hope. Those uniting evidences our respected author calls “ incidental only,” and he views them as “ not contri- “ buting much additional support to the truth of the " Mosaic record 1 .” But, if they exist at all, (and they do exist,) we may be perfectly sure that they are not “ inci- " dental only” but " essential;” and, that the fundamental facts which “ happen to be mentioned,” will not have been mentioned by Chance but by Providence, and will, there fore, as they were designed, contribute much additional support to the truth of the Mosaic record. 16. I am perfectly well aware, that all this is entirely new language to Physical Science in general; but, the Physical Science of Christendom stands urgently in need of hearing this new language. It has long “ called “ darkness light, and light darkness and, in some cases intentionally, in other cases unconsciously, it has per sisted in playing the cards of injidelity, as will be abund antly manifested in the progress of the following treatise. But, the long period of its competition with the authority of Revelation has reached its term; and, as the rod of Aaron consumed the competing rods of the magicians, and confounded the Sophists of Egypt—rm; cofnrra; tn Ayutrov (LXX.); so the pen of Moses, of which the former may be regarded as in some manner symbolical, will confound all the physical sophisms and alogisms which have been advanced, in contradiction or perversion of the record which that pen was commissioned to inscribe. This is not the language of self-confidence, but of perfect confidence in the tried and closely examined Word of God; and, it is a confidence which I am not in the smallest degree disposed to relinquish, merely lest some cynical 1 Introduction to Geol. of England and Wales, p. lvi, Ivii.
