THREE SORTS OF ANALOGIES. 291 



same law. Hence we discover three sorts of analo- 

 gies pervading the system of nature, in the widest 

 and most exalted application of the term : the first 

 regards the spiritual truths of revelation ; the second, 

 those which belong only to the moral system ; while 

 the third are drawn from the phenomena of the ma- 

 terial world. It would be foreign to our present 

 purpose, did we here recapitulate the chief argu- 

 ments by which the first and the second of these 

 analogies have been so frequently and effectually 

 illustrated ; but in reference to what has been 

 already said on the connection of the truths of 

 natural history with those of religion, we cannot 

 withhold from the reader the sound and philosophic 

 reasonings of an author whom we have already so 

 largely quoted, and whose arguments are peculiarly 

 valuable to our present purpose, as being those not 

 of a naturalist, but of a deep and original thinker, 

 who, in making them, seems unconscious how appli- 

 cable they are to legitimate science. 



(202.) In maintaining the first proposition just 

 stated, viz. that analogy establishes a connection 

 between the truths of Scripture and the facts of 

 nature, our author justly remarks that in so doing 

 we must " refer each to that state of things with 

 which it is immediately connected. We must ex- 

 amine whether, when all those circumstances which 

 may naturally be supposed to produce the observed 

 difference in the actual develop ement of theological 

 truth, according as it belongs to the system of 

 nature or that of grace, are taken into our consider- 

 ation, the same abstract truth emerges as the point 

 of ultimate coincidence. For if nothing appears to 

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