5 
compare them. I believe that I have now the pleasure of 
addressing gentlemen who aspire to no higher honour than 
that of being collectors and collators of facts. Gentlemen, 
jvith those persons Avho fear lest the study of Geology- 
should be detrimental to the cause of Religion, however 
excellent they may be, I profess to have no sympathy. My 
faith in the inspiration of Holy Scripture is such that I 
am certain the discoveries of science will only tend to the 
confirmation of its unassailable veracity. To the theories 
of many Geologists I may be opposed, and I may be so on 
scientific principles, because I find that injthe year 1806 the 
French Institute counted not fewer than eighty theories, 
supposed to be hostile to Scripture history, of all which theo- 
ries scarcely a vestige is now to be traced, scarcely a record 
has been preserved. To show, however, that there is nothing 
in the cosmogony of the Bible repugnant to the real dis- 
coveries of Geology, I would refer you to the commencement of 
Dr. Buekland's Bridgewater Treatise, and especially to Dr. 
Pusey's valuable note appended to it. The very learned 
Professor of Hebrew there states it as his opinion that the 
first two verses of Genesis contain merely a summary state- 
ment of what is related in detail in the rest of the chapter, 
and that the time of the creation is not defined. We are 
told only of what we are concerned to know, that all things 
were created by God. The rest may have been left indefi- 
nite, as so many other things have been, that there may be 
free scope for the exercise of those high endowments with 
which our Maker has blessed our species, namely, our reason 
and our imagination. But were tlie interpretation to which 
I have alluded merely the conjecture of Dr. Pusey or Dr. 
Buekland to meet an apparent diflSculty, after the dis- 
coveries of Geology, I, for my part, should attach to it no 
importance whatever ; nay, I should be among the foremost 
to contend against it. But I find it to have been a very 
general opinion among the Fathers or early writers of the 
Christian Church. Tlie learned Professor of Hebrew refers 
to some of these writers. I may add that I find Justin 
Martyr in the second century, and Gregory Nazianzen in the 
fourth, expressing their belief that an indefinite period 
elapsed between the original creation, and that disposition 
of things of which we have the narrative in the Book of 
Genesis. Their judgment was, of course, on this point 
unprejudiced and independent, and therefore all must 
admit that, in such a case, their authority is great. We 
may, indeed, conclude, that if the discoveries of Geology are 
opposed to some modern interpretations of Scripture, they 
are not opposed to Scripture rightly interpreted. Opposed ! 
I ought rather to say that the investigations of Geology are 
in peifect accordance with Scripture. For when Scripture 
tells us of the deluge, the Geologist is able to commc nt 
