iy£:W CHAPTERS IX THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 443 



catastrojihe caused by human sin, a comet, wliicli oj)ened " the fount- 

 ains of the great deep." 



But, far more important than either of these champions, there arose 

 in the eighteenth century, to aid in the subjection of science to theol- 

 ogy, three men of extraordinary power — John Wesley, Adam Clarke, 

 and Richard Watson. All three were men of extraordinary intellect- 

 ual gifts, the purest character, and the noblest purpose ; and the first- 

 named one of the greatest men in English history. Yet we find them 

 in geology hopelessly fettered by the mere letter of Scripture, and by a 

 temporary phase in theology. As in regard to witchcraft and the 

 doctrine of comets, so in regard to geology, this theological view drew 

 Wesley into enormous error.* The great doctrine which Wesley, 

 Watson, Clarke, and their followers thought it especially necessary to 

 uphold against geologists was, that death entered the world by sin 

 — the first transgression of Adam and Eve. The extent to which the 

 supposed necessity of upholding this doctrine carried Wesley seems 

 now almost beyond belief. Basing his theology on the declaration that 

 the Almighty after creation found the earth and all created things 

 " very good," he declares in his sermon on the "Cause and Cure of 

 Earthquakes," that no one who believes the Scriptures can deny that 

 " sin is the moral cause of earthquakes, whatever their natural cause 

 may be." Again, he declares that earthquakes are the " effect of that 

 curse which was brought upon the earth by the original transgression." 

 Bringing into connection with Genesis the declaration of St. Paul 

 that " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain un- 

 til now," he finds additional scriptural proof that the earthquakes 

 were the result of Adam's fall. He declares, in his sermon on " God's 

 Approbation of His Works," that "before the sin of Adam there 

 were no agitations within the bowels of the earth, no violent convul- 

 sions, no concussions of the earth, no earthquakes, but all was un- 

 moved as the pillars of heaven. There were then no such things as 

 eruptions of fires ; no volcanoes or burning mountains." Of course, 

 a science which showed that earthquakes had been in operation for 

 ages before the appearance of man on the planet, and which showed, 

 also, that those very earthquakes which he considered as curses re- 

 sultant upon the Fall were really blessings, producing the fissures in 

 which we find to-day those mineral veins so essential to modern civili- 

 zation, was entirely beyond his comprehension. He insists that earth- 

 quakes are " God's strange works of judgment, the proper effect and 

 punishment of sin." 



So, too, as to death and pain. In his sermon on the " Fall of 

 Man " he takes the ground that death and pain entered the world by 

 Adam's transgression, insisting that the carnage now going on among 

 animals is the result of Adam's sin. Speaking of the birds, beasts, 



* For Lis statement that " the giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of 

 the Bible," see Wesley's "Journal," 1766-'68. 



