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 unsightlydisorder. ff 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 
