360 



III. — The Application of these Principles to a 

 Particular Case. 



The Analogy between the Inspired History of Religion 

 AND the Divine Workmanship in our Planet. 



13. One of the leading objections to the written Revelation 

 of God, is, the careless and confused manner in which its 

 materials appear to be thrown together. There is, it is said by 

 objectors, an absence of that order and regularity which we 

 expect in a literary composition intended to instruct and im- 

 prove us. We have Psalms, Proverbs, Types, Prophecies, 

 Letters, Laws, Canticles, things mean and things excellent, 

 written by different men of different ages and countries. All 

 these productions are piled upon each other with little or 

 no connection — with a total disregard of that dramatic unity 

 which constitutes the charm of human poetry and prose. Is 

 it possible that the Lord Almighty can be the Author of such 

 a patchwork compilation ? Is it possible that He, the God of 

 order and of beauty, from whom we might expect simplicity 

 and elegance in their purest forms, can be the editor of so loose 

 and disjointed a work as this ? 



14. Now, the way to deal with this objection is to take some 

 acknowledged work of the Creator, and see whether we can 

 discover a family resemblance between its structure and that of 

 the Bible. The crust of the earth on which we reside is, indis- 

 putably, the work of the Creator, and it is just such a mass 

 of irregular and dislocated confusion. Its surface is broken up 

 without the slightest regard to what we choose to call order. 

 The strata of which it is composed do not lie over each other in 

 concentric circles like the coats of an onion. They have been 

 plainly fractured by disturbing forces, and piled upon each 

 other like pieces of ice which had been jumbled together by a 

 storm, and then frozen together a second time. There are 

 cracks, and slips, and displacements. The richest jewels are 

 embedded in the coarsest materials, and the whole surface is 

 shattered and shoved into every conceivable angle of incli- 

 nation. Let us now see what the science of the earth tells us 

 of an arrangement, which, superficially considered, appears like 

 that of the Bible to be unsightly disorder. "We shall form a better 

 estimate (says Dr. Buckland) of the wisdom of the confused 

 and complex disposition of the materials of the earth, if we 

 consider the inconvenience that might have attended other 



