the Library of the Theological Seminary Andover, N. E.

from the author

ON THE RELATION BETWEEN

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

AND SOME PARTS OF

GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.

There is a knowledge which creates doubts that nothing but a larger knowledge ean satisfy; and he who stops in the difficulty will be perplexed and uncomfortable for life. MR. SHARON TURNER.

ON THE

RELATION

BETWEEN

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

AND SOME PARTS OF

GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.

BY

JOHN PYE SMITH, D.D. F.R.S. & F.G.S.

DIVINITY TUTOR IN THE PROTESTANT DISSENTING COLLEGE AT HOMERION.

THIRD EDITION,

WITH MANY ADDITIONS.

Οὐθὲν ἀνθρώπῳ λαβεῖν μεῖζον, οὐ χαρίσασθαι Θεῷ σεμνότερον, ἀληθείας.

PLUTARCH. de Is. et Osir.

"Than TRUTH, no greater blessing can man receive, nor God bestow."

LONDON:

JACKSON AND WALFORD,

18, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.

M DCCC XLIII.

GEOLOGY, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects which it treats, undoubtedly ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to Astronomy.

SIR JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL.

The conclusions of GEOLOGY have lent, in fact, a new evidence to revealed religion. They have broken the arms of the sceptic; and, when we ponder over the great events which they proclaim, the mighty revolutions which they indicate, the wrecks of successive creations which they display, and the immeasurable cycles of their chronology, the era of man shrinks into contracted dimensions; his proudest and most ancient dynasties wear the aspect of upstart and ephemeral groups; the fabrics of human power, the gorgeous temple, the monumental bronze, the regal pyramid, sink inte insignificance beside the mighty sarcophagi of the brutes that perish.

QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. 1xx. p. 57.

319.2

PREFACE.

THE following lectures were prepared and delivered, by the appointment of the Committee of the Congregational Lecture, under some peculiarity of circumstances. The appointment was unexpected, and the notice unavoidably short. Several parts, therefore, and those referring to subjects of the greatest importance, were treated in a manner too brief, and, indeed, extemporaneously: but to the kind and attentive audience the promise was given that, if the publication should take place, the author would supply those deficiencies. This he has endeavoured to do partly by filling up the portions which, in the delivery, were but sketched, and partly by adding Notes, both on the immediate pages, and in a Supplementary Appendix.

The reader will perceive that numerous citations are introduced. For this no apology is requisite: and, indeed, so richly interesting are the most of those passages, that it would have been a wrong to the subject and to the reader to have withheld them.