of matter, it is not related, God said, Let the heaven and the earth be,' as it is related of His "other works which ensued; but, simply and actually, God created the heaven and the earth:' so that the matter itself seems to have been,

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as it were, a work of hand; but the intro"duction of its form, bears the style of a law or a "decree1."

BACON here appeals to a "Revealed History "of the Creation," the authority of which his judgment entirely acknowledged, and the statements of which he employed for the foundation of his new philosophy; a document, which we should therefore have expected to obtain equal authority with all those, who endeavour to gain confidence to their own doctrines by making profession of conforming to his. This "Revealed History," is no other than the record which was imparted to man by GOD, (the only possible voucher for the fact of creation,) through the ministry of MOSES; the authority of which record is acknowledged, with equal homage of the reason, by NEWTON, and supplies the last degree of evidence that remained, to perfect that of the highest probability deduced by NEWTON from a general analysis of the universe.

This sacred and inestimable record, which was revealed to mankind above 3000 years ago, unfolds a detailed recital-1. of the mode by which

1 BACON de Augment. Scient. lib. i. p. 37, vol. iv.

God at the first "formed, and set in order" the entire system of this terrestrial globe; and 2. of the mode by which He caused it to sustain an universal revolution, 1656 years after He first formed it.

A record of such amazing authority, ought in common reason to direct, and altogether to govern the intelligence, in all researches concerning first formations and subsequent revolutions of the earth; for, in proportion as we should depart from such a guide, we must necessarily depart from the only rule which can be able to establish certainty upon those subjects. This record contains, and supplies, the root or fundamental principles of the MoSAICAL GEOLOGY. We shall therefore proceed to investigate the great and important facts imparted in this sacred Geological History; applying them to the same test to which we before applied the alleged facts of the Mineral Geology, and keeping constantly in our view, both the general conclusion of Newton respecting the mode of first formations, and also the corollaries which we have been led to deduce from that conclusion. But, in pursuing that comparison, we shall be careful to adhere closely to the principles which they disclose; observing rigidly the admonition of Newton which enjoins, "to admit no objections against them, "but such as are taken from certain truths" plainly and unequivocally competent to disprove them.

The conclusion of Newton, was this:

I. That GOD, in the beginning, formed all material things of such sizes and figures, and with

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"-per εκ ΦΑΙΝΟΜΕΝΩΝ 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

σε were"κατηρτισθαι ρηματι Θεού του καλούντος Tа μN OVTA WS ovra2; 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 considera"verit, 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

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