PROVINCES OF REASON AND REVELATION. 437 



facts which the investigation of the structure of the Earth 

 has brought to light. 



" If I understand Geology aright, (says Professor Hitch- 

 cock,) so far from touching the eternity of the world, it 

 proves more directly than any other science can, that its 

 revolutions and races of inhabitants had a commencement, 

 and that it contains within itself the chemical energies, 

 which need only to be set at liberty, by the will of their 

 Creator, to accomplish its destruction. Because this science 

 teaches that the revolutions of nature have occupied im- 

 mense periods of time, it does not therefore teach that they 

 form an eternal series. It only enlarges our conceptions 

 of the Deity ; and when men shall cease to regard Geology 

 with jealousy and narrow-minded prejudices, they will find 

 that it opens fields of research and contemplation as wide 

 and as grand as astronomy itself."* f 



" There is in truth, (says Bishop Blomfield) no opposition 

 nor inconsistency between Religion and Science, commonly 

 so called, except that which has been conjured up by inju- 

 dicious zeal or false philosophy, mistaking the ends of a 

 divine revelation." And again in another passage of the 

 same powerful discourse, after defining the proper objects 

 for the exercise of the human understanding, his Lordship 

 most justly observes, " Under these limitations and correc- 

 tions we may join in the praises which are lavished upon 

 philosophy and science, and fearlessly go forth with their 

 votaries into all the various paths of research, by which the 

 mind of man pierces into the hidden treasures of nature; 



* Hitclicock's Geology of Massachusetts, p. 395. 



t " Why should we hesitate to admit the existence of our Globe through 

 periods as long as geological researches require; since the sacred word docs 

 not declare the time of its original creation ; and since such a view of its 

 antiquity enlarges our ideas of the operations of the Deity in respect to 

 duration, as much as astronomy does in regard to space ? Instead of bring- 

 ing us into collision with Moses, it seems to me that Geology furnishes us 

 with some of the grandest conceptions of the Divine Attributes and Plans to 

 be found in the whole circle of human knowledge." Hitchcock's Geolojy 

 of Massachusetts, 1835, p, 2Q5. 



37* 



