tian faith? If God thought fit to manifest himself thus to the Jews, what is that to us? To Christians we know he has manifested himself in his Son, teaching an universal moral law, a worship in spirit and in truth.

Conclusion.

In this section we have considered the contradictions which exist between the dramatic representations and poetical imagery of the Bible, and the phenomena disclosed to geological research at far greater length than the real simplicity of the case would call for, if men were disposed to view it in its real simplicity. But when such a mass of prepossession opposes the admission of rational views of the matter, we are necessitated to enter more at large on the principles involved, in order to clear away the erroneous notions which have encumbered the whole subject.

We have been led into this discussion in direct relation to the main argument, which refers to the proper order and chain of evidence connecting the proofs of natural and revealed truth. We have traced the dependence of natural theology upon the conclusions of inductive science; and contended for the necessity of natural theology as the foundation of the evidences of revelation. Hence we have maintained the essential independence of physical and revealed truth; and have also observed

how science, at the very threshold, forces upon us a remarkable warning against mistaking the purport of revelation; thus inspiring those who are able to profit by it with due caution and enlightened discrimination in the use and application of its varied contents. The question respecting a particular discrepancy, at first sight perhaps, seeming of no great importance, is found to involve a very important consideration of principles; and to afford a sort of test for the due discernment of the distinct design and purport of the several portions of which the Scripture records are composed *.

* See Note T.

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GENERAL CONCLUSION.

THROUGHOUT the whole of the foregoing discussion, in illustrating the mutual relation and reaction between physical science, natural theology, and revealed religion, we have referred much to the various misapprehensions which prevail respecting such connexion among the several branches of the inquiry. We have referred especially to the fears entertained for the safety of religion, and the expedients resorted to for obviating the supposed danger; -expedients as futile as the alarms are groundless. We have commented on the hostility felt against science, and the dread of free inquiry; the disparagement of natural theology, and of physical inquiry as its basis, which are dictated by the adherence to the narrowest and most unworthy views of the tenour of revelation. While the rejection of the physical evidences of creation on the one hand, and the attempts to accommodate the Hebrew Scriptures to them on the other, display an unhappy perplexity of ideas, whether as to the principles of interpretation, or to the character and objects of the different parts of the sacred writings.

We have adverted to the causes which have led to the adoption of these views: if we look to the conse

quences of encouraging such a spirit, it is evident that its inevitable results will be anything but serviceable to the true interests of Christianity. The followers of these systems may persuade themselves they are powerfully upholding religion, whilst, in reality, they are only thus exposing themselves and their cause to increased suspicion among its avowed enemies, and with many who are desirous to be its friends.

Such narrow views and flimsy speculations insisted on as necessary to the support of the Christian religion, can only tend to throw discredit on its evidences, or be regarded as betraying a secret misgiving as to their soundness, in the minds of its professed disciples.

If such a spirit increase and gain ground among the friends of religion, and continue to be inculcated and urged by its advocates, it is manifest that in the temper of the present times, whether by one course or another, it must equally lead to the very object they are so anxious to strive against, the wider and deeper extension of irreligion.

Attempts to oppose rational inquiry and free discussion have always been as vain and futile in themselves, as pernicious to real Christianity. Whenever they have partially succeeded, it has only been, on the one hand, in producing general hypocrisy, ill concealing irreligious licentiousness; or, on the other, in setting faith and philosophy in open hostility: and thus science, from being in its proper way, the

powerful auxiliary, has been converted into the enemy, of religion, only by the ill-judged zeal of its friends. By a perversion of Christianity they alienate from it those who would be its best and most enlightened supporters, and professedly setting themselves in array against knowledge, they appear to make open confession that religion must be established on the basis of ignorance; and, as far as they can, force it into an unnatural alliance with darkness rather than light.

Such inquiries as those we have here been endeavouring to elucidate, point to a widely extended connexion and dependence, subsisting between the truths of natural and revealed theology; between the manifestations of the Divinity in the natural and moral creation, in the order and design of the physical world, and in those spiritual revelations of the most elevated kind which we find in Scripture; between the two books in which, (as Bacon* has observed,) Divine communications are alike vouchsafed to us, the volume of nature and the page of inspiration. The points of analogy between the two departments of inquiry are, indeed, peculiarly striking, and most worthy to be more diligently studied and practically applied than they seem to have been. The discussion of them would form the appropriate sequel to the foregoing essay; and such a sequel I have immediately in contemplation.

* De Augmentis, i.