340 
garded as diversified descendants of a common and exceedingly 
ancient stock ; in one, as we believe, preserved in all its 
primeval purity ; in the others, more or less lost, degenerated, 
and mixed up with heathen mythology. The wide range of 
these traditions — stretching, as they do, from India, Persia, 
and Chaldea, on the one hand, to Etruria, Greece, Egypt, 
and Phoenicia, on the other; perhaps to be found even in 
ancient Mexico, in China, and among Scandinavian tribes — 
the wide range of these traditions sufficiently evidences the 
extreme antiquity of their source. If, then, the Biblical cos- 
mogony be, as it implicitly claims to be, a Divine revelation, 
it clearly must have been one intended for mankind generally, 
given before the dispersion, and of equal value in every part 
of the world. By this proposition, then, we dispose of all 
theories which would limit the creation spoken of to a par- 
ticular portion of the earth's surface, or would confine the sig- 
nificance of its form — the six days' work and seventh day's 
rest — to the Jewish Sabbath. Everywhere, and at every time, 
must its statements hold good and be of force, if its Divine 
origin is to be maintained. 
3. The Biblical cosmogony was intended to exhibit, through 
the medium of facts in creation, the relation of God to Nature , 
and Nature to God . — The most cursory inspection of the 
narrative is sufficient to show this. From first to last every 
item of information is linked to some act of Deity. It is God 
who creates, God who commands, .G-od who names, G-od who 
arranges, God who approves, Cod who blesses. Principles of 
natural theology, embodied in the work of creation, rather 
than mere facts of natural science, are the things mainly in- 
tended to be taught. True, the facts are there also, occupying 
a prominent position as the proper vehicles for conveying the 
truths in view ; but, just because vehicles, subordinate, having 
no intrinsic importance, but one strictly dependent on the use 
to which they are put. By this proposition, then, we exclude 
all theories which would import a distinctly scientific, rather 
than theological, significance to the narrative of Cenesis, or 
which profess to find in it anticipations of scientific dis- 
coveries, having no very close connection with theological 
truth. To have introduced such would have been altogether 
inconsistent with the purpose of the cosmogony. 
These propositions are of value, not only as excluding 
and disposing of the vast mass of unsound theories with 
which the Biblical cosmogony has been obscured, but also 
as showing what amount and kind of scientific teaching we 
have a right to expect from it. 
Thus, in the first place, we have plainly no right to expect 
