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puzzled many a mind that may not have been disposed to 
regard the truths of Revelation with any disposition to doubt. 
We have been told unmistakably there that the cause of 
death was man’s sin ; and it is clear that an indispensable 
condition, as well as the justice, of this belief was, that no 
interruption should have completely severed the race of Adam 
from the living man that occupied the earth after the Deluge. 
Accordingly, we find in the Mosaic account of the diluvial 
destruction, there is a means furnished, which at once insepa- 
rably connects the whole race of man, from the time of the fall 
to the present day. 
I want here to correct an error which many believers 
have fallen into in company with geologists, and which calls 
for some of that charity which, I have before said, is especially 
required in all those who attempt to combat a vexed question 
like that before us. 
This difficulty appears to have arisen out of a circumstance 
which believers may not have suspected to exist. It is con- 
nected with the construction and position of the words in the 
original Hebrew, which first announce the Deluge. It is there 
first expressed in these words : “ Of every living thing of all 
flesh, pairs of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep 
them alive with thee” Now it is to be observed that this 
command, “ every living thing,” seems to be an universal 
expression. Accordingly, without any knowledge of this fact, 
that in the Hebrew, as well as in other languages, it is not at 
all uncommon to announce the fact of a subject in general or 
universal terms, but that afterwards, in continuing the subject, 
as it becomes more special, those terms are qualified by the 
context. This is the case in the instance before us ; for in the 
next chapter we find, as the particulars become more minutely 
stated, that the clean and the unclean animals are now dis- 
tinguished ; so that we find seven, and not two, formed the 
numbers of some of the animals that were taken into the ark. 
The clean and the unclean beasts, being all that were named. 
This is important to be noticed, because, by correcting it, 
we shall remove the doubts of many over the popular 
idea, that the Scripture warrants the inference that two of 
every sort of all living flesh was commanded to be brought 
into the ark. And it is so important that we should be correct 
upon this point, that I shall not apologize for adding in this 
place the Scripture authority, which makes it certain that the 
word “ all ” is not used in an universal sense in many parts 
of Scripture, and that it is customary there to use universal 
terms with limited significations. This fact is well known to 
