case, to attribute the properties of being intelligent, underived, and independent; in other words, of being self-existent, spontaneously active, and possessed in an infinite degree of every property that is an excellence; the ONE NECESSARY BEING. We combine all other beings into one group, and we call it the dependent universe: but comparing this assemblage with that One Being, it becomes, in the comparison, a shadow of existence, "less than nothing and vanity;" mere emptiness. THAT BEING is GOD; not perceived by our organs of sense, but the Object of pure mental conception. He is MIND, in the highest sense; existing necessarily, and therefore having always existed and always to exist; a free agent, of infinite intellectual and moral perfection; upon whom all other beings depend as their Originator, Preserver, and Benefactor, their Proprietor and Lawgiver, their Judge and Rewarder; the supremely wise, holy, and powerful Basis of the universe. Unbiased reason, no less than the book of revelation, utters the voice of satisfaction and gladness; "Give unto Jehovah the glory of his name; O, worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness!—For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things; to whom be glory for ever!"

Of the existence and perfections, the providence and efficient activity, of this glorious Being, we have every kind and degree of evidence that can warrant the reception of any moral truth whatever. If any honest-hearted inquirer entertain a doubt, it is sufficient to refer him to the volumes of Ray and Derham, Bentley, Clarke, Paley, and the authors of the Bridgewater Treatises.

Neither is this the place for adducing evidence that rational creatures are accountable, and that the Supreme Being exercises a moral government over them. The writings of Butler alone are sufficient for this purpose. We are convinced also, upon the most satisfactory grounds, that this Wise and Gracious Being has been pleased to give the elements of positive knowledge to mankind, sufficient to inform us upon subjects which it most highly concerns. us to know, but of which, without such information, it would be utterly impossible for us to have any other than conjectures, vague and painfully uncertain. The proofs that God has thus made known these facts and truths, and the realities of an eternal futurity; and that the communication is contained in the series of ancient books called the Holy Scriptures; are also to be found in many easily accessible works.

C

It plainly follows, that a serious attention to those books is the most important duty, and the most interesting occupation to which we can apply ourselves.

Our great object is, to understand them in their true meaning; that is, to take them in the sense in which they were intended by the Spirit of truth from whose inspiration, mediately or immediately, they have proceeded. This true sense and meaning must be brought out by an impartial application of the same means which men use, from a conviction of their necessity and adequacy, in order to obtain a just understanding of any writings composed in long past times and in ancient languages.

The study of revealed religion, thus pursued, cannot but be in perfect harmony with all true science. The works and the word of God are streams from the same source, and, though they flow in different directions, they necessarily partake of the same qualities of truth, wisdom, and goodness. Geology, in an especial manner, possesses its place in this beneficent association. It holds also the most interesting connexions with every other branch of Natural Science. It attracts and renders subsidiary to itself, the entire domain of Natural History; it is indissolubly combined with Chemistry, with which it participates in reciprocal advantages of the most important kind; [it possesses intimate relationships with Meteorology and Terrestrial Magnetism;] it has connexions, which to many have been unexpected, with the sublime science of Astronomy, but which the genius and attainments of Babbage, Herschel, and Hopkins, both anticipated and have demonstrated,―connexions of peculiar interest, and which go far to vindicate for Geology a place among the exact sciences. The facts on which it rests have, since the beginning of the present century, and especially since the establishment of the Geological Societies of London, Dublin, and Paris, and kindred institutions in many parts of Europe, and in America, been collected by the assiduous labour of many men of the finest talents; and those facts have not only been brought together and freely exposed to examination, but they have been subjected to the most jealous scrutiny and the most rigorous tests that can be imagined. Philosophers, whose previous opinions were very discordant, but whose qualifications for the task were of the highest order, of different nations (and there was a time when national rivalry even violated the sacred ground of science and letters,) and who had been trained

and raised to the first stations in all the other departments of physical knowledge and the liberal arts; have concurred, and have emulated each other, in sifting and scrutinizing to the utmost every announced discovery, and every theoretical deduction. Can it be then supposed that a scientific edifice thus framed, and in the fundamental doctrines of which all who have a claim upon our confidence, are agreed,* possesses not the elements of stability, and has no claims upon our confidence?

But we are compelled to make the unwelcome admission, that the rules of reason, with regard to evidence, have been not a little disregarded, in relation to the proposed subject of these Lectures, It would not, I am persuaded, be possible to point out any department of scientific investigation, in regard to which persons have rushed to the forming and proclaiming of strong opinions, with so scanty a portion of knowledge, yet at the same time so fearlessly, as in relation to Geology. There have been and perhaps still are persons who, not judging it necessary to use hardworking pains and long perseverance, to obtain a competent acquaintance with facts, have, with much dignity, framed their systems of the world: and have not shown the most charitable dispositions towards those who decline to bow down to the idols thus set up. Let it, however, be recollected that the disposition to make these assumptions, and the facility of admitting them, have risen, in a great measure, from a cause which is entitled to our reverence and esteem, religious feeling; though mistaken in its application. The opinion, or suspicion, is roused to meet us, on almost every occasion, that Geology and a religious regard to the Scriptures are opposed to each other. This notion has been diligently held up to the christian public, and in a style well adapted to excite alarm. Hence, some have been led to propose and others to receive, for the overcoming of the apprehended difficulties, theories which, either, on the one hand, have grievously misrepresented principal facts in the natural history of the earth, or, on the other, have exercised arbitrary power upon the sacred books, in despite of the fair methods of interpretation by which alone we are warranted to treat ancient writings.

*"I need not dwell upon the extreme danger of representing, as necessarily subversive of a faith in revelation, physical conclusions received, I believe, by all those who are generally considered as competent judges, as firmly established truths."-Rev. W. D. Conybeare, F. R. S. &c. in the Christian Observer, for 1834, p. 307.

When we are compelled, by the force of conviction, to make observations of this kind, it is proper to show that we do not stand alone. I consider it to be an advantage for aiding the mind in the pursuit of truth, and therefore to be eminently my duty, to adduce a small number of citations from Christian Philosophers, whose knowledge on these subjects is the hard-earned fruit of fair labour in toiling over hundreds of miles of rocky mountains, and of close study for the rigid scrutiny of results.

I shall first take a few paragraphs from a most diligent and laborious investigator, and a devout Christian. A regard to brevity will oblige me to select detached passages; but they will represent, without perversion or exaggeration, the meaning and design of the continuous pages. Certain English authors are those referred to, but their names need not be introduced.

The hypotheses of those writers have been "defended with no small ability of a certain kind, and with the most dogmatic assurance. They were compelled to pay so much deference to the advanced state of science at the present time, as to knock off some of the Hutchinsonian protuberances; yet they have not gone into the core of the system, to make any reformation there. Their works are distinguished—by great positiveness of opinion. Where the ablest Geologists wait for further light, they cut the knot at once. The rela tive importance of facts is often presented by them in such a manner, as to betray at once their want of practical acquaintance with the subject.- -These works are distinguished by very great severity and intolerance towards the leading Geologists of the last half century. A powerful attempt has been made to exhibit the 'Mosaical and Mineral Geologies' (to borrow the unfair phraseology which figures in one of their titles,) as at variance in their fundamental principles; so that the one or the other must be abandoned: and, in doing this, they have sadly misapprehended the views of Geologists. Because the latter have imputed the changes in the earth's condition to secondary causes, they are charged with Atheism." One of them "says, "It is manifest that the Mineral Geology, considered as a science, can do as well without God, though in a question concerning the origin of the earth, as Lucretius did.' Now, such a sweeping charge would never have been made had" the writer "not entirely misunderstood the Geologists; or had he been practically familiar with the structure of the earth's crust: for they have referred to second causes those changes, which no man thoroughly acquainted with them would re

gard as miraculous, any more than he would the existence of such a city as London or Paris. And they have had no idea of doing without God, because they suppose the world to have had an earlier origin than" the censurer "admits: for, at whatever period it began to exist, it would alike require infinite power and wisdom to create and arrange it. Geologists, with scarcely an exception, have decidedly and boldly opposed such views" as these imputations of atheism."The course which" those opponents "have taken, will inevitably produce, among pious men, not familiar with science, a prejudice against it and a jealousy of its cultivation. How disastrous such a result would be, let the painful history of the past testify."-Further "these works are distinguished by the adoption of very extravagant theories, and very great distortion of Geological facts, as well as of the language of Scripture.- -None but a Geologist can know what absurdities must be received, and what distortions made of facts, before such opinions can be embraced.To the Geologist they appear a thousand times more extravagant and opposed to facts, than any opinions that have been entertained by the cultivators of this science.

But these hypotheses require scarcely less perversion of the Sacred Records.”—After giving an instance of this bold dealing with the Bible, the Professor adds, "This, in the matter of interpretation, is 'straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.'-We have no doubt that” these and similar writers "are sincerely desirous of vindicating Revelation from the attacks of scientific sceptics, and that this desire prompted them to write as they have done. But we cannot doubt that the effect of their works on [those] real Geologists who are sceptical, will be very unhappy. Such persons will see that these authors do not understand the subject about which they write; and they will see a spirit manifested which will not greatly exalt their ideas of the influence of Christianity."*

I next ask attention to a passage, conspicuous for the beauty of its language, and the justness of its reasoning, from one of the ornaments of the University of Cambridge, the Woodwardian Professor of Mineralogy and Geology.

"A philosopher may smile at the fulminations of the Vatican. against those who, with Copernicus, maintained the motion of the earth; but he ought to sigh when he finds that the heart of man is

* Historical and Geological Deluges compared; in the American Biblical Repository, vol. ix. passages from p. 108 to 114; 1837. By the Rev. Edward Hitchcock, L. L. D., Prof. of Chemistry, &c. Amherst College, New England.