massillon's Thoughts ;Youth Warned, a Sermon by the Rev. T. James;-The Good Samaritan; by the Rev. J. Hooper;-Sacred Tactics, an attempt to exhibit by tabular arrangements, a general rule of Composition prevailing in the Holy Scriptures; by the Rev. T. Boys, A.M.

Cambridge. The prize for the Hulsean dissertation for the year 1823, was adjudged to W. C. Walters, B.A., Fellow of Jesus college. Subject, "The Nature and Advantage of the influence of the Holy Spirit."

The following is the subject of the Hulsean dissertation for the present year:

"The Doctrines of our Saviour, as derived from the four Gospels, are in perfect Har'mony with the Doctrines of St. Paul, as derived from his Epistles."

Sir W. Browne's Gold Medals. The subjects for the present year are: For the Greek Ode

· Ω παίδες Ελλήνων ἔτε Ελευθεροῦτε πατρίς, ἐλευθεροῦτε δέ Παῖδας, γυναίκας νῦν ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀγών. Latin Ode-"Aleppo,'Urbs Syriæ, terræ motu, funditus eversa.

Epigrams-" Scribimus indocti doctique—.”

A public meeting lately took place at Brighton, the Dean of Hereford in the chair, to consider the propriety of establishing an infant school in that town, on the plan of those in Westminster and Spitalfields. The meeting were of an opinion that infant schools, under proper management and superintendence, would prove highly useful nurseries for the infant poor, and be subservient to training them in the very first instance to obedience and regular habits. A Committee was appointed to carry the object into effect.

The Bishop of Chester, in a sermon lately published for the benefit of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline and the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders, wisely and most humanely points out the duty of assisting prisoners

upon their discharge, especially juvenile offenders, to obtain some means of livelihood without resorting to their evil practices. "The period at length arrives, when the prisoners must be removed from all further discipline and restraint. But, when thus liberated, whither are they to go? to what place can they direct their steps or views? They may have seen the error of their ways; they may be desirous of abandoning the course they have unhappily run. But how are they to regain the path of honest livelihood? Character is gone professions are not believed: even the most compassionate, they who most sensibly feel and lament the frailties of our nature, are nevertheless afraid to receive under their roof a practised criminal, the hitherto supposed associate of the vilest and most abandoned characters. This is the sad scene which presents itself to many a discharged and repentant prisoner. His course, alas! is almost certain. His former haunts and companions are ready to receive him, and scarcely does there appear to be any other alternative. With such facilities and inducements on one side, with such difficulties and obstacles on the other, we cannot wonder, neither ought we too severely to condemn these ill-fated outcasts, if they relapse once more into their former habits; if the last state of such offenders become worse than the first. The Committee, therefore, of Prison Discipline, would have but imperfectly discharged their labour of love, if they had not directed their attention to the prisoners, at this the most decisive period of their lives. And here the friends of humanity cannot too warmly applaud their humane exertions. In the very feelings and spirit of the religion of Jesus Christ, they have established a Temporary Refuge;' into which youthful prisoners may be received on their first discharge from prison. In it they are taught some useful employment or trade, by the practice of which they may earn their livelihood, when they are again thrown upon the world. Nor is this all. They, at the same time, are instructed in the principles of religion, in the knowledge of their duty both to God and man. With this view, the service of our church is regularly administered twice on each Sabbath, and once on every other day of the week. Can any one receive the very mention of such an establishment, without applauding the motive? Can he hear of such a deed, without the wish, and an effort, we trust, to uphold and increase its utility?

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Professor Buckland, in his " Reliquiæ Diluviana," lately published, sums up the

result of his remarks on the German caves as follows:

"The facts I have enumerated go to establish a perfect analogy, as far as relates to the loam and pebbles, and stalagmitic incrustations in the caves and fissures of Germany and England, and lead us to infer an identity in the time and manner in which these earthy deposits were introduced; and this identity is still further confirmed by the agreement in species, of the animals whose remains we find enveloped by them, both in caves and fissures, as well as in the superficial deposits of similar loam and pebbles on the surface of the adjacent countries; namely, by the agreement of the animals of the English caves and fissures, not only with each other, but with those of the diluvial gravel of England, and of the greater part of Europe and in the case of the German caves, by the identity of their extinct bear with that found in the diluvial gravel of Upper Austria; and of the extinct hyæna with that of the gravel at Canstadt, in the valley of the Necker; at Horden, near Herzberg, in the Hartz; at Eichstadt, in Bavaria; the Val d'Arno, in Italy; and Lawford, in Warwickshire. To these may be added the extinct rhinoceros, elephant, and hippopotamus, which are common to gravel beds as well as caves; and hence it follows that the period at which the earth was inhabited by all the animals in question, was that immediately antecedent to the formation of those superficial and almost universal deposits of loam and gravel, which it seems impossible to account for unless we ascribe them to a transient deluge, affecting universally, simultaneously, and at no very distant period, the entire surface of our planet.' Professor Buckland states, that human remains found in caves are all of comparatively low antiquity, and attended by circumstances which indicate them to be of postdiluvian origin. Human remains have not been found in any antediluvian deposits. Mr. Buckland also inquires into "the evidence of diluvial action afforded by the accumulation on the earth's surface of loam and gravel, containing the remains of the same species of animals that we find in the caves and fissures, and by the form and structure, of hills and valleys in all parts of the world."

These evidences of a general inundation are deduced from the dispersion of the bones of elephants; by deposits of loam and gravel; and from proofs of diluvial action, in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, on the continent, in North America, in Africa, and Asia, and at high levels. The Pro

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