Notes Critical and Practical, on the Book of Genesis. By George Bush [pp. 271-301]

Bush on Genesis.
be arrived at by the slow, rare process of faith, after that
sound, orthodox belief of a general Providence had done its
utmost? Is this an event which God intended to be classed
with the "falling of a sparrow?" Was it enough that men,
if they would soberly reflect, might conclude that this work
of death was the Lord's? And that Christian commentators
in succeeding ages, might remind them of a Providential
hand, that doubtless " waked the sleeping fires?"
How should we receive such an explanation of the deluge?
And yet, doubtless, if strata of air, in its various states
through all past time, could be resorted to, as are the layers
of earth, by somne adepts in the " Geology of the Heavens,"
the sternness of that terrible dispensation would be speedily
and effectually softened down, and be pronounced a miracle,
only because in sacred and profane history among all nations,
heathen and Christian, rain has been looked upon as the special,
peculiar act of the Almighty. The deluge of fire under consideration is called miraculous, because it was the hand of
Omnipotence whlich waked the slumbering flames! Does not
the same Omnipotence keep the fires of every volcano
and rouse at his pleasure their burning contents? And is
every eruption a miracle? Rather would we say, if this be
the only evidence of a preter-natural interposition, it has no
claim to the name or character of such; and the stranger, as
he looks upon the smoking desolations, would be apt to say,
not "Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land, and
what meaneth the heat of this great anger?" but, "alas!
what a disaster!" and drop a tear of sympathy over the
doom of Sodom. The philanthropist may mourn that they
should have had so unfortunate a location, and in sincere
compassion wish that they could but have known the perils
of the place, and have been advertised of the fiery sea that
boiled beneath them. Even now, we hear of the terrors of
the earthquake at Martinique. What Christian does not
refer the calamity to a Divine hand? Yet who pronounces
it miraculous? Who thinks of it as such? And with all the
natural causes, conjured up at the bidding of Geologists from
the original vale of Siddim, who can resist the reflection that
those craters would some time have burst, even though it had
been upon "the plains of Mamre," or though "fifty righteous" had been found there? If the author would admit the
miracle, why need he explain it away? Hear Chateaubriand
-who, from his extensive acquaintance with volcanic sites,
was well prepared to judge-declare on a personal compari
298
[ARRIL