3*2 ON CHANGES IN THE DISPOSITION 



equally misapprehended and misapplied, that which 

 rests on the credit of the Sacred Writings, have written 

 to injure the cause which they professed to support. 

 If The Deluge was produced by other secondary causes 

 than those delivered, we cannot discover them, nor 

 are we required to do so : even though there is one, 

 which, if stated as a physical fact, we do not compre- 

 hend. To us it is related, as a miraculous interposi- 

 tion of Providence, for declared moral purposes. The 

 same Power, for other ends, divided the Red Sea ; and 

 though here also, there is a Secondary cause assigned 

 in the "East Wind," no mathematician will attempt 

 to investigate the power of any wind to produce such 

 an effect, or, consider it as aught but the immediate 

 act of Him who established and controls the laws of 

 nature. Thus to scan all the miracles of Scripture, 

 would be to renounce all that we believe on those 

 grounds which are the foundation of our faith. Thus, 

 imaginary causes of the Deluge are properly struck 

 out henceforward, from the considerations of geolo- 

 gical science ; as I presume will now at last be ad- 

 mitted by every one. 



Now, respecting its possible effects in producing the 

 phenomena ascribed to it, we must be guided by the 

 information afforded us respecting its nature. We 

 have no right to add any thing to what we have re- 

 ceived on this head : it is painful to think that they 

 who have most indulged in unwarrantable attempts 

 of this nature, ever deemed censurable in analogous 

 cases, should have been the first to bring forward 

 charges of impiety against those who were content 

 simply to receive that information which the sacred 

 historian thought proper alone to communicate. In 

 this plain narrative, the water rises during a short 



