existent germinal matter of the form and structure of the earth and heavens."

With the recorded work of the third day, the record comes first into contact with the leading conclusions which have been arrived at by the consent of geologists respecting the "three great geologic parts," into which "the vast geologic scale naturally divides" itself, as Hugh Miller tells us, "by the consent of all geologists." With respect to this portion of the record, the testimony of Hugh Miller is as follows:-"The geologic evidence is so complete as to be patent to all-that the first great period of organized being was, as described in the Mosaic record, peculiarly a period of herbs and trees yielding seed after their kind." All that Mr. Goodwin has to say in reply to such testimony, is based on the assumption that, notwithstanding such acknowledged agreement between the oldest historic record and the universally accredited conclusions of geologists, the standard of truth is to be sought elsewhere. "If," he replies, "it be said the Mosaic account is simply the speculation of some early Copernicus or Newton, who devised a scheme of the earth's formation as nearly as he might in accordance with his own observations of nature, and with such views of things as it was possible for an unassisted thinker in those days to take, we may admire the approximate correctness of the picture drawn, while we see that the writer took everything from a different point of view from ourselves, and consequently represented much quite differently from the fact."" Whatever may be the amount of truth in the assumed fact from which this conclusion is drawn, we may deny the consequence. We may reasonably be content with adhering to what the consent of generations past witnesses to be the oldest historic standard of relative and absolute truth, whatever allowance has to be made in consideration of the design of holy Scripture, as being infinitely above its scientific use. It is enough for the believer to know that "all geologists" agree in acknowledging the correspondence with their universally received conclusions of the first chapter of Genesis. It is for others to ask themselves what more could have been expected on the supposition of that chapter containing revealed truth?

The account of the fourth day's work is in perfect consistency with what precedes and follows it. The sun, moon, and heavenly bodies which had hitherto been gradually assuming their relative positions in space, in the process of being evolved in orderly development out of the germinal heavens and earth, are now made (Heb. hasah), and set in the firmament of heaven

Quoted by Mr. Goodwin, p. 243-246.

i Id., p. 246, 247.

to give light upon the earth, and "to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness;" and "for signs and for seasons, and for days and years." There is no necessity for supposing, as Mr. Goodwin seems to do, that this operation was otherwise than in such a manner, co-ordinate and in close sequence with the commencement of vegetation on the third day, as to remove the objection arising from the conditions conceived to be necessary for the growth of plants in the absence of the influences of the sun. The considerations which have been used in a former analogous connexion with respect to the work of the first and second days, are no less applicable here in their bearing upon the conceptions of the creative mind and will.

Nor does the language of the record with respect to the "ruling" uses of the two heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon, "for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years," otherwise than express with "scientific exactness," though from the nature of the case in relative terms the grand conclusions of physical astronomy in particular, as of other science generally. What these terms contain implicitly, has been in the progress of thought unfolded explicitly, the varied phenomena of the earth and heavens having been in some measure reduced to system in connexion with the recognition of gravitating and other influences.

The description of the fifth and six days' work brings the record again into contact with those results of geology which are universally received. This portion of the Mosaic account covers the second and third of the three great geologic periods which "all geologists" agree in recognizing.

"We are prepared to demonstrate," says Hugh Miller, "that the second period of the geologist was peculiarly and characteristically a period of whale-like reptiles of the sea, of enormous creeping reptiles of the land, and of numerous birds, some of them of gigantic size; and, in meet accordance with the fact, we find that the second Mosaic period with which the geologist is called on to deal, was a period in which God created the fowl that flieth above the earth, with moving (or creeping) creatures, both in the waters and on land, and what our translation renders great whales, but that I find rendered in the margin great seamonsters." "The tertiary period had also its prominent class of existences. Its beasts of the field were by far the most wonderfully developed, both in size and numbers, that ever appeared on earth. Truly, this tertiary age-this third and last of the great geologic periods -was peculiarly the age of the great 'beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind." "k

¿ Quoted by Mr. Goodwin, p. 221.

* Id., page 221.

Such is the testimony, in deference to which Mr. Goodwin somewhat grudgingly concedes, that "the geologic periods are tolerably well assimilated to the third, fifth, and sixth Mosaic days;" but, as was before observed in reference to the third day's work and its agreement with the first grand geologic period, he does this in a manner calculated to turn the mind of the unwary from the contemplation of the divine design, and to represent the formation of a plan of cosmogony to be the design which occupied the mind of the writer. We repeat that this is begging the question. It is assuming that even so far as the account tallies with what "all geologists" agree in holding, the explanation is not, at all events, to be sought for in the supposition that it was so far "an authentic utterance of divine knowledge," and not "the speculation of some Hebrew Descartes or Newton." It was, indeed, with reference to a higher design than the formation of a plan of cosmogony, that we conceive the writer's mind was divinely directed. Our concern in this respect is to vindicate it, as also the expression of the spirit of truth, having regard to the relative aspect under which it is conveyed to the simple and the philosophic mind. We are not concerned with the logical discrepancies of believing commentators on the sacred text, such as Mr. Goodwin adduces, as it were, to justify infidelity. It is in accordance with the divine proceedings in the scheme of providence that the recognition of revealed truth should depend upon the will rather than the intellect : nor are we concerned to vindicate Mr. Hugh Miller's logical consistency of statement and arguments, although no one will object that he is not a competent witness to the fact of what "all geologists" admit in regard to that portion of geologic truth on which the record touches. We have no occasion to touch on the theory of a succession of visionary pictures, and other provisional theories of Dr. Buckland and Archdeacon Pratt; whatever may, or may not, be any degree of their approximation to the truth in detail. It is the temper of the humble and believing reasoner which we fail to discern in Mr. Goodwin's argument.

The sum of what we have written leads to the reflection that it is in reference to man as the high priest of the terrestrial temple, constructed and reared for him by the Divine Artificer who has "set the world in their heart," that we are to interpret the inspired Record both as a whole and in detail. His creation is accordingly introduced in a form and connexion differing from that respecting the other creatures. When all things had been

Id., p. 246, 247.

created (Heb. bara) and made (Heb. hasah) for his sake, when his home had been furnished for his reception, there then takes place an operation of the divine mind in which the persons of the Godhead are represented as in counsel with reference to His being made by their concurrent will, and thought, and act, in their own divine image. We thus recognize in the first Adam, at least as respects the living soul breathed into him, the stamp and character of the archetype of creation, constructed in respect of his material frame and organization according to the analogy which holds good of the creatures which were brought forth from the matter of the earth and ocean, agreeably to what we know from experience and observation of analogous results now. Man too was made out of the dust of the ground, but that was in his case superadded, which is not predicated of the creatures who were put under his feet, and to whom it was accordingly given him to assign their names in the reasonable exercise of his proper faculty of speech.

We distinguish, therefore, between the law of propagation of mankind (especially as created anew in the second Adam, the first-born of a new creation), and what have been described as the self-evolving processes of animal life in nature. Both are equally to be referred to the original Word of God which imparted to the matter of the earth and waters the property of propagating organic life, in harmony with what we witness in the spontaneous organic existences which are mysteriously educed from vegetable and other matter. To man it may have been given to imitate the processes of nature, but not, as an originating principle, to create the principle of life and being which, in connexion with human instrumentality, is derived to us from the one divine source of all things. With the foundation for his faith which the inspired Record supplies, it is for man, renewed in the divine image, to use the dominion given him over the elements and their inhabitants in accordance with those dictates of reason, conscience, and the spirit, which are included in our idea of his responsible character, with a reverent and religious regard to the higher laws of Providence, and the hosts of unseen intelligences which compass us around. There is the prospect of the agencies which have been already employed in the extension of the means of communication and material welfare, such as steam, electricity, and magnetism, being still further extended and multiplied so as to bring near the fulfilment of the prediction, respecting the latter days, "that many shall run to and fro on the earth, and knowledge shall be increased." But let us not rest in this as the idea which, even if realized in our time, will satisfy the mind or support it in the

hour when the earthly tabernacle is dissolved. It must have been a higher thought than this which sustained the spirit of the late Prince Consort in the midst of his career of usefulness, and in the prospect of his approaching end. The restoration of our nature in the second Adam as the father of a race begotten of incorruptible seed of the Church which is his spouse and our spiritual mother-this, and this alone, is adequate to satisfy the aspirations and heal the maladies attending the education of the soul of man.

C. GOOCH.

EXEGESIS OF DIFFICULT TEXTS.

MARK XV. 15, COMPARED WITH LEVITICUS XVI. 5. DEAN ELLICOTT in page 450 of his essay on Scripture" and its interpretation, in the Aids to Faith, lays down two rules for the prudent expounder to conform to in tracing out types: "First, not positively to assert the existence of typical relations between persons, places or things, unless it should appear, either directly or by reasonable inference, that such relations are recognized in Scripture secondly, even in the case of apparently reasonable inferences from Scripture, not to press the typical allusion unless we have the consent of the best of the earlier expositors.'

It is not our intention to enter into any investigation of the first of these rules, which may at any rate be accepted as a caution even by those who are not willing to commit themselves to its guidance as an absolute rule. But the second appears to us to involve so glaring an attempt to lock the wheels of progress in the department of typology, that we cannot but raise our voice to protest against it. Our Lord has told us that every properly instructed scribe is like a householder who brings forth out of his store things both NEW and old (Matt. xiii., 52); are we then to be restricted to the old things only in the department of typology? Whence did Dean Ellicott derive his authority for thus restricting the general words of his Master? It may be that the fathers, fond as they were of discovering typical resemblances, where we, on reconsideration, can find nothing, passed heedlessly over some types of the greatest value, which lay too near the surface for them even to imagine them to be types at all. We are willing enough to pay great regard to the

" Dean Ellicott's rules of Exegesis in the Aids to Faith.