143 
of Edinburgh, Session 1863 - 64 . 
This only brought out more palpably what geologists had for 
some time taught — had taught indeed almost as early as geology 
took the dimensions of a science — that the globe itself was im- 
measurably older than the age assigned for man. 
That period — the creation of man — the age of man on the globe — 
had been early, and nearly unanimously fixed, by calculations based 
upon the data afi’orded by the Mosaic hooks. 
Such calculations were necessarily more or less conjectural, 
founded on interpretations of archaic forms of language, and of 
words which might have different meanings. Numbers and figures 
were to be read in varying manuscripts, often from faulty copies ; 
and although great men like Newton had satisfied themselves that 
the received age of the world and its inhabitants was the true one, 
new facts, of a science unknown to Newton, had shaken that 
opinion, and it seemed probable that the Biblical scholar, the stu- 
dent of sacred history, in the view of geological facts, would, in the 
first place, abandon the position that the age of the creation, the 
antiquity of the earth, was to be determined by the interpretation 
of the Mosaical hooks ; and, secondly, that he would not shut his eyes 
to new evidence offered upon the questions, whether the Mosaical 
hooks intended to affirm the age of man upon the globe, and whether 
the interpreters of those hooks had accurately and precisely and 
definitely ascertained their meaning and intention in that matter. 
I should perhaps do better in using the terms of the latest 
authority on this subject, which comes with “Oxford” on its title 
page to vouch its orthodoxy, and with the sound sense of our friend 
Dr Hannah to commend it to our acceptance : — * 
“ It is surely mere misapprehension to suppose that the reve- 
lation with which Moses was really entrusted could traverse the 
path of the modern geologist, or contain any thing that would 
either confirm or contradict his readings of those buried rocks. 
From whichever side the error comes, we are bound to shake our- 
selves free from it, not by saying with some that Grod cared not 
though His instruments should make mistakes on scientific subjects, 
but by pointing out that there can be no error where there is no 
assertion, and that a purely theological revelation contains no 
assertion which falls within the proper sphere of science.” 
* Dr Hannah’s Bampton Lectures. Oxen., 1863. 
