_Fourthly. There are reasons, both in natural history and in the Scriptures, for supposing that the deluge may not have been universal over the globe, but only over the region inhabited by man._ This is a position of no small importance, and will, therefore, require our careful examination. And in the beginning, I wish to premise, that I assume the deluge to have been brought about by natural operations, or in conformity with the laws of nature. I feel no reluctance in admitting it to have been strictly miraculous, provided the narrative will allow of such a conclusion. But if it was miraculous, then we must give up the idea of philosophizing about it, and believe the facts simply on the divine testimony. For how can we philosophize upon an event that is brought about by the direct efficiency of God, and without reference to existing natural laws, and, it may be, in contravention of them, unless, indeed, the history contains such contradictions as even infinite power and wisdom could not make harmonious? Some writers endeavor to show the conformity of the sacred history of the deluge to established natural laws, until they meet with some objection too strong to be answered, when they turn round and declare the whole occurrence to have been miraculous. This I conceive to be absurd, and I shall accordingly proceed on the supposition that the whole event was a penal infliction, brought about by natural laws; or, at least, if there was any thing miraculous, it consisted in giving greater power to natural operations, without interfering with the regular sequence of cause and effect. And does not the narrative leave the impression on the mind of the reader, that it was brought about by natural means? The sacred writer distinctly assigns two natural causes of the increase of the waters, viz., a rain of forty days and the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, which doubtless means an overflow of the ocean; and, to hasten the subsidence of the waters, it is said that God made a wind to blow over the surface. It is no proof of miraculous agency, that the whole work is referred to the immediate power of God, for it is well known that this is the usual mode in which the sacred writers speak of natural events. The first difficulty in the way of supposing the flood to have been literally universal, is the great quantity of water that would have been requisite.