Sli Recapitulation. 



ing and talents on the side of Religion will ap- 

 pear too great to admit of comparison. 



But this is not all : — as the last centXiry 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 

 philosophy, during this period, have served to elu- 

 cidate and confirm various parts of the Christian 

 Scriptures. Every sober and well directed in- 

 quiry 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 

 deluge, the dispersion, and other important events 

 recorded in the sacred volume. To which 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 

 contained in the sacred volume perfectly harmo- 

 nise with the most authentic discoveries, and the. 

 soundest principles of science. 



13. The last century may be emphatically 

 called THE AGE OF TRANSLATION.—^'* Of almost 



