Evidence is such as ought to influence the Practice of Introductory Remarks, as to the Objections to the Autho rity of the Pentateuch, Statement of the real Question, as to Geology. Character of the Mosaic Records. Outline of the Mosaic Account of the Creation, Results of geological Researches. Evidence of the Deluge universal and indisputable. Mo- saic Account of the Extent of that Catastrophe. Sub- terraneous Fire, the probable Agent. Traces of such Alternate Revolutions supposed by Cuvier. Concluding Remarks on geological Hypotheses, Statement of the Objection. Question examined by Analogy. Varieties among brute Animals; the same in Degree and Kind as those in Causes of them: Climate, Domestication, Food, &c. The Effect of these Causes on Man, considered. Climate alone insufficient to produce the Varieties of Known Effect of local Causes: and Instances. Proof from Style. Brief View of the principal Objections. Argument from the Samaritan Pentateuch. A TREATISE, I misplaced. I Where Reason, however, leaves us, Revelation takes us up; and furnishes us with a record of the creation, preserved by the wisdom, and authenticated by the power, of the Creator: and although it has sometimes been fashionable to attack Christianity, as Paley expresses it, through the sides of Judaism, it will, I trust, appear to a candid inquirer, no less morally impossible for the early Hebrew writings to have been forged, than for the Gospel itself to have been fabricated by its first teachers and a difficulty no less inexplicable to account for the existence of the Jewish law and religion, independently of the facts which are attested in the Pentateuch; than for the promulgation of Christianity, independently of the miracles and resurrection of the Messiah. To bring into popular view the nature and extent of this argument, is the principal object of the first of the following volumes. In the second volume I have endeavoured to obviate those difficulties regardb VOL. I. ing the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, which arise from the existence of physical and moral evil. These difficulties have been deemed important by reflecting persons in all ages and some superficial writers, though professing to acknowledge the Power and Intelligence displayed in the creation, have ventured to blaspheme the MORAL attributes of the Deity, on the ground of the guilt and ignorance, the poverty and wretchedness, with which the world abounds. But the subject has been made still more interesting, since it has been recently and clearly proved, that the greater part of these evils are the necessary consequence of a cause universally operating, viz. the natural tendency of mankind to increase in a quicker ratio than their subsistence, So that it becomes almost hopeless to 'expect any material diminution of the degree of evil actually existing; and the imputation may now appear to attach upon the divine ordinances, which was formerly cast upon accidental inconveniences, or human institutions. On this account it seemed peculiarly desirable to inquire, if possible, into the final cause of that provision for replenishing the world, which is known to be so universally active, and has engaged of late years so much attention; and to show that the present and actual state of the world is not only consistent with the wisdom and goodness of God, but affords perpetual testimony of both. In the prosecution of this attempt, I have not ventured to take the Christian Revelation as the groundwork of my argument, because, that being granted, any treatise upon the divine attributes would be superfluous at the same time I should consider it equally absurd and unprofitable to argue in this age, and in this country, as if we were really as much in the dark respecting the counsels of God, or the object of man's existenee, as Socrates or Cicero. The experiment of vindicating the moral administration of the |