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might be selected in consequence of being distinguished by comparative superiority, however imperfect, in obedience.

If it be objected, that the whole race might be extinguished by the convulsion, and that a completely new creation of mankind might ensue, when destruction had finished its work; it may be replied, first, that the other alternative, the supposition, that some individuals were spared, is, at least, equally probable to natural reason; secondly, that it is the less difficult, and therefore the more probable supposition. For the objector has either to affirm that the new race, namely, the present race of men, was created sinful as they now are; or to account de novo for their actual sinfulness.

Is it necessary to pause, and to indicate to a single reader the testimony which, in all the preceding conclusions, Natural Theology is bearing to Revelation? Is it necessary to specify the decision with which her hand is pointing to those fundamental truths respecting human transgression, which lie at the root of the divine plan of salvation through a Redeemer?

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But an additional conclusion, bringing also its portion of kindred testimony, remains. The convulsion must have been occasioned or accompanied by a tremendous and a universal deluge; by a deluge precisely corresponding with the Scriptural account of that penal Flood, for the production of which the fountains of the Great Deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. To overspread the plains of the Arctic Circle with the bodies of elephants and rhinoceri, and with the shells of Indian seas; to accumulate on a single spot, in promiscuous confusion, the marine productions of the four quarters of the globe: what conceivable instrument would be efficacious but the rush of mighty waters? And however widely the windows of heaven might be opened, however vast, however persevering, might have been the torrents precipitated from the clouds; to whatever altitude above the summits of the highest mountains, the waters might gradually be uplifted by inexhaustible rains from on high: by what instrumentality were the mighty waters impelled with the force requisite for whirling the spoils of different regions of the earth to their antipodes,

but by the breaking up of the fountains of the Great Deep, by the agency of those commotions, of those explosions, of those disruptions below, which, heaving up the ocean from its profoundest recesses, hurled its billows with resistless momentum in every direction round the globe, and shattering and dislocating the superincumbent strata, sought to elevate even to the level of the pinnacles of the Alps and the Andes the primeval bed of the seas?

Whether the penal infliction followed sooner, or later, after the offence, Natural Theology could not undertake to infer. Nor is it of the slightest importance to the argument before us, whether the punishment instantly overtook the transgressors; or whether the Deity, in order to allow opportunity for sin to manifest its heinousness by its fruit, universal depravity; or to evince his own forbearance, and mercifully to afford to sinners, means and encouragements for repentance, delayed for many years the catastrophe, which obstinate iniquity finally rendered indispensable. In either case, the holiness of the Deity in His detestation of sin, His justice in punishing a guilty world, His mercy in preserving a remnant of

the fallen race, and the testimony of Natural Theology to these Divine Attributes, are the

same.

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CHAP. III.

THE ACTUAL APPEARANCE OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH CORROBORATES THE CONCLUSIONS DEVELOPED IN THE PRE

CEDING CHAPTER.

AMONG the discoveries which have been shown to be attainable by Natural Theology, through an investigation of subterranean phenomena, is the very important fact, that a deluge was the penal instrument, which it pleased Omnipotence to employ, in reducing the exterior strata of the globe to their existing state.

This conclusion receives additional confirmation from a survey of the present superficies of the earth. In every region, in every portion of every region, the surface testifies that its form was produced by the action of water, by the action of retiring water; testifies that no mode of instrumental agency, within the circle of our experience, and the cognizance of our judgment, could have produced the existing form of the surface of the earth, but the action of retiring

water.

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