all its parts, distinct from the body of waters which He caused to be diffused over its whole superficies. 5. That, on the third day, by a similar immediate and simultaneous operation, He caused all the first formations of vegetable matter, in their full maturity; and, 6. That on the fifth and sixth days, He in a similar manner, and in similar maturity, caused all the first formations of animal

matter.

"

We thus find, in the Mosaical geology, the three kingdoms of matter equally connected with their common Intelligent Cause; by whom they were both created, and set in order, in such "sizes and figures, in such proportions to space, "and with such other properties, as most con"duced to the end for which He formed them; and, therefore, that none of them rose out of a CHAOS, by mere laws of nature."

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But, this is the very induction of Newton himself, derived from universal analysis. Which induction, therefore, being in perfect concord with the Mosaical geology, but in total discord with the mineral geology, determines the question with which we set out, namely-the MODE of first formations. For, both geologies appealed to Newton; and, upon that appeal, Newton decides without hesitation in favour of the Mosaical, and formally affixes to the conclusions of the mineral, the stigma of " UNPHILOSOPHICAL."

Bacon's philosophy, no less peremptorily denies all chaotic formation, together with all the

"

undeterminable periods of time which it is obliged to postulate. He acknowledges no other agency, either in the act of power which "created," or in the act of wisdom which " disposed and adjusted” this globe, than the hand of God Himself: the former, in one moment of time," the latter, in "sir natural and consecutive days;" and he could discern no sound, philosophical objection, to the admission of those facts. He calls the first formation " confusa," in deference to the text of the received versions, and attempts no critical explanation of the word; but, we have seen, that it is to be understood with relation only to vision or perception, and not to the subject itself1. He allows of no fermenting, digesting, and preparing;" of no "chemical dissolution, precipitation, or crystallisation;" of no "creative seeds or "elements, in liquids or in pastes," of no other actor in arrangement, than God Himself, and of no other mode of His action, than immediate; and he pronounces all those laws, which physical philosophy denominates "laws of nature," and to which the mineral geology would ascribe all first mineral formations, to be no other than the "laws

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of the Creation;" which did not and which could not begin to operate, until God had called this mineral globe into being, and had finished the perfect arrangement of every thing constituting and pertaining to its system. And he thus professes his belief:

1 See above, p. 154 and 175.

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"I believe, that God created heaven and earth; and gave unto them constant and perpetual laws, which we call of Nature, which is nothing but the laws of the Creation: that the laws of nature which now remain, and govern inviolably till the end of the world, began to be "in force when God rested from His work:— that, notwithstanding God hath rested from creating "since the first sabbath, yet, nevertheless, He "doth accomplish and fulfil His divine will in all things, great and small, general and particular, as "full and exactly by providence, as He could "do by miracle and new creation; though His working be not immediate and direct, but by compass; not violating nature, which is His own laws, upon His creatures'.'

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'Confession of Faith.

END OF PART II.

NOTES.

NOTE [I.]

On the Mosaic Days of Creation.

THE learned and pious author of the Treatise on the Three Dispensations, in the geological disquisition which he has introduced, as it were episodically, into that work, has made a very strenuous effort, (which I have observed with extreme regret, and with equal astonishment ;) to secure to the word day, in the first chapter of Genesis, that distracting and improbable vagueness of signification, which shall render it available to denote measures of time from twenty-four hours to six thousand years, and even to periods wholly undetermined; adding, I must risk to say, intensity to the error which has already too much prevailed upon this philological and critical question. "In Scripture," says he, "nothing can well be more in

definite than the term which we translate by the English "word day:-in truth, the term, abstractedly, would be more accurately expressed by the English word period "than by the English word day'."

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These allegations, he thinks, may be proved, partly by the analogy of language, partly by the very necessity of the narrative, partly by ancient tradition, and partly

1 Vol. i. p. 111, 112. The sublime researches and speculations, and the ingenious expositions of this learned work, do not in any manner depend upon the confirmation of the geological theory which forms the third chapter of the first volume; and which is entirely distinct from, and extraneous to, its general argument.

"(and that most decisively) by the discoveries, or possibly "the re-discoveries, of modern physiologists." With respect to the last of these supposed proofs, the Comparative Estimate was principally directed to an exposure of its fallacy; and, after examining, with the attention due to such a writer, the arguments which he has adduced in support of it, I must confess that I find nothing to make me apprehend, that the Comparative Estimate has not fully effected its original purpose. With respect to ancient tradition, derived from the Hindoos, Persians, and Etruscans, I must also frankly confess, that I regard it as totally null, and absolutely inadmissible in this particular question. With regard to the alleged necessity of the narrative, I shall have occasion incidentally to evince an opinion; but, I shall direct this note, principally, to an examination of the first point, viz. the analogy of language. And I shall here be under the necessity of endeavouring to render it conspicuous to every plain understanding, that the preceding positions of this pious and zealous expositor are the results of an hasty and incautious criticism, and that the conclusions which he draws from them are altogether fallacious and radically unsound, by shewing, that the Hebrew noun, ¶ 10M — day, is always definite in its import, if it be minutely examined and accurately apprehended; and that it essentially excludes the wide and extensive notion which we attach to the " English word period.” With a view to this very material purpose, I shall here consider the several significations which this highly respected writer has been led to ascribe to the word "day" in Scripture, in the order in which he himself has presented them.

1. "Sometimes," says he," it denotes-a single revo"lution of the earth round its axis." This it may be said to do, in point of philosophical truth, and such undoubtedly will be its signification when interpreted by the science