When the spirit of fair inquiry acts to this excess, we can. not but lament its unreasonable perversion.

If such has been our experience as to the laws and phenomena of physical nature, we cannot be surprised that the same exploring or criticising spirit has been unhesitatingly directed to whatever is invisible, supernatural, or beyond the daily course and material order of things. The individual mind of every one can only act according to what it is, or has made itself, or been led to be; and if it has become habitually dissatisfied or discursive, it will be so in all things. As soon as disquisition takes the place of acquiescence, and we prefer to inquire rather than to venerate, the thoughts will not be restrained from doubt or discussion, even where we ought to pause, to submit, and to believe. No want of adequate knowledge, no state of ignorance will produce these deferent qualities, so useful, so necessary to us all; but on the contrary, appear universally to increase the appetite for objection and mistrust. It is often because we do not sufficiently know our subject of discussion, that we most keenly dispute about it. Numerous difficulties always arise to an active mind on every point on which its information is slender. It is ignorant of its ignorance until it gets larger knowledge. The superficial are commonly the most pugnacious; and we must be superficial before we can be well informed. Thus in the best intentioned minds doubt and objection, controversy and disbelief, cannot but precede knowledge, judgment, right opinions, and a satisfied conviction, in an age which makes intellectual subjects the topics of its conversation, its studies, or its business.

Among the great themes of human thought, this inquir ing spirit has for some time applied itself to the grandest of all-RELIGION; and with no very favourable result, in a large portion of mankind. So much superstition and worldly policy had been mingled with this most deeply interesting of all mental inquiries, that earnest desires have arisen to expunge it altogether from the human mind; and therefore it has been attacked from all quarters, and by every means of intellectual assault. Many also, by the fair. use of enlarging judgment, have felt difficulties, which, without producing in them the hostile feelings of decided enemies, have led them to suspend their assent, and to seek for the elucidations that would remove their hesitation. In

genuous youths, who are fond of study, usually fall into this state of mind. I have experienced it in myself; I see it in those around me, and in all countries; and I have no doubt, with your habit of mental application, that it will more or less arise in you. Religion will be a prominent portion of your education and pursuits: what all feel, who examine it with growing thought and knowledge, will occur to you; and the perception of this, as to yourself, and as to many whom I highly esteem, and as to others whom I should wish, as far as I am able, to assist and benefit, has induced me to attempt the present composition.

My purpose in these letters will be to review the sacred history of the world from the creation to the deluge, as it has been narrated to us in the most ancient history and book now existing; and which has been universally venerated in the Christian world for its truth and origin, from the commencement of the Christian faith.

From this authority we must take the facts that will form the foundation of the work. But the peculiar object of these letters will be to consider these facts, with a due recollection of the reasoned science, and of the varied knowledge, and enlightened investigation of the times we live in, so far as the defective information of the writer may reach; and to take those views of extended thought which may harmonize the recorded circumstances with the philosophical judgment. Fact and sound reasoning should always agree and illustrate each other. If our facts and our reasonings do not concur, one of these must be erroneous. And, as in all revealed truths, what is revealed must be true, if that is found to be at variance with our intellectual deductions, the mistake must be in our reasoning or in our inferences. While this discrepancy lasts we may be sure that we have not hit upon the right solution. However ingenious or plausible our argumentations may be, we have missed the just theory; we have not found the real key; we have not penetrated to the law and principle from which the revealed facts have proceeded, and from which alone the full comprehension of them can be derived.

In the following reflections, the important subjects of thought which occur to the inquiring mind on the recorded subject of the primeval history of man during the first period of his being a period which in the shortest computa.

tion comprised the first 1656 years of human existence→→→→ will be considered as they arise,-with continual deference to the authority from which the facts are taken, but with the exercise of that mental investigation which is usually termed philosophical. No arrogant assumption is intended by this epithet: it is a word which is used to denote an inquiry into the principles of what we discuss, according to those of our just knowledge on all natural phenomena-a mental investigation, that searches for intelligible causes and agencies consistent with those with which we are already acquainted, and which seem to be most certain. It is an endeavour to illustrate by reason, what we believe upon proper authority. I have always found my own belief most steady whenever I traced it to be in coincidence with my other knowledge; and it is my earnest desire that in all things your belief may be accompanied by your judg ment; and that faith and reason may in you be always in that pleasing union, which will ever constitute the soundest and largest mind, and yield the greatest comfort. I cannot pretend to do more than to explain to you those inferences and reasonings which have satisfied myself. It is absurd for any human being, uninspired, to domineer over another. I would not attempt to do so. It would be both unjust and foolish. It would fail in its effect, and be contrary to the well-founded claim which every one has to judge for himself, under his own responsibility to the Deity, who rightfully claims our implicit obedience and immediate acquiescence in all that he discloses. But, between man and man, no one can with any justice or reason tyrannise or dogmatize over others.

That we belong to a class of beings whose existence will not cease with their present earthly life, but will continue elsewhere-although the body we now animate will decay, and separate into its elementary particles-you and I believe, from reason, from our intellectual feelings, from the consent of the best philosophers of all ages, from the traditions of all nations, and from the deciding communications of the Christian revelation. We do not perish when our material frame dissolves. Our thinking and feeling principle survives its fleshly limbs and organs; which are but the instruments of its use and pleasures here; and will, after the visible death of our corporeal frame, and in re

union with another, possess its consciousness, its sensitivity, and its active powers in some other place, and under such other circumstances as its Creator shall appoint. We are on this earth solely from his special designation. Neither we nor our ancestors have ourselves constructed it for our habitation. It has been provided for our present existence before the birth of our race began. It continues for the reception and residence of others when we disappear. We are placed on it, without any previous consultation with our will or choice. We find every thing in it most artificially and specifically made, and all independently of us. Such as it is, we have no option, but to be in it as it is. The whole of it has been framed, in every part, by some other and superior power, who has formed it upon his own plan, and for his own purposes. Our term of existence in it is that which he has been pleased to fix, and to which he has limited our enjoyment of it. This special fabrication of all things which now surround us, leads the mind to infer and believe, that our next state and mode of existence will be as elaborately and specifically provided, according to his appointing will and established designs. In all periods of our being, our Creator must be our disposing governor, so far as he shall choose to be so; and it therefore becomes an object at all times of the deepest interest to us to ascertain, if it be possible, what his intentions and wishes are with respect to our present and future destinies. What he has imparted to us of his will and expectations; what commands he has imposed; what information he has condescended to convey; and what intercourse he has been pleased to hold with any portion of our progenitors, in the anterior ages of our history:-the more we know of these important subjects, and the more just our notions of them shall be, the more clearly we shall discern how we ought to direct and regulate both our conduct and our reasoning speculations, for the improvement of our intellectual nature, and for the preservation and increase of our personal happiness. These topics are comprised in the SACRED HISTORY of the world. We can know nothing of the thoughts and purposes of the Divine mind, but from its own revelations of these to us. We possess a record of these, in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and we have no other authoritative memorial of them. Without these, we should be

im utter darkness on this most interesting subject. On these, therefore, all our knowledge of divine things must be formed on their direct information, so far as that extends; and on those further probabilities, which may be deduced from them by correct inferences, cautiously and reverentially made, in addition to what they have positively declared. The grand and beautiful creation furnishes an illustrating comment on these revealed truths; and a careful consideration of these sources of our most important knowledge will enable us to take such views of the moral constitution and course of things, which have been framed for our terrestrial globe, as may make them, in some degree, more intelligible to us. Our present inquiries will be confined to the first eras of the world which were closed by the deluge, because most of the essential principles of this great subject will arise to our contemplation from the events of this period. If we can but think justly on these, they will enable us to reason more correctly on the subsequent history of mankind; and they will give to this subject, so repulsive in some of its results and features to our ordinary feelings, a more connected, orderly, and rational aspect, than it has generally been thought to present to the deliberating understanding.

It was about 6000 years ago, according to the chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures and their numerals, which, after much thought, I cannot but deem the true standard of the duration of the human existence, that it pleased the Almighty Sovereign of the universe to determine on the creation of the earth which we inhabit, and upon the formation of those races of animated beings which appear upon it. His purposes in this grand operation of his power, and the degree and course of agency and interposition which he chose to pursue with regard to those whom he called into being upon it, we can learn only from his special communications, and from the authentic narratives of his intercourse with us. On these, therefore, our eye must be fixed, as from these alone can the sacred history of our world be composed. They will be the foundation of our present investigations.

Our globe consists of its earthly structure-of the ethereal fluids which move upon it and above it-of the watery masses and effusions of the vegetable kingdom-and of