A Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies

"of Julian years; and since it is not historical, "but merely hypothetical; it is evident, that it "cannot serve for a basis of chronology.

The

contemplation of that Period, however, opened to me an occasion of discerning a true funda"mental chronology, in the JUBILEAN PERIOD imparted by God Himself in the sacred Scripture. However surprising this may appear, it will nevertheless be clearly demonstrated, in the following pages-that this Period begins with "the FIRST YEAR OF THE WORLD; that it I proceeds by the courses of the SUN and MOON; and, that, by means of EPACTS which it most accurately describes, it indicates the new and full moons through all the ages of the world; and therefore that it constitutes a FOUNDATION for Universal Chronology."

"As there is no Mosaical Astronomy, so there is no Mosaical "Geology:" observes, laconically, my reviewer of the British Critic. But, as we have seen that Moses has imparted to us geological facts to ground a geology, so do we see that he has imparted to us astronomical facts to ground an astronomy; and those facts are here carefully and skilfully employed for that purpose, by this upright Chronologist. A far abler reasoner falls into the same error: "Since the Sacred Books have not communicated the principles of Astronomy or Chemistry, there was no reason to expect from them those of other departments of knowledge." (Ed. Rev. No. lxxvii. p. 196.) See, in the Introduction, the due distinction made, between a physical system or scientific physical principles, and grounding physical facts from which we are to deduce those principles.

2 PRÆLUSIO CHRONOLOGIE FUNDAMENTALIS, &c., in CYCLO "IOBELEO BIBLICO detecta, et ad Chronologiam tam Sacram quam "Profanam applicata," à IOHANNE GEORGIO FRANK, &c. Goettinga, 1774. See Note [II.] On the Jubilean Period of FRANK.

Without pursuing, here, the details of this writer's curious and important undertaking; it is quite evident, that, whether our intellectual efforts may or may not be able to discover the relations of past events to those distinct characters of time, yet, time itself has ever proceeded with those distinct characters, and in the constant order here described by the learned and laborious German.

CHAPTER X.

LET us now review this "revealed history of the Creation," or of the mode of first formation, to which Bacon introduced us; with reference to the standard of Newton's conclusions on the one hand, and to the conclusions of the mineral geology on the other.

This history records; 1. That, all the first formations of mineral, of vegetable, and of animal matter, were severally effected, in order of succession, by a mode uninvestigable by any scheme or science of man, namely, the mode of CREATION by GOD. 2. That, each of those operations was immediate; the formations resulting at once, without any instrumental mediation, in full perfection for the ends which they were to serve, from the immediate exercise of the divine wisdom, will, and power. 3. That, although the Divine Intelligence thought fit to create and to set in order His first formations in successive moments of time, yet He produced them without any agency of time. 4. That, on the first day, by His Almighty" Fiat," He caused all the first formations of the mineral matter of this globe, in one immediate simultaneous operation, imparting to it at the same moment its first diurnal revolution; in which operation, the solid body of the earth was perfectly constituted in

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.

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.

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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

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 pro

fesses his belief:

1 See above, p. 154 and 175.

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