166 DR CLARKE'S ADDRESS. 



velation by the aid of science, and, in turn, to frame theories in accord- 

 ance with pre-conceived notions of the intent and purport of Scripture, 

 has operated to the serious injury both of natural and revealed truth. 

 For some have been deterred altogether from scientific investigation, lest 

 they should discover anything to shake their reliance on Scripture ; 

 others, having seen one mode of interpretation confirmed by the con- 

 clusions of science in a certain state of knowledge, have had their faith 

 shaken, and their religious feelings jarred, by the disclosure of new facts 

 which stood in opposition to the former theory. The Mosaic account of the 

 creation was simply intended to lift the grovelling imaginations of the 

 early inhabitants of the earth, from the vain objects of their idolatry, to one 

 God the great First Cause and Author of all things. It was necessary, 

 in this representation, not to contradict the prevailing notions of the time, 

 else the revelation would have been rejected as monstrous and incredible. 

 The Deity is described throughout as man, though with infinitely superior 

 powers, as being occupied in the work of creation for a certain definite 

 period of time 6 days, as if the thought and act of an omnipotent Deity 

 were not simultaneous and coincident ; and as if the term of a day, by 

 which we measure a revolution of our planet, could have any relation to 

 Him, of whose will the law which governs the motions of our system is 

 but a single expression. He is represented as accessible to human feel- 

 ings, and swayed by human passions. We know that, in reference to 

 Him, time can have no meaning that a thousand years are but as one 

 day, and one day but as a thousand years that He is incapable of 

 change, the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever, and without any 

 variableness or shadow of turning. But so thought not the simple 

 Fathers of our race ; and all these particulars which imply a limited, and, 

 therefore, incorrect idea of the Godhead, are evident accommodations to 

 the state of knowledge at the time, and, accordingly, as we proceed, we 

 find juster and more exalted notions of the nature and perfections of the 

 Deity begin to open upon the sacred writers. 



Again, if the revelation of Moses had included all the physical truths 

 which now obtain universal credence, from the infallible evidence on 

 which they rest, one of two results must have taken place either, that 

 Man must have been endued with an intuitive power of apprehending 

 these truths, and have been a passive recipient of the knowledge com- 

 municated, the use of his reason precluded, and every discovery in 

 science forestalled or, belief in such sublime disclosures must have been 

 impossible ; and so must it have been at any period of the world's his- 

 tory, for science changes its character as it advances, and, even now, 

 the extent of our survey only discloses to us a horizon of proportionate 

 magnitude beyond, over which hang clouds and darkness. If, for ex- 

 ample, the quiescence of the Sun in the centre of our system, and the 

 mobility of the Earth, had then been enunciated, the dogma would at 



