eruption of a volcano in Iceland, the lava of which, covered an extent of ground of fifteen miles long, and feven broad, its perpendicular height, being from fixteen to twenty fathoms, fo that it covered every village it met with, as well as feverat hills. In February, 1784, two iflands appeared, and one particularly, where the water before was upwards of one hundred fathoms deep; both, (when Mr. Pennant wrote) were above half a mile in circumference, and as high as the mountain Erian in Iceland, and were then burning. In the eruption of Etna, 1669, the matter thrown out amounted to 93 millions eight hundred and thirty-eight thousand fever hundred and fifty cubical paces; which, had it been extended in length upon the furface of the earth, would have reached more than 93 millions of paces, which is more than four times the circuit of the whole earth. Why then must stones, marbles, and granites, have neceffarily been ages forming? How long they were forming, we prefume not to fay, but to fay, that in a fyftem of operations, whereby fuch mighty works as have been referred to, can have been completed in the fpace of a year, it must have taken ages to form any mafs of matter whatever, is affuming what we can have no data to prove. In the 46th letter, Mr. S. himfelf ftates a curious inftance of fpeedy induration, which, as we have perfonally noticed the fame on the coast of Yorkshire, and at Weymouth, we fhall tranfcribe. A gentleman at Boulogne, in the year 1750, faw a large lump of clay on the fands which had fallen from the hills, and lying fo as to be wathed by the tide: having been told by the inhabitants that these maffes of clay became petrified by the fea water, he impreffed a mark on it with his cane, it being then very foft; but paffing the fame way three weeks afterwards, he could not force his cane into the fame lump. How then can we fay what period of time is inadequate to the purposes and energy of nature?

"Creation being phyfically incomprehenfible, how wild in us to attempt an investigation of it! but it is faid, the origin and progrefs of creation was revealed to the lawgiver of the Jewish race. Now to reveal, is the fame thing as to explain, or difcover, but to reveal a mystery fo as to leave it ftill a myftery, is a flat contradiction in terms, and an abfolute folecifm. It is an explication that wraps and involves what it pretends to unfold; it is a difcovery which conceals." p. 209. If to reveal that a myftery exifts, be really the fame thing as to explain, or discover by what means it exifts, we admit all Mr. S. advances in the above paragraph. But we wish not by any means to treat him unfairly. If this be his opinion here,

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here, in the course of his work he thinks differently. He thinks, (we cannot pay him a higher compliment,) with Sherlock. Speaking of the Chriftian Revelation, in the 89th_ letter, Mr. S. ufes these ftrong and juft expreflions. Can any myfteries of revelation, fo entirely exceed the comprehenfion of man, as the state of man himself? while therefore, your own form, while creation and providence are depths which you cannot fathom, is it not arrogant to affert, that God cannot reveal any thing, except your reafon can fhew its foundation in the nature and fitnefs of things?" The conclufion of the paffage is, every line of it, as ftrongly to the purpose. See vol. 5. P. 436.437.

P. 209. As Mofes no where fays, he received the account, which he has given us of the creation and fall of man immediately from God, the conclufion is fairly to be drawn, that it is the best and most accurate he was enabled to collect and put together from tradition. Thus, though he wrote the book of Genefis, how could he write the Hiftory of the Creation, before there was a man to see this work, and tranfmit an account of it to posterity?" If this paffage, inconfiftent as its different parts are, can prove any thing, furely, all it does prove is in favour of Mofes's infpiration. Whence could Mofes collect any thing with refpect to the creation from tradition? Could Mofes be fo weak as to be deceived by any pretended tradition relative to creation, whatever he might with respect to the fall of man? Could he think he should be credited if he wrote as from human tradition? or could the whole Jewish race be so stupid and dull as to look upon any account of the creation to be traditional? for if it originated with Adam, through Methufalem, Shem and Ifaac, yet to Adam at least it must have been revealed, for the world must have been created before he exifted to see the mighty operation.-What Mr. S. fays, p. 211, 212, &c. with refpect to the chaos being folid or fluid, we do not think it neceffary to notice. The prefent face of things we fee, but whether the chaos was altogether folid or fluid, we fhall never pretend to ascertain.

We were surprised with an observation of Mr. S. p. 114 ; in fpeaking of Mofes's accommodation of his language and style to the capacity of the people, he is made to defcend from the character he has ever been allowed, of a fublime writer, to the lowest pitch of vulgarity and irreverence. For the terms in which the deity is fpoken of in the Old Teftament, are reprefented as a liberty taken with God, and Mofes' account of the creation, a liberty taken with his works. Nay, with God himfelf too, if the charge be maintainable. "The making God to work by the day, and in fix days to finish his labour, is furely the excess of the vulgar ftyle." It is extraordinary that the

author,

author, who has been cited by every writer on the fublime, as fupplying the first and most striking inftance of it, fhould alfo be liable to the charge of writing in "the excess of the vulgar ftyle." We know that, by the vulgar ftyle, Mr. S. means only the common mode of fpeech; but is it not extraordinary that the genius of Mofes (to allow him only what Mr. S. allows him) which enabled him to convey to us in one fentence the moft glorious idea that ever was given of the power of God, fhould not be able, from the whole compass of the Hebrew tongue, to preferve the rest of his narration from debating the very deity he had thus worthily exalted. But where is the vulgarity of making God, in fix days finish his work, as defcribed by Mofes For, it must be remembered, Mofes calls it not labour, and though we have the term refted, in our tranflation, which may be faid to imply labour, yet in other tranflations, God is fpoken of, as "cealing from his work," and, "completing his work." Not to enter into the difpute, whether the day here fpoken of was our day of 24 hours, (which the reader will find difcuffed in M. De Luc's Geological Letters) are thefe works of God, fo to call them, like the ordinary works of man? To God, one operation is as eafy as another had it pleafed him at once to call into exiftence this our planetary system, one Almighty fiat affuredly would have fufficed. But this would have been no greater effort of power, than each days diftinct operation. Where is the labour to God in the glorious fiat of light, in the first day or period of the creation? It would feem like an infult to Mr. S. to ask where is the meanness of it? Mr. S. bimfelf thus fpeaks of the defcription of Mofes. With the fublimity of a powerful mind, in words which never have been exceeded by poet, or philofopher, Mofes fays, God faid, let it be, and it was!"-To make this, however, accord with Mr. S's idea, in the fame fentence this is attributed alfo, not to the fublimity of a powerful mind, but to "the fimplicity of ignorance," and this fimplicity of ignorance is faid to have led Mofes to take the wife and humble courfe he did. In the next paffage, Mr. S. avows his adoption of the opinion that the hiftory of the fall is but hieroglyphic, to represent the legogunais or fall of the foul, when it was embodied in fome priftine feat his following appeal however, to St. Paul, to fupport him in this opinion, is curious; "St. Paul himself, 1 Cor. 10. when fpeaking of feveral actions in the hiftory of the Old Teftament, &c. fays, "Which things happened TUTIS by way of type." Does Mr. S. mean to fay the hiftory is allegorical and not real? for if he does, (not to enter here into the real meaning of the expreffion TUTIs) it is unfortunate he fhould felect a paffage that begins " thefe things happened.”—

A

At p. 217. Mr. S. enters upon the difficulties usually flated by Deifts, how to account, in many parts of Genefis, for there being no other people on the earth but Adam and Eve, and their offspring. Though we could very well answer cach separate argument on this head, yet to fave time, we would leave it to Mr. S. to fettle the matter; for it is not more incumbent on us to account for the peopling of the globe, from Adam and Eve, as the first created pair, than it is for Mr. S. to account for it, from the same stock, as "providentially refcued from an univerfal deluge." p. 269. When Cain went into the land of Nod, he took his wife with him. Now fays Mr. S. whence was this female, if Adam had no daughters until after Seth was born, as it is plain he had not, or they would have been mentioned before, as well as after Seth's birth? If it should be objected that he might have had daughters before, though they are not mentioned, this is begging the question; for if Adain might have had daughters, and Mofes has been filent about them, is not the filence of Mofes about any other men form❜d before Adam, alledged as the reason why there could not have been any?"-We must deny the begging of the queftion charged on the advocates for religion. There might have been daughters of Adam, whom Mofes has not mentioned, but the filence of Mofes, with refpect to other men before Adam, is not the proof we reft on; we reft on the exprefs affertion of Mofes, that Adam was the first man. The whole of Mofes's account, fays Mr. S., is myftical and traditionary; otherwife, muft we not fuppofe that a chofen being, fuch as Eve, who had fo high a price fet upon her good behaviour, as the falvation of all mankind, would have been providentially guarded and protected? Nay further, would it not feem to reflect on the wifdom and goodness of God himself to fuffer his whole creation, which he had been so many days making, to be ruined in a moment by a malicious fpirit; and when the fatal mifcarriage could have been fo easily prevented?—This fentence betrays, we must fay, a want of philoLophical reflection. It was God's purpofe to make rational and accountable beings. That is, it was God's purpose to make a higher order of living creatures than the beafts that perifh. This could not be done but by giving fome command and leaving them entirely free to obey or break it.

The prohibition against eating the apple must be looked on" fays Mr. S. " as a veiled part of the apologue; for it never could be fuppofed that the accretion of any matter, efpecially of divifible matter, taken and fecreted as food, could in fact give immortality to

the

the immaterial indivifible part of man, to the living foul, which was after God's image." Deifts have always thought they gained great advantage when they could charge believers with attributing to a mafticated apple the knowledge of good and evil, or the acquifition of immortality. But does Mofes ever fay, that the effects to be produced by eating the fruit of either of these trees, were to be caused by mastication, digeftion, abforption, or other phyfical proceffes? The cafe, as we conceive it, was this-To make man accountable (and therefore capable of the highest degree of happiness as a meritorious being) a command was to be given; it fignified not of what nature, fo that it was abfolute; for forbearance and obedience would have diftinguished men as free agents, as much as wilfulness and difobedience. The knowledge of good and evil would neceffarily be the confequence of tranfgreffion. And what command, applicable to the prefent race of men, could have been given to Adam and Eve? They were not likely to have or to worship other Gods than the Creator, with whom they had a fenfible intercourfe, and whofe name, therefore, they were little likely to take in vain. No Sabbath could they profane till feven days had elapfed, or unless the inftitution had then been made pofitive, which would have been equivalent to any other pofitive command. No father or mother had they to difhonour. Murder they would not commit till already depraved by fin. Adultery was not poffible, or theft. Neither had they neighbour to bear falfe witness against, or whofe poffeffions they might covet. As death was held out as a punishment for performing a certain forbidden act (the only crime in their power to commit) fo, in cafe they did not tranfgrefs, it might be confiftent to make fome fenfible object the reward of obedience. Death they might scarcely be able to conceive, but that by eating a restricted fruit, they might forfeit an allowed one, was a choice of which they might at all times judge, and the fruit of the tree of life might be fo intended. It was not the purpose of God to introduce fin. It was his purpofe only to render men free agents.

In page 121 Mr. S. touches upon the uncertainty relative to the feat of Paradife. We allow that there are doubts on this head, but as Mr. S. is a ftrenuous believer of the existence of the Iland of Atlantis, we truft he will not entirely doubt of the existence of a Paradife, because there are, at this diftance of time, fome difficulties in afcertaining its fituation.— The 42d Letter ends with ftrong declarations against the eternity of the earth.

Mr. S. next proceeds to fate the duty of seeking after truth, which every man, he fays, ought impartially to enquire into." His remarks on this fubject are grave and excellent, particu

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