thus produced, and consisting of the fractured and apparently ruined surface of one portion of the globe. The inveterate oversight of this great, I would say prominent, event in the Mosaic annals1, is the true cause of the delusion under which the mineral geology adventures to assert a discordance between " the Hebrew geology and the actual "observations of nature;" and, it is the same oversight that has urged the able author of the " Vin"dicia Geologica" to advance, that " Geology

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(i. e. mineral geology,) goes further than the "Mosaic account, in shewing that the present system of this planet is built on the wreck and " ruin of one more ancient3." It certainly does not go further, nor yet so far, for it does not ascend to "the beginning;" it only, unconsciously, perceives the vestiges of that first revolution indicated by the record; but, from not viewing these by the light of the Mosaic truth, and employing only unguided imagination and hypothesis in attempting to decipher them, it assigns them erroneously with relation both to cause and to time; and thus, it anachronically assumes the epocha of "wreck

"Two only points, (says Mr. Conybeare,) can be in any manner "implicated in the discussions of Geology: 1. The Noachian deluge. "2. The antiquity of the earth." (Introd. p. lvi.) The first rending of the depths, and the first gathering together of the universal waters within a part of the globe, so that a dry surface should appear above them; although the determination of these in questions of geology must be essential; has wholly escaped the consideration of this inquiring writer also.

2 HUMBOLDT, Superpos. of Rocks, p. 23. 3 Vindic. Geol. p. 24.

"and ruin" to have preceded that of the earliest transactions inscribed in the Mosaic history. But, the sequel of the record, will empower us to decipher all the hieroglyphic of these monumental vestiges of that first revolution.

When this great work of forming the sea-bed was accomplished, and when the reserved portion of the globular surface was exposed to the action of light and of air, that portion exhibited a mere mineral surface, brute, barren, and "unfur"nished." But, it pleased God to employ it immediately to the end for which He had formed it, and for which He had disengaged it from the waters; and to furnish it, at once, with an universal investiture of vegetation, formed to maintain, by the laws of decay and reproduction, a perpetual succession and increase of vegetable matter to clothe and incase the mineral. An immediate act of God, similar to that which, on the first day, gave instantaneous and perfect existence to His mineral system of this globe, and established its laws, gave instantaneous and perfect existence also, on the third day, to His vegetable system, and established its proper laws in all the individuals composing it. The first tree and its wood, like the first rock and its grain, were produced by a mode in which no secondary causes could possibly have had any share; and, though the tree was afterwards to produce seed in which a process of lignification should originate, yet itself was formed without the intervention of that process. And, although it

would wear the appearance of that process, yet the same reason which tells us that it would wear that appearance, tells us at the same time, that the appearance alone would be no indication of the reality of the process; so that it could exercise no delusion, upon any sane and well-advised intellect.

Thus, then, the earth was at once furnished, and invested with the maturity of vegetation; “with "the herb yielding seed," and "with the TREE

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yielding fruit, after its kind." In the meantime, the clouded atmosphere still continuing, light continued to exist only as an effect unconnected with its cause. Its course, however, still proceeding, the evening and the morning completed the Third Day.

CHAPTER VI.

THE historian now arrives at his Fourth Article, and at the great and signal facts which it reveals. He relates:

"And GOD said, Let the LIGHTS in the firma"ment of Heaven for dividing the day and the night, BE for SIGNS, and for SEASONS, and for DAYS "and YEARS; and let them BE for lights in the firmament of Heaven TO GIVE LIGHT UPON THE "EARTH! And it was so.

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"And GOD made the Two great lights (namely,) THE GREATER LIGHT to RULE the DAY, and THE LESSER LIGHT to RULE the NIGHT, together with the stars. And God disposed them in the firmament of Heaven TO GIVE LIGHT UPON

THE EARTH, and to RULE the DAY and the 66 NIGHT. And GOD saw that it was good.

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"And the evening and the morning were the FOURTH DAY."

1. The declaration of this important article, is of the utmost consequence to all the preceding exposition, because, it proves and establishes its

correctness.

It is truly and excellently remarked by Rosenmuller-that "if any one, who is con

"versant with the genius of the Hebrew, and free from any previous bias of his judgment, "will read the words of this article in their "natural connexion, he will immediately per

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ceive; that they import the direction, or deter"mination of the heavenly bodies to certain uses which they were to render to the earth. The words are not to be separated from the rest, or to be rendered, fiant luminaria, — let there be lights; i. e. let lights be made; but rather, let lights be, that is, serve, in the expanse of Heaven

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inserviant in expanso cælorum—for distinguishing between day and night; and let them be, or serve, for signs, &c. For we are to observe, "that the verb, , to be, in construction with "the prefix, for, is generally employed to express the direction or determination of a thing to

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an end; and not the production of the thing:

e. g. Num. x. 31, Zech. viii. 19, and in many "other places." This observation, is most just and sound; and it is indispensably necessary, for the true apprehension of the passage before us.

2. The word лD-lights, signifies, apparent luminaries: as, in common language, we call light -, that which is diffused as an effect, without referring to the cause; but, we call lights or luminaries, the sources of that light, as lamps, or candles. The same distinction between a sensible effect and a sensible cause, is found in the different significations of these words, and

-ws and wornpes. The sensible effect, was