I8# Recapitulation. 



be considered as having furnished as many, if 

 not more authors of distinction than any other. 

 And if we join to the clergy those lay-authors who 

 have been no less eminent as Christians than as 

 scholars, the predominance of learning and talents 

 on the side of Religion will appear too great to ad- 

 mit of comparison, 



But this is not all: — As the last century is re- 

 markable for having furnished an unprecedented 

 number of attacks on Revealed Religion, through 

 the medium of science ; so it is also no less re- 

 markable for having derived much support to 

 Revelation, and much valuable illustration of the 

 Sacred Writings, from the inquiries of philosophers 

 and the observations of travellers. Many of the 

 discoveries made in mechanical and chemical phi- 

 losophy, during this period, have served to elu- 

 cidate and confirm various parts of the Christian 

 Scriptures. Every sober and well-directed inquiry 

 into the natural history of man, and of the globe 

 we inhabit, has been found to corroborate the 

 Mosaic account of the Creation, the Fall, the De- 

 luge, the Dispersion, and other important events 

 recorded in the sacred volume. To wmich we 

 may add, that the reports of voyagers and travel- 

 lers, within this period, have no less remarkably 

 served to illustrate the sacred records, and to con- 

 firm the faith of Christians. Never was there a 

 period of the same extent in which so much light 

 and evidence in favour of Revelation were drawn 

 from the inquiries of philosophy as in that which 

 is under review: nor was it ever rendered so ap- 

 parent, that the information and the doctrines con- 

 tained in the sacred volume perfectly harmonize 

 with the most authentic discoveries, and the 

 soundest principles of science. 



13. The last century may be emphatically cal- 

 led the age of translations.-—" Of almost every 



