tainment of such knowledge of the works as
well as of the ways of God, may perhaps form
some part of our happiness in a future state; but
unless human nature had been constituted otherwise
than it is, the above supposed communication
of omniscience would have been imparted to creatures,
utterly incapable of receiving it, under any
past or present moral or physical condition of
the human race; and would have been also at
variance with the design of all God’s other disclosures
of himself, the end of which has uniformly
been, not to impart intellectual but moral
knowledge.
Several hypotheses have been proposed, with a
view of reconciling the phenomena of Geology,
with the brief account of creation which we find
in the Mosaic narrative. Some have attempted
to ascribe the formation of all the stratified
rocks to the effects of the Mosaic Deluge; an
opinion which is irreconcileable with the enormous
thickness and almost infinite subdivisions
of these strata, and with the numerous and regular
successions which they contain of the remains
of animals and vegetables, differing more and
more widely from existing species, as the
strata in which we find them are placed at
greater depths. The fact that a large proportion
of these remains belong to extinct genera,
and almost all of them to extinct species,
that lived and multiplied and died on or near
the spots where they are now found, shows that
the strata in which they occur were deposited
slowly and gradually, during long periods of time,
and at widely distant intervals. These extinct
animals and vegetables could therefore have
formed no part of the creation with which we
are immediately connected.
It has been supposed by others, that these
strata were formed at the bottom of the sea,
during the interval between the creation of man
and the Mosaic deluge ; and that, at the time of
that deluge, portions of the globe which had
been previously elevated above the level of the
sea, and formed the antediluvian continents, were
suddenly submerged; while the ancient bed of
the ocean rose to supply their place. To this
hypothesis also, the facts I shall subsequently
advance offer insuperable objections.
A third opinion has been suggested, both by
learned theologians and by geologists, and on
grounds independent of one another; viz. that
the Days of the Mosaic creation need not be
understood to imply the same length of time
which is now occupied by a single revolution of
the globe; but successive periods, each of great
|extent: and it has been asserted that the order
of succession of the organic remains of a former
[world, accords with the order of creation recorded
in Genesis. This assertion, though to a
certain degree apparently correct, is not entirely
G. c