

IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH. 



107 





who have gone before us of contemplating the 

 manifestations of Deity on a more extensive 

 scale ; and of enjoying unmixed felicity without 

 interruption and without end ; depend upon the 

 testimony of the inspired writers, and the light 

 ic which we view the truths or declarations 

 which they have recorded. And, therefore, the 

 man who endeavours to undermine the authority 

 of the sacred records, or to distort or misrepre 

 sent their meaning by sophistical reasonings, 

 ought to be viewed as a deceiver, and as an ene 

 my to his species, who wishes to deprive his fel 

 low-men of their most substantial enjoyments, 

 and of their most cheering prospects. 



Again, truth and veracity are of the utmost im 

 portance in relation to the views we ought to 

 take of the character of God. The moral cha 

 racter of the Deity is delineated in the Scrip 

 tures, and we are enabled to contemplate this 

 character, in its true light, in so far as we un 

 derstand and appreciate the delineations of the 

 sacred writers. But his character is also exhi 

 bited in the works of creation and providence. 

 Every physical law of nature, every arrange 

 ment in the material system, every movement 

 which exists in the boundless universe ; every 

 apparent deviation from the general course of na 

 ture, as in the case of earthquakes and volca 

 noes ; every event in the history of nations, every 

 fact in relation to the physical and moral condi 

 tion of the different tribes of the human race, 

 and every arrangement in reference to the lower 

 ranks of animated beings embodies in it an ex 

 hibition of certain aspects of the divine charac 

 ter; and these aspects, if fairly represented, ought 

 to harmonize with the delineations contained in 

 the sacred records. To ascertain such facts as 

 those to which I now allude, requires, in many 

 instances, the exercise of profound reasoning, 

 and of accurate investigation, and that the mind 

 should be free from the influence of prejudice 

 and of every improper bias, and that the facts, 

 when ascertained, be fairly represented, and ac 

 curately recorded ; otherwise, nothing but a dis 

 torted view of the divine character will be exhi 

 bited to the mind. For example, if the earth be 

 represented as among the largest bodies in na 

 ture, and as placed at rest in the centre of the 

 universe, and that the sun, moon, and all the 

 other celestial orbs revolve around it every day, 

 and consequently, that the planetary bodies move 

 in orbits which display inextricable confusion 

 such a representation is not a true exhibition of 

 the God of heaven, but a phantom of our own 

 imagination : and, if carried out to all its legiti 

 mate consequences, would involve an impeach 

 ment of the wisdom and intelligence of the Deity, 

 and of the sublime simplicity and order, which 

 characterize his operations in the universe. If 

 the planet Saturn be represented as a globe 900 

 times larger than the earth, and surrounded with 

 a ring 600,000 miles in circumference, it conveys 



a very different idea of the majesty of the di 

 vine Being who formed it, from what we are led 

 to entertain, when we consider it as only a ta 

 per, or a brilliant stud, fixed in the vault of hea 

 ven. If the eye of a fly be exhibited as con 

 taining ten thousand polished transparent globes, 

 nicely adjusted for the pnrpose of vision, it dis 

 plays the character of its Maker in a different 

 light from that in which we might be disposed to 

 view it, when this animal is represented as a 

 nuisance in creation, and designed only to be 

 mangled and tortured by a cruel and unthinking 

 schoolboy. 



1 1 some instances the inaccurate statement of 

 a pi ysical fact, or the false colouring put upon 

 it, may have a tendency to endanger the eternal 

 interests of mankind. Mr. Brydone, in his 

 &quot; Tour through Sicily,&quot; states, on the authority 

 of a priest, named Recupero, that, in sinking a 

 pit near Jaci, in the neighbourhood of Mount 

 JStna &quot;they pierced through seven distinct lavas, 

 one under the other, the surfaces of which were 

 parallel, and most of them covered with a bed of 

 thick earth.&quot; From suppositions founded on 

 questionable data, he concluded, that &quot; it requires 

 2000 years or upwards to form but a scanty soil 

 on the surface of a lava,&quot; and, consequently, 

 that &quot; the eruption which formed the lowest of 

 these lavas, must have flowed from the moun 

 tain at least 14000 years ago. This pretended 

 fact was, for a while, triumphantly exhibited by 

 sceptics, as an unanswerable argument against 

 the truth of the Mosaic history ; and its publica 

 tion has, no doubt, tended to stagger weak minds, 

 and to confirm the in fidel in his prejudices against 

 the truth of Revelation. But it has been shown 

 by eminent geologists, that the facts alluded to 

 are grossly mis-stated, and that no vegetable 

 mould exists between these beds of lava ; and, 

 consequently, the argument founded upon them 

 goes for nothing. Mr. Brydone himself, in the 

 very same volume in which these pretended facts 

 are stated, before he had advanced twenty pages 

 farther in his account of the regions about Mount 

 -flEtna, states a fact which completely overturns 

 all his preceding reasonings and calculations. 

 In describing the country near Hybla, as having 

 been &quot; overwhelmed by the lava of JEtna, and 

 having then become totally barren,&quot; he adds, &quot;in 

 a second eruption, by a shower of ashes from the 

 mountain, it soon resumed its ancient beauty and 

 fertility&quot; So that it is here admitted, that, in 

 stead of requiring a period of 2000 years, a bed 

 of lava may speedily be transformed into a beau 

 tiful and fertile region. But even although such 

 facts were fairly represented, yea, although 

 Mr. Brydone and the Canon Recupero could 

 have proved, to a demonstration, that the strata 

 of the earth is not only fourteen thousand, but 

 fourteen hundred thousand years old. it would 

 not in the least invalidate a single assertion 

 contained in the Mosaic history ; for Moses de- 





