sufficiency. It evidently limits the Creator, and makes him in working dependent upon the nature of the material with which he works.

2d. It is inconsistent with the feeling of absolute dependence of the creature upon the Creator, which is inherent in every heart, and which is inculcated in all the teachings of the Scriptures. It could not be said that "he upholds all things by the word of his power," nor that "we live, and move, and have our being in him," unless he be absolutely the Creator as well as the Former of all things.

3d. It is manifest from the testimony of consciousness. (1.) That our souls are distinct individual entities, and not parts or particles of God; (2.) that they are not eternal. It follows consequently that they were created. And if the creation of the spirits of men ex nihilo be once admitted, there remains no special difficulty with respect to the absolute creation of matter.

4th. Although the absolute origination of any new existence out of nothing is to us confessedly inconceivable, it is not one whit more so than the relation of the infinite foreknowledge, or foreordination, or providential control of God to the free agency of men, nor than many other truths which we are all forced to believe.

5th. After having admitted the necessary self-existence of an infinitely wise and powerful personal Spirit, whose existence, upon the hypothesis of his possessing the power of absolute creation, is sufficient to account for all the phenomena of the universe, it is unphilosophical gratuitously to multiply causes by supposing the independent, eternal self-existence of matter also.

6th. When the physical philosopher has analyzed matter to its ultimate atoms, and determined their essential primary properties, he finds in them as strong evidence of a powerful antecedent cause, and of a wisely designing mind, as he does in the most complex organizations of nature; for what are the ultimate properties of matter but the elementary constituents of the uuiversal laws of nature, and the ultimate conditions of all phenomena. If design discovered in the constitution of the universe as finished proves a divine Former, by equal right must the same design discovered in the elementary constitution of matter prove a divine Creator.

7th. Those among theistic thinkers who have been tempted to regard matter as eternal and self-existent, have been influenced by the vain hope of explaining thereby the existence of moral evil in consistency with the holiness of God. They would refer all the phenomena of sin to an essentially evil principle inherent in matter, and would justify God by maintaining that he has done. all that in him lay to limit that evil. Now, besides the inconsistency of this theory's attempt to vindicate the holiness of God at the expense of his independence, it proceeds upon absurd principles, as appears from the following considerations: (1.) Moral evil is in its essence an attribute of spirit. To refer it to a material origin must logically lead to the grossest materialism. (2.) The entire Christian system of religion, and the example of Christ is in opposition to that asceticism and "neglecting of the body," (Col. ii., 23) which necessarily springs from the view that matter is the ground of sin. (3.) When God created the material universe he pronounced his works "very good." (4.) The second Person of the holy trinity assumed a real material body into personal union with himself. (5.) The material creation, now "made subject to vanity" through man's sin, is to be renovated and made the temple in which the Godman shall dwell forever.— See below, Chap. XXXVI., question 17. (6.) The work of Christ in delivering his people from their sin does not contemplate the renunciation of the material part of our natures, but our bodies, which are now "the members of Christ," and the "temples of the Holy Ghost," are at the resurrection to be transformed into the likeness of his glorified body. Yet nothing could be more absurd than to argue that the oμa vεvμaτikóv is not as litterally material as the present σώμα ψυχικόν. (7.) If the cause of evil is essentially inherent in matter, and if its past developments have occurred in spite of God's efforts to limit it, what certain ground of confidence can any of us have for the future.

5. Prove that the work of creation is in Scripture attributed to God absolutely, i. e., to each of the three persons of the Trinity coördinately, and not to either as his special personal function?

1st. To the Godhead absolutely, Gen. i., 1, 26. 2d. To the Father, 1 Cor. viii., 6. 3d. To the Son, John i., 3; Col. i., 16, 17. 4th. To the Holy Spirit, Gen. i., 2; Job xxvi., 13; Ps. civ., 30.

6. How can it be proved that no creature can create?

1st. From the nature of the work. It appears to us that the work of absolute creation ex nihilo is an infinite exercise of power. It is to us inconceivable because infinite, and it can belong, therefore, only to that Being who, for the same reason, is incomprehensible. 2d. The Scriptures distinguish Jehovah from all creatures, and from false gods, and establish his sovereignty and rights as the true God by the fact that he is the Creator, Is. xxxvii., 16; xl., 12, 13; liv., 5; Ps. xcvi., 5; Jer. x., 11, 12. 3d. If it were admitted that a creature could create, then the works of creation would never avail to lead the creature to an infallible knowledge that his creator was the eternal and self-existent God.

7. What opinion do modern geologists entertain as to the antiquity of our globe, and upon what does that opinion rest?

The universal opinion of all geologists, Christians and infidels, theists and atheists, is that the material composing our globe has been in existence for incalculable ages; that it has passed through many successive stages in its transition probably from a gaseous, certainly from a molten condition, to its present constitution; and that it has successively been inhabited by many different orders of organized beings, each in turn adapted to the physical conditions of the globe in its successive stages, and generally marked in each stage by an advancing scale of organization, from the more elementary to the more complex and more perfect forms, until the advent of man, the last and most perfect of all, about six thousand years ago. The facts upon which this opinion is founded are barely indicated in the following summary condensed from the 2d chapter of Pres. Hitchcock's able work on "Religion of Geology."

1st. The rocks are in their present form evidently the result of the operation of second causes. "Some of them have been melted and reconsolidated, and crowded in between others, or spread over them. Others have been worn down into mud, sand, and gravel, by water and other agents, and again cemented together, after having enveloped multitudes of animals and plants, which are now embedded as organic remains." They bear upon them as indubitable marks of change and wear as any of the ancient works of man. To infer that they were created in their

present form would violate every principle of analogical reasoning upon which all science proceeds.

2d. "Processes are now going on by which rocks are formed, on a small scale, of the same character as those which constitute the great mass of the earth. Hence it is fair to infer (1.) that all the rocks were formed in a similar manner. (2.) That by ascertaining the rate at which rocks are now forming we may form some estimate as to the time requisite to produce those constituting the crust of the earth.”

3d. All the stratified rocks, especially that large proportion of them which contain the remains of animals and plants, appear to have been formed from fragments of other rocks, worn down by the action of water and atmospheric agencies. Yet this process is very slow.

4th. "Yet there must have been time enough, since the creation, to deposit at least ten miles of rocks in perpendicular thickness," by this process of attrition, washing, precipitation, drying, and hardening by means of heat, pressure, and the admixture of iron or lime.

5th. It is certain that since man existed, or in the last six thousand years, materials for the production of rock have not accumulated to the average thickness of more than one or two hundred feet, or about one five hundreth part of the entire thickness of the stratified rocks that have been formed since the creation.

6th. During the deposition of the stratified rocks many changes must have occurred in the temperature and the materials held in solution by the waters which deposited them, and in the positions of the rocks themselves, as they have been bent and dislocated while in a soft state.

7th. "Numerous races of animals and plants must have occupied the globe previous to those which now inhabit it, and have successively passed away as catastrophes occurred, or as the climate became unfit for their residence. Thirty thousand species have already been dug from the rocks, and with few exceptions none of them corresponding to those now living upon the earth." "Not less than four or five, and probably more, entire races have passed away, and been succeeded by recent ones, so that the globe has actually changed all its inhabitants half a dozen times."

8th. Even since all the various strata of rocks have been in

their present state and position changes have been accomplished, e. g., in the formation of deltas, and in the gradual wearing away of solid rock in channels by rivers (often hundreds of feet deep, and for miles in length), which must have required many thousands

of years.

9th. The primary rocks, which everywhere form the foundation upon which the stratified rocks rest, and out of the fragments of which, by washing and wearing, the stratified rocks have been formed, were themselves evidently formed when the whole globe was gradually cooling from a condition of universal fusion from heat.

8. What are the different methods which have been suggested of reconciling the facts developed by geology with the truth of the Mosaic record of creation?

1st. The method adopted by Dr. Chalmers, President Hitchcock, and the great majority of Christian geologists, is as follows: The first verse of Genesis, disconnected from the subsequent context, affirms the truth that in the beginning, at some remote and unrevealed period in the past, God created the whole universe out of nothing; and then after an interval, the measure of which is not given, the subsequent verses relate the general order in which God, in the space of six natural days, established the present order of this world, adapting it to the residence of its present inhabitants, and in which he created the present races of plants and animals. This interpretation of the Mosaic account of the creation was advanced as probable by many eminent biblical scholars before the rise of geological science, and it is now almost universally adopted by theologians as well as by geologists. There appears to be no objection to it upon any ground, and, as a general adjustment, it appears to be the best possible in the present state of our knowledge. It is only a general adjustment, however, leaving many questions of detail unsolved, both as to the interpretation of the record of the six days' work, and as to the reconciliation of the facts of geology, and the present scientific interpretation thereof, with the inspired record.

2d. In order to avoid several difficulties experienced in attempting to reconcile the Mosaic account of the six days' work with the science, Dr. John Pye Smith proposed to supplement