term that deters from the attempt. If it "

conveys no meaning," how came the sacred writers, in theology, and Bacon, Newton, &c., in philosophy, to use it so familiarly, as a term which conveys a meaning to every capacity? which readily understands it to express that Divine operation, by which "God calls those things which are not as though they were." But, though he says this term conveys no meaning, he yet" deprecates the attempt to found a distinction between the exercise of "Divine Power in creating the world, and the operation "of the same Power in perpetuating its existence." Does this last term, then, convey no meaning also, since the two are not to be distinguished? Those who differ from my learned censor, and who are of opinion that each term conveys its own proper and distinguishing meaning, will apprehend a distinction between the operations of calling into existence, and of maintaining in existence; nor can he hope to efface that distinction from their minds, until he can transmit to them the extraordinary confusion of his own. "There is no real distinction (he says) in the exertions of Omnipotence: the power

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"which sustains the earth, is as boundless as that which "first called it into existence." Who questions this? and what is it to the purpose? This Reviewer reasons of power, which is cause, and of operation, which is effect, as if they were one and the same thing, and is totally insensible of his own entanglement.

23. Advancing in the same labyrinth, the Reviewer takes new offence, because I conform to a conventional phraseology, and speak of the operation of secondary causes; "a doctrine (he says) which has a much greater affinity to the atheism of Epicurus, than to the simple

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"and spiritual theology of the Old Testament." It would have been honest and honourable to have produced my own words, which were these: In the first act of Creation, this mineral globe was produced at once-and "from that moment it was subjected to its proper laws : "-for, as Bacon has pronounced, the laws which we "call of Nature, are nothing but the laws of the Crea"tion 1." The words of Bacon to which I refer, are these: "God created heaven and earth, and gave unto them constant and perpetual laws, which we call of Nature, which are nothing but the laws of the Creation." In what do these two propositions differ? or, which of them discovers " an affinity to the atheism of Epicurus?" If this judicial writer could be just, he must extend his censure to embrace Bacon also; but, that is a quality which he is most averse to call into exercise on the present occasion. For, whilst he puts my language out of the pale of his protection, he is the protecting and liberal advocate of all other writers, even of those who carry to the most equivocal and objectionable latitude the same language: " Nature, (he thinks it prudent to affirm,) "and the laws of nature, are phrases which were as

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suredly NEVER meant to supersede the acknowledgment

of an Intelligent Cause in the administration of the "universe." If so, upon what ground will he attempt to justify his affectation of apprehending such a meaning in the argument of this Work, in which he knows, that that

1 See vol. i. p. 216, 217. I quote the words as they stood in the first edition; but, I have rendered the passage more explicit in the present edition, being taught by this Reviewer, that I had placed too general a confidence in the fairness of professional critics.

Intelligent Cause is most especially asserted? But, this Critic shews with what care he has prepared himself for the task which he has so confidently undertaken. Had he been as familiarly conversant with the "theology of "the Old Testament" as he here speaks tenderly of it, he would have recollected, that God Himself, by the mouth of His prophet, represents the heavenly bodies as subjected to certain "ordinances" -pn', which the Septuagint correctly render voor" laws;" and, that Divine application of the figure to the heavenly bodies, becomes a full and perfect warrant for the application of the same figure to every member of creation; without inducing the absurd and ignorant association of the " atheism of Epi66 curus."

24. The Reviewer now comes to state what he calls, my "notions ;" and, first, he thinks good to affirm, that " I

imagine, that when the Earth was first formed, on the "first day of Creation, all the strata of which it was com"posed were arranged in the greatest regularity, consist

ing of concentric layers like the coats of an onion." We are in great need of a term, in argument, to express positive falsity of assertion, without any moral implication that shall render the employment of it indecorous and inadmissible; as we say, false reasoning, false conclusion: if we possessed such a term, it would find a signal application in this place. Not only is such a "notion," as is here gratuitously ascribed, not contained in the Comparative Estimate, or deducible from it by any mode of perversion, but it is essentially contrary to its obvious argument, which contends; that we are, and must ever remain,

1 Jeremiah, xxxi. 35.

entirely ignorant of the created structure of the globe, because, one portion of its surface was altered and modifred, in the first formation of a bed for the sea, and the other portion perished in the destruction of the primitive earth; and, since the Comparative Estimate does not reason from theory, but from data, we have no data from which we may deduce that created structure. Whence then, it may be asked, could this "dreamer" (it is his own phrase,) have derived this" notion" which he assigns to me? I can conjecture only one probable source: that he had read in the Vindicia Geologica-" a great majority of the strata having been formed under water "had no disturbing forces interposed, they must have "formed layers, investing in concentric coats the nucleus "of the earth1;" and, that our Critic finding this passage in his head, quoting memoriter, and remembering temeriter, engendered in it the notion which he at length ascribed to the Comparative Estimate: that, from thence he procured his strata, his concentric coats, and his layers: his "onion," is very possibly his own. This is the most favourable solution I can devise for him.

1

25. My Censor, next assails the formation of the seabed on the third day of Creation; a formation, distinctly declared in the record, and vindicated to the Divine operation throughout the whole body of Scripture. In pursuing what he calls my "notions," he presents the following as one of them: "There was no place for the water, which is accordingly described as enveloping "the whole surface of the globe. Two days elapsed, "before a remedy was discovered, or an expedient de"vised. At length, on the third day, a command was

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1 Page 11.

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issued, that the waters under the heaven should be gathered together unto one place, and that the dry-land "should appear.-Does not the Mosaical geology, according to the hypothesis of Mr. G. P., represent the "All-wise Creator bursting and fracturing, on the third day, the strata which had been formed only two days "before, to make a bed for the waters which enveloped the globe? It has never occurred to the Mineral Geology, that a revolution so violent as to tear the frame"work of the globe, could be found necessary to accom

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plish the plans of Infinite Wisdom (which the Reviewer

measures by his own), almost in the very moment of "Creation itself1. On the first day, according to Mr. "G. P., the mineral globe was produced at once; on the "second day after, in order to get rid of the superfluous "waters, it was deemed expedient that the solid barriers "of our terraqueous globe should be burst, in those parts -" where depression was to produce the profundity. Is it probable, We beg leave to ask, that either faith or piety "will be increased by such a representation of the Divine "counsels and procedure? has the wildest theorist ha"zarded such a statement as that now given; presuming "to teach the reflecting part of mankind, that it became necessary to rend the globe two days after it was "created?" It would not have ill consisted with this effort of judicial wisdom, to have informed the intelligence of his readers, what he understood the historian to design they should apprehend by the reduction of the universal waters into one place within the sphere of the earth, on the third day of Creation, without a sudden rending of that sphere; and without perverting that third day into

1 See vol. ii. p. 38.