discoveries m^th sacred history. l.'j 
not finding in it the history of geological phe- 
nomena, the details of which may he fit matter 
for an encyclopedia of science, but are foreign 
to the objects of a volume intended only to be 
n guide of religious belief and moral conduct. 
We may fairly ask of those persons who con- 
sider physical science a fit subject for revelation, 
what point they can imagine short of a com- 
munication of Omniscience, at which such a reve- 
lation might have stopped, without imperfections 
of omission, less in degree, but similar in kind, to 
that which they impute to the existing narrative 
of Moses? A revelation of so much only of 
astronomy, as was known to Copernicus, would 
have seemed imperfect after the discoveries of 
Newton; and a revelation of the science of New- 
ton would have appeared defective to La Place : 
a revelation of all the chemical knowledge of 
the eighteenth century would have been as 
<^ficient in comparison with the information of 
f P’^^^SDnt day, as what is now known in this 
science will probably appear before the termi- 
na.tion of another age ; in the whole circle of 
sciences, there is not one to which this argument 
®ay not be extended, until we should require 
rom revelation a full developement of all the 
mysterious agencies that uphold the mecha- 
Dism of the material world. Such a reve- 
ation might indeed be suited to beings of a 
more exalted order than mankind, and the at- 
1 
