OR EVANGELICAL BONUS.

rapid and excessive degeneracy—until the whole impious race were all swept away with a flood. One would almost exclaim, that he was writing out a scripture history on the subject. He mentions the impious madness in sin, as the consummation of human impiety—and that their overthrow immediately followed. On this review, therefore, of the coincidences between sacred and profane history, we freely observe here, reader, you may rest perfectly satisfied. All the accounts, that approach nearest to the time of Moses, in point of antiquity, most nearly resemble his in the facts which they detail—but the stream of tradition, by a fatal necessity, became, like the generations of men, corrupted; and in a short time, their accounts were so disfigured by allegory and fable, that we can scarcely perceive any connection between them, and the original events. As to the number of the population at the event of the deluge, nothing is known with certainty-but according to only the ordinary rate of increase in the human species, it must have been immensely great. As the general duration of human life was at least ten times longer, than it is at present, the rate of increase must have been in the same proportion- and you see, therefore, that if we adopt this plan of calculation, the world must have been much more populous, during the period before the flood, than it is at the present moment.

And here, to close our present sermon, we barely add, as a Christian philosopher, the reflection, it is horrible to think, that such an enormous population should be all worked up, as that was, in a few days, into additional paste, for the reorganization of our earth! Yes, the idea is shocking,

indeed!!!

Yea! exuvia of our fellow beings, but of a larger, nobler build, have, with the exuvia of all other animals, been discovered every where, in endless variety of re-combination, in thousands of instances, already, in the crust of our earth, since the flood.

SERMON VI.

ROMANS XV-4.

FOR WHATSOEVER THINGS WERE WRITTEN AFORETIME, WERE WRITTEN FOR OUR LEARNING, THAT WE, THROUGH PATIENCE AND COMFORT OF THE SCRIPTURES, MIGHT HAVE HOPE.

READER- Having, in the preceding part, reviewed Moses' account of the creation; of the religious institutions ordained at first, for the observance of man, by the Creator; and of the history of the government, manners, and destiny of the race, during a period of sixteen hundred and fifty-six years; it is now our duty and object, to take a view somewhat more particular and detailed, of the evidences afforded of the fact of a former general inundation of this globe, which has ever since been called the deluge.

The term "deluge," in theology, denotes that universal flood, by which the whole inhabitants of this globe, except Noah and his family, were destroyed!

We here, have arrived at a crisis, in our review of the testimony of Moses, the ancient servant of God; where it is deemed important, and indeed, indispensable to admit a few dashes of glory, furnished by "the Artist" himself, upon our canvass.

"And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them: and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee

OR EVANGELICAL BONUS.

an ark of gopher-wood: rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof: with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven: and every thing that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish my covenant: and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee: they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth, after his kind; two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his son's wives, with him, into the ark, because of the [threatened] waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and everything that creepeth upon the earth. There went in, two and two, unto Noah, into the ark, the male and the female, as God had command Noah. And the Lord shut him in.

And now-anon, "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." "And the waters prevailed upon the earth, and bore up the ark; and it was lift up above the earth; and the ark went upon

TO DIVERSE, NOTABLE FOOLS AND ASSES.

the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward, did the waters prevail: and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed, which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

"And after the end of the hundred and fifty days, the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all. the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth, shall be meat for you; even as the green herb, have I given you all things: But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God, made he man. "And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him saying,

And I, behold

OR EVANGELICAL BONUS.

I, establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth, with you, from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

"And God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. I do set my Bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenaut between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, this is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth."

According to the most approved systems of chronology, as we have before stated, this remarkable event happened in the year 1656, after the creation; or about 2368 years before the Christian era. Of so general a calamity, from which only a single family of all who then lived on the face of the earth, was preserved; we might, naturally, indeed, expect to find some memorials in the traditionary records of Pagan history, as well as in the sacred volume, where its peculiar cause, and the circumstances which attended it, are so distinctly and fully related. Its magnitude and singularity, could scarcely fail to make an indelible impression on the minds of the survivors; which would be communicated from them to their children; and would not,