ing population.* Such a confirmation as this affords important verification of the Hebrew narrative of the causes and effects of the awful transaction; and it is also favourable to the credit of the Mosaic account, that both North and South America should, as well as Greece and Chaldea, have traditions that birds or animals were sent out of their preserving vessel to ascertain the condition of the devastated earth,† and that several should mention the fact that animals were saved in it.‡

I cannot think that it comes within the compass of what we usually mean by possibility, that such numerous and separate traditions of a deluge should exist among so many unconnected nations, unless the great event had occurred, and the remembrance of it had descended from generation to generation. The real fact is the only cause that sufficiently accounts for them, to my judgment; and unless that had taken place, they could not have been thus afloat. No local inundations would have produced them; no one ever thinks of extending what are so, beyond their known vicinity. There may have been many lakes and over-floodings of water, and long continuances of it in many countries, both before and after the Noachian deluge. It is the occurrences of this kind which have misled some geologists to substitute these for that; but both are independent of the other. No partial inundations would prevent the divine production of a universal one, when the time and expediency of that had arrived, and its tremendous operation neither supersedes nor disproves any local diffusions and depositions of the watery fluid, at any anterior or subsequent period. Baron Cuvier seems to think that there were partial predominances of water over various parts of the land before the general flood. There is nothing in the Mosaic history which discountenances such incidents; and we may, without opposing that, believe any occurrences of this sort, which material nature may convincingly indicate. But THAT DELUGE which the Deity appointed and caused to come over the whole inhabited regions of the globe, for the purpose of ending the first race and * See Notes and ‡ on p. 239, and * and ‡ on p. 240; also, ‡ and || on p. 248, on p. 249, || on p. 253, † on p. 254, and *, †, and on p. 255. also, ‡ on p.

† See Notes on p. 238, on p. 239, and † on p. 241; 251, on p. 252, || on p. 253, and 6 and || on p. 254.

See Note*, and by implication †, on p. 241; also, † on p. 249, ‡ on

p. 251, on p. 252, § and || on p. 254, and on p. 255.

state of things, and of introducing the second kinds of both, to be an advancing stage in the progressive formation of his human nature, stands out by itself from all the minor and subordinate ones: it has nothing to do with them, nor they with it.

Whatever of other kinds took place were in the course of nature's established and usual laws and agencies at that period. But the universal deluge was not a natural event, and could not have been produced in the ordinary state of things, or by its preserving and continuous laws. It was the special result of a special exertion of the divine will and power, for a special reason and for a specific end. It was a creative as well as a destructive operation-destructive as to all living things, in whom it extinguished the principle of life, and as to the preceding rocks and surface which it broke up and altered; but creative as to the new masses and habitable ground which it deposited and spread-as to the new laws of human nature, and the new kinds and modification of plants and animals which it introduced: but it was by all these causes and effects, as distinct and different from all other inundations, as the skies are from the earth, or the ocean from the Alps or Pyrenees.

Be careful not to confound one thing with another, either in history or philosophy. Keep every fact, both of nature and man, in due classification and arrangement; and place each in its proper station and order in the compartments of your recollection; otherwise you will be frequently mistaking some things for others; and will then reason very erroneously, from wrong materials, and on fallacious grounds.

You will have observed in the traditions, that each nation tended to localize some main incidents of the commotion within their own country and tribe; and it is from this inclination of personal vanity that some sought to confine the great event solely to their own district, as if it exclusively magnified their personal importance. This is quite natural, and attests the strength of the belief, and is favourable to the reality of the occurrence. Thus the Chaldean account made the preserved patriarch a Chaldean king.* The Greeks deemed him to be a Grecian prince, and fixed on Greece as the great scene of the calamity, and thought that the waters

* See Note on p. 238.

retired through a cavity near Athens, and that Mount Parnassus was the spot on which he was saved.* The Syrians claimed the chasm for the waters to be in Syria; while the Armenian traditions asserted their Baris and Cordean mountains to have been the ark's resting-place.‡

In the same national spirit, China represents the diluvian patriarch to have been a Chinese, and Hindostan a Hindoo prince. So Chili places the preserving mountain among her rocks. The Mexican nations make Noah one of their immediate ancestors ;** as the other tribes of both South and North America localize him and the chief incidents respectively among themselves.††

In all these self-appropriations of the ancestor and scenery of the grand event, we perceive what we may be certain that each nation would not fail to do if the deluge had really taken place. Every one is desirous of applying to itself the distinction, which, in human estimation, arises from personages and incidents of great celebrity.

It was this feeling which made even our early forefathers adopt the idea, of Britain having been colonized by a Trojan prince; which has led Irish antiquaries to assert both a Phenician and a Spanish ancestry; and caused even the Saxons on the continent to claim the conquering Macedonians as their progenitors. Such pretensions are the excitement of national vanity common to all; and by existing, 'confirm the reality of the great event, to which the several populations are so zealous to attach themselves.

I think you will feel that we cannot discredit the deluge if we believe in Christianity, as soon as you perceive how solemnly it is alluded to as a real incident by those whose 'publicly-expressed ideas we cannot, under this direction of mind, but most deferentially revere.

Its unexpected suddenness is adduced as a representation of the manner in which the final consummation of earthly things will occur by Him, whose return to earth in visible sovereignty will produce this revolution.‡‡ His disciple Peter *Notes on p. 239,* on p. 240, † and ‡ on p. 242, and * on p. 243. Note on p. 245. Notes on p. 245, and * and † on p. 246.

6 Notes †, t, and §, on p. 247.

Notes, f, t, and ý, on p. 247, and *, †, ‡, §, and ||, on p. 248.
Note on p. 250.
** Notes †, t, and §, on p. 250.

†† See the other Notes of Letter XVII., from Note ‡, on p. 251, to the St. Matthew, xxiv, 37-9. St. Luke, xvii. 26, 27.

end.

three times mentions it as an event which had occurred, and the preservation of Noah, as a special act of divine favour to him.* St. Paul refers to it in the same manner and with the same feelings ;t and of the ancient Jewish prophets, it is three times solemnly noticed in the name of the Deity: once by Isaiah,‡ and twice by Ezekiel. It cannot therefore be doubted, that it is an authenticated portion of the sacred history of the world, and cannot be consistently rejected by any who believe the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It is not one of those historical circumstances which it is immaterial whether we admit or question. It is a part of the divine revelations which we have received; and the scriptural references above cited may be taken as additional authorities for its certainty. It is therefore gratifying to find it attended with such confirming attestations as those which we have been surveying.

The narrations and traditions which have been enumerated show that there are no historical reasons for disbelieving the Mosaic deluge; but, on the contrary, sufficient memorial notices of it to justify our belief of it. The only question, therefore, to be disposed of, is, whether there are any adequate geological grounds for discrediting it?

Now, in the very outset of this inquiry, the suggestion spontaneously arises, at least in my mind, that what human traditions and sacred authority unite to establish, is not likely to be disproved by any natural facts, wherever nature is sufficiently understood for a valid opinion to be formed about it. It is very possible for objections to appear and to be maintained, while our knowledge is imperfect or superficial. I have felt this tendency and operation of mind in most of my studies. I have always found doubts and criticisms very apt to arise, and to keep possession of the thoughts, while my information was in the process of accumulation, and before I had gained an enlarged and complete view of the subject of my inquiry.

This must have occurred to all; and therefore it was just as natural for geology, in its growing state, to be made unfriendly to the diluvian catastrophe, as it was also natural for that opposition to be premature and erroneous. Until the mode and process of our rocky formations are much better *St. Peter, 1 Ep. iii. 20. 2 Ep. ii. 5; iii. 6. Ep. Hebrews, xi. 7.

Isaiah, liv. 9.

Ezekiel, xiv. 14. 20.

understood than they at present are, even by the most eminent of our geologists, many a wrong theory and conclusion will be conceived and maintained by them, notwithstanding their high talents and respectable acquisitions. Therefore any opinions at present entertained in hostility to the reality of the deluge, you may safely regard but as so much temporary hypothesis, which future science will put aside. If the deluge has actually occurred, the true geology, when attained, will as certainly both establish and explain it, as in the imperfect condition of their science, several able men have attacked and rejected it, and with their insufficient knowledge and active fancy could not, perhaps, help doing so.

My farther reasons for thinking that geology, even in its present state, does not, by any of its ascertained truths, call upon us to reject this important catastrophe, are these:The Mosaic history requires from geology the admission or the proof of these essential points:

That the earth has been a creation by God;

That the rise of vegetation preceded the formation of the animal kingdom;

That the aqueous animals and the birds were the first created of the sentient classes;

That quadrupeds, cattle, reptiles, and insects, were afterward formed;

That man was the last creation, and has not been on the earth longer than that series of time which the Scriptures indicate, and which, according to the Hebrew Pentateuch, has not exceeded 6000 years;

That the first race of human beings was purposely ended by a deluge, on account of their demoralization; and that this deluge was either universal over all the circumference of the globe, or at least extended to every part where men and animals were residing;

And that a new race of human population, and renewed generations of the animal classes, were gradually multiplied and spread after the catastrophe had ended.

Now these requisitions, instead of being at variance with even our present degree of geological knowledge, are actually in accordance with it; for the most ancient fossil remains are found to be those of vegetables, followed, and in some parts closely accompanied, by marine animals; and both of these productions are separated by earthy matter from the