164 Mr Babbage 07i the Account of the Creation. 



claim authority for the opinion, that the book of Genesis con- 

 tains such a precise account of the work of creation, that we 

 may venture to appeal to it as a refutation of observed facts. 

 The history of the past errors of our Parent Church supphes us 

 with a lesson of caution which ought not to be lost by its re- 

 formed successors. The fact, that the venerable Galileo was 

 compelled publicly to deny, on bended knee, a truth of which 

 he had the most convincing demonstration, remains as a beacon 

 to all after time, and ought not to be without its influence on 

 the inquiring minds of the present day. 



If the explanation offered by the Professor of Hebrew be ad- 

 mitted, those who adhere to it must still have some misgivings 

 as to the effect of now discoveries in nature causing continual 

 occasion for amended translations of various texts ; whereas, 

 should the view which has been advocated in this chapter be 

 found correct, instead of fearing tliat the future progress of sci- 

 ence may raise additional difficulties in the way of revealed re- 

 ligion, we are at once relieved from all doubt on that subject. — 

 Babhage^s Br'tdgewater Treatise, p. 63. 



derable interval may have taken place between the creation related in the first 

 verse of Genesis, and that of whicli an account is given in the third and fol- 

 lowing verses. Accordingly, in some old editions of the English Bible, where 

 there is no division into verses, you actually find a break at the end of what 

 is now the second verse ; and in Luther's Bible (Wittenberg, 1557), you have 

 in addition the figure 1. placed against the third verse, as being the beginning 

 of the creation of the first day. 



" This, then, is just the sort of confirmation which one wished for, because, 

 though one would shrink from the impiety of bending the language of God's 

 Book to any other than its obvious meaning, we cannot help fearing lest we 

 might be unconsciously influenced by the floating opinions of our own day, 

 and therefore turn the more anxiously to those who explained Holy Scrip- 

 ture before these theories existed. You must allow me to add, that I would 

 not define further. We know nothing of creation, nothing of ultimate 

 causes, nothing of space, except what is bounded by actual existing bodies, 

 nothing of time, but what is limited by the revolution of those bodies. 

 I should be very sorry to appear to dogmatize upon that, of which it requires 

 very little reflection or reverence to confess that we are necessarily ignorant. 

 'Hardly do we guess aright of things that are upon the earth, and with la- 

 bour do we find the things that are before us ; but the things that are in hea- 

 ven, who hath searched out?' Wisdom is. 16. E. B. Pusey."— £M.Wa«c/'i 

 Bridgewater Tfeatlse, pp. 22-5. 



