antiquity! In them often are vices extolled for virtues. What impurities are there in the Alcoran of Mahomed; does it not tolerate, or rather encourage sensuality"! Though the Scriptures were not all written at once, but in detached parts, at distant periods, and by different persons; yet there is as much harmony and consistency in them, as if they had been all written by one hand. What greater demonstration can we possibly have, that the holy men who spoke what is treasured up in those writings, were all under the same influence, that of the one eternal Spirit?

mHow often do the most celebrated Philosophers contradict each other, and not a few of them are, at different times, at variance with themselves! What palpable contradictions are there in the Alcoran! the fact is so glaring, that Mussulmen, the votaries of Mahomet, themselves, are constrained to admit it. They say Mahomed was employed upwards of twenty years in writing his Alcoran; during that long period, revolutions happened which obliged the Deity to repeal cerain laws which he had formerly enacted, and enjoin others in contradiction to them. What, is twenty years a long period? Could not an omniscient Almighty Being foresee every event, the most fortuitous that could happen, during twenty years ? What is a period of twenty years in com

parison of the interval between the writing of the first and last book of the Scriptures! Instead of twenty, here is a period of many hundred years. From Moses who wrote the first, till the Apostle John who wrote the last of them, there was an interval of a thousand and five hundred years".

The enemies of religion, have pretended to find numerous contradictions and inconsistencies in the sacred writings; yet, as often have the advoeates of Truth shown, to the conviction of the unprejudiced part of mankind, that all such contradictions are but pretended, not real.

Sir Isaac Newton esteemed the Bible as the most authentic of all histories; which, by its celestial light, illumines the darkest ages of antiquity; which is the touchstone whereby we are able to distinguish between true and fabulous theology; between the God of Israel, holy, just, and good, and the impure rabble of Baalim ;which has been thought, by competent judges, to have afforded matter for the laws of Solon, and a foundation for the philosophy of Plato; which has been illustrated by the labour of learning in all ages and countries, and been admired and venerated for its purity, sublimity, and veracity, by all who were able to read and understand it.

But the Scriptures are not given us for amusement or mere speculation in perusing the curious

remains of antiquity, the language, manners, and theology, of some celebrated ancients; they are all pointed directly at our hearts and lives, to make us wise unto salvation. There, we find every rule of the most consummate wisdom, and every principle of truth and comfort; and the whole is designed to refine our nature into its proper excellence, to guide us in the paths of purity, peace, and righteousness; to make us happy in ourselves, and a blessing to all about us; and, finally, to qualify us for the full enjoyment of God for ever:

CHAPTER II.

ON THE CREATION.

THE Book of Genesis opens with this declaration: "In the beginning God created the heaven, and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

The words, " In the beginning," do not necessarily import more, than, that when God began the work of creation, he created both heaven and earth; nor from the expressions, "the earth was without form and void," have we any ground for an apprehension which some have entertained, that the earth was from all eternity. Such a supposition destroys every idea of creation, and cannot comport with the

Before the creative acts mentioned in this Chapter, all was eternity. Time signifies duration, measured by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; but, prior to the creation of these bodies, there could be no measurement of duration, and consequently no time. Therefore, "In the beginning," must necessarily mean the commencement of time which followed, or rather was produced by God's creative acts; as an effect follows, or is produced by a cause. See Adam Clarke's Bible.

words, "In the beginning." That which was from all eternity cannot be said to have had a beginning. The Wisest of men, in his description of wisdom, inculcates this sentiment; "When there were no depths I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled; before the hills, was I brought forth while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the depths; when he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep. When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him, &c." Moses, in his derivation of the origin of the world, uses the words tohu, bohu, which signify confusion of matter, dark, void, and without form.

e This is termed by the Greeks, Chaos; a word which hath a similar signification. The Barbarians, Phenicians, Egyptians, Persians, all refer the origin of the world, to a rude, mixed, and confused mass of matter. The Greeks -Orpheus, Hesiod, Menander, Aristophanes, Euripides, and the writers of the Cyclic Poems,