Classical Theology.

Moses , there is no proof , in fact , of a theocracy extending further back than to the Deluge , B . C . 2348 , when the earth itself was broken up . Indeed , so new , complexed , and material grew theological theories , that in accordance with them , and the variations of languages in consequence of the confusion of tonguesB . C . 2247 . Noah becameas it were

, , , under different names , the representative of Adam , or was , more or less vaguely , received and adopted , as a god theogonically into their systems , or in God ' s stead he stood as the renewer , the artificer , progenitor , and institutor of both the earth and mankind , in which respect we may conclude he was

Brahma , as also Saturn , who , as the son of Qua and Vesta might be Adam , but . as asserted by many , including Plato , was considered to be of the parentage of Oceanus and Thetis , whereby it is signified , by the help of the ark , Noah was new born , as it wereout of the waters of the Deluge . At all

, events of these , out of the course of human nature , was begotten the God upon earth , or king according to history , Jupiter or TJpatos , to whom they assigned the heirdom , literally meaning , with his other titles and names , the highest and paternal majesty of the worldor the sun . Be it so understood , there was

, hardly a nation that did not institute and offer a worship to some Jupiter of their own , and believe him to have been born amongst themselves . The ante-diluvians considered them not the

Adamite , but the Pre Adamite world , iu which Adam was bom or made . * Of course we are here alluding to theological periodsautecedent to the almighty epochs of the birth of Christ , and the spread of the Holy Scriptures , which ended before those timeswhen heathen theologies began to be interpolated with the metaphysical Baalisms of the Cabalaand vice versawhich

, , mainly added to transpose the one into a mere mythistoria ; and Mageiai , or Sortitology , the other . Elsewhere we shall again refer to the notions on the ori g in of man . AVe have no geographical description of the earth ' s dimensions and consistencies at the time of its destruction recorded in Genesis , save what

is therein related of themin synecdochical phraseology , that is to say , ante-deluvian names are post-diluvianized . The equal distance of the extremities of the universe must first be discovered before we can find the centre of the world's empire , but we may reasonably conclude it is more in the sun than in the earth .

If the moon had not its motion from west to east which it has with us , the ebb and flow of the sea would happen diurnaliy at the same actual time the earth rises towards and falls off from the sun . It follows that wllen the earth has accomplished its revolution , it must advance twelve and a half degrees more before it can be on the same position again as

it was under the moon , or in its range of the sun . On this account the rise of the sea occurs fifty minutes later each succeeding day ; five-and-twenty minutes being the difference between the one and the other of its regular tides . It has been said , in refutation of the science of astrologythat it will

, require 7000 years to establish the same constitution of the stars that may be seen to-day , and that such a disposition of the heavens as will be to-morrow has never been produced since the world was created ,

Consequently , it has been imagined and predicted that the renewal of that disposition will constitute the earth ' s climacteric , or rather , by a dialectical obscurity , its end ; as , what begins a thing will end in its completion , on the revolment of its fulfilment . Observations of past ages , on scientific principles ,

confirmed by the experience of modern times , sufficiently elucidate at a g lance that there is no part of the earth but has more or less undergone some alteration . We can comprehend its wasting away without diminution by means of its self-replenishment ; but is its diminishment equal to its increasement , or its

irrigation commuasuratewith its desiccation ? There is a never-ending departing and returning of life in all the terresbrial states of its government , by which daily it accumulates heaps in plentitude , and vivifies a bulk additionally as large . Ashes return unto ashesmoisture unto moisture . Dissolve them in the

, waters , or evaporate them to the winds , yet by the laws of gravitation they will be re-collected aud absorbed by the earth . Eor all this , as far as the earth was known , it does not now appear at all different to the descriptions we find given of it by the ancients , so far as they can be traced .

We cannot but admit that by natural agency the earth has been in some parts of the world augmented ; but without an earthly creation there could be no earthly nature ; and as for an aqueous or a Neptunian nature , even with the combined aids of sand and an igneous or a Plutonian nature , metallic substances could never naturally be produced ; or the marine substances , of whose existence we have proof . Bocks have sprung from the depth of the sea , islands have

been formed and attached to the mainland , indicative of the work of the cirriped , velella , and coral worm , aud of the "first and second formations , " but of no " spontaneous biped or quadruped , " were once believed in among nations . On the other hand , almost within the twinkling of an eye or a flash of lihtningimmense tracts of land have

g , slipped away aud disappeared , swallowed up by the ocean or the earth ; plains have been lifted into mountains , and mountains have sunk into plains . The earthquake of Canada , in 1663 , overwhelmed thirty miles of freestone mountains , and the whole of that wide range changed into an expansive plain .

Ebb aud neap tides are well hnown , only we do not attribute them to atmospheric pressure ; the spring tides we attribute to the monthly courses of the ocean in connection with the position of the earth at those times ; still , of a certainty , in different places the tide varies . At the mouth of the Indus it rises to

about 30 feet ; in the Bay ofEundy to about 60 _ feet , and here so rapidly as to overtake persons and animals in their flig ht from it . But there is a gradual and important rise going on in some of the stratas of the ocean , which forces the sea itself hig her and higher upon the low countries . Admitting that if the

equatorial regions had or should have an elevation less than the polar regions , the waters of the latter would rush down , to the overflow of the former ; or that the earth should again arrive at the same position with the dispositions of the heavenly bodies that it manifested at the time of the creation , or that it exhibited at the time of the deluge , there are no symptoms in the earth's figure and motion to evince , by such changes , any such diluvian results .