sleep and continue in sin, as the wicked doth."-First Part of the Homily entitled "An Information for them which take Offence at certain Places of the Holy Scriptures."

These brief remarks, I trust, will be sufficient to satisfy those, if such there are, who may have felt really conscientious difficulties on the point: captious and wilful objectors neither wish for nor will admit a solution. The subject, however, is of importance, and might be profitably discussed more at large by some of your more able correspondents. It would perhaps be adviseable to include in the consideration not only the narratives to which I more particularly refer, but some other parts also of Scripture, which are apt to excite a degree of pain in reading, especially in public. A few comprehensive canons of interpretation would furnish a key to the whole of these passages, without any particular specification. The mere change of ages and circumstances, with the want of virtuous simplicity in modern times, are of themselves sufficient to vindicate the plainness of Scripture language in some passages which, in a vernacular version, might

seem to trespass on decorum. The peculiar character of the whole Mosaic economy, and the intention of separating the Jewish nation effectually from every other people of the world, in order to preserve the knowledge of the one true God among them, will furnish another important key to various Old-Testament difficulties. The comparative obscurity of that dispensation on some elevated points of Christian obligation, so clearly unfolded and strongly enjoined in the New Testament, will account for many words and actions which naturally appear to us as wearing an air of severity. But I forbear to enlarge; though I shall not be displeased to see these hints taken up more fully in some subsequent Numbers of your work, for the satisfaction and confirmation of many sincere and ingenuous inquirers, who are apt, for want of an enlarged knowlege of the whole scheme and purport of the sacred writings, to find a stumbling block in some of the captious objections which are in the present age busily thrown in the way of the young and unlettered Christian.

C. J.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. THE succinct account given by Moses of the creation of the world and its inhabitants, has furnished occasion for almost innumerable comments and explications; and passing strange have been some of the conjectures, both of believers and of sceptics, upon the subject. Amongst the theories to which the Mosaic relation has given birth, a somewhat novel, and certainly a very ingenious one, has just been promulged by the Rev. G. S. Faber,

in his new and highly interesting publication, on "the Genius and Object of the Patriarchal, the Levitical, and the Christian Dispensations." Divines in general have at once repelled the objections of sceptical geologists by counter-proofs and arguments; Mr. Faber, on the contrary, admits some of their strongest premises, but denies their conclusion, that the narration and dates of Scripture are incorrect. The opinion of the wisest Christian philosophers on the whole of this subject seems to be, that, on the

one hand, the sacred Scriptures were never intended to inculcate points of science with technical precision; but, on the other, that no one physical fact, destructive of their testimony, has ever been substantiated. The mass of evidence on which the Divine Revelation of the Scriptures reposes, is so vast and overwhelming, that the Christian needs be in no jeopardy respecting the validity of his faith from such vague discoveries of the world's age, as are to be obtained "by peeping into an old well." Mr. Faber, however, has considered some of the infidel geological objections as worthy of a careful answer; and has in consequence devoted to the subject an elaborate and very interesting chapter, which I beg permission to transcribe, for the information of your readers. I will not anticipate their judgment on the discussion, but will just venture briefly to express my own; which is, that Mr. Faber's theory, like every other on the same subject, does, and must of necessity, rest upon mere conjecture, except so far as its leading facts are built upon the plain text of Holy Writ; but that, at the same time, his fundamental position-namely, that the word day," in the Mosaic account of the creation, does not literally mean twenty-four hours-may very possibly be correct, as many other divines and commentators have strongly alleged; and this being admitted, there is nothing either impossible in itself or inconsistent with the sacred narrative, in his general theory; though many individual parts of it (such as attempting to determine what precise portion of time the day of creation actually was, and making it equivalent to the world's supposed intended duration) are much too fanciful. Still, the whole argument, founded or unfounded, is so far valuable that it clearly shews that the inspired narrative cannot be proved to be at yariance with any certain fact or

66

inference in geology. Allowing the word "day" to be used in a large sense in the Mosaic account, the geologist may find ample time for all his operations without invalidating a single verse or line of the sacred Scriptures; which, it must be admitted by every candid inquirer, have given us the only rational or satisfactory intelligence respecting the formation of the universe and the early history of the human race. But I will not detain your readers longer from the remarks of the pious and learned author, whose hypotheses are always accompanied with a mass of evidence and incidental information, which cannot fail to repay the reader even though the conclusion should not be finally adopted by him.

P.

FABER ON THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY.

"The second argument of Bishop Warburton, by which he would prove the subjection of our first parents to natural religion in an anteparadisiacal state, rested upon the gratuitous assumption, that the six days, in the course of which God is said to have fashioned the material world out of chaos, were six natural days, or six of those brief periods which are measured by the revolution of our planet round its axis.

"Now, so far from allowing the propriety of this assumption, I will venture altogether to deny it: for, that the six demiurgic days, instead of being nothing more than six natural solar days, were each a period of very considerable length, may be proved, partly by analogy of language, partly by the very necessity of the narrative, partly by ancient tradition, and partly (and that most decisively) by the discoveries or possibly the re-discoveries of modern physiologists.

"I. With respect to the analogy of language, we are told, that the Lord fashioned the world in six days, and that he rested on the seventh day.

"Here the analogy of language

requires us to understand these days homogeneously that is to say, if one of the seven mundane days be a natural day, they must all be natural days; and conversely, if one of the seven mundane days be a period of great length, they must all be periods of great length.

"Perhaps I need scarcely remark, that in Scripture nothing can well be more indefinite than the term, which we translate by the English word day. Sometimes it denotes a single revolution of the earth round its axis: sometimes it denotes a revolution of the earth round the sun, or what we call a natural year (Numb. xiv. 34; Ezek. iv. 6; Dan. xii. 11, 12; Rev. xi. 3, 9, xii. 6.): sometimes it denotes a whole millenary (Psalm xc. 4; 2 Peter iii. 8.): sometimes it denotes a period of probably great, but of wholly undetermined length (Isaiah ii. 12; xiii. 6; Joel i. 15; Zeph. i. 7, 8, 18; Mal. iv. 5; 1 Thess. v. 2; 2 Peter iii. 10.): and sometimes it denotes all the six demiurgic days collectively; that is to say, all the six demiurgic days viewed as jointly forming a single demiurgic day or period. (Gen. ii. 4.) Thus, in truth, the term abstractedly would be more accurately expressed by the English word period, than by the English word day; for the context alone can determine, what specific period it may describe in any particular passage; though doubtless, in common speech, it is ordinarily employed to set forth a natural day or a revolution of the earth round its axis.

"The question therefore is, what specific period it describes in the Mosaical history of the creation.

"Now this question, as I have already observed, will be determined, according to the analogy of language, if we can in some degree ascertain the length of any one of the seven demiurgic days; for, just as we understand one of these days, so must we understand them all.

"Let us take then, as our test or gage, the seventh day, or the Divine Sabbath. Was this sabbatical day

a single revolution of our planet round its axis; or are we to deem it a period of very considerable length?

On the mind of a cursory reader, the first impression, I have no doubt, would be, that the Divine Sabbath was a single natural day; yet, if we dwell upon the subject a little more attentively, we shall find it no easy matter to establish the consistency of such an opinion.

"If God laboured six natural days and rested on the seventh natural day, the very turn of the statement will unavoidably imply, that he resumed his labours on the eighth natural day, or on the first day of the following natural week: just as in the case of the human commemorative Sabbath, when man is commanded to labour six natural days, and to rest on the seventh natural day, the very turn of the command implies, that his rest is to terminate with the seventh day, and that his labour is to recommence with the eighth.

"But was this the plan adopted by the Supreme Being? Did he resume his labours on the eighth natural morning? Most certainly he did not: for we are assured, that

the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them' (a comprehensive phrase plainly expressive of the whole material world),' were finished at the close of the sixth day; that on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and that from all his work which he had made he rested on the seventh day.'

"If then God did not resume his creative labours on the eighth natural morning, his Sabbath or rest certainly extended beyond the limits of the seventh natural day: and, if it extended beyond the limits of the seventh natural day, a single natural day most undoubtedly could not be the measure of the Divine Sabbath.

"But at what time did the Divine Sabbath, thus plainly extending beyond the limits of the seventh natural day, terminate? In good truth, its termination has not even

tion were created on the fifth day; and beasts, and reptiles, and man were created on the sixth day. Such being the case, it is clear, on the supposition of the six demiurgic days being six natural days, that, without a miracle, all graminivorous and seminivorous and fructivorous animals must have perished through hunger; because on such a supposition, the vegetable seeds, which were created and committed to the earth on the third day, could not, in the ordinary course of germination, have produced a sufficiency of food for non-carnivorous animals created on the fifth and sixth days in time to save them from destruction by famine.

"To solve this difficulty, we have our choice of two expedients. Either a miracle of germination must have been wrought; through which the vegetable seeds sprang up almost instantaneously and quite out of the common course of nature, to complete and productive maturity: or the six days of creation must each have been a period greatly exceeding the length of a single revolution of the earth round its axis.

"Here then we must make our choice: for, in no way, save by the one or the other of these two expedients, can the non-carnivorous animals be preserved from certain destruction. Now we know, that God works not superfluous miracles. Therefore, agreeably to the established principles both of his moral and his physical government, we are bound, I think, to conclude, that each demiurgic day was a period greatly exceeding the length of a natural day.

"III. With this conclusion, the tenor of ancient tradition exactly corresponds.

1. In the sacred volume of Hindoo law which, from evidence partly extrinsic and partly intrinsic, its eminently learned translator pronounces to be one of the oldest compositions existing, we find a day and a night of the Creator extended

to such a length as almost to baffle computation: and, with this stupendous length, we further find, that his demiurgic labour and repose are immediately connected. During his day of energy he creates the world: 'his night' of repose 'endures as long as his day:' and,

at the close of his night, having long reposed, he awakes; and, awaking, exerts intellect, whose property it is to exist unperceived by sense. Intellect, called into action by his will to create worlds, performs again the work of creation; for numberless are the creations and destructions of worlds. The Being supremely exalted performs all this, as if in sport, again and again*.'

"2. Similar in principle was the doctrine of the ancient Persians and Etruscans; the latter of whom, according to Herodotus, were a Lydian colony from Asia Minor.

"Moses tells us, that God formed the world in six days, or rather in six periods of whatever length; for our definite English word day but imperfectly expresses the sense of the indefinite original Hebrew word.

"Such was the primeval account: and it had evidently been received by those two ancient nations, though they modified it on the very same principle of extension for which I am contending. According to the Persians, the world was formed in the course of six different periods; each period comprehending a considerable number of days, and the sum total of the six amounting to a year: but whether a literal or a mystical year it is left undetermined. In a similar manner, according to the Etruscans, the world was formed in the course of six periods; each period comprehending a millenary: while six thousand years are allotted for a seventh period, namely, that of its duration.

"These ancient cabalas are ad

" Instit. of Menu, chap. i. § 6480."