470 Rough Notes on the controversy against Geologists. 



nection, it is wonderfully clear on all doctrines tending to 

 elucidate this great point. Yet, by mangling the Scrip- 

 ture into verses, half, and quarter, and smaller portions 

 of sentences, — a process to which no other book has been 

 subjected, and which no book whatever will bear if the 

 object in view be the attainment of its true import ; — and 

 by pitting one of these subdivisions from one book against a 

 mangled bit of another, men have most ingeniously contrived 

 greatly to obscure and perplex its meaning. Thence the 

 most vital doctrines, even those with which the Bible is 

 filled in every part, have at one time or another, become 

 the subjects of argument. The divinity of our Lord ; the 

 nature of the sacrifice he offered up ; its atoning efficacy ; 

 the cause of justification in the sight of God, whether by 

 that sacrifice through faith, or by the works of men, or 

 by penance ; the work and influences of the Spirit ; the 

 extent and operations of grace; original sin; predestination; 

 election, or the contingency of the determinations of the 

 Deity upon the actions of the creature ; free-will ; the effi- 

 cacy of ordinances, whether depending upon the valid ordi- 

 nation and intentions of the administrator, or the disposition 

 of mind of the receiver ; the head and order of government 

 of the church of Christ. All these, and many more, bearing 

 on man's spiritual state, on which the Bible has been avow- 

 edly written to enlighten him, have been, and still are, 

 deeply controverted. Yet to all those who do so, the right 

 hand of Christian fellowship is to be extended as to brethren 

 in the Lord, though erring in some points ; but the geologist is 

 to be measured by another standard. If he dare to differ in 

 any one supposed point from the succinct geological account 

 given in the one page, even though he can produce the most 

 overwhelming evidence for doing so, and even though the 

 Bible has not been written to instruct men in geology, he is 

 to be treated as a man devoid of religion, lying under the 

 decree of reprobation, and led away by the instigation of Satan 



