such omissions would affect the chronology;-but assuredly not the truth of the general narrative. Indeed, if it may be allowed, for the sake of illustration, to parallel so great and solemn a subject with transactions of infinitely less moment, it may be remarked, that there is not a single history of ancient nations, in which, from the obscurity of their origin, these omissions do not exist. The history of Moses, in this view, is not the less true in its substance, because men were unconscious of this interval; nor is it less true in its order. God is still the First Cause; and the works stated to have been wrought, were in reality wrought by Him. And the belief of men is not the less built up in truth, because it has not scanned every operation of the Deity. True in its restricted application, it is equally so, when enlarged by the reception of facts which have hitherto been hidden from it.

But the question will naturally arise; Did Moses intend the opening verse as an abstract proposition; -did he himself understand the existence of this interval? The question is specious; and carries at first sight considerable weight with it. The only real means we have of coming to any judgment on this point, is in the bearing and construction of his language. Beyond that, all must necessarily be conjecture. Arguing on the greatness of his revelations, and the testimony of Scripture, that no prophet was equal to him, we might reasonably infer, that he understood the real mode-whatever it might have been-in which the world was formed. But this is by no means a necessary consequence. The prophets delivered numerous predictions, which,

it is sufficiently manifest, that they could not themselves have minutely comprehended. It seems far from probable, that either Joseph or David saw that in most of the principal acts of their lives they were imaging forth the human life of Jesus. They knew in part, as will hereafter be shown; but they could not have judged with the same, nor even with an approximating fidelity to that, with which we behold them after their full completion in the person of Christ. Nor is it necessary, from the fact of his being inspired, that Moses should understand the full scope of his revelations. They cannot be invalidated in the smallest conceivable degree, because he himself saw not the extreme conclusions to which they might be drawn. The only safe ground we can stand on, is on a fair, candid, and legitimate interpretation of his language. His own knowledge, or want of knowledge, if inspired, cannot affect the question. And if accumulated and well established facts lead to a more extended interpretation of his writings, than has hitherto been applied to them; and his statements will bear this extension, without altering a single letter, or wresting a single word out of its straight and obvious meaning, for the sake of propping up a theory;-if this extension will reconcile his statements with adduced facts, which without it would be irreconcileable, then are men justified in enlarging their belief to the full extent of their acquired evidence.

But allowing every reasonable weight to this mode of explaining away the difficulty; admitting that the opening verse may be separated without violence from the context, it is yet to be seen,

whether the remaining portion of the history will bear that disunion; and whether, for the sake of getting quit of one embarrassment, we shall not raise up a host of others, yet more difficult to contend with. We have no right to leave the general narrative in confusion, because the form of the language will suffer us to select a single statement which will harmonize with our own opinions. The principle given in the one instance must be conceded in the other; and the geologist must waive his claim to this, his chosen interval, unless he can, at the same time, cause the succeeding history to proceed in a fair, open, and unconstrained order.

There can be no doubt, but that the acts attributed to God in the commencement of Genesis, have all the appearance of being, as they have hitherto been supposed to be, the works of an original creation. The interpretation now given, would reduce them to a remodelling of old and confused materials. We must suppose, under this opinion, all things on the earth to have been-destroyed; and the world to have been reduced to its pristine chaos. Nature, animate and inanimate, must have ceased; and so total the destruction, that the very principle of life must have been suspended. In every sense that language will admit of, it was a lifeless ruin. In this state it revolved many ages round the Sun, in its accustomed course; during which interval, either the whole, or a portion of those strata were deposited, which seem, in the opinion of the geologist, to demand such vast periods of time to have accomplished.

We say, a portion;-since it is obviously im

possible to limit the application of the principle, if it be once conceded, that an interval has existed. If the geologist can reconcile this remodelling the earth with the history of Moses, he may carry back his views as far, and imagine as many successive renovations, as his evidence may seem to warrant. His first step, however, is to prove an interval at all; -it will be sufficient time to analyze his theories in their full extent, when he shall have accumulated and arranged his facts and data with more precision, than his science has enabled him to do at present.

We enquire then, how this notion of a re-formation of the earth from pre-existent materials will tally with the six days of creation? We come to the comparatively late period when man was endowed with life; the recognized period of four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ. The record is thus stated. "The earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day; and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Now according to the account given, the Solar System, to the formation of which Moses confines his history, was already in existence. The sun formed the centre of that system; and at the time of which we now speak, the planets with their satellites rolled around that great luminary. The earth, the

third amongst these, together with its satellite the Moon, also revolved. That it might, in these revolutions, have been in a chaotic state, may be allowed;there is no difficulty, apart from after considerations, in that supposition. But how can it be reconciled, that such an utter darkness was upon its surface, that an induction of light was a necessary preparative to the wonders which were about to be displayed upon it? If the sun had illumined it in its anterior state, and at that time shed abroad his beams over the other planets, an objection of great apparent force at once arises against the theory of the re-construction.

How is this seeming difficulty disposed of? The earth, says the geologist, by the avowal of Moses, was entirely covered by waters when the Deity infused into it the principle of life, and prepared it for the habitation of moving creatures. It lay buried under an universal ocean, and darkness encircled and concealed the entire globe. But how produced? The presence of these waters gives the obvious solution. An immense period intervened between this last destruction of the earth by water, and the day of its re-organization when Adam was created. During this interval its material properties remained unaltered. Life was destroyed; but matter continued subject to the same laws, with which it had originally been endowed. The same attraction; the same repulsion; and the same combination of forces, which by the will of God had ever been inherent in it, still existed. The sun then, acting by its usual laws on so vast a body of waters, gradually, in the continuous lapse of ages, drew up a prodigious