day, or that maturity must have been effected through the medium of an unnatural growth, in order to answer the purposes of food to all the animal world not carnivorous; and which, in either case, would argue the intervention of a miracle: or, second, all animals not carnivorous, the productions of the fifth and sixth days work, must inevitably have perished with hunger. But, that they were neither thus formed on the third day, or brought to an unnatural maturity between the third and sixth days, is abundantly evident from the history itself. Moses, Genesis ii. v. 5., in his enlarged account of the work of Creation says, that the Almighty made "every PLANT of the field before it was in the earth, and every HERB of the field before it grew :" &c. i. e., the seeds of these vegetables were thus formed, not the plants and herbs in their mature state. This seems to be the obvious purport of the original and of the Greek avatɛihai, which may be rendered, BEFORE it sprouted or germinated: which, if not strictly true of plants, yet most certainly of herbs; for, with what consistency can herbs be said to have arrived at maturity "BEFORE they grew"? And if this be true of the one, then why not of the other? The conclusion therefore is, that the seeds of plants and herbs, having been formed on the third day, were left to nature, in its ordinary operations, to be brought to maturity; and as we know that the process of germination is gradual, and that it requires many years for trees to attain even a moderate size, the third, fourth, fifth

and sixth days at least, must have exceeded the length of so many natural or solar days.

2. The physiological structure of our globe demonstrates, that its origin is to be attributed to remote antiquity. Here we have to premise in the first place, that the material heavens and earth, at their first creation, were not stamped with that perfection which the popular view appropriates to it. Nor will this be found in the least to derogate from the adequacy either of the wisdom, the power, or the goodness of the Great Creator. Viewed as a whole, it will be found in perfect harmony with the vast designs of God as connected with that "NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH," which is destined to receive that stamp of perfection from the hand of the Almighty Architect, which in his infinite wisdom was withheld from the first. Nor, speaking theologically, are we now treading upon new ground. No. This view of the comparative perfection of the first and second creation, with many others of equal importance in conveying correct apprehensions of the work of God as a whole, has in a great measure been lost to the Church. Lost, we say. For, with the exception of the period which intervened from the Apostle's time to the Nicene Council A. D. 325, and the early part of the Reformation, this doctrine has become comparatively obsolete. But, Dr. Burnett, in his elaborate Treatise on the "Theory of the Earth," quoting, on this, subject, the sentiments of the Council of Nice, which was convened by Constantine the Great about the year three hundred and twenty-five, soon after the

establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and when the fundamental doctrines of the gospel for the most part were yet "uncorrupt," makes the following extract. "The world was made meaner, or less perfect, providentially; for God foresaw that man would sin. Wherefore we expect NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH, according to the Holy Scriptures," &c. The same sentiment prevailed at the Reformation, and was thus reduced to form under the reign of Edward VI., in the Church of England Catechism. Thus it speaks-"The end of the world Holy Scripture calleth the fulfilling and performance of the kingdom and mystery of Christ, and the renewing of all things; for, saith the Apostle Peter, (2 Epist. iii.) We, according to his promise, look for NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And it seemeth reason that corruption, unsteadfast change, and sin, whereunto the whole world is subject, should at length have an end, according to the witness of the Apostle; The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up ;' as though he had said — As gold is wont to be fined, so shall the whole world be purified with fire, and be brought to its full perfection. The lesser world, which is man, following the same, shall likewise be delivered from corruption and change; and so, for man, this greater world, which for his sake was first

1. Burnett's Theo. of the Earth, vol. II., p. 246, et seq.

created, shall at length be removed, and be clad with another hue, MUCH MORE PLEASANT AND BEAUTIFUL.'

This, we repeat, was the generally received sentiment of the Church during the two periods of her greatest purity: the first, from the Apostle's times down to the Council of Nice, A. D. 325, and the second, at the Reformation. And, whatever may be the strength of prejudice of those who discard a doctrine simply because it has grown venerable by age, we expect "better things" of those who profess to respect "ancient authors" as the best witnesses for, and interpreters of, "Holy Scripture." Nor indeed shall we relinquish the hope, that both the one and the other may be brought to see the utter impossibility of harmonizing the Scriptural cosmogony of the creation with the scientific discoveries of phisiology, in any other way: not that our theory tends to derogate from the Mosaic account of the creation as an inspired production; far from it- but that the physiological discoveries of the structure of our globe, furnish the only rational and tangible key by which to interpret it. As an handmaid to inspiration, it steps forward, and, by the rays of refraction, as collected from existing phenomena in the physical construction of the earth, elucidates and confirms it.

What then, we ask, are some of these phenomena ? We answer, first, that whatever they are, we are to seek for them amid the wonders of the subterranean

1. Cox's Millena. Ans. p. 39, 40.

world, in the form of fossils or petrifactions exumed from the various Strata, out of which many of the secondary mountains, &c., of our globe is formed. Now, these fossil remains, bearing upon them the evident stamp of vast antiquity, many have attempted to account for exclusively on the principle of those mighty changes effected in the present physical structure of our globe, through the agency of the universal deluge. But, if it can be demonstrated that there are existing fossil phenomena, of the origin of which the universal deluge cannot furnish a satisfactory account, it is clear that they must have existed anterior to the deluge; and if anterior to the deluge, as there was no such revolution in the physical world between the formation of man and that event, by which such fossils or petrifactions could by any possibility have been formed, we must date their origin anterior to the Paradisaical State; and if anterior to the Paradisaical State, they could only have been formed by some mighty convulsions of nature, during the period of the six days organization or formation of the material earth and heavens. This admitted, and beyond controversy, the six days organization of the material universe, must have been six periods of vast length.

We proceed, therefore, to demonstrate, that the effects produced upon our globe by its subjection to the action (powerful and universal as it was) of the Deluge, are totally inadequate to account for all the fossilated phenomena extant. Now, no one pretends, so far as the writer is aware, that any of the genus of land animals which existed prior to the flood, became