Remarks on Prof. Stuart's examination of Gen. 1. 121 



words to the deductions of modern science." The criterion, therefore, 

 which he has actually applied in making this important distinction, 



| 



must be left among things yet to be ascertained. ' 



Prof. Stuart proceeds to say, " Do not we, after the Newtonian 

 philosophy has so long been spread before the world, and our pop- 

 ular calendars all constructed on its basis, do not we still speak of the 

 sun as rising and setting ? And who is deceived or misled by this 

 popular usage — a usage adopted even by philosophers themselves, 

 because the exigences of language demand it ? Even so with the 



o — r> o 



sacred writers. They could refer to natural objects and phenomena 

 in the popular language of the times in which they wrote. They 

 did so ; for on what other ground could they have been understood ?" 

 That the sacred writers adopted popular language is without doubt 

 true ; but that they supposed this language, in reference to natural 

 phenomena, not to correspond to the reality of things, is not to be 

 admitted, certainly by Prof. Stuart, without proof. In speaking of 

 the rising and setting of the sun, does Prof. Stuart suppose, that 

 they made any distinction between the appearance and the reality, 

 or that such a notion ever entered their minds ? When the author 

 of Ecclesiastes wrote, " the sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, 

 and hasteth to his place, where he arose," will Prof. Stuart say, with 

 his own rule of interpretation before his eyes, that the writer did not 

 intend to imply the fact of the sun's rising and setting, as well as 

 to assert the appearance 1 What proof has he, or ground of pre- 

 sumption, to the contrary, except, that a distinction between the ap- 

 pearance and fact is now made ? And the same rule holds good with 

 respect to many other celestial phenomena. Prof. Stuart appears 

 to forget, that he is bound, or ought to be, by his own principles of 

 exposition, and, that according to these, he can introduce no sci- 

 ence to explain the language of a writer, which is of a later date, 

 than the age of that writer ; and science, moreover, which the writer 

 may be supposed, on at least probable grounds, to have possessed. 

 But what evidence is there, that the true theory of the earth, on 

 which the distinction in question is founded, was known to a single 

 writer of either the old or the new testament ? Prof. Stuart will hard- 

 ly undertake to maintain, that the descendants of Abraham, at the pe- 

 riod during which the books of the Hebrew canon were written, 

 were better informed as to the actual arrangement of the planetary 

 system, than the nations of Europe were, at the time of the publica- 

 tion of the theory of Copernicus. And how was the language of the 

 Vol. XXX— No. 1. 16 



