the second race, though not denominated giants in the Scriptures, are they who undertook the gigantic enterprise of building a tower whose top should reach to heaven,— an enterprise very similar to that of scaling heaven by a pile of mountains. By these relations, both the mythological and Scriptural, is not meant that a race of people of enormous stature then existed; but giants, in the language of Analogy, are they who are great in their own conceit ; and such giants as are here spoken of, were they who absolutely looked upon themselves as deities, arrogating all merit, all goodness, and all wisdom to themselves, and not allowing that every thing they possessed which was really good was imparted to them by gift and perpetual derivation from the Lord alone. In short, the symbol of monstrous giants was adopted, to represent those who fell into such direful persuasions, as to imagine that the Deity had actually transfused himself into them, so as to have no existence independently of them; approximations to which sentiment are to be found in some of the doctrines of the Greek philosophers; and at this day it lies at the bottom of the religious system of the Hindoos, and has decided affiliations in that of Thibet and China: the origins of all which rise to the highest antiquity.

Is it not then, we may now ask with confidence, in the highest degree probable, that the early part of Genesis, and the mythological tales which bear so much resemblance to it, relate to the same facts, not in the political and civil, but in the moral and spiritual history of mankind? that they equally are composed in the general style prevalent in the ages to which they refer? that neither the one narrative nor the other was ever intended to be understood according to the literal form? that both are intermixed with such stories as, in the literal sense, are in the highest degree extravagant and incredible, purposely, among their other uses, to intimate to mankind that a common record of facts was not intended? but that the

mythological tales, though originally composed by men who possessed a knowledge of interior things and their analogies with natural objects, yet not being communicated by plenary inspiration, have not a spiritual sense, except as to the general circumstances, do not exist in any record which carries a spiritual idea in every expression, and are not always, perhaps, exact representations of the things intended; whereas, in Genesis, the same occurrences are described in language inspired throughout, and all the representatives are infallibly exact ?

We may, I trust, now repeat as a certain fact: that this early part of Genesis is written in the language of pure allegory, because it describes the moral history of a people with whom that style of writing was the only one in use; and because, further, it could not be given in the style of true but representative history, whilst the nation afterwards raised up to sustain the proper representations was not yet in existence; and because, finally, these are the only two species of narrative that can be delivered by plenary inspiration; from which source, a history of mere facts, containing no internal meaning, never can proceed.

Now what objection, carrying the smallest weight, can be raised against this view of the subject? I can see none. It solves all difficulties, and is, itself, absolutely unattended by any.* Nothing further, then, needs be urged to overturn from the foundation that class of Infidel Objections which rejects the Word of God for the alleged contradictions to reason and science to be found in this part of its contents. The literal history was never intended to be understood as such; it, therefore, can contradict nothing. The questions, then, respecting the manner and order in which the world was created, and respecting the vicissitudes which its surface has undergone; whether all

* See Appendix, No. VII.

the convulsions of which symptoms are apparent in the disposition of its strata, and in the vegetable and animal remains found in its bowels, took place before it was brought into a state fit for the habitation of man, or whether part of the indications have been occasioned by a general deluge which it has undergone since; are matters which may safely be left for decision to the unfettered progress of science. The Word of God pronounces no dictum upon such subjects and nothing which Science may ever bring to light respecting them, can, in the slightest degree, affect the title of the Scriptures to be received as the Word of God. The only bearing of all real Science upon the Word of God, is, to point to and confirm its true nature.

2. The class of infidel objections which we are next to consider, is that which is drawn from apparent contradictions between the various statements made by the sacred writers.

It is undoubtedly true, as is generally urged by the advocates of Revelation, that the greater part of these admit of a sufficient explanation when the context is fairly considered but, as was stated in the second Lecture, if there are any which cannot thus be reconciled, it is, because, in such cases, the letter has yielded a little to the weight of the matters contained within ; a slight turn has been given it to make it express more fully the spiritual contents, respecting which alone it is the object of inspiration to impart instruction.* Of this an example was given, and the principle more explicitly developed, in our last Lecture, from the history of Jephthah and his daughter. Though the circumstances related are true, they may not immediately exhibit the whole truth, as far as the outward history is concerned. "Just so much is recorded as conveys the true spiritual sense, and no more and Divine Wis

* Page 34, 35.

dom, which only regards things eternal, deems it of no moment whatever, if an impression be thus left of transient events different from the true one. Admit this principle, (and if we admit that a Revelation from God must primarily treat of spiritual subjects, it will be difficult to dispute it,) and we shall find no instances of seeming contradiction which can occasion the smallest embarrassment to the candid inquirer.

(1.) In the case, for instance, of the turning of the waters of Egypt into blood, by Moses and Aaron; when it is afterwards said that "the magicians did so with their enchantments;" upon which the Deist asks, When all the water of Egypt was changed before, how could the magicians repeat the operation ?f-It is here well answered from the letter, that the context shews that water was still attainable for the experiment, since we read, two verses below, that "the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink." If, however, it had been more difficult to account for the manner in which the magicians obtained their water, there still would have been a necessity, to convey the spiritual lesson intended, that the narrative should be so framed as to imply in the letter, that all the waters of Egypt were changed into blood by Moses and Aaron, and yet that the magicians performed a like miracle afterwards. The subject here spiritually treated of is respecting the false persuasions which adhere to those who cultivate natural science, but oppose themselves to the will of God and the truth of his Word, and respecting the judgments with which they are visited to compel them to desist. The waters of Egypt are all the truths possessed by such persons: blood, when considered in any way different from its proper relation, is the symbol of truth to which violence is done by wresting it from its just application. Moses is the type and representative of that

*Page 334, 335.

1 See the first Lecture, p. 22.

Law or Word which was given by his instrumentality; and Aaron, as his prophet, or spokesman, represents the true doctrine or instruction which that teaches. The miracle, therefore, was performed by them, to indicate, that, before the wicked are finally condemned, their real state, as Divine Truth discovers it, is shewn to them. But "the magicians did so with their enchantments," to represent how the natural man finds excuses for not setting his heart to consider the divine judgments when openly displayed before him, referring them to other causes in fact, the magicians are the proper types of that ingenious mode of reasoning from fallacies, which resolves the most express interferences of Deity into the common operations of nature. The spiritual lesson, surely, is deeply interesting, and the analogies from which it results self-evident : to yield those analogies is the main thing regarded in the construction of the letter: and when matters so weighty are to be expressed, it surely is more important that the language of the sacred history should be such as gives the spiritual contents in all their fulness, than that it should be absolutely free from obscurity in regard to all the minutiæ of the literal details!

But the difficulties in the literal narratives of the Word of God which appear most considerable, to those who do not attend to the proper design with which all the narratives of the Word of God are constructed, are those which are presented by the frequently varying accounts of the four Evangelists.

(2.) The question, why so many as four authentic Gospels should have been written, has embarrassed not a few inquirers. Many, even of those who have no prejudice against them on account of any part of their contents, would be glad of a plausible pretext for ejecting some of them from the Canon: thus the celebrated Michaelis, entertaining the common notions of inspiration, regarding it as a personal and permanent endowment, and being at a