Footnotes

FOOTNOTES ft1 “As the manifold appearances of design and of final causes, in the constitution of the world, prove it to be the work of an intelligent mind; so the particular final causes of pleasure and pain, distributed among his creatures, prove that they are under his government — what may be called his natural government of creatures endued with sense and reason. This, however, implies somewhat more than seems usually attended to when we speak of God’s natural government of the world. It implies government of the very same kind with that which a master exercises over his servants, or a civil magistrate over his subjects.” — (Bishop BUTLER.)

ft2 Christianity as Old as the Creation, p. 233. — “By employing our reason to collect the will of God from the fund of our nature, physical and moral, we may acquire not only a particular knowledge of those laws which are deducible from them, but a general knowledge of the manner in which God is pleased to exercise his supreme powers in this system.” (BOLINGBROKE’S Works, vol. v, p. 100.)

ft3 So in his Tusc. Quest. 1, he says, “Expone igitur, nisi molestum est, pri-mum animos, si potes, remanere post mortem; tum si minus id obtinebis (est enim arduum,) docebis carere omni malo mortem. Show me first, if you can, and if it be not too troublesome, that souls remain after death; or if you cannot prove that (for it is difficult,) declare how there is no evil in death.”

ft4 “Some men seem to think the only character of the Author of nature to be that of simple absolute benevolence. There may possibly be in the creation, beings, to whom he manifests himself under this most amiable of all characters, for it is the most amiable, supposing it not, as perhaps it is not, incompatible with justice; but he manifests himself to us as a righteous Governor. He may consistently with this be simply and absolutely benevolent; but he is, for he has given us a proof in the constitution and conduct of the world that he is, a Governor over servants, as he rewards and punishes us for our actions.” (BUTLER’S Analogy.)

ft5 “If philosophy had gone farther than it did, and from undeniable principles given us ethics in a science, like mathematics, in every part demonstrable, this yet would not have been so effectual to man in this imperfect state, nor proper for the cure. The greatest part of mankind want leisure or capacity for demonstration, nor can carry a train of proofs, which in that way they must always depend upon for conviction, and cannot be required to assent to till they see the demonstration. Wherever they stick, the teachers are always put upon proof, and must clear the doubt by a thread of coherent deductions from the first principle, how long or how intricate soever that be. And you may as soon hope to have all the day labourers and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairy maids, perfect mathematicians, as to have them perfect in ethics this way: having plain commands is the sure and only course to bring them to obedience and practice the greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe. And I ask whether one coming from heaven in the power of God, in full and clear evidence and demonstration of miracles, giving plain and direct rules of morality and obedience, be not likelier to enlighten the bulk of mankind, and set them right in their duties, and bring them to do them, than by reasoning with them from general notions and principles of human reason?” (LOCKE’S Reasonableness of Christianity.)

ft6 “Let it be granted, (though not true,) that all the moral precepts of the Gospel were known by somebody or other, among mankind before. But where, or how or of what use, is not considered. Suppose they may be picked up here and there; some from SOLON, and BIAS, in Greece; others from TULLY, in Italy, and, to complete the work, let CONFUCIUS as far as China be consulted, and ANACHARSIS the Scythian contribute his share. What will all this do to give the world a complete morality, that may be to mankind the unquestionable rule of life and manners? What would this amount to toward being a steady rule, a certain transcript of a law that we are under? Did the saying of ARISTIPPUS or CONFUCIUS give it an authority? Was ZENO a lawgiver to mankind? If not, what he or any other philosopher delivered was but a saying of his. Mankind might hearken to it, or reject it, as they pleased, or as it suited their interest, passions, principles, or humours: — they were under no obligation; the opinion of this or that philosopher was of no AUTHORITY.” (LOCKE’S Reasonableness, &c.) “The truths which the philosophers proved by speculative reason, were destitute of some more sensible authority to back them; and the precepts which they laid down, how reasonable soever in themselves, seemed still to want weight, and so be no more than PRECEPTS OF MEN.” (DR. SAM. CLARKE.)

ft7 Sed hæc eadem num censes apud eos ipsos valere, nisi admodum paucos, a quibus inventa, disputata, conscripta sunt? Quotus enim quisque philosophorum invenitur, qui sit ita moratus, ita animo ac vita constitutus, ut ratio postulat? &c. (Tusc. Quest. 2.)

ft8 The term natural religion is often used equivocally. “Some understand by it every thing in religion, with regard to truth and duty, which, when once discovered, may be clearly shown to have a real foundation in the nature and relations of things, and which unprejudiced reason will approve, when fairly proposed and set in a proper light; and accordingly very fair and goodly schemes of natural religion have been drawn up by Christian philosophers and divines, in which they have comprehended a considerable part of what is contained in the Scripture revelation. In this view natural religion is not so called because it was originally discovered by natural reason, but because when once known it is what the reason of mankind duly exercised approves, as founded in truth and nature. Others take natural religion to signify that religion which men discover in the sole exercise of their natural faculties, without higher assistance.”

ft9 “When truths are once known to us, though by tradition, we are apt to be favorable to our own parts, and ascribe to our own understanding the discovery of what, in reality, we borrowed from others; or, at least, finding we can prove what at first we learnt from others, we are forward to conclude it an obvious truth, which, if we had sought, we could not have missed. Nothing seems hard to our understandings that is once known; and because what we see, we see with our own eyes, we are apt to overlook or forget the help we had from others who showed it us, and first made us see it, as if we were not at all beholden to them for those truths they opened the way to, and led us into; for, knowledge being only of truths that are perceived to be so, we are favorable enough to our own faculties to conclude that they, of their own strength, would have attained those discoveries without any foreign assistance, and that we know those truths by the strength and native light of our own minds, as they did from whom they received them by theirs, — only they had the luck to be before us. Thus the whole stock of human knowledge is claimed by every one as his private possession, as soon as he (profiting by others’ discoveries) has got it into his own mind: and so it is; but not properly by his own single industry, nor of his own acquisition. He studies, it is true, and takes pains to make a progress in what others have delivered; but their pains were of another sort who first brought those truths to light which he afterward derives from them. He that travels the roads now, applauds his own strength and legs, that have carried him so far in such a scantling of time, and ascribes all to his own vigour; little considering how much he owes to their pains who cleared the woods, drained the bogs, built the bridges, and made the ways passable, without which he might have toiled much with little progress. A great many things which we have been bred up in the belief of from our cradles and are now grown familiar, (and, as it were, natural to us under the Gospel,) we take for unquestionable obvious truths, and easily demonstrable, without considering how long we might have been in doubt or ignorance of them had revelation been silent. And many others are beholden to revelation who do not acknowledge it. It is no diminishing to revelation, that reason gives its suffrage too to the truths revelation has discovered; but it is our mistake to think, that because reason confirms them to us, we had the first certain knowledge of them from thence, and in that clear evidence we now possess them.” (LOCKE.) ft10 “The religion of Budhu,” says Dr. Davy, “is more widely extended than any other religion. It appears to be the religion of the whole of Tartary, of China, of Japan, and their dependencies, and of all the countries between China and the Burrampooter.

“The Budhists do not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, self-existent and eternal, the creator and preserver of the universe: indeed, it is doubtful if they believe in the existence and operation of any cause beside fate and necessity, to which they seem to refer all changes in the moral and physical world. They appear to be Materialists in the strictest sense of the term, and to have no notion of pure spirit or mind. Prane and hitta, life and intelligence, the most learned of them appear to consider identical: — seated in the heart, radiating from thence to different parts of the body, like heat from a fire; — uncreated, without beginning, at least that they know of; — capable of being modified by a variety of circumstances, like the breath in different musical instruments; — and like a vapour, capable of passing from one body to another; — and like a flame, liable to be extinguished and totally annihilated. Gods, demons, men, reptiles, even the minutest and most imperfect animalcules, they consider as similar beings, formed of the four elements — heat, air, water, and that which is tangible, and animated by prane and hitta. They believe that a man may become a god or a demon; or that a god may become a man or an animalcule; that ordinary death is merely a change of form; and that this change is almost infinite, and bounded only by annihilation, which they esteem the acme of happiness!” (Account of Ceylon.)

ft11 Xen. Mem. lib. 4, cap. 4, sect. 19, 20. — To the same effect is that noble passage of Cicero cited by Lactantius out of his work De Republica.

“Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio, naturæ congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quæ vocet ad officium jubendo, vetando, a fraude deterreat; quæ tamen neque probes frustra jubet, aut vetat; nec improbos jubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi nec abrogari fas est; nec derogari ex hac aliquid licet; neque tota abrogari potest. Nec vero aut per senatum, aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus; neque est quærendus explanator, aut interpres ejus ulius. Nec enim alia lex Romæ, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac; sed et omnes gentes, et onmi tempore, una lex et sempiterna et immutabilis continebit; unusque erit communis quasi magister et imperator omnium Deus, ille legis hujus inventor, disceptator, lator; cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet, ac naturam hominis aspernabitur; atque hoc ipso luet maximas pœnas, etiamsi cætera supplicia, quæ putantur, effugerit:” — from which it is clear that Cicero acknowledged a law antecedent to all human civil institutions, and independent of them, binding upon all, constant and perpetual, the same in all times and places, not one thing at Rome, and another at Athens; of an authority so high. that no human power had the right to alter or annul it; having God for its author, in his character of universal Master and Sovereign; taking hold of the very consciences of men, and following them with its animadversions, though they should escape the hand of man, and the penalties of human codes. ft12 “The east was the source of knowledge from whence it was communicated to the western parts of the world. There the most precious remains of ancient tradition were found. Thither the most celebrated Greek philosophers travelled in quest of science, or the knowledge of things Divine and human, and thither the lawgivers had recourse in order to their being instructed in laws and civil policy.” (LELAND.)

ft13 The speculations of infidels as to the gradual progress of the original men from the savage life, and the invention of language, arts, laws, &e, have been too much countenanced by philosophers bearing the name of Christ; some of them even holding the office of teachers of his religion. The writings of Moses sufficiently show that there never was a period in which the original tribes of men were in a savage state; and the gradual process of the developement of a higher condition is a chimera. To those who profess to believe the Scriptures, their testimony ought to be sufficient: to those who do not, they are at least as good history as any other.

ft14 See note A at the end of this chapter.

ft15 See DELANEY’S Revelation Examined with Candour, Dissertations 1 and 2.

ft16 “It is very probable,” says Puffendorf, “that God taught the first men the chief heads of natural law.”

ft17 Whatever may be thought respecting the circumstances of the flood as mentioned by Moses, there is nothing in that event, considered as the punishment of a guilty race, and as giving an attestation of God’s approbation of right principles and a right conduct, to which a consistent Theist can object. For if the will of God is to be collected from observing the course of nature and providence, such signal and remarkable events in his government as the deluge, whether universal or only co-extensive with the existing race of men, may be expected to occur; and especially when an almost universal punishment, as connected with an almost universal wickedness, so strikingly indicated an observant and a righteous government.

ft18 See Bishop HORSLEY’S Dissertations before referred to; and LELAND’S View of the Necessity of Revelation, part i, chap. 2.

ft19 The princes of Abyssinia claim descent from Menilek, the son of Solomon by the queen of Sheba. The Abyssinians say she was converted to the Jewish religion. The succession is hereditary in the line of Solomon, and the device of their kings is a lion passant, proper upon a field gules, and their motto, “The Lion of the race of Solomon and tribe of Judah hath overcome.” The Abyssinian eunuch who was met by Philip was not properly a Jewish proselyte, but an Abyssinian believer in Moses and the prophets. Christianity spread in this country at an early period; but many of the inhabitants to this day are of the Jewish religion. Tyre also must have derived an accession of religious information from its intercourse with the Israelites in the time of Solomon, and we find Hiram the king blessing the Lord God of Israel “as the Maker of heaven and earth.”

ft20 See note B at the end of this chapter.

ft21 The readiness of the philosophers of antiquity to seize upon every notion which could aid them in their speculations, is manifest by the use which those of them who lived when Christianity began to be known, and to acquire credit, made of its discoveries to give greater splendour to their own systems. The thirst of knowledge carried the ancient sages to the most distant persons and places in search of wisdom, nor did the later philosophers any more than modern infidels neglect the superior light of Christianity, when brought to their own doors, but they were equally backward to acknowledge the obligation. “As the ancients,” says Justin Martyr, “had borrowed from the prophets, so did the moderns from the Gospel.” Tertullian observes in his Apology, “Which of your poets, which of your sophists, have not drunk from the fountains of the prophets? It is from these sacred sources likewise that your philosophers have refreshed their thirsty spirits; and if they found any thing in the Holy Scriptures to please their fancy, or to serve their hypotheses, they turned it to their own purpose, and made it serve their curiosity; not considering these writings to be sacred and unalterable, nor understanding their sense; every one taking or leaving, adopting or remodelling, as his imagination led him. Nor do I wonder that the philosophers played such foul tricks with the Old Testament, when I find some of the same generation among ourselves who have made as bold with the New, and composed a deadly mixture of Gospel and opinion, led by a philosophizing vanity.” It was from conversing with a Christian that Epictetus learned to reform the doctrine, and abase the pride of the Stoics; nor is it to be imagined that Marcus Antoninus, Maximus Tyrius, and others, were ignorant of the Christian doctrine.

Rousseau admits, that the modern philosopher derives his better notions on many subjects from those very Scriptures, which he reviles; from the early impressions of education; from living and conversing in a Christian country, where those doctrines are publicly taught, and where, in spite of himself, he imbibes some portion of that religious knowledge which the sacred writings have every where diffused. (Works, vol. ix, p. 71; 1764.)

ft22 See note C at the end of this chapter.

ft23 Plato, in his Epinominis, acknowledges that the Greeks learned many things from the barbarians, though he asserts, that they improved what they thus borrowed, and made it better, especially in what related to the worship of the gods. (Plat. Oper. p. 703. Edit. Ficin. Lugd. 1590.) ft24 Plato, beginning his discourse of the gods and the generation of the world, cautions his disciples “not to expect any thing beyond a likely conjecture concerning these things.” Cicero, referring to the same subject, says, “Latent ista omnia crassis occulta et circumfusa tenebris, all these things are involved in deep obscurity.” The following passage from the same author may be recommended to the consideration of modern exalters of the power of unassisted reason. The treasures of the philosophy of past ages were poured at his feet, and he had studied every branch of human wisdom, with astonishing industry and acuteness, yet he observes, ‘Quod si tales nos natura genuisset, ut eam ipsam intueri, et perspicere, eademque optima duce cursum vitæ conficere possemus; haud erat sane quod quisquani rationem, ac doctrinam requireret. Nunc parvulos nobis dedit igniculos, quos celeriter malis moribus, opinionibusque depravati sic restinguimus, ut nusquam naturæ lumen appareat. If we had come into the world in such circumstances, as that we could clearly and distinctly have discerned nature herself and have been able in the course of our lives to follow her true and uncorrupted directions, this alone might have been sufficient, and there would have been little need of teaching and instruction: but now nature has given us only some small sparks of right reason, which we so quickly extinguish with corrupt opinions and evil practices, that the true light of nature nowhere appears.” (Tusc. Quæst. 3.)

The same author, (Tusc. Quæst. 1,) having reckoned up the opinions of philosophers as to the soul’s immortality, concludes thus, “Harum sententiarum quæ vera est Deus aliquis viderit, quæ verisimillima est, magna quæstio est. Which of these opinions is true, some god must tell us; which is most like truth, is a great question.” Jamblicus, speaking of the principles of Divine worship, saith: “It is manifest that those things are to be done which are pleasing to God; but what they are, it is not easy to know, except a man were taught them by God himself, or by some person who had received them from God, or obtained the knowledge of them by some Divine means.” (Jamb. in Vit. Pythag. c. 28.)

ft25 When we meet with passages in the writings of heathens which recommend moral virtues, and speak in a fit and becoming manner of God, we are apt from our more elevated knowledge of these subjects to attach more correct and precise ideas to the terms used, than the original writers themselves, and to give them credit for better views than they entertained. It is one proof, that though some of them speak, for instance, of God seeing and knowing all things, they did not conceive of the omniscience of God in the manner in which that attribute is explained by those who have learned what God is from his own words; that some of the pagan philosophers who lived after the Christian era, complain that the Christians had introduced a very troublesome and busy God, who did “in omniurn mores, actus, omnium verba denique, et occultas cogitationes diligenter inquirere, diligently inquire into the manners, actions, words, and secret thoughts of all men.” Cicero, too, denies the foreknowledge of God, and for the same reason which has been urged against it in modern times by some who, for the time at, least, have closed their eyes upon the testimony of the Scriptures on this point, and been willing, in order to serve a favourite theory, to go back to the obscurity of paganism. The difficulty with him is, that prescience is inconsistent with contingency. Mihi ne in Deum cadere videatur ut sciat quid casu et fortuito futurum sit; si enim scit, certe illud eveniet; si certe eveniet, nulla fortuna est; est autem fortuna, rerum ergo fortuitarum nulla præsensio est. (De Fate. n. 12, 13.)

ft26 De Isid. et Osir. — Dr. Cudworth thinks that Plutarch has indulged in an overstrained assertion: but the confidence with which the philosopher speaks is at least a proof of the great extent of this opinion. ft27 The testimony of missionaries, who see the actual effects of paganism in the different countries where they labour, is particularly valuable. On the point mentioned in the text, the Wesleyan missionaries thus speak of the state of the Cingalese — “We feel ourselves incapable of giving you a full view of the deplorable state of a people, who believe that all things are governed by chance; who find malignant gods, or devils, in every planet, whose influence over mankind they consider to be exceeding great, and the agents who inflict all the evil that men suffer in the world. A people so circumstanced need no addition to their miseries, but are objects toward which Christian pity will extend itself, as far as the voice of their case can reach. They are literally, through fear of death, or malignant demons, all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

ft28 “Interim tamen vix ulli fucre (quæ humanæ mentis caligo, atque imbecil-litas est,) qui non inciderint in errorem ilium de refusione in Animam mundi. Nimirum, sicut existimarunt singulorum animus particulas esse animæ mundanæ quarum quælibet suo corpore, ut aqua vase, effluere, ac animæ mundi, e qua deducta fuerit, iterum uniri.” (GASSENDI Animadv. in Lib. 10, Diog. Laertii p. 550) ft29 From the philosophical works of Cicero it may be difficult to collect his own opinions, as he chiefly occupies himself in explaining those of others; but in his epistles to his friends, when, as Warburton observes, we see the man divested of the politician, and the sophist, he professes his disbelief of a future state in the frankest manner. Thus in lib. 6, epis. 3, to Torquatus, written in order to console him in the unfortunate state of the affairs of their party, he observes: “Sed hæc consolatio levis est; illa gravior, qua te uti spero; ego certe utor. Nec enim dum ero, angar ulla re, cum omni vacem culpa; et si non ero, sensu omnino carebo. But there is another and a far higher consolation, which I hope is your support, as it certainly is mine. For so long as I shall preserve my innocence, I will never while I exist be anxiously disturbed at any event that may happen; and if I shall cease to exist, all sensibility must cease with me.”

Similar expressions are found in his letters to Toranius, to Lucius Mescinius, and others, which those who wish to prove him a believer in the soul’s immortality, endeavour to account for by supposing that he accommodated his sentiments to the principles of his friends. A singular solution, and one which scarcely can be seriously adopted, since in the above cited passage he so strongly expresses what is his own opinion, and hopes that his friend takes refuge in the same consolation. It may be allowed that Cicero alternated between unbelief and doubt; but never I think between doubt and certainty. The last was a point to which he never seems to have reached.

ft30 Though Cicero, Seneca, and others, condemned these barbarities, it was in so incidental and indifferent a manner as to produce no effect. They were abolished soon after the establishment of Christianity, and this affords an illustration of the admission of Rousseau himself. “La philosophie ne peut faire aucun bien, que la Religion ne le fasse encore mieux: et la Religion en fait beaucoup que la philosophie ne sauroit faire.”

ft31 In the 110th Olympiad, there were at Athens only 21,000 citizens and 40,000 slaves. It was common for a private citizen of Rome to have 10 or 20,000. (TAYLOR’S Civil Law.)

ft32 The youth of Sparta made it their pastime frequently to lie in ambush by night for the slaves, and sally out with daggers upon every Helot who came near them, and murder him in cold blood. The EPHORI, as soon as they entered upon their office, declared war against them in form, that there might be an appearance of destroying them legally. It was the custom for Vedius Pollio, when his slaves had committed a fault, sometimes a very trifling one, to order them to be thrown into his fish-ponds, to feed his lampreys. It was the constant custom, as we learn from Tacitus, Annal. 14:43, when a master was murdered in his own house, to put all the slaves to death indiscriminately. For a just and affecting account of the condition of slaves in ancient states, see PORTEUS’S Beneficial Effects of Christianity.

ft33 Terence says of simple fornication, “Non est scelus, adolescentulum scortari flagitium est.” The Spartans, through a principle in the institutions of Lycurgus, which controlled their ancient opinions on this subject, in certain prescribed cases, allowed adultery in the wife; and Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus. mentioning these laws, commends them as being made “fusikwv kai politikwv, according to nature and polity.” Callicratides, the Pythagorean, tells the wife that she must bear with her husband’s irregularities, since the law allows this to the man and not to the woman. Plutarch speaks to the same purpose in several places of his writings. On the other hand, some of the philosophers condemned adultery; and in many places, it was punished in the woman with death, in the man with infamy. Still, however, the same vacillation of judgment, and the same limitations, of what they sometimes confess to be the ancient rule and custom, may be observed throughout; but as far as the authority of philosophers went, it was chiefly on the side of vicious practice.

ft34 “It is the business of all,” says Sir John Shore, “from the Ryot to the Dewan, to conceal and deceive. The simplest matters of fact are designedly covered with a veil, which no human understanding can penetrate.” The prevalence of perjury is so universal, as to involve the judges in extreme perplexity “The honest men,” says Mr. Strachey, “as well as the rogues, are perjured. Even where the real facts are sufficient to convict the offender, the witnesses against him must add others, often notoriously false, or utterly incredible, such as in Europe would wholly invalidate their testimony.”

ft35 Plutarch in the Lives of Themistocles, Marcellus, and Aristides. (Livy

50. 22, c. 57; Fiorus 50. 1, c. 13; Virg. Æn. 10:518, 11:81.) ft36 See Maurice’s Indian Antiquities; the writings of Dr. Claudius Buchanan Ward on the Hindoos. Dubois on Hindoo Manners, &c; Robertson’s History on America; Bowditch’s Account of Ashantee; Moore’s Hindoo Pantheon; and Porteus and Ryan on the Effects of Christianity. ft37 See Leland and Whitby, on the Necessity of a Revelation; and the writers on the customs of India, — Ward, Dubois, Buchanan, and Moore, before referred to.

ft38 Hence Chærea, in Terence, pertinently enough asks, Quod fecit is qui templa cœli summa sonitu concutit, ego homuncio non facerem? Eunuch. Act. 3, sec. 5. He only imitated Jupiter. And says Sextus Empyricus, “That cannot be unjust which is done by the god Mercury, the prince of thieves, for how can a god be wicked?” (Apud. Euseb. Præp. lib. 6, cap. 10.)

ft39 See note A at the end of the chapter.

ft40 Bishop Warburton endeavours to prove, by an elaborate argument in his “Divine Legation,” that in the Greater Mysteries, the Divine Unity and the errors of Polytheism were constantly taught. This, however, is most satisfactorily disproved by Dr. Leland, in his “Advantage and Necessity of a Divine Revelation;” to both of which works the reader is referred for information as to those angular institutions — the heathen mysteries.

ft41 See note B at the end of the chapter.

ft42 “We know not beforehand what degree or kind of natural information it were to be expected God would afford men, each by his own reason and experience, nor how far he would enable and effectually dispose them to communicate it, whatever it should be, to each other; nor whether the evidence of it would be certain, highly probable, or doubtful; nor whether it would be given with equal clearness and conviction to all. Nor could we guess, upon any good ground. I mean, whether natural knowledge, or even the faculty itself, by which we are capable of attaining it, reason, would be given us at once, or gradually. In like manner we are wholly ignorant what degree of new knowledge, it were to be expected, God would give mankind, by revelation, upon supposition of his affording one; or how far, or in what way, he would interpose miraculously to qualify them, to whom he should originally make the revelation, for communicating the knowledge given by it, and to secure their doing it to the age in which they should live, and to secure its being transmitted to posterity. We are equally ignorant whether the evidence of it would be certain, or highly probable, or doubtful; or whether all who should have any degree of instruction from it, and any degree of evidence of its truth, would have the same; or whether the scheme would be revealed at once, or unfolded gradually. Nay, we are not, in any sort, able to judge whether it were to have been expected, that the revelation should have been committed to writing, or left to be handed down, and consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and, at length, sunk under it, if mankind so pleased and during such time as they are permitted, in the degree they evidently are, do act as they will.

“Now, since it has been shown that we have no principles of reason upon which to judge beforehand, how it were to be expected revelation should have been left, or what was most suitable to the Divine plan of government in any of the forementioned respects; it must be quite frivolous to object afterward as to any of them, against its being left one way rather than another; for this would be to object against things, upon account of their being different from our expectations, which has been shown to be without reason. And thus we see that the only question concerning the truth of Christianity is, whether it be a real revelation; not whether it be attended with every circumstance which we should have looked for; and concerning the authority of Scripture, whether it be what it claims to be; not whether it be a book of such sort, and so promulged as weak men are apt to fancy a book containing a Divine revelation should be. And, therefore, neither obscurity, nor seeming inaccuracy of style, nor various readings, nor early disputes about the authors of particular parts, nor any other things of the like kind, though they had been much more considerable in degree than they are, could overthrow the authority of the Scripture, unless the prophets, apostles, or our Lord, had promised, that the book, containing the Divine revelation, should be secure from those things.” (BUTLER’S Analogy.)

ft43 The reader may see several of them enumerated and examined in Doddridge’s Lectures, part 5.

ft44 Bishop Butler has satisfactorily shown, in his Analogy, (part it, c. 11,) that there can be no such presumption against miracles as to render them, in any wise, incredible, but what would conclude against such uncommon appearances as comets, and against there being any such powers in nature as magnetism and electricity, so contrary to the properties of other bodies not endued with these powers. But he observes, “Take in the consideration of religion, or the moral system of the world, and then we see distinct, particular reasons for miracles, to afford mankind instruction, additional to that of nature, and to attest the truth of it; and our being able to discern reasons for them, gives a positive credibility to the history of them, in cases where those reasons hold.”

“It is impossible,” says an oracle among modern unbelievers, (Voltaire,) “that a Being, infinitely wise, should make laws in order to violate them. He would not derange the machine of his own construction, unless it were for its improvement. But as a God, he hath, without doubt, made it as perfect as possible; or, if he had foreseen any imperfection likely to result from it, he would surely have provided against it from the beginning, and not be under a necessity of changing it afterward. He is both unchangeable and omnipotent, and therefore can neither have any desire to alter the course of nature, nor have any need to do so.”

“This argument,” says Dr. Van Mildert, “is grounded on a misconception or a misrepresentation of the design of miracles, which is not the remedy of any physical defect, not to rectify any original or accidental imperfections in the laws of nature, but to manifest to the world the interposition of the Almighty, for especial purposes of a moral kind. It is simply to make known to mankind, that it is he who addresses them, and that whatever is accompanied with this species of evidence, comes from him, and claims their implicit belief and obedience. The perfection, therefore, or imperfection, of the laws of nature has nothing to do with the question. All nature is subservient to the will of God; and as his existence and attributes are manifest in the ordinary course of nature, so, in the extraordinary work of miracles, his will is manifested by the display of his absolute sovereignty over the course of nature. Thus, in both instances, the Creator is glorified in his works; and it is made to appear, that ‘by him all things consist,’ and that, ‘for his pleasure they are, and were created.’ This seems a sufficient answer to any reasoning, a priori, against miracles, from their supposed inconsistency with the Divine perfections.”

ft45 It is observable, that no miracles appear to have been wrought by human agency before the time of Moses and Aaron, in whose days, not only had the world long existed, but consequently the course of nature had been observed for a long period: and farther, these first miracles were wrought among a refined and observant people, who had their philosophers, to whom the course of nature and the operation of physical causes, were subjects of keen investigation.

ft46 See CAMPBELL’S Dissertation on Miracles; PRICE’S Four Dissertations, Diss. 4; PALEY’S Evidences; ADAM’S Essay on Miracles; Bishop DOUGLASS’S Criterion; DWIGHT’S Theology, vol. ii; Dr. HEY’s Norrisian Lectures, vol. 1.; VAN MILDERT’S Boyle’s Lectures. vol. 1. ft47 It would be singular, did we not know the inconsistencies of error, that Mr. Hume himself, as Dr. Campbell shows, gives up his own argument. “I own,” these are his words, “there may possibly be miracles, or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit a proof from human testimony, though perhaps [in this he is modest enough, he avers nothing; perhaps] it will be impossible to find any such in all the records of history.” To this declaration he subjoins the following supposition: — “Suppose all authors, in all languages, agree that from the first of January, 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days; suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people; that all travellers who return from foreign countries, bring us accounts of the same traditions, without the least variation or contradiction: it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting of that fact, ought to receive it for certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived.” Could one imagine that the person who had made the above acknowledgment, a person too who is justly allowed by all who are acquainted with his writings, to possess uncommon penetration and philosophical abilities, that this were the same individual who had so short a while before affirmed, that “a miracle,” or a violation of the course of nature, “supported by any human testimony, is more properly a subject of derision than of argument.”

The objection “that successive testimony diminishes, and that so rapidly as to command no assent after a few centuries at most,” deserves not so full a refutation, since it is evident, that “testimony continues credible so long as it is transmitted with all those circumstances and conditions which first procured it a certain degree of merit among men. Who complains of a decay of evidence in relation to the actions of Alexander, Hannibal, Pompey, or Cæsar? We never hear persons wishing they had lived ages earlier, that they might have had better proof that Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon; that Darius was beaten in several battles by Alexander,” &c. (See Dr. O. GREGORY’S Letters on the Christian Revelation, vol. i, p. 196.)

ft48 “It is the error of those who contend that all necessary truth is discoverable or demonstrable by reason, that they affirm of human reason in particular, what is only true of reason in general, or of reason in the abstract. To say, that whatever is true, must be either discoverable or demonstrable by reason, can only be affirmed of an all-perfect reason; and is therefore predicated of none but the Divine intellect. So that, unless it can be shown that human reason is the same, in degree, as well as in kind, with Divine reason; 1.e. commensurate with it as to its powers, and equally incapable of error: the inference from reason in the abstract, to human reason, is manifestly inconclusive. Nothing more is necessary to show the fallacy of this mode of arguing, than to urge the indisputable truth, that God is wiser than man, and has endued man with only a portion of that faculty which he himself, and none other beside him, possesses in absolute perfection.” (VAN MILDERT’S Sermons at Boyle’s Lecture.) ft49 Thus in the Scriptures we find numerous appeals of this kind: “Judge between me and my vineyard.” “Are not my ways equal? “Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?” All of which passages suppose that equity and justice in God accord with the ideas attached to the same terms among men.

ft50 See note A at the end of this chapter, in which two common objections are answered.

ft51 Judæos impulsore Christo assidue tumultuantes Româ expulit. (SUET, Edit. Var. p. 544.)

ft52 Auctor nominis ejus Christus, qui Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. (Annal. 50. 5.) ft53 See note A at the end of this chapter, for a larger proof of the above particulars.

ft54 The reasoning of Leslie, so incontrovertible as to the four last books of the Pentateuch, does not so fully apply to the book of Genesis. Few, however, will dispute the genuineness of this, if that of the other books of Moses be conceded. That the book of Genesis must have been written prior to the other books of the Pentateuch is, however, certain, for Exodus constantly refers to events nowhere recorded but in the book of Genesis; and without the book of Genesis, the abrupt commencement of Exodus would have been as unintelligible to the Jews as it would be to us. The Pentateuch must therefore be considered as one book, under five divisions, having a mutual coherence and dependence.

ft55 See Note B at the end of this chapter, in which the same kind of argument is illustrated by the miraculous gift of tongues. ft56 Quid dicam de Socrate, (says Cicero,) cujus morti illachrymari soleo, Platonem legens. — De Natura Deorum, p. 329, Edit. Davies, 1723. — See also PLATO’S Phædo, passim, particularly pages 311, 312. — Edit Forster, Oxon 1741.

ft57 Epiphanius omits the Acts of the Apostles. This must have been an accidental mistake, either in him or in some copyist of his work; for he elsewhere expressly refers to this book, and ascribes it to Luke. ft58 Dr. BENTLEY’S Remarks on Freethinking, part i, remark 27, (vol. 5. p. 144, of Bp. RANDOLPH’S Enchiridion Theologicum, 8vo. Oxford, 1792.)

ft59 Dr. LARDNER has collected numerous instances in the second part of his Credibility of the Gospel History; references to which may be seen in the general index to his works, article Scriptures. See particularly the testimonies of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine. ft60 The evidences of our Lord’s resurrection are fully exhibited in WEST on the Resurrection, SHERLOCK’S Trial of the Witnesses, and Dr. COOK’S Illustration of the Evidence of Christ’s Resurrection. ft61 “They also did in like manner with their enchantments. The word µychl, lahatim, comes from chl, lahat, to burn, to set on fire; and probably signifies such incantations as required lustral fires, sacrifices, fumigations, burning of incense, aromatic, and odoriferous drugs, &c, as the means of evoking departed spirits, or assistant demons, by whose ministry, it is probable, the magicians in question wrought some of their deceptive miracles: for as the term miracle properly signifies something which exceeds the power of nature or art to produce, (see verse 9;) hence there could be no miracle in this case, but those wrought through the power of God, by the ministry of Moses and Aaron.” (Dr. ADAM CLARKE in loc.)

ft62 See note A at the end of the chapter.

ft63 Some of the demons worshipped by heathens had a benevolent reputation, and these were no doubt suggested by the tradition of good angels; others were malignant, and were none other than the evil angels, devils, handed down by the same tradition. Thus Plutarch says, “It has been a very ancient opinion, that there are malevolent demons, who envy good men, and oppose them in their actions,” &c. ft64 The passion of Satan to be worshipped appears strongly marked in our Lord’s temptation: “All these will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” In all ages evil and sanguinary beings have been deified. It was so in the time of Moses, and remains so to this day in India and Africa, where devil worship is openly professed. In Ceylon nothing is more common; and in many parts of Africa every village has its devil house.

ft65 This subject is acutely and learnedly discussed in “An Answer to M. de Fontenelle’s History of Oracles, translated from the French by a Priest of the Church of England.”

ft66 See note B at the end of the chapter.

ft67 MACKNIGHT’S Truth of the Gospel History; DOUGLAS’S Criterion; CAMPBELL on Miracles; and PALEY’S Evidences.

ft68 The original word used, Exodus 8:11, is Belahatehem; and that which occurs, Exodus 7:22, and Exodus 8:7, 18, is Belatebem; the former is probably derived from Lahat, which signifies to burn, and the substantive a flame or shining sword-blade, and is applied to the flaming sword which guarded the tree of life, Genesis 3:24. Those who formerly used legerdemain, dazzled and deceived the sight of spectators by the art of brandishing their swords, and sometimes seemed to eat them, and to thrust them into their bodies; and the expression seems to intimate, that the magicians appearing to turn their rods into serpents, was owing to their eluding the eyes of the spectators by a dexterous management of their swords. In the preceding instances they made use of some different contrivance, for the latter word, belatehem, comes from Laat, to cover or hide. (which some think the former word also does,) and therefore fitly expresses any secret artifices or methods of deception, whereby false appearances are imposed upon the spectators.

ft69 As we are by Dr. Macknight, in his Truth of the Gospel History, p. 372. ft70 Exodus 8:6-8. Nor, indeed can it be imagined, that after this or the former plague had been removed. Pharaoh would order his magicians to renew either.

ft71 “The correspondences of types and antitypes, though they are not proper proofs of the truth of a doctrine, yet may be very reasonable confirmations of the foreknowledge of God; of the uniform view of Providence under different dispensations; of the analogy, harmony, and agreement, between the Old Testament and the New. The words of the law concerning one particular kind of death, He that is hanged is accursed of God, can hardly be conceived to have been put in on any other account, than with a view and foresight to the application made of it by St. Paul. The analogies between the paschal lamb and the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world; between the Egyptian bondage and the tyranny of sin; between the baptism of the Israelites in the sea and in the cloud, and the baptism of Christians; between the passage through the wilderness, and through the present world; between Joshua bringing the people into the promised land, and Jesus Christ being the Captain of salvation to believers; between the Sabbath of rest promised to the people of God in the earthly Canaan, and the eternal rest promised to the people of God in the heavenly Canaan; between the liberty granted them from the time of the death of the high priest, to him that had fled into a city of refuge, and the redemption purchased by the death of Christ; between the high priest entering into the holy place every year with the blood of others, and Christ’s once entering with his own blood into heaven itself, to appear in the shadows of things to come, of good things to come, the shadows of heavenly things, the presence of God for us. These, I say and innumerable other analogies, between the figures for the time then present, patterns of things in the heavens, and the heavenly things themselves, cannot without the force of strong prejudice be conceived to have happened by mere chance, without any foresight or design. There are no such analogies, much less such series of analogies, found in the books of more enthusiastic writers living in such remote ages from each other. It is much more credible and reasonable to suppose, what St. Paul affirms, that these things were our examples; and that in that uniform course of God’s government of the world, all things happened unto them of old for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. And hence arises that aptness of similitude, in the application of several legal performances to the morality of the Gospel, that it can very hardy be supposed not to have been originally intended.” (DR. S. CLARKE, Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 263.)

ft72 “They have been dispersed among all countries. They have no common tie of locality or government to keep them together. All the ordinary principles of assimilation, which make law, and religion, and manners, so much a matter of geography, are in their instance, suspended. And in exception to every thing which history has recorded of the revolutions of the species, we see in this wonderful race a vigorous principle of identity, which has remained in undiminished force for nearly two thousand years, and still pervades every shred and fragment of their widely scattered population” (CHALMERS’S Evidences.)

ft73 No work has exhibited in so pleasing and comprehensive a manner the fulfilment of the leading prophecies of Scripture, and especially of the Old Testament, as Bishop Newton’s Dissertations on the Prophecies; and the perusal of it may be earnestly recommended, especially to the young. His illustrations of the prophecies respecting ancient Babylon are exceedingly interesting and satisfactory, and still farther proofs of the wonderfully exact accomplishment of those prophecies may be seen in a highly interesting Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon, by Claudius J. Rich, published in 1815. Immense ruins were visited by him near the supposed site of ancient Babylon, which probably are, though the matter cannot be certainly ascertained, the remains of that astonishing city, now indeed “swept with the besom of destruction.” He tells us too, that the neighbourhood is to the present a habitation only for birds and beasts of prey; that the dens of lions, with their slaughtered victims, are to be seen in many places; and that most of the cavities are occupied with bats and owls. It is therefore impossible to reflect without awe upon the passage of Isaiah, written during the prosperity of Babylon, wherein he says, “The wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.” The present ruins of that city also demonstrate, that the course of the Euphrates has been changed, probably in consequence of the channel formed by Cyrus; and the yielding nature of the soil demonstrates that such an operation could have been performed by a large army with great facility and despatch. The ruins examined by Mr. Rich bear testimony to the immense extent of the city as described by ancient authors. Vast masses of masonry, of both burnt and unburnt brick and bitumen, were observed in various excavations in these huge mountains of ruins, which are separated from each other by several miles. One is called by the Arabs, Birs Nimrond; another the Kasr, or Palace; and a third, which some have thought to be the ruins of the tower of Belus, is called by the natives Mugelib, OVERTURNED, which expressive term is also sometimes applied to the mounds of the Kasr.

ft74 See note, p. 181.

ft75 SIMPSON’S Key to the Prophecies. See also a large collection of prophecies with their fulfilment in the Appendix to vol. i, of HORNE’S Introduction to the Scriptures.

ft76 “But if you will persevere in believing that the prophecy concerning Cyrus was written after the event, peruse the burden of Babylon: was that also written after the event? Were the Medes then stirred up against Babylon. Was Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees, then overthrown, and become as Sodom and Gomorrah? Was it then uninhabited? Was it then neither fit for the Arabian’s tent nor the shepherd’s fold? Did the wild beasts of the desert then lie there? Did the wild beasts of the islands then cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant places? Were Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, the son and the grandson then cut off? Was Babylon then become a possession of the bittern and pools of water? Was it then swept with the besom of destruction, so swept that the world knows not now where to find it?” (Bishop WATSON’S Apology.)

ft77 PORPHYRY, in his books against the Christian religion, was the first to attack the prophecies of Daniel: and in modern times, COLLINS, in his “Scheme of Literal Prophecy,” bent all his force against a book so pregnant with proofs of the truth of Christianity, and the inspiration of ancient prophecy. By two learned opponents his eleven objections were most satisfactorily refuted, and shown to be mere cavils — by Bishop CHANDLER in his “Vindication” of his “Defence of Christianity,” and by Dr. SAM. CHANDLER in his “Vindication of Daniel’s Prophecies.” ft78 Eusebius has preserved some fragments of a philosopher called Œnomaus, who, out of resentment for his having been so often fooled by the oracles, wrote an ample confutation of all their impertinences: “When we come to consult thee,” says he to Apollo, “if thou seest what is in futurity, why dost thou use expressions that will not be understood? If thou dost, thou takest pleasure in abusing us, if thou dost not, be informed of us, and learn to speak more clearly. I tell thee, that if thou intendest an equivoque, the Greek word whereby thou affirmedst that Crœsus should overthrow a great empire, was ill chosen; and that it could signify nothing but Crœsus’s conquering Cyrus. If things must necessarily come to pass, why dost thou amuse us with thy ambiguities? What dost thou, wretch as thou art, at Delphi; employed in muttering idle prophecies?”

ft79 A weak attempt has been made by some infidel writers to fasten a charge of falsehood on Jeremiah, in the case of his confidential interview with King Zedekiah. A satisfactory refutation is given by Bishop WATSON in his answer to Paine, letter 6.

ft80 The opinion of the bishop, that not the whole of what is now called Egypt was intended in the prophecy, seems to derive confirmation from the following passages in Richardson’s Travels in Egypt in 1817: — “The Delta, according to the tradition of the Jonians, is the only part that is, strictly speaking, entitled to be called Egypt, which is hieroglyphically represented by the figure of a heart, no unapt similitude.” — “The principal places mentioned in our sacred writings, Zoan, Noph, and Tophanes, are all referable to the Delta. Probably little of them remains.”

ft81 The Scripture character of the Divine Being is thus strikingly drawn out by Dr. A. Clarke in his note on Genesis 1:1: — “The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being. The Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, most simple, and most spiritual of all essences: infinitely benevolent, beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinitely good; and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made. Illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence: known fully only to himself, because an infinite mind can only be comprehended by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who, from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind.”

ft82 See the argument largely and ingeniously exhibited in GISBORNE’S Testimony of Nat. Theol. &c.

ft83 “Remarks on the Internal Evidence of the Truth of Revealed Religion; by THOMAS ERSKINE, Esq.” — This popular and interesting volume contains many very striking, just, and eloquent remarks in illustration of the internal evidence of several doctrines of the New Testament, and especially of that of the atonement. It is to be regretted, however, that it sets out from a false principle, and builds so much truth upon the sand. “The sense of moral obligation is the standard to which reason instructs man to adjust his system of natural religion,” and this is “the test by which he is to try all pretensions to religion” The principle of the book therefore is to show the excellence of Christianity from its embodying the abstract principles of natural religion in intelligible and palpable action — a gratuitous and unsubstantial foundation. ft84 “I will confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction: how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resemblance was so striking that all the Christian fathers perceived it.

“What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to compare the son of Sophronicus [Socrates] to the Son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion is there between them! Socrates dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last: and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precept. But where could Jesus learn among his competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which he only has given us both precept and example? The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes! if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty, without obviating it; it is more inconceivable, that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing man than the hero.”

ft85 The collateral testimony to certain facts mentioned in Scripture, from coins, medals, and ancient marbles, may be seen well applied in HORNE’S Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures, vol. i, p. 238. ft86 The success of Mohammed, though sometimes pushed forward as a parallel, is, in fact, both as to the means employed and the effect produced, a perfect contrast. The means were conquest and compulsion; the effect was to legalize and sanctify, so to speak, the natural passions of men for plunder and sensual gratification; and it surely argues either a very frail judgment, or a criminal disposition, to object, that a contrast so marked should ever have been exhibited as a correspondence. Men were persuaded, when they were not forced, to join the ranks of the Arabian impostor by the hope of plunder, and a present and future life of brutal gratification. Men were persuaded to join the apostles by the evidence of truth, and by the hope of future spiritual blessings, but with the certainty of present disgrace and suffering.

ft87 Attempts have been made to deny the existence of miraculous powers in the ages immediately succeeding that of the apostles, but it stands on the unanimous and successive testimony of the fathers. Gibbon, on this subject, has borrowed his objections from “The Free Inquiry” of Dr. Middleton, whose belief in Christianity is very suspicious. This book received many able answers; but none more so than one by the Rev. John Wesley. It is a triumph to truth to state, that Dr. Middleton felt himself obliged to give up his ground by shifting the question. ft88 Among the Greeks, the education of women was chiefly confined to courtezans.

ft89 For an ample illustration of the actual effects of Christianity upon society, see Bishop PORTEUR’S Beneficial Effects of Christianity and RYAN’S History of the Effects of Religion on Mankind.

ft90 See also a copious collection of these supposed contradictions, with judcious explanations, in the Appendix to vol. 1. of HORNE’S Introduction. &c.

ft91 “In this our first period of existence, our eye cannot penetrate beyond the present scene, and the human race appears one great and separate community; but with other worlds, and other communities, we probably may, and every argument for the truth of our religion gives us reason to think that we shall, be connected hereafter. And if by our behaviour we may, even while here, as our Lord positively affirms, heighten in some degree the felicity of angels, our salvation may hereafter be a matter of importance, not to us only, but to many other orders of immortal beings. They, it is true, will not suffer for our guilt, nor be rewarded for our obedience. But it is not absurd to imagine, that our fall and recovery may be useful to them as an example; and that the Divine grace manifested in our redemption may raise their adoration and gratitude into higher raptures, and quicken their ardour to inquire with ever new delight, into the dispensations of infinite wisdom. This is not mere conjecture. It derives plausibility from many analogies in nature, as well as from Holy Writ, which represents the mystery of our redemption as an object of curiosity to superior beings, and our repentance as an occasion of their joy.” (DR. BEATTIE’S Evidences of the Christian Religion. See also DR. CHALMERS’S Discourses on the Modern Astronomy.)

ft92 PENN’S Comparative Estimate, &c. Professor Jamieson, in his Mineralogical Illustrations of Cuvier’s Theory, observes, “The front of Salisbury Craigs near Edinburgh, affords a fine example of the natural chronometer, described in the text. The acclivity is covered with loose masses that have fallen from the hill itself; and the quantity of debris is in proportion to the time which has elapsed since the waters of the ocean formerly covered the neighbouring country. If a vast period of time had elapsed since the surface of the earth had assumed its present aspect, it is evident that long ere now the whole of this hill would have been enveloped in its own debris. We have here then a proof of the comparatively short period since the waters left the surface of the globe, — a period not extending a few thousand years.” ft93 “Most readers have presumed, that every night and day mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis must be strictly confined to the term of twenty-four hours, though there can be no doubt but that Moses never intended any such thing; for how could Moses intend to limit the duration of the day to its present length, before, according to his own showing, the sun had begun to divide the day from the night?” (MANTELL’S Geology of Sussex.)

ft94 This view is totally inconsistent with the favourite notion of certain modern geologists of a primitive chaotic ocean, containing like that of the heathen poets, the elements of all things; a notion which those who wish to reconcile the account of Genesis with the modern geology have been willing to concede to them, on the ground that Moses has said that the earth was “without form and void.” But they have not considered that it was “the earth,” not a liquid mass, which is thus characterized; circumfused with water, it is true, but not mingled with it. The LXX render the phrase whbw wht, tohu vabohu, aoratov, kai akatskeu astov, invisible and unfurnished, — invisible both because of the darkness, and the water which covered it, and unfurnished, because destitute as yet of vegetables and animals. “It is wonderful,” says Rosenmuller, “how so many interpreters could imagine that a chaos was described in the words whbw wht, tohu vabohu. This notion unquestionably took its origin from the fictions of the Greek and Latin poets, which were transferred, by those interpreters, to Moses.” Those fictions ground themselves, we may add, upon traditions received from the earliest times; but the additions of poetic fancy are not to be applied to interpret the Scriptures.

ft95 Mons. L. A. NECKER DE SAUSSURE, (Voyage en Ecosse,) speaking of the disputes between the Wernerians and Huttonians, says, “The former availed themselves of the ascendancy which a more minute study of minerals afforded, to depreciate the observations of their adversaries. They denied the existence of facts which the latter had discovered, or they tried to sink their importance. Hence it happened that phenomena, important to the natural history of the earth, have never been made known and appreciated as they ought to have been, by geologists most capable of estimating their consequences.”

ft96 See note A at the end of the chapter.

ft97 A scientific journal of great reputation, edited at the Royal Institution, has made an honourable disclaimer of those theories which contradict the Scriptures, and speaks in commendation of the work of Mr. Penn: “We are not inclined, even if we had time, to enter into the comparative merits of the fire and water fancies, miscalled theories; but we have certain old-fashioned prejudices, which in these enlightened days of skepticism and infidelity, will no doubt be set down as mightily ridiculous, but which, nevertheless, induce us to pause before we acquiesce either in the one or the other. There is another mode of accounting for the present state of the earth’s structure, on principles at least as rational, in a philosophical light, as either the Plutonian or Neptunian; and inasmuch as it is more consistent with, and founded on, sacred history, incomparably superior. (See Mr. GRANVILLE PENN’S Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies.”