gods are there; if into a state of insensibility, you will be no longer distracted by pains and pleasures, nor be in subjection to this mean vessel."

Such was the amount of the speculations of heathen philosophers respecting a future state; yet, with but few exceptions, they went hand in hand in violently opposing that Gospel, which, presenting to all who examine it, the most indubitable evidence of its divine original, has brought life and immortality to light.

To trace this chain of evidence any further, would be superfluous. Nothing can be more fully authenticated than what has been brought forward on this head; all of which so forcibly illustrates the truth of the declaration of Paul before King Agrippa,-" This thing was not done in a corner."

CHAPTER VIII.

FACTS RECORDED IN THE EARLIER PARTS OF THE SCRIPTURE HISTORY, CANNOT BE DISPROVED, AND ARE CORROBORATED BY TRADITION.

A MULTITUDE of public facts, from the creation of the world down to a late period of its history, are detailed in the Bible. This circumstance alone seems to challenge every species of attack; but when to this is added an uncompromising claim to infallibility, it is obvious, that the divine authority of the Scriptures is in this manner pledged, and rested upon the invulnerable character of its records. Assaults from various quarters have accordingly been made, but not in one instance with the smallest success. After an interval of nearly three thousand years, the people of God may still joyfully repeat to each other the triumphant exhortation of the Psalmist, "Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces.-As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God; God will establish it for ever."

The three following topics are frequently urged against the veracity of the books of Moses :-The age of the world;-the varieties of the human species ;the original circumstances of mankind.

To prove that the world was formed at a much

earlier period than Moses assigns for its creation, the bowels of the earth have been ransacked, and all the aids that can be derived from modern discoveries resorted to, but in vain. One absurd theory has been exploded after another, and no progress whatever has been made towards the detection of any mistake, on this point, in the sacred writers.

In the preface to "An Essay on the Theory of the Earth," dated 1815, by M. Cuvier of Paris, who is styled one of the first philosophers of the age, the publisher says, "Although the Mosaic account of the creation of the world is an inspired writing, and consequently rests on evidence totally independent of human observation and experience, still it is interesting, and in many respects important, to know that it coincides with the various phenomena observable in the mineral kingdom. The structure of the earth, and the mode of distribution of extraneous fossils or petrifactions, are so many direct evidences of the truth of the Scripture account of the formation of the earth; and they might be used as proofs of its author having been inspired, because the mineralogical facts discovered by modern naturalists were unknown to the sacred historian. ... The deluge, one of the grandest natural events described in the Bible, is equally confirmed, with regard to its extent and the period of its occurrence, by a careful study of the various phenomena observed on and near the earth's surface. The

age

of the human race, also, a most important enquiry, is satisfactorily determined by an appeal to natural appearances; and the pretended great antiquity of some nations, so much insisted on by certain philosophers, is thereby shown to be entirely unfounded.”

On the other hand, how little progress has yet been

made towards bringing any proof against the authenticity of the writings of Moses, from the various theories of the earth that have been produced, may be learned from the following declaration of M. Cuvier himself:-"The present period, with respect to the theory of the earth, bears some resemblance to that in which some philosophers thought that the heavens were formed of polished stone, and that the moon was no larger than the Peloponnesus." He afterwards adds, "When I formerly mentioned this circumstance of the science of geology having become ridiculous, I only expressed a well-known truth."* From this representation, we may learn how to estimate the opinions of those who, from their partial observations and fanciful theories, have concluded, that "as the world has no appearance of having had a beginning, so there is no probability that it will have

an end."

The following is an extract respecting the age of the world, from Bishop Watson's Letters to Mr Gibbon, addressed, he says, "to a set of men who have picked up in their travels, or the writings of the Deists, a few flimsy objections against Christianity."-" I cannot help taking notice of an argument by which some philosophers have of late endeavoured to overturn the whole system of revelation; and it is the more necessary to give an answer to their objection, as it is become a common subject of philosophical conversation, especially amongst those who have visited the continent. The objection tends to invalidate, as is supposed, the authority of Moses, by showing that the

* This remark may be applied to M. Cuvier himself, whenever he wanders into the fields of speculation.

earth is much older than it can be proved to be from his account of the creation, and the Scripture chronology. We contend, that six thousand years have not yet elapsed since the creation. And these philosophers contend, that they have indubitable proof of the earth's being at the least fourteen thousand years old; and they complain that Moses hangs as a dead weight upon them, and blunts all their zeal for enquiry.

"The Canonico Recupero, who, it seems, is engaged in writing the history of Mount Etna, has discovered a stratum of lava which flowed from that mountain, according to his opinion, in the time of the second Punic war, or about two thousand years ago; this stratum is not yet covered with soil sufficient for the production of either corn or vines; it requires, then, says the Canon, two thousand years, at least, to convert a stratum of lava into a fertile field. In sinking a pit near Jaci, in the neighbourhood of Etna, they have discovered evident marks of seven distinct layas, one under the other, the surfaces of which are parallel, and most of them covered with a thick bed of rich earth. Now, the eruption which formed the lowest of these lavas, (if we may be allowed to reason, says the Canon, from analogy,) flowed from the mountain at least fourteen thousand years ago." To this it is replied:" In the first place, the Canon has not satisfactorily established his main fact, that the lava in question is the identical lava which Diodorus Siculus mentions to have flowed from Etna in the second Carthaginian war; and, in the second place, it may be observed, that the time necessary for converting lavas into fertile fields must be very different, according to the different consistencies of the lavas, and their different situations, with respect to elevation or depression,