But our business being with the contents, I shall not speak of the systematic evidence in favour of the Scriptures. You have been taught to receive them as the word of God. Take it for granted, then, that what you shall hear in the course of our Conversations, is the truth. Yet, you are not to build your faith upon my word. It is your duty to examine for yourselves, when your minds are matured. In the mean time, rest assured, that whenever the arguments by which the Scriptures are defended, shall be considered, their force will be found irresistible, and the study most delightful to a mind properly disposed.

FANNY. If the accomplishment of a prophecy occur, I hope it will comport with your plan to point it out. I should like to see the accomplishment of the promises.

MRS. M. That, my children, we shall all see. We may behold it every day if we are not wilfully blind. May it be your lot to enjoy the blessings which those promises, in their highest import, have offered to your accept

ance. With respect to subordinate events, their prediction and their fulfilment are so interwoven with the narrative, that separation would be destruction; and the same. must be premised of the miracles of the old Testament. You will therefore hear much of these interesting subjects.

The first five books of the old Testament were written by Moses, the great Jewish legislator. Taken collectively they are called the Pentateuch. They commence with Genesis, which, in reference to the subject, signifies, the beginning or production; because it relates, first, the history of the creation of all things.

Genesis contains the history of 2367 years; and informs us, first, that the Universe was created in six days by the almighty word of God. (B. C. 4004.) "He

spake, and it was done-He commanded, and it stood fast," and the same unerring wisdom pronounced it per fect: so perfect, that we are told in a beautiful figure, the angels and the morning stars beheld it with songs, and acclamations of joy.-Job, xxxviii. 7.

Every part of nature, both animate and inanimate, bears the impress of order; and thus it was in the be ginning. All things did not start into existence at once, but successively. The original matter of which they were formed, was produced first, by the omnipotent Word. The spirit of God moved upon the elemental chaos, and light and darkness became day and night! Earth, air, and water separated, and took their destined places; the sun and moon began their revolutions; and the shining stars were arranged in the firmanent. Herbs, trees, and flowers, sprung next from the ground; the capacious bosom of the deep received its inhabitants; and the feathered tribes expanded their wings in air. Thus in five days, our universe came progressively from the Creator's hand. But supreme Wisdom does not work in vain. Every object of His mind must have an end. The flowers would bloom, the fruits would cluster in vain, without a hand to gather them. Creation would display its magnificence in vain, without an intelligent creature to contemplate the Creator's glory in his works. Wherefore, on the sixth day, Man, the noblest of all, was produced; and to him came all the inferior animals, and he named them, and governed them.

Every created being was furnished with a capacity to enjoy the Creator's beneficence according to its respective nature. To man alone was imparted an intellectual power to admire and adore, at the same time that he enjoyed. All

earth, and air, and sky contributed to his pleasure, but there was none to participate; no being who could unite with him in gratitude to the author, or who could receive and return the social affections with which his soul was endued. But in this lonely state he did not long continue! He " was cast into a deep sleep," and when he awoke, he beheld a companion, in all respects suited to his circumstances. "This is now bone of my bone (said Adam) and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh."

The Mosaic account of the creation has been admired by the most accomplished scholars. The emphatical sentences by which the instantaneous production of light is described, has been cited repeatedly, as an example of the highest sublimity. And God said, "Let there be light-and there was light."

The seventh day the glorious Architect "rested from his labours," and therefore he "blessed and sanctified" that day. By these words we understand the appointment of a sabbath, or a reservation to himself, of one day in seven, for his special service, and at the same time for the refreshment of his creatures in a total cessation of their labours.

The division of time into weeks, which has been handed down to us from time immemorial, can no otherwise be accounted for, than in the divine ordinance here recorded, for the period is entirely arbitrary; not being indicated by any aspect of nature, like days, months, and years, by the revolutions of the sun and moon.

Adam and Eve (a word signifying Life, and therefore

chosen by Adam as the name of his wife, because she was "the mother of all living") were placed in the garden of Eden, a paradise abounding with all that was delightful to the eye, or delicious to the taste. The splendour of creation, and the bountiful provision for their enjoyment, might intimate to them the existence of a Creator and a Benefactor; but the highest exercise of their mental powers, could ascertain but little of his nature, or of their own obligations. This transcendent knowledge required a divine revelation; and by a divine revelation they learned that their Creator was their Sovereign, entitled to their service, and exacting implicit obedience to his will. The first pair created innocent, and with all holy inclinations, might suppose themselves able to pay the requisite submission, but being endowed with perfect fredom of choice, the Sovereign thought fit to prove them by one positive command. Accordingly he prohibited them from the use of a certain tree in the midst of the garden, in these words: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." A forbidden object becomes desirable to our perverse hearts, from the very circumstance of its being forbidden; but such perversity cannot be supposed of the first pair in their original state of rectitude. Listening to the insidious suggestions of Satan, the great enemy of their peace, they were tempted to believe that the tree of knowledge was forbidden, because it possessed the power of exalting their natures to an equality with angelic beings. Ambition superseded duty; they ate of the interdicted fruit! The condition of life and happiness was broken, and the penalty of death was incurred! The guilty pair

were exiled from paradise, where they had been fed by the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and were condemned to earn their bread with toil and in sorrow!

FANNY. Was not the punishment severe for the breach of one command; that too an act by which no creature was injured?

MRS. M. The command was the test of an obedient disposition; the breach of this was, therefore, the violation of every other; because the rebellious temper was displayed. The Sovereign has a right to exact perfect obedience, and man is justly punished for his refusal to render it. But man is not left in despair: Divine Mercy had from all eternity laid the plan of his deliverance from the power and penalty of sin, by a Redeemer, and now intimated blessed hope, by a promise to the fallen pair.

FANNY. You called the command not to eat of the tree, a positive command. Are not all the laws of God equally binding?

MRS. M. Certainly but we divide them into moral and positive. The first includes the duties which we owe to our Creator, or to ourselves, and each other, and which our own reason might, in some measure, have discovered: the second, are such as derive their importance alone from the will of the supreme lawgiver, and such as we could not have known without a divine revelation. You will keep this distinction in mind, for in the study of the Scriptures, there are frequent examples of the positive, under the Jewish dispensation, and two under our own, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.

CATHERINE. Where was the garden of Eden situated? MRS. M. Eden was a very fertile tract of country in