Jehovah our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law."

Now as the historical accounts of those marvellous displays of divine power, which the whole nation had witnessed, were accompanied by and interspersed in the body of the written laws; and the whole deposited with them in the most solemn and open manner by the very man who had for forty years acted in their presence, as the distinguished instrument of omnipotence; those records were of course received by the whole nation as incontrovertible memorials of eternal truth; and as such they have been perpetually embraced, preserved and handed down from generation to generation, as we see them at this day.

If the Hebrews had not certainly known the historical facts recorded in the Books in question to be undoubted divine truths, they never would have received them as such: much less would they have preserved and defended at the risk of the loss of their property and lives, for more than three thousand years, records, which so far from flattering false prejudices or encouraging evil propensities, are principally filled with admonitions against immoral indulgences or criminal acts; the penalties of disobedience; the catalogues of their offences and the consequent punishments of Divine Justice. Therefore, for these and an abundance of other reasons which might be produced, every intelligent man, who seriously considers, that all effects are necessarily produced by corresponding causes, and who in other respects cultivates ratiocination with a due regard to useful information, ought, I conceive, upon the most solid grounds of argument, to admit, that the revealed communications in question are strictly authentic and divine.

There are many persons, notwithstanding, who following the example of others, or for want of sufficient industry to examine the Volume with due attention: being also probably puffed up with imaginary science, or unwilling to view themselves by that light which exposes false positions; have in this age embarked in a war of opposition to those divine testimonies; and have even published books for the avowed purpose of crying down the credibility of their contents. They have represented them as not only opposed to philanthropy and sound morality; but likewise to what are termed the sciences, as well as to the useful and elegant arts of civilization. I suspect however, that if such opposers would express their real thoughts upon the matter, with the candour they profess, the true ground of their hostility would be found to exist in the opposition which that renowned Volume exhibits against the maxims and the practices of libertinism; the views of the seditious; and the inflated pride of the vain sophists.

But it would be foreign to the subject in hand to notice at considerable length the shallow and erroneous views of such writers. I shall quote only a passage or two from one of the most plausible of them, for the purpose of shewing how undeservedly a man may become extremely popular among the inconsiderate. This man set himself against both divine and human institutions : and an ill formed understanding, with an uncommonly arrogant disposition, seem to have peculiarly fitted him for the hardy undertaking. The following passages are not selected because they contain more falsehood than others of equal length in other parts of his books, but because they touch upon the subject which I am about to discuss, and also corroborate the observations I have just made.

"Though," says he, "it is not a direct article of the Christian system, that this world which we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yet it is so worked up therewith from what is called the Mosaic account of the creation, that to believe otherwise; that is, to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian System of Faith at once little and ridiculous; and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind, for he who thinks that he believes both has thought but little of either."

It certainly is a direct article of the Christian faith to believe the first chapter of Genesis, which mentions the creation of one habitable world only. It is evident that Christ and his Apostles believed in that chapter, by their occasional references to the authority of it. How one thing can be rendered ridiculous by believing in another, without knowledge, I cannot conceive. It is clear from what follows, that he had investigated very little into the principles of either system; and, respecting the one he adopted, he seems to have been as credulous as a devotee at Loretto who believes all that the priests tell to excite his wonder and fanaticism.

The same writer, after having described what he terms the worlds of the Solar System, and dogmatically assured his readers, without offering, or being in possession of a single proof in support of his belief, that" the circumference of the Solar System is five thousand millions of miles," goes on to give proofs in confirmation of his belief in the existence of millions of worlds;-they are no doubt as strong as any others he could have adduced, but, unluckily for his object they fail,—they are no proofs at all. But let them speak for themselves.

"If," says he, "it should be asked, how can man know these things? I have one plain answer to give. Which is that man knows how to calculate an eclipse; and also how to calculate to a minute of time when the planet Venus, in making her revolution round the Sun, will come in a straight line between our earth and the sun, and will appear to us about the size of a large pea passing across the face of the sun. As therefore man could not be able to do those things if he did not understand the Solar System, and the manner in which the revolutions of the several planets or worlds, are performed, the fact of calculating an eclipse, or a transit of Venus, is a proof in point that the knowledge exists.”

No, no, that is no proof in point that the knowledge exists-it proves nothing more than the ignorance and extravagant presumption of the writer. The science of calculating eclipses was known some thousands of years before computations were formed upon the hypothesis of the Solar System; nor is it of any real use in such calculations. The writings which are extant of Ptolemy;* the Arabian astronomers; Tycho Brahe, and others, sufficiently prove the falsehood of his assertions: were it not for the assistance derived from their works, or others compiled from them, there is not a Newtonian who could calculate an eclipse at all. Therefore the positive asser

* Mr. Good, in a note to his recent translation of "De Rerum Natura," says, "It is curious enough to observe that in the science of geography the old theory of Ptolemy is yet, ostensibly at least, adhered to, and the sun is still represented as travelling round the immoveable earth; an absurdity which is infinitely perplexing to children, and which cannot too soon be relinquished." Be assured, Mr. Good, the theory of Ptolemy, or rather the certain evidence of the senses, cannot be relinquished: to attempt such a thing, in the edu cation of children, would indeed be madness; and if any teacher could have the folly to attempt it, even the very children would!] laugh in his face. The Creator, in the beginning, irrevocably ordained such an inseparable union, harmony, and correspondence

be published! "It is astonishing," says his biographer, "what care and industry Sir Isaac had employed about the papers relating to Church History, Chronology, &c. as, on examining the papers themelves, which are in the possession of the family of the Earl of Portsmouth, it appears that many of them are copies over and over again, often with little or no variation; the whole number being upwards of 4000 sheets in folio, (16000 pages!) or 8 reams of folio paper, beside the bound books, &c. in this catalogue, of which the number of sheets is not mentioned. Of these 4000 sheets, exclusive of the bound books, there have been published only the Chronology, and Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John." There must be some great mystery in the condemnation and suppression of this mass of the pious labours of this "Pride of the Seventeenth Century," as the Monthly Reviewers term him,—this "name which far surpasses that of Princes."