118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
down to the low level where they were satisfied to pass their mental ex- 
istenee. Like the gilded mountain tops, he had received the glories of the 
rising sun, whilst those beneath him still lived in the darkness of the reced- 
ing night time. Two centuries after the time of Galileo, it seems strange 
that any should think now that an attempt to interpret the laws of the 
physical world, or read the pages which God’s hand has written through 
creation, should have a tendency to supersede the book of inspiration, or 
make an earnest mind think lightly of that best revelation of heaven. Can 
it be true that the study of the works of God must necessarily lead the mind 
to think lightly of the word of God? Can it be that the two great yolumes 
of God's inditing can contradict themselves? ‘Was there not a time when 
men had no revelation of inspiration? Yet the Apostle tells us that “ that 
which may be known of God is manifest to them, for God hath showed it 
unto them; for the inyisible things of Him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made—eyen His 
eternal power and Godhead.” Again, may it not be asked, has not the 
theologian gone away from his own peculiar province, when he attempts to 
explain the well-known Jaws of nature by interpretations which he derives, 
or thinks he is justified in deriving from the Holy Scriptures? The 
especial design of the word of God is to teach us great facts and truths 
which can be learnt by no other means. ‘The.common phenomena of nature 
are described in the language of the common people, by modes of speech 
which all could understand. Still, without impropriety or untruthfulness, 
when referring to the common eyents that transpire around us, we use the 
common language of society. Does any think less of the worth of the awful 
claims of the inspired word because it declares that ‘The sun ariseth and 
the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose?” Lecles, i. y., 
or that ‘‘the ends of the earth wait for God’s salvation.” Are we infidels 
for asserting that the sun neither rises nor sets, but that our own world 
simply turns upon its axis? Are we to be condemned because we affirm 
that a globe like our earth can have no ends or extremities >—For if so it 
would be a flat plain, as taught by the Hindoo mythology. The scriptures 
simply speak in the language of the people, and the people understand the 
language of the scriptures. ‘To question the universality of the deluge has 
been regarded as an astonishing act of presumption that indicated a trifling 
with the Word of God, if it were not equiyalent to the rejection of its great 
facts. But if these advocates of the universality of the deluge had exercised 
half the earnest enquiry of those who appear to differ from them, they might 
have learnt that their interpretations of scripture had less of probability in 
them than they have so dogmatically assumed. Does the term earth in the 
Word of God always and absolutely mean every purt of the solid globe ? 
The design of the insulted Ruler of earth and heayen in this fearful catas- 
f 
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