most ancient book"-the Genesis. That I may not deprive the argument of any measure of its force, I annex the passages additional to those already in my pages, and a few lines of the impassioned appeal which followed. -It speaks of Him who hangeth the earth upon nothing,' who 'maketh a weight for the winds, and weigheth the waters by measure.'——In that book, I say, we have the first account of the creation of the world, proceeding as it were from the mouth of the Creator himself. "The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner-stone thereof; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had issued from the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it; and brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hither shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.' (Job xxxviii.) Take, then, these 'thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;' and compress them, if you can, into some true or some fanciful system of science. Teach us where to find 'the house wherein darkness dwelleth,' to ‘bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion.' Explain to us, with respect to one of God's creatures, what the natural process is, by which he 'drinketh up a river and hasteth not;' and of another, how his breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.'-Then take credit to yourself for vindicating the truth of Scripture and, when you have thus illustrated a composition by the side of which, till you touched it, the images of Homer and Pindar seem but as prose, go on; instruct us how to interpret that other most ancient book, recorded, it has been thought, by the very same hand." Now the fallacy, into which the deservedly honoured philosopher had fallen, lies plainly in his having overlooked the change of meaning in one of his terms. All agree that metaphors are not to be understood literally; and, that these passages in the book of Job are metaphors, is evident. The conclusion then, with regard to them, is good. But, in applying this to the verse of Genesis, he has assumed what cannot be granted him; sliding in a change of his middle term. The middle term, in the valid syllogism, is metaphorical language; but, in the second case, it is the phraseology repeated six times in Gen. i.-" And it was evening, and it was morning, day the first, second," &c. It was necessary to have proved that this phraseology is metaphorical: but the orator has not so proved, nor do I think that he would assert it, or that he can for a moment hesitate to admit that the phraseology is the plainest enunciation of a bare fact. It occurs in a composition which, grand and sublime as it is, especially in its commencement, is not given in poetical diction or form, but in simple prose. He also slides in another idea, evidently with the intention of strengthening his argument; that Moses was the writer of the book of Job: a conjecture of some biblicists, but destitute of evidence, and opposed by a great amount of reasons.-Yet let us not forget that the observance of critical and cold precision is not to be required, in the ardour of public speaking, on such an occasion, and before an audience of three thousand lovers of science. (h.) It is impossible to separate a consistent faith in the divine origin and authority of the Christian religion, from a reception of Moses as a messenger of God, especially accredited by miraculous evidence, that he might be the founder of a peculiar dispensation which should be the rudiment of Christianity. Jesus Christ recognized Moses in this light, (Matt. v. 17, 18; Luke i. 27; John v. 46, 47; vii. 19;) and we have, in a speech and the epistles of the apostle Paul, references to this very initial part of the book of Genesis, in such expressions as seem to imply the historical sense, and can, by no fair means of interpretation or of analogical argument, be made compatible with a mythic character. Turn from these vanities unto the living God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein." (Acts xiv. 15.) "God,-commanded the light to shine out of darkness." (2 Cor. iv. 6.) Allusions to the terms of this narrative, so far as respects the high endowments with which man was invested upon his creation, occur in Eph. iv. 24, and Col. iii. 17. 66 Upon all these grounds I indulge the hope that the views which, from my opinion of their being true, I have put forth in this volume, are not a following in the wake of arbitrary interpretation, contrivance to serve a purpose, shifting and changing as exigencies arise, attributing to Moses or other men of old, knowledge which they could not possess, secret meanings, and equivocal phrases. I trust that I have adduced sufficient evidence that the design of Divine Revelation was higher and greater than to teach physical philosophy; while yet its declarations are misunderstood, if their fair interpretation be conceived to contradict natural truth. In another work of Professor Powell's, for which, in my humble opinion, the whole nation is under no little obligation to him,* he has the following paragraph. * "State Education, considered with respect to Prevalent Misconceptions on Religious Grounds." 1840, p. 29. G G -There is one point to which it may be perhaps thought I am going quite out of my way to allude; yet it strikes me as one which must, in the present age, force itself more and more on our attention :-In what light are we to teach children to view the Old Testament account of the Creation, whether in Genesis or in the Decalogue? Are they to be early habituated to take it in its literal sense, and to hold it historically true as an article of faith? And then, when they afterwards come to hear (as we must expect all educated persons will), the facts of the case elicited by geological research, so wholly at variance with the reception of it as history, are they to be left exposed to the inferences of the sceptic, and the attacks which the advocates of infidelity will not fail to found on the contradiction? Are they to be thus made the victims of a timid prejudice, and weak dread of meeting the question fairly?" My friends, especially those of my own religious connexions, who have so long and assiduously laboured in the benevolent work of educating the poor, (though this is a question which belongs equally to all orders of society), will not think it irrelevant to the designs of the Congregational Lecture, that I intreat their most serious consideration to this question. Either we must trample upon the conclusion to which the men have come, who have had the best means of judging, of all countries and classes, with scarcely an exception; and thus be accessory to the fearful state of minds which Mr. Powell has set before us: or we must so modify our catechetical and other instructions as to prevent the collision between faith and reason, as our adversaries would not fail to call it. My own conviction is, that we ought to say, in the shortest and plainest manner, that this description was written for the use of those who could not have the knowledge which God has since enabled men to attain, and that it referred only to such parts of the Creator's works as those persons were acquainted with. [With this view, I especially recommend Mr. Whyte's "Catechetical Illustrations," mentioned at p. 388.] Surely also, it is proper to set before our children and congregations that, in the Fourth Commandment, the clause is given as a reason for the sabbatic rest, viz. that even the Creator was fatigued and needed repose; explaining to them the principle of condescension to the minds of uncultivated men, so abundantly appearing in the earlier parts of the Old Testament: also that, in the repetition of the Ten Commandments, given forty years after in a written form, Moses omitted this reason, and introduced another, not as a part of the Commandment, but as a gloss or comment, founded upon the feeling of equitable sympathy: Deut. v. 15. Above all, we should take the requisite pains to make them understand that the unspeakable privilege of the Christian LORD'S day and the duty of observing it, stand, not upon the Israelitish positive law of the seventh-day-sabbath, but upon moral reasons, analogical and inferential, arising from the primary facts of Christianity, and the benefits to piety and morality of this inestimable weekly season. -Si quid novisti rectius istis, [S.] Referred to at pages 249 and 254. ON THE DUTY OF THESE INVESTIGATIONS, AND IN VINDICATION OF DR. BUCKLAND. THE following letter was courteously admitted into the "Magazine of Popular Science," more than three years ago. It was intended to obviate some remarks, in a Review of Dr. Buckland's Treatise, which the writer thought to be of an unhappy tendency. It is republished here, in the hope of its being useful, partly as giving a short view of some principal sentiments maintained in this volume, partly for the sake of representing the importance of the discussion, and partly also, to call attention to the interpretation of Gen. i. 2, which is maintained in these lectures, and for the suggestion of which I am under obligation to the Rev. Baden Powell. Sir, With cordial approbation of the design and the general execution of your article, in the last month, upon Dr. Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, I request your candid indulgence of some brief remarks. [Some of your] observations appear to me capable of being misunderstood, or of being construed injuriously in various ways to the interests of both science and religion. The tendency of those observations appears to be, First, to assume (or at least to warrant the assumption) that the Holy Scriptures contain allegations and implications with respect to the natural history of our earth, which are contradicted and disproved by the demonstrations of modern Geology; and, Secondly, that it is the duty of a philosopher to abstain from any discussion of this discrepancy, and from any inquiry whether it be real or only apparent; as if it were said, Let these two branches of knowledge be kept far away from each other let philosophers and geologists pursue their own course, and let theology and religion practise their own duties, and watch over their own interests; but let neither interfere with the other; let no inquiry ever be made whether they are in accordance or in opposition. This short way of dismissing the matter has, indeed, been adopted by some eminent men; but I appeal, Sir, to your impartial reflection whether it is not absurd and impracticable. 1. It is absurd. TRUTH, throughout her whole domain, illimitable as is its extent, is one in principle, and harmonious in details. It is no other than the having our conceptions in accordance with the reality of things. And Truth in expression (= veracity) is the adapting of our language, written or spoken, to the honest utterance of our conceptions. A mere child, if he will reflect a moment, perceives that a proposition cannot be true and false, under the same circumstances; unless there be some artifice practised in the use of terms. An assertion cannot be true in theology, and false in geology, or any department whatever of scientific knowledge; nor inversely. It really is an insult to men's understandings, to admit indirectly, that there are affirmations or doctrines in the records of revealed religion, which are disproved by the clearest evidence of science; and then to proscribe investigation, with a solemn pretence of mysteries not to be inquired into, an hypocritical tone of reverence for sacred things. The veil is transparent; no man can be deceived by it: but it is lamentable that any should attempt to deceive by it. We greatly wrong the interests of knowledge, and prejudice our own improvement, when we but seem to admit that theology is an insulated portion of science, which may be safely pursued by itself, and which yields no advantages to other departments. True theology, on the contrary, attracts to itself, illustrates, and harmonizes all other knowledge. It is the science which relates to the Author and Preserver of the whole dependent universe; whatever may be known concerning HIM, for the noblest purposes of intellectual improvement, of personal virtue, and of diffusive happiness. It is formed by strict induction from the works and the word of God; natural notices, and positive revelation. It is the friend of all science; it appropriates all truth; it holds fellowship with no error. 2. It is impracticable. This kind of ban upon a reasonable, an inevitable query, is never submitted to by any person of sound understanding. Either he receives the assumption, and, as its consequence, he rejects covertly or openly the truth and authority of the Bible; or he searches out the matter fairly and fully, and then he learns that the assumption is false. Is it then the fact, that such fair and impartial inquiry will bring out this result? Is it, after all, an erroneous assumption, that the declarations of Scripture and the sensible demonstrations of geological science, pointedly contradict each other? Does not the Bible teach that the moment of the Supreme Being's first putting forth his creating power, was only about six thousand years ago? And do not the undeniable phenomena of stratification, and other facts, demonstrate that our globe (to say nothing of the rest of the solar system, and the astral universe,) has existed, has passed through countless changes, such as are continually in pro |