such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which He formed them; and, that He variously associated them, and set them in order, in His FIRST CREATION, by the counsels of His own Intelligence; antecedently to the commencement of all secondary causes, or laws, which, though they might continue the first formations, could not possibly have any share in producing them.

The corollaries which resulted from that conclusion, were these:

1. That, in the first formations of all material things, God anticipated, by an immediate and incomprehensible act of His power, sensible effects, which were thenceforward to be produced only by gradual processes, of which He then established the laws.

2. That the sensible phenomena alone of the first formations of material things, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, could not therefore determine any thing at all concerning the mode of their formation; because, the mode by which they were actually first formed, must have been in direct contradiction to all apparent indications of their phenomena.

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"That the things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear"-μr εx ÞAINOμη εκ ΜΕΝΩΝ τα βλεπομενα γεγονεναι, but, "that they

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were formed by the Word of GOD-of HIM, who "calleth those things which are not as though they

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were”—κατηρτισθαι ρηματι Θεου του καλουντος

Ta μn Ovτa ws ovтa; is, therefore, not only the first principle of faith, but the first principle also of philosophy; of that reformed philosophy, which was effected by BACON and NEWTON. And thus, in this first great principle, both true philosophy and religious faith are found identified.

CHAPTER II.

IN entering upon a minute examination of the text of this Sacred Record, in order to obtain a true and precise apprehension of its contents, it is indispensably necessary, first of all, that we should inform ourselves, correctly, of its general nature and true character; by exercising the most scrupulous caution and circumspection, and by diligently employing those means of interpretation, which the resources of sound learning and sound criticism are alone able to supply.

With respect to the general nature and character of the record, methods of exposition have been devised, diversified, and applied, in all the variety which the subject matter could suggest to vivacity of imagination and ingenuity of conjecture: "tam varias (as has been truly remarked), "et multa ex parte ineptas, ut qui omnes consideraverit, et inter se comparaverit, multo sit incertior

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quam antea fuit1-so various, and in a great proportion so absurd, that whoever considers "them all, and compares them all together, will "be in greater perplexity than he was before."

It was judiciously observed by an early ecclesiastical writer, "that the scope or main object of

1 ROSENMULLER, Sen. Antiquiss. Tell. Hist. p. 7.

"Moses in his history of the Creation, was not to “instruct mankind in physics or in astronomy, but,

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to bring them to, and establish them in, the know

ledge of GOD1." Yet, as that knowledge was ordained to embrace a knowledge of the works and proceedings of God therein revealed; the same writer further points out to our attention, with equal judgment, "that the Mosaical history of the cos

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mogony entirely harmonises with the phenomena." Although, therefore, we are not to look for physical science technically so called, or for a system of physics, in the history, it is nevertheless manifest, that it behoves us to endeavour to trace the harmony subsisting between the physical facts which are there declared or intimated, and the physical phenomena which are apparent in the globe; from the investigation of which harmony, by the light of sound philosophy, we shall be able to deduce, and establish, a true Mosaical Geology. It would argue a very great obtuseness of intellect, not to be able to discern the difference between physical facts and a system of physics; the former of which, though not the latter, are included in the Mosaical history, and they therefore challenge our first attention, in considering the history of the Earth or the foundations of Geology.

1 ότι σκοπος ην τῳ Μωσει, ούτε φυσιολογησαι ουτε αστρονομησαι· αλλ' εις θεογνωσίαν και επι της κοσμογονιας ανθρωπους αγαγειν και παραστησαι. IOн. PHILOPONus, eis тny é§anueрov. Ар. PноTII BIBLIOTH. ccxl. p. 991.

2 συμφωνον ΤΟΙΣ ΦΑΙΝΟΜΕΝΟΙΣ την του θεσπεσίου Μωσέως κοσμος γενειαν. Ib.

No expositor has so simply, so briefly, and yet so critically pointed out the rules for the true interpretation of the record, as the author of the first of these remarks, the learned D. I. G. Rosenmuller, in his little tract entitled " Antiquissima "Telluris Historia;" which rules are incorporated by his learned son, E. F. C. Rosenmuller, into his" Scholia in Genesin, cap. 1." Although this venerable expositor has been incautiously drawn, by the imposing countenance of mineral geologists -"metallicarum rerum periti,"-into some concessions militating in certain particulars against the plain import of the record, yet, the principles of his interpretation are so sound and true, that they supply the means of rectifying even his own aberrations in this respect; which aberrations, however, are not greater than those of our own learned commentator, Bishop Patrick, who has in a similar manner been seduced, by the same insufficient cause, into concessions injurious to the truth, because contrary to the import, of the record.

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"All ingenuous and unprejudiced persons, (says the learned German,) will grant me this "position: that there is no method for removing "difficulties more secure than that of an accurate

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interpretation, derived from the words of the text "themselves and from their true and legitimate meaning, and depending upon no hypothesis. Being impressed with this truth, and having repeatedly perused the text with a view to this principle; I now submit the interpretation which appears

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