OF^ THE SEA AND LAND. 01 



tacks on a science so truly pare of all possible offence 

 to religion, demand that answer which is as simple as 

 it is satisfactory ; even though its cultivators should de- 

 spise the united malignity, ignorance, and presumption, 

 by which they have been assailed to this hour. 



The time when a correct view of the system of the 

 universe was deemed an act of impiety ought to be past. 

 No one now fears to declare his belief in that which it 

 was left for the most pious of philosophers to prove ; 

 and geology demands no other liberty than astronomy. 

 " These are things," says Burnet " which sat uneasy 

 upon the spirits of even the best men who took time to 

 think ; but in things," to pursue the words of the same 

 writer, " which are no ingredients of our faith, it is free 

 to differ from one another in our opinions and senti- 

 ments." The Sacred Writings form a connected sys- 

 tem, the evident design of which is the promulgation of 

 a true religion, and the moral regulation of mankind. 

 If, most necessarily, as regards the Christian dispensa- 

 tion, they trace backwards to the origin of man him- 

 self, that origin was not delivered to us as a standard 

 ' and rule of science. In no place has it been the object 

 of Scripture to reveal the principles of natural philoso- 

 phy; and if none but a Hutchinson can suppose that 

 its expressions were meant to restrain us on those sub- 

 jects, with great injustice has any part of nature been 

 selected for this exclusion. The law which compels 

 geology to abide by a standard that was not delivered, 

 is the law that condemned Galileo. If the history of 

 creation was not given as the rule of astronomical 

 science, neither can it have been promulgated as that 

 of geology. That of our globe stands on the same 

 ground as that of the solar system, on the same as that 

 of the universe. No theory can reconcile the rigid 

 words of the narrative with the demonstrations of as- 



