pressed, that the first verse of Genesis is not a summary account of the subsequently-recorded six days' work, but declares a primal creation of materials, out of which this present visible world was constructed. This is all that could be expected from these early Writers, under the circumstances of the case, and the imperfect knowledge of natural things in their day existing. And it is all, moreover, that is absolutely essential to the geological argument, since a pre-creation of the heaven and earth, and a subsequent construction thereof at the time of the human creation, where the interval between these two acts is confessedly undefined, gives adequate scope for all those vast periods of evolution, and successive creations, which geological investigation discloses.

A few of these embryo-geological opinions, as they may be called, will be cited in an Appendix, as offering a valuable and unexpected confirmation, from the olden time, of the Modern Scriptural Interpretation; and this review of some concurrent opinions of more Ancient Authors, expressed before the revelation of Geological Science, will be followed by a few extracts from some more Modern Writers, whose standing, both in Theology and Science, may properly claim attention to their views. There has purposely from this list been excluded many valuable extracts from Works exclusively devoted to Geological subjects, as their Authors might be supposed

to be professionally biassed in favour of its high deductions. But it is, nevertheless, important to notice, that all those many men of superior intellect, character, and enterprize, who have given the attention of their lives to geological research, are, without exception, unanimous in their conviction of the Earth's vast Antiquity, and have expressed that opinion constantly and forcibly. And who than they can be better able to give a trustful opinion? It would seem as unreasonable to view with suspicion the opinion of a Physician regarding a medical subject, or of a Divine respecting theology, as, on the ground of professional bias, to invalidate that of the professional Geologist. Who so likely to know best as those who have investigated most? The opinions of those eminent persons may, however, be readily referred to in their Geological Works. Those that will be extracted are selected out of Miscellaneous Works, not immediately relating to Geology, and may be considered, therefore, as scattered rays, collected into a point here, to shed their united light on this investigation.

Thus, from these various extracts, now to be adduced out of a numerous coinciding band of Christian sages, of ancient and modern times, it will be seen that the explication of the Earth's vast Antiquity, in accordance with the revelations in the Mosaical Record, is no crude or unsupported theory.

Minds of the largest intellectual capacity and high moral power, have given their testimony more or less strongly in favour of this harmonious concordance, and many of them have regarded the fact as a matter full of high and holy influences. Sure we may be indeed, that any such astonishing extension of our view of the Almighty's workmanship into wondrous scenes before unfolded, and into unconceived time before untold, cannot be without its lofty practical results. The grand discoveries of Nature are ever to be read as grand lessons of piety; and as we turn over page after page in this magnificent volume, many awakening voices should reach our hearts from the truths of the past they tell, and the prophetic visions they unfold of the future. Our succeeding Chapter will therefore be employed in tracing out some of those moral lessons the fact of the Earth's antiquity may be understood as uttering to us.

E. A.

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APPENDIX

ΤΟ

CHAPTER III.

IN

N this Appendix to the Third Chapter, some opinions of ancient authors in reference to subjects in connexion with the Creation will first be cited.

The expositions of Scripture afforded by various Jewish Writers, though mingled with many monstrous conceits, yet, when their attention is directed to philological matters, are exceedingly valuable; as likely to exhibit the primal force of the original language, with more perspicuity than other interpreters. Eben Ezra as quoted in Willet's Hexapla in Gen. 1632:

"This clause In the beginning' is used here syntacticè, in construction with the next word, as though this should be the sense, 'In the beginning of creating, or when God created,' and so the sense should be suspended till the second or third verse."

Fagius, in his Annota

Genesis i. thus alludes

The Rabbi David Kimchi. tions in Critici Sacri on to his opinions concerning the term "in the beginning."

"The Jewish Interpreters vary in their exposition of this term, but the opinion of Rabbi D. Kimchi seems preferable to me to any other; for in his Book

That God

of Roots' he explains it in this manner. created the heavens and the earth, and then those things that were produced out of them. After which, Moses goes on to say, that in the beginning of the creation the Earth was without form, and void.-Thus far, he; from which you see, that in the opinion of Kimchi, a certain order of created things, (which some are unwilling to admit) is here indicated by Moses; viz. that God first created the heavens and the earth, and afterwards, those things which were formed out of them, as if from pre-existent matter: what the appearance and condition of the earth was, is intimated by Moses in the second verse, where he says, 'the earth was without form, and void.""

Many of the Christian Fathers held a similar opinion.

Basil, Homil. I. in Hexahemeron, Op. Tom. I. p. 7.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."-"By these two extremes Moses signified the substance of all things, attributing to the heaven the eldership of creation; but asserting that the earth was of subsequent origin. But if there were any thing between these that was made together with them, although Moses says nothing respecting the other substances-such as fire, water, and air,-yet you may understand that all these and other things were mixed up as it were in the substance, so that you will find them elicited from the earth."

Again, Homil. I. Tom. I. p. 7.

"It is probable that something existed before this world, which we may conceive of in our minds, but of which no narrative is supplied."