362 



Lord Almighty has constructed to make us wise unto salvation. 

 Thus the endless number of connections in which the Truth of 

 God is placed in the Bible, and the aptness with which it never 

 fails to meet our spiritual wants and wishes, gives to " its green 

 pastures and its still waters that peculiar character of life and 

 freshness which renders it another, and yet still the same. 

 Now, if it be so — if it be plain that God in His works does not 

 confine Himself to what we call regularity; if His Word be 

 constructed not like the clipped and bordered garden, but with 

 something of the wild luxuriance which distinguishes the works 

 of Nature ; if its materials be thrown together with the careless 

 grandeur in which the stars are sprinkled over the firmament, 

 or the flowers over the enamelled field ; if it does really resemble 

 the crust of the earth, not only in the apparent disorder, but in 

 the wise foresight, the benevolent intention, and the wonder- 

 ful and magnificent result — then its peculiar structure, coupled 

 with this result, is so far from being an objection, that it is 

 hardly possible to conceive a more beautiful or decisive proof of 

 its Divine origin. 



The Archetype and its Modifications. 



15. It has been well observed by Professor Owen, that '^'of 

 the nature of the creative acts by which the successive races of 

 animals were called into being, we are ignorant. But this we 

 know, that as the evidence of unity of plan testifies to the 

 oneness of the Creator, so the modifications of the plan for 

 diff'erent modes of existence, illustrate the beneficence of the 

 Designer.^^^ 



16, In the natural history of the vertebrate animals there 

 is evidence of a common typical structure. That is to say, 

 we have a skeleton, which is, as it were, the model after which 

 all other skeletons have been formed ; some presenting a nearer, 

 and some a more remote resemblance to the perfect type. An 

 original standard with many modifications is the great law of 

 Creation. The human face is a remarkable instance of this. Our 

 limited faculties can hardly comprehend how, in such a narrow 

 compass, such a variety of modifications, such diversity of lines 

 and lineaments could possibly exist. One can hardly realize 



* Orr's Circle of the Sciences, No. 2. 



