xxii INTRODUCTION. “ His counsellor i It is, by a posteriori reasoning only. Whatever God shall be found to have revealed, is reasonably revealed, because it is His revelation :" Dei “ sermo, sermo rationis 2." There is no method for truly ascertaining this point, as it relates to the circumstances of our Earth, but by comparing the declarations of Reve lation with the discoveries of science ; and it is by the cor respondences of these only, that the bearing of physical science on Revelation can be truly determined. So long as the physical evidences were unapparent, the mind rested, in full and entire security, on the moral evidences. But, when physical evidences are at length disclosed and super added, in collateral confirmation of the moral evidences, the intelligence is not free to disregard them, but is bound, by virtue of its “ prerogative of reason,” to contemplate them in combination with the moral evidences which they are manifested to corroborate. If, we correctly ascertain a posteriori what is revealed, and if we accurately compare with it what is discovered, then we cannot fail to perceive clearly, how far the discovery bears upon the revelation. I shall now proceed to consider the learned and scientific author’s two propositions. 10. With respect to the first of these, that “ the pro- “ fessed object of Revelation was to treat of the history of “ man only;” I would respectfully ask the reverend writer, what said the Creator when He enforced the ob servance of His seventh day on the Hebrew people ? “ In « six days the Lord created the Heaven, and the Earth, ee the Sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh “ day ; Wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and 1 Rom. xi. 34. * TERTULLIAN, de Oratione, in princip.
