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spired men, but by the inspired authors themselves ; and it is 
to be gathered from a fair consideration of the passage in 
question, or from a fair comparison of Scripture with Scripture. 
Here is an instance : St. John says of Christ, “That was the 
true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world. - ” Ho expression could be more universal. Yet in the 
very same chapter he says : The light shineth in darkness, 
and the darkness comprehended it not ; ” thus excluding many 
from the possession of that light. And afterwards the Lord 
Jesus Himself says, “I am come a light into the world, that 
whosoever believeth in Me should not abide in darkness ; ” 
thus limiting the gift to believers. 
In the same manner the language of Moses, taken by itself, 
is thus full and universal : “ Of clean beasts, and of beasts 
that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that 
creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two unto 
Noah into the Ark, the male and female, as God had com- 
manded Noah” (Gen. vii. 8, 9). And of this apparent uni- 
versality some have attempted to prove the possibility, and 
some the impossibility. On a little consideration, however, 
a limitation is evidently placed on it by the inspired 
writer himself. For, first, the distinction between clean and 
unclean beasts seems to point to those animals of the earth, 
amongst which he knew such a distinction to have been in- 
stituted by God. And in neither class, in the full directions 
subsequently given to Moses, do we find either the kangaroo 
or the ant-eater, — creatures which have presented to many 
minds such mountains of difficulty. 
The clue to the difficulty, however, appears to me to be 
here. We must take together the numbers of each kind of 
bird or beast to be preserved, and the directions for the 
provision of food for these creatures during a whole year. 
The numbers were fourteen of each clean, and two of each 
unclean kind. The provision is thus stated : — “ And take 
thou unto thee of all food that is eaten ; and thou shalt gather 
it unto thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them.” 
Now in the first place, animal food does not appear to have 
been permitted to man previous to the Flood ; and in the 
next place there is here evidently no provision for carnivorous 
creatures. The fourteen clean beasts and the two unclean, 
would not have satisfied the carnivorous animals during a 
whole year. Besides, these were not intended for food for 
them, but' to keep seed alive on the earth. If, then, food’was 
required and food was provided for all, and for carnivorous 
animals none was provided, a limitation to this extent is at 
once set on the universality of the expression : such animals 
