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bones of land animals, found under circumstances which prove them to have inhabited the precise regions where these their relics have been discovered: for, had the regions in question been the bed of the ante-diluvian ocean, it is clear that no land animals could have inhabited them.1

All difficulties accompanying our researches into available facts, however, vanish, when the developements of physiological science, as far as known, and the Mosaic narrative of the Creation, &c., are viewed together. Oryctological discoveries demonstrate, that the various succession of strata in which fossil formations are deposited, as they ascend upward from the primitive rock, in which no fossil remains whatever are to be found, have undergone the process of severe ruptures; which circumstance proves that they existed prior to whatever cause produced them. And admitting, as we do, that these ruptures might have been produced by the catastrophe which attended our globe at the time of the universal deluge, they were quite sufficient to effect those very intermixtures of fossil formations, deposited in their respective previously existing strata, as given in the classification of Cuvier. Here again, we quote Mr. Faber. Rents and ruptures, and disarrangements, he says, may be continually observed in the several strata of fossil bodies; which disturb their regularity, and which have evidently been produced by some mighty convulsion. And, he continues, whether that convulsion

1. Three Dispen. I., p. 136.

was produced by the deluge, or whether it preceded the deluge, (for in either case the result of the argument will be the same,) the fossil remains, which constitute these strata, must have existed anterior to the deluge, and consequently cannot be the effects of the deluge.1

In regard to those mighty convulsions of nature through which our globe has passed, resulting in successive, and, for ought we know to the contrary, frequent interchanges of land and water, Mr. Faber says, the perpetual discovery of fossil fishes and of other exuviæ in the very centre of the largest continents, deposited above the strata of fossil wood and vegetables, sufficiently demonstrates, with respect to one of these revolutions, not merely that the waters of the Ocean must have passed over those continents, but that the continents themselves must at some remote period have been the permanent bed of the Ocean: for, as physiologists are well aware, a temporary inundation is wholly insufficient to account for the phenomena which present themselves. This appeal of Mr. Faber to physiologists is thus responded to by Mr. Cuvier. We are, says he, forcibly led to believe, not only that the sea has at one period or another covered all our plains, but that it must have remained there for a long time and in a state of tranquility; which circumstance was necessary for the formation of deposites, so extensive, so thick, in part

1. Three Dispen. I., p. 123.

so solid, and containing exuviæ so perfectly preserved.1

Under these circumstances, therefore, says Mr. Faber, the result is obvious. We now inhabit the bed, indeed, of a primeval ocean, but, not of the antediluvian ocean: because, according both to actually existing phenomena and to the inspired history in its plain and obvious construction, we now inhabit the very same tracts of land, (allowing for those smaller alterations, which a convulsion like the flood would of course produce,) that our ante-diluvian predecessors formerly inhabited. Therefore the primeval ocean, whose bed we now inhabit, must have been an ocean, which, as thus situated, was in existence prior to the creation of man.

On such necessary grounds, I conclude, says Mr. Faber, that the sea and the land must, to a certain extent, have changed places (and that too for a sufficient length of time to produce existing phenomena) in the course at least of the fifth day of the creation, to say nothing more of those yet more ancient revolutions which have apparently occurred during the lapse of the third and the fourth days.*

1. Essay on Theory, &c., § 4, p. 8.

2. Three Dispen. I., pp. 134, 139, 140, 141.

SECTION IV.

But it is still urged, that we have as yet omitted to give, in round numbers, the whole period of the Sabbatic Rest of the Almighty, as the period which, analogically, was to determine the length of each of the six demiurgic days. Of this fact we are fully aware. Nor is it compatible with our present purpose to say more than to state the simple fact, that the seventh day, as the sabbatic repose of the Almighty, embraces the round number of SIX THOUSAND years. Dating the course of fulfilment of the predicted events of Daniel from the commencement of the seventy prophetic weeks, and adding the aggregate amount of time to that which preceded that date, and it gives you the number of six thousand years. Now, if, within this period, all the events which God before declared should take place, actually transpires, what follows? What, but the expiration, the breaking up of His administration as the Preserver and Governor of this world, physical and moral, and the introduction of a new order of things? Yes, and it was this very truth that the apostle Peter, when preaching to the Jewish murderers of our Lord, set forth in the following pathetic strain: "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord: and he shall send JESUS CHRIST, which before was preached unto you: WHOM THE HEAVENS MUST RECEIVE, UNTIL THE TIMES OF RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS,

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WHICH GOD HATH SPOKEN BY THE MOUTH OF ALL HIS HOLY PROPHETS, SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN." 1

While, therefore, it is reserved for a subsequent part of this Treatise to furnish the Scriptural evidence at large, showing that the Almighty has affixed to his "determined times" a limited and definite period, we shall now presume upon its admission, and proceed at once to lay down the two following inferences. First, if the seventh day, as the sabbath of rest to the Almighty, exceeded the length of a natural or solar day, then, by analogy of language, each of the six preceding days must have exceeded the length of a natural or solar day. And second, that if the seventh day of the Almighty's repose embraced the period of six thousand years, then, by analogy of reasoning, each of the six preceding days must have embraced a period of six thousand years. The result, therefore, of the principles of exposition adopted in this Treatise is, that besides the vast and indefinite period which we assign to the divine agency over the chaotic elements of creation, the whole period of organization or formation during the six days, amounts to the definite period of THIRTY-SIX THOUSAND YEARS!

From this conclusion, however, the learned Faber, in his treatise on the Three Dispensations, dissents. Having, in his usual style of reasoning, (which, by the way, is generally marked with a force, a cogency of logical demonstration common to but few modern wri

1. Acts iii, 19 - 21.

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