PART II.

CHAP. VIII.

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angels, and hast crowned him with glory and "honour. THOU madest him to have DOMINION

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over the works of THY hands; TнOU hast put "all things in subjection under his feet!"

Here, we trace the aerial soar of the eagle, instead of the heavy ground-flight of the earth fowl; we perceive the aspiring sublimity of revelation, instead of the flatulency of a terrene philosophy; we discern the true humiliation of religious gratitude, instead of an affected depreciation of our highly favoured nature; and we become practically sensible of the infinite disparity of the effect wrought in the soul, by contemplating the chaotic precipitations of the mineral geology, or the creative fiat of the Mosaical..

CHAPTER IX..

LET us now return to the record, which is thus PART II. concluded by the historian:

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"Thus the HEAVENS and the EARTH were finished, and all the host of them. And on the

SEVENTH DAY GOD ended his work which HE "had made, and HE rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.

"And GOD blessed the SEVENTH DAY, and "SANCTIFIED it; because that in it He had "ceased from all His work, which GOD created " and made."

Thus, in the distribution of the days," observes Bacon, "we see, that the day on which "God rested and contemplated His works, was "blessed above all the days during which the "fabric of the universe was created and arranged1."

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This concluding article presents much matter for our serious consideration.

Great and inestimable have been the ends

1 De Aug. Scient. v. iv. l. i. p. 37.

CHAP. IX.

CHAP. IX.

PART II. attained by that sacred ordinance, which appointed all time to proceed by perpetually recurrent measures of seven days. For, while God provided in the heavens, on the fourth day, a perpetual natural calendar of time divided into large measures, which attracted the attention of the mind to natural and material objects; He provided, by the sanctification of the seventh day, an entirely distinct, moral calendar, subdividing those large measures into smaller and more convenient measures, and directing the attention perpetually, and immediately, to HIMSELF; and which was founded upon a principle, and proceeded by a ratio, that prevented the possibility of its ever becoming confounded with, or lost in, the former. For, although some physical philosophers of the last century perversely attempted to ascribe the hebdomadal computation, or computation by weeks, to the quarters of the moon as marked by its different phases, in order to invalidate the divine origin of that computation; yet, a child in calculation is able to show, that the ratios of the two computations are so essentially and perpetually at variance with each other, that though they can always be adjusted by equation, yet they can never fall into each other; but their diversity must have been apparent at the end of the first month, and would have con

CHAP. IX.

tinued more and more to manifest itself as time PART II. continued to advance: the hebdomadal month consisting exactly of 28 days, but the lunar of 29.

We thus perceive, that the inchoations of all the three computations of time, solar, lunar, and sabbatical (if described according to their indications); or, annual, menstrual, and hebdomadal (if described according to their measures), were concurrent. That, the first day of creation, was the commencement of the first year and first month, testified by the phænomena of the fourth day; and the commencement of the first week, testified by the sanctification of the seventh day. We thus apprehend the order in which the new creation and system of time began, by the counsel and disposal of God; which order has proceeded uniformly and without interruption from that period, and will continue so to proceed, until the conclusion of time, which will be no other than the cessation of the stupendous machine of this planetary system. If we could look back through all history, we should find a precise concurring date of year, month, week, and day, affixed to every event which has occurred in time; which consideration will make us sensible, that what we are apt to term the obscurity of time, is no other than the obscurity of our own knowledge,

CHAP. IX.

PART II. with respect to past time. But, by thus contemplating it in itself, and in its general nature, we shall be sensible how admirably its compound relations have been preserved from its commencement. It presents to the thoughts a perfect, minutely noted calendar, whose leaves are blank to our intelligence, where history has not filled them up; so that our confusion of early history does not result from the want of a precise date to affix to events, but from our incapacity to apply the events to the dates which properly and perpetually pertain to them.

What renders it material to impress this fact upon the mind is, that the mode which learning and science have adopted to facilitate the arrangement of historical events, is, unfortunately, founded upon a principle, which, though it may serve a purpose of history, pro'duces radical confusion in contemplating chronology. For, since chronology is the science of time, and since time signifies nothing else than the succession of the diurnal revolutions of the earth, collected into annual revolutions, and these multiplied by 100, and 1000; our general view of time ought to commence with the first revolution of the earth. This is its true origin, or epocha, with respect to fact. But, instead of this true epocha, an imaginary scheme of time,