THE SACRED HISTORY OF THE WORLD, AS DISPLAYED IN THE CREATIC AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS ΤΟ THE DELUGE. ATTEMPTED TO BE PHILOSOPHICALLY CONSIDERED, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO A SON. BY SHARON TURNER, F.S.A., R.A.S.L, NEW YORK: WILLIAM JACKSON, 71 MAIDEN LANE. PREFACE. FORTY years ago, the author felt the want of a book like that which is now offered to the public in the following pages. At that period of his life, he wished a selected and concentrated view of such facts and reasonings on the creation, intellectual design, and divine economy of the world we inhabit, as would correspond with the other knowledge he was acquiring; and which at the same time should be so conceived and shaped, as to suit the modern topics and style of thought and reasoning, in which the philosophical subjects that interested him, were beginning to be presented. Finding none at that time so collected and represented, as to satisfy his young curiosity, or sufficiently adapted to meet the ideas and difficulties that were arising around him, he was obliged to make such outlines of this great subject for his own information, as occasional studies and opportunities enabled him to form. Amid these sketches for his private use, a latent desire insensibly occured, to attempt, at some part of his life, to supply, for the service of others who should participate in these sentiments, what he found to be necessary for his own satisfaction. Gradually this wish increased into a more determining purpose, and has, as other motives concurred, produced the resolution in his mature age, of endeavoring, for the 5325 917 |