With the argument of Analogy therefore still in view, we proceed now to define the import of the term "day," as intended in our view to be understood by Moses in his cosmogony of the creation; in order to which, we premise that few words in our English version of the Scriptures are more equivocal than this very term. In addition to its general acceptation, as signifying a single revolution of the earth round its axis, it will be found to denote,

1. A revolution of the Earth round the Sun. Thus," after the number of the days in which ye reached the land, even forty days, (each day for a year,) shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years." 1

2. One thousand years, or a millenary. Thus, — "a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday."2

3. A vast duration of indefinite time, as that now under consideration; which is used to denote the whole of the six days, mentioned in Chapter first. "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created: in the DAY that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." "

It is therefore evidently by analogy of reasoning alone, that we can determine whether these terms in the first Chapter of Genesis signify a natural or solar day of twenty-four hours, or periods of vastly greater, but indefinite duration.

With these prefatory remarks we now observe, that

1. Num. xiv., 34,

2. Ps. xc., 4.

3. Gen. ii., 4.

by analogy, the term "day," including the whole seven, must be understood to embrace, (homogeneously,) the same amount of time whether of longer or of shorter duration. The ascertained length of any one of these days, therefore, will give the length of each.

The inquiry thence arising is this:-Upon which ONE of the seven, must our calculations inevitably rest? We answer, on the last or SEVENTH, the day on which God ended his work, and on which commenced his sabbatical repose.

Of this day, then, we affirm that it cannot be confined to a natural or solar day, or to a single revolution of the earth on its axis in twenty-four hours; and for the following reasons:

1. Our natural week of seven days, each of twentyfour hours, is but a standing epitome, so to speak, of the GREATER WEEK of the Creator's labor and repose. Hence its appropriation, by Divine appointment, of six parts to the former, and of one (or the seventh) part to the latter, agreeably to the fourth commandment in the decalogue..

Now, ever since the world has been inhabited by man, this standing epitome of the great demiurgic week of the Creator has exemplified a resumption after the expiration of his sabbatical repose, of his Almighty energy, in the work of a SECOND creation. For who, among the millions of the human race ever understood the fourth commandment as enjoining a total cessation of all labor at the close of the seventh day of rest? And how, we ask, is the epitomised

week to be made to correspond with its great archetype, except that archetype, in the epitomised week by which it was symbolised, pointed to a period of resumption.

Finally, on this subject, we remark, that of each of the six days of creation it is written, that "the evening and the morning were the day." The apostle Paul, in alluding to the six periods of creation, (Heb. i., 2, and xi., 3, and McKnight's com.,) instead of calling them "days," calls them aves, a word which our translators render "worlds," but which, in its true meaning, signifies "ages of immeasurable duration, and the created beings which exist in them, or during their course. These atves were the six days of creation, and all that was produced therein." But respecting the seventh day, we find nothing written about "evening or morning." On the contrary, we find it expressly written, "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Now, we know, that immediate death did not follow the transgression. We know also that the penalty was to extend to all the sinful generations of men, from Adam, their federal head, to the end of time. "It is appointed unto men once to die." 1 Accordingly, during the seventh day, the threat has been literally" in a course of fulfilment ; and this, in perfect accordance with the revealed character of the Almighty, as the Preserver, Benefactor, Governor, and Redeemer of men.

We conclude, therefore, that the inference thence

1. Heb. ix., 27.

arising is, that the Creator's sabbath of rest must exceed that of a natural or solar day; also, that it has never yet been interrupted for one single moment since its commencement; nor will it be, till the last hour of the entire period shall have expired!

Previously, however, to our entering upon the work of assigning to this great day, this sabbath of the Creator's rest, a limited and definite duration, we must claim your indulgence of one preliminary, as indispensable in determining the date of its commencement. This preliminary is predicated of the claim of the PRE-ADAMITES, who assert an existence for human beings anterior to that of Adam and Eve in other words, they deny that Adam and Eve could have been the FIRST PROGENITORS of the human race.

As a guide to our investigations of this subject, a more tangible form would be, to invest it with its physico-theological characteristics. Then it would stand as follows: Are all who claim to belong to the human race of the same genus or species? In other words: Have they a COMMON ORIGIN?

Here, again, we find ourselves driven back into the vast, yea, almost unbounded fields of ancient annalists, both profane and sacred. Those, however, who heard in lecture form, and who have read our defence of an antecedent antiquity in behalf of the sacred writings over that of any or of all others, whether Hindoo, Egyptian, Chinese, Persian, or Etruscan; and also, of our defence of the divinely inspired and consequent undeniable authenticity of the history of the

creation and origin of mankind as given by Moses, in our Introductory Essay, will not require of us more at this time than simply to observe, that sacred history claims a priority over that of profane, by a period of about three thousand three hundred years; Herodotus being the earliest profane post-diluvian historian extant; that he flourished about one thousand years after MOSES, and only about four hundred and fifty years before CHRIST; and that the chronology of his history bears date only about seven hundred years anterior to the First Advent; all of which shuts us up to the necessity of confining ourselves to the cosmogony of the great Jewish historian, Moses, for all our information of this subject, prior to that date.

Now, what is his account of this matter? Simply as follows: In the twenty-seventh verse of chapter first of Genesis, we read, "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." And in the seventh, eighteenth, twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third verses of chapter second, we read, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul. And the Lord God said, it is not good for man that he should be alone: I will make him an help meet for him," &c. The last three verses relate to the mode of the creation of Eve.

Now, it is here that we are met with the objection, that Adam and Eve could not have been the FIRST progenitors of the human race. This objection, strange to tell, is founded upon an alleged contradiction of the