ON THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION, VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, DISCOURSES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BY THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. & LL.D. PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL STREET, 1848. Gift Rev, W. E, Caldwell PREFACE. THE astronomical objection against the truth of the Gospel, does not occupy a very prominent place in any of our Treatises of Infidelity. It is often, however, met with in conversation-and we have known it to be the cause of serious perplexity and alarm in minds anxious for the solid estabushment of their religious faith. There is an imposing splendour in the science of Astronomy; and it is not to be wondered at, if the light it throws, or appears to throw, over other tracks of speculation than those which are properly its own, should at times dazzle and mislead an inquirer. On this account, we think it were a service to what we deem a true and a righteous cause, could we succeed in dissipating this illusion, and in stripping Infidelity of those pretensions to enlargement, and to a certain air of philosophical greatness, by which it has often become so destructively alluring to the young, and the ardent, and the ambitious. In my first Discourse, I have attempted a sketch of the Modern Astronomy-nor have I wished to throw any disguise over that comparative littleness which belongs to our planet, and which |