CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 455 



In all ages, countries and languages, this use of the word day is 

 fully sanctioned, and it is frequently used in the scriptures in the 

 same sense.* Indeed, it might not be too much to suppose that the 

 arrangement by which the sun was to measure time was not comple- 

 ted until the evening of the 4th day, and then our difficulties will be 

 confined to one day, namely, the 5th. The first three days, obvious- 

 ly, could not have had the present measure of time applied to them ; 

 and the work of arranging the crust of the planet was so far finished, 

 by the evening of the 5th day, as to fit it for the reception of terres- 

 trial quadrupeds, which first appeared on the 6th day, and finally, 

 man was created, as would appear, at the conclusion of the same day; 

 of course, the great geological revolutions, beneath the bed of the an- 

 cient ocean, must have been so far finished that the continents had 

 emerged, and thus dry land was provided, both for terrestrial quadru- 

 peds and for man, neither of which could, before this period, have 

 existed on the earth. 



In the usual mode of understanding the account, all the immense 

 deposits of coal, and of vegetable and aquatic animal remains, with 

 their vast strata and mountains, must have been made within 72 hours, 

 for there was no dry land until the third day, and consequently no 

 vegetables; they appeared on that day, aquatic animals on the 5th, 

 and land animals, with man, on the 6th ; but the latter could not, as 

 observed above, have appeared until the continents had emerged, and 

 consequently marine formations had, in a great measure, ceased, ex- 



* Luke xvii. 24. — So also shall the son of man be in his daij. 

 John viii. 56.— Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it 

 and was glad. 



2. Peter in. 8. — One day is with the Lord a thousand years, and a thousand 

 years as one day. 



Genesis ii. 4. — These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when 

 they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. 



Job xiv, 6. — Turn from him that he may rest till he shall accomplish as an hire- 

 ling his day. 



}^ Job xviil. 20. — They that come after him shall be astonied at his daij,. as they 

 that went before were affrighted, (speaking of the life of the wicked.) 



Ezekiel xxi. 25. — And thou profane wicked princie of Israel, whose day is 

 pome when iniquity shall have an end. 



Proverbs vi. 34. — For jealousy is the rage of a man ; therefore he will not spare 

 ia the day of vengeance. 



" When day is used in the plural number, it often signifies a year. It is thus 

 used in Leviticus xxv. 29. — If a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then 

 he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold." — Higgins' Mosaical and 

 Mineral Geologies, p, 16L 



