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conveniences, of life, have taken a scientific colour. In these altered 

 circumstances, were any now rash enough to kindle the dying embers 

 of this obsolete bigotry — to stir up a worse than civil war between the 

 feelings of piety and the deductions of reason, to go forth with the 

 " argumentum ad odium " for their only weapon, against a host of facts 

 patiently ascertained, and inferences fairly drawn ; — were they to call 

 in the Scriptures to supply their defects, and fasten on them their own 

 crude and ignorant speculations — were they to be seen shifting their 

 ground from one false position to another, all equally untenable, and 

 all assuming to be the sole defences of the true faith, — what would be 

 the natural consequence of a warfare at once so offensive and so hope- 

 less ? what the effect of so many baffled aggressions and self-inflicted 

 defeats ? what the fruit which the tree of knowledge would bear, thus 

 injured, in the name of religion, by men who should remove the 

 boundary marks of faith and philosophy, and confound things human 

 and divine ? 



There are, indeed, certain common points in which reason and reve- 

 lation mutually illustrate each other ; but in order that they may ever be 

 capable of doing so, let us keep their paths distinct, and observe their 

 accordances alone ; otherwise our reasonings will run round in a circle, 

 while we endeavour to accommodate physical truth to Scripture, and 

 Scripture to physical truth. 



The observation of the true points of accordance in such lines, is one 

 of the most instructive of all studies ; and when combined with an 

 honest observation of the discordances also, leads to important conclu- 

 sions. 



There are many branches of inductive inquiry through which these 

 parallel lines may be drawn, and their accordances observed. Thus 

 Sir Isaac Newton has deduced from the history of inventions, the spread 

 of nations, and the present amount of population, that the time for 

 which mankind have existed cannot materially differ from that usually 

 assigned from Scripture. Geology, with less distinctness, points to- 

 wards the same conclusion. But there are lines of accordance and dis- 

 cordance within the Scriptures themselves. Now, in drawing these 

 lines for human chronology, we find discordances between different 

 versions of almost equal authority, and that to such an amount, that 

 while the Hebrew gives 1948 years for the epoch from the Creation to 

 Abraham, the Greek assigns for the same period 3334 ; and this differ- 

 ence of nearly 1400 years lies not in a single sum, but is divided among 

 successive generations. For the first seven centuries, the larger com- 

 putation was exclusively followed ; for the last four, the whole Western 



