486 Rough Notes on the controversy against Geologists, 



unusual in the Scriptures. The ordinary use of day, as 

 meaning year in prophetical language, is well known. For 

 particular instances, Christ himself speaks of the three and 

 half years of his public ministry, as his day in which he must 

 work 3 of the period of God's forbearance with the Jews, as 

 the day in which they might have known the things belong- 

 ing to their peace, which undoubtedly extended over a very 

 considerable number of years ; and of the Patriarch Abra- 

 ham rejoicing to see His day afar off, meaning the day of the 

 Gospel dispensation of grace and love to man, which has 

 already lasted upwards of eighteen centuries, and, if the in- 

 terpretation of very obvious prophecies be just, will yet en- 

 dure till the inhabitants of the earth become Christian, and a 

 thousand prophetical, or 365,000 common years besides. Of 

 each of these days, the leading or characteristic work only 

 is mentioned; but this does not necessarily imply that a 

 farther creation, of a minor or subsidiary kind, did not take 

 place along with it in the same period. 



The second hypothesis supposes that, according to pro- 

 phecy, there shall hereafter, by a tremendous convulsion, be 

 a great change upon the surface of the earth and the beings 

 upon it ; and infers, both from this analogy of Scripture, and 

 from geological evidence, that several such convulsions have 

 preceded the presently existing state of things. Both of 

 the hypotheses agree in dating the era of Scripture chrono- 

 logy from the origin of man, the latest work of the creation ; 

 and both also unite in requiring an immense indefinite 

 lapse of time, between the first creation of the materials 

 of the system which we inhabit, and man's first appearance 

 as a part of the creation. Should this point be conceded, 

 which there seems to be nothing in the Scripture to prevent, 

 geology becomes the handmaid of revelation, assisting it and 

 confirming all its statements. Should it be denied, and the 

 hitherto common opinion, though seemingly not fairly de- 

 ducible from the words of Scripture, be persisted in, that a 



