XX INTRODUCTION. tiling the Author of the objects which are seen, with the Author of the statements which are read; and seems often driven near to the distracting doubt, whether they can be One and the Same, and consequently, whether the first and introductory record of the body of Scripture can be truly of divine original: for, we are sure, that Nature is of divine original. To trace their connexion, is there fore of the first importance, in Man’s relation to God under Divine Revelation. 8. A valuable reverend writer on Geology, whose scientific work appeared a few months after the publi cation of the first edition of the Comparative Estimate, has declared his inclination to adhere to that prudential reserve, which would still avoid an intimate connexion of physical phenomena with the record of Scripture; and he appears to regard every attempt to prove the connexion, as an " injudicious interference of advocacy 1 .” As his motive is entitled to the greatest attention, and as his volume is now become a text-book in the hand of the geological student, it is of the greatest importance, that the grounds alleged by him for the dissociation which he inculcates, should receive a full and a particular examination. Those grounds are laid, in the two following propositions: First, “ That the professed object of Revelation, was to “ treat of the history of man only; and that, even but as " far as affects his relation to his Creator.” Secondly, " That to have made physical truth generally « the subject of Revelation, would have been to destroy its « great use, namely, that its investigation might form at “ once the most delightful resource and the most in- 2 Introduction to Geol. of England and Wales, p. Iviii. note.
