492 Archaia. 



to us and we will compare your work with the Scripture text." 

 With thus view we have little sympathy. It can only be regarded 

 as a decent refuge for scientific ignorance. The theologian and 

 the critic are bound for themselves to discover what the works as 

 well as the words of God say, and to teach the truth of both com- 

 bined. They are the persons to whom the world will look for an 

 adjustment of the two records, and the sooner they set about it the 

 better, not in the way of guessing but in that of logical and scien- 

 tific determination. G-eology is we believe in a sufficiently ad- 

 vanced state to afford at least an approximate settlement of the 

 vext question. 



2. A second conclusion is, that there is a method of adjust, 

 ment which does violence neither to the grammatical meaning: and 

 structure of the sacred text, nor to the well ascertained results of 

 geological science. This method is to be found in the form 

 of the record itself. If instead of regarding it as a verbal 

 revelation, we regarded it in the light of a series of day-visions 

 by which God revealed to his prophet the great leading facts in 

 the past history of the worl d, many difficulties otherwise insur- 

 mountable will then disappear. The text may then be accepted 

 in its most literal sense, and every description of natural phen- 

 omena be taken as the language of appearances. The Creator 

 will then, as in other parts of Scripture, be said to do that which 

 without reference either to time or to second causes he appears to 

 do. In this view the text does not require us to believe that 

 God literally created and made all things in six natural days, but 

 only that in a series of natural day visions, there was exhibited, 

 as well as could be to hu nan eyes, the vast and wonderful pro- 

 cesses and progress of creation. 



Accepting the facts of geology as presenting to us both special 

 epochs and continuous acts of creation, or, according to our illus- 

 tration, interrupted horizontal, and continuous vertical lines of 

 creation up to the human period, the question is how could this 

 vast panorama and evolution of things be, for moral purposes, pre- 

 sented to unscientific human eyes ? We can conceive of no bet- 

 ter form than that which we find in the text. It contains a suffi- 

 cient agreement with the facts to show that only He who knew 

 the one could pourtray the other. The text wonderfully com- 

 prises in its divine generalizations all the facts yet discovered in 

 the rocks, and in its typical forms represents the great leading 

 epochs of organic life, of which we have a history in the rocks. 



