up, displaces the ocean; or the ocean, swelling beyond its usual height, covers the land; the cause of the change is only in one of the two objects, never in both of them.* When the land rises up, it is the cause of the alteration; when the ocean swells, it is the cause; when, again, the land sinks, it is the cause. Now, to suppose the change in the text effected by the motion of the land, as well as by the motion of the water, is to render the miracle more complicated than events of the same sort that take place in the ordinary course of nature, and assign for it two distinct causes, when one is quite adequate to produce the change. Of two

plans by which the same end may be attained, a skilful artist always gives a preference to the more simple; because it can be accomplished with less labour, and is also attended with a saving of both time and expense. Now, of the motion of the waters as a cause, we have ample proof; but, of the motion of the land, we possess no evidence at all; and it greatly simplifies the miracle, and makes it more in accordance with nature, to follow evidence, and conclude, that the change in the relative situation of the land and the deep was produced by the simple retirement of the waters.

Again let us consider what is implied in the raising up of land. Water is much more easily put in mo

*If the reader make trial, he will find it no easy matter to conceive of a case, in which the cause is in both the land and the water. And, if he study attentively Milton's attempt to present such an instance, he will find, that he cannot form in his imagination any definite picture from his description; and, that the great poet's delineation is, not only unnatural, but what the mind can make no distinct representation of to itself. See Milton's description of the removal of the waters, pp. 194 and 241.

tion, and made to shift its place, than land; water is not riveted to a particular spot and bottom as land is; it simply rests in the channel which contains it; this makes it a comparatively_easy matter to cause water to change its situation. It is far otherwise with land. The flood of the text, as will afterwards be shown, must have been about six hundred feet deep, and perhaps considerably more. If the flood was occasioned by the sinking of the land, the solid crust of the earth must have sunk down to that extent in order to bring it about. But such displacement and derangement throughout nearly a whole continent is altogether beyond the bounds of probability, and cannot be shown to have taken place, and all to produce a temporary flood that could be brought on by far more simple and peaceful means. At the time of the Universal Deluge, it was the waters that rose and overwhelmed the land, not the land that sank and let the waters rush in upon it. And so it was with the smaller flood of the Record; it was the waters that swelled beyond their usual level, and made the dry land disappear for a time. Had it been otherwise, a continent must have first sunk to cause the flood, and afterwards been raised to dislodge it.

There is still another view which we may take of the matter under remark in connection with the Record. In that simple narrative, the cause uniformly precedes, and the effect follows:

Let there be light (cause;

And there was light (effect.

Let there be a firmament (cause;
God made the firmament (effect.

But, if there was an actual movement of both the water and the land, we have in verse 9 two causes, and no effect separately expressed, as in the case of the other miracles:

Let the waters be gathered together (cause;

Let the dry land appear (cause.

If now, we present the case as the philological evidence requires, we shall have a single cause followed by a single effect, as we have in all the other miracles: Let the waters be gathered together (cause; Let the dry land appear (effect.

According to these explanations, which it is hoped the reader will find satisfactory,

Let the waters be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear

is equivalent to

Let the waters be gathered together into one place, THAT the dry land may appear.

Let us suppose a female witness to come into a court veiled. The judge would probably say to her-"Draw aside your veil, and let your face appear." In this command, the motion, not of the witness' face, but of her veil only is implied. Analogous to the case in the Record-"Draw aside your veil, and let your face appear"-is equivalent to-"Draw aside your veil, THAT your face may appear."

The following stanza from the first of our paraphrases is more correct than some of the other verses in the same composition:

"The liquid element below

Was gather'd by his hand;
The rolling seas together flow,
And leave the solid land."

Many writers in modern times have lamented that the Georgics of Virgil, a poem so replete with poetic beauties, and showing such high artistic skill on the part of the author, should yet be deformed by so many departures from the facts of nature. Paradise Lost, a poem of at least equal artistic skill (though of a somewhat different kind) as the Georgics, and of far higher desert as regards the subject-matter, extent, origin

N

ality, &c., of the work, contains many wide deviations from both the facts of nature, and the truths of Revelation. But, for both Virgil and Milton, it may with truth be said that, in point of knowledge, neither of them was behind his age, and that, generally speaking, they each made good use of the light that the times in which they lived afforded them. Milton believed that God created this earth" in a moment," to use his own words. With many other writers of his own time, he supposed the earth, immediately on its being created, to be in a chaotic state. In the following passage he understands the divine fiat for removing the waters from the dry land, to be a command for the reduction of chaos to order in as far as relates to the sea and the land:

"The earth was form'd, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appeared not: over all the face of earth
Main ocean flowed, not idle, but with warm
Prolific humour soft'ning all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God said
'Be gathered now ye waters under Heaven
Into one place, and let dry land appear.'
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky :
So high as heav'd the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters: thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uprolled
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry;
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,

For haste; such flight the great command impress'd
On the swift floods: as armies at the call

Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard, so the watery throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way they found,
If steep, with torrent rapture; if through plain,
Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill,

But they, or underground, or circuit wide
With serpent error wand'ring, found their way,
And on the washy oose deep channels wore."

Paradise Lost, B. vii.

Milton, Ray, and others, who believe the world to have been created all at once in a solid, chaotic state, not only misinterpret the Mosaic Record, but put themselves in array against the attributes of God. By asserting that the globe was made all at once in a solid state, they set bounds to God's goodness and wisdom; by asserting that the globe was formed in a chaotic state, they set bounds to his power. According to them, the Creator is a well disposed, finite God, who does everything for the best, and, as well as his limited attributes enable him. Such, however, is not the God of the Bible, he by whom "all things were made." And, though these inferences flow directly from their own premises, the ex-nihilo men are too shortsighted to perceive their validity; and, not one of all that numerous body would be found to put his name to them. They have, unconsciously and unfortunately, embraced error for truth, and think all that differ in opinion from them enemies to sound doctrine.

THE LAND COVERED BY THE FLOOD, &c.

We must now look abroad, and endeavour to discover the dry-land, and the waters of the text. "The waters" and "the seas" are both plural, and intimate, that more that one body of water is intended. "Sea" is the term universally employed to denote large bodies of water, more especially of salt water, and, (from the explanations that will shortly follow) we may, without hesitation, conclude, that bodies of salt water are alluded to. "The dry-land" and "the earth" are in the singular number, and suggest, that only one con