CONCLUSION. 357 I cannot but add, that any member of the LECT. VIII. learned and scientific societies to which Dr. Turner belonged, is doing himself a wrong if he do not read and deeply ponder the Sermon which has furnished these extracts. In a word; suffer one to intreat you, who puts forth no claim but that of the sincerest regard, and the warmest desire for your enjoying happiness of the most exalted kind and in the most perfect degree. Suffer him to intreat, that you would effectually resolve to yield to religion its rightful place in your minds and your hearts: that you would give the just proportion of your studies to the facts and evidences of Christianity, its doctrines and duties, its promises, its invitations, and its faithful warnings. "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST; ON EARTH, PEACE; AMONG MEN, GOOD WILL!" SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. [A.] Referred to at pages 12 and 298. IN the Congregational Magazine for November, 1837, the inquiry was proposed, under the signature of T. K. "Could there be death, by violent and painful means, before the entrance of sin had deranged the order of a holy world, or had given occasion for bringing into action the instruments of violent death ?" To this, the following answer was returned: and, as it has been made an object of controversial attack by Mr. Mellor Brown, and as it may contribute some further illustration to several of the topics treated in these lectures, I have thought it not unsuitable to be here introduced, omitting a few sentences. The question of your correspondent, T. K., merits the most serious attention. It forms one, and probably the heaviest, of the two great difficulties which Christians feel in relation to the discoveries and doctrines of modern Geology: the first is the alleged necessity of admitting that God had put forth his creating energy from an era impossible to be even conjectured, but stretching back, through immeasurable periods, from the adaptation of the earth, to be the abode of a new race of creatures, with MAN at their head. I have said, alleged necessity; because that qualifying term is proper at the outset of an inquiry: but, though I cannot now undertake this part of the discussion, I am bound to profess that there is no doubt in my own mind. I must even go so far as to express my conviction, that it is perfectly impossible for any intelligent person to understand the facts |