before the opponent proceeds to refute them. But one would fancy, from 
rro lessor Birkss paper, that this proposition was actually maintained without 
qualification. The answer to this fancied assertion is contained in a very 
e aborate, and I will also say a very interesting, discussion with regard to 
the nature of absolute and relative motion.— A member has termed it 
a hard metaphysical discussion. Now, I do not regard it as metaphysical, 
for I think it a little physical. (Laughter.)— It is, indeed, interesting 
to have Newton’s opinions quoted, and although it requires a good deal of 
stuc y to make it all out, if you do succeed, you have arrived at something 
worth considering. But, after all, what does it come to ? It comes simply 
to this, that when we speak of the sun going round the earth, this may be, in 
connection with the idea of relative motion, as scientifically true as if we spoke 
of the earth going lound the sun. But this does not bear on the question 
of the accuracy of the statements contained in the Scriptures. I do not know 
that the Scripture ever said anything about the sun going round the earth ; 
certainly not in the sense in which we use the phrase Scripture. It never 
recognizes any antipodes, and therefore the motion that takes place, whether 
of the earth round the sun, or vice, versa, was utterly unknown to the writer 
of Holy Scripture. And here I would say that we must not separate Scrip- 
ture from the writers of Scripture. It is stated in the paper we have heard 
read, that “ Scripture says this,” and “ Scripture says that,” that “ Scripture 
uses such and such language.” No; Scripture does not use language ; but 
men who were guided by the Spirit of God use the language found in Scrip- 
ture. In thus employing men to write the Scriptures, God did not guide 
them as to the language they used with reference to matters connected with 
science in any other sense than what was in accordance with the popular 
theories of the day. I have little doubt that those Hebrew writers, when 
speaking about the earth and the sun or any physical subject, had much the 
same notion of the nature of their motions as the rest of their countrymen ; 
nor can I conceive that revelation was conveyed to man in such a way that 
the reader would gather one meaning while the language he read meant 
another. If the words of Holy Scripture were written by different men, 
according to the conceptions God had granted them, and in the popular 
language of the day in which they usually expressed the same conceptions, 
we may fairly suppose, without derogation to divine revelation, that God, 
when He reveals moral and spiritual truths to man, has made use of 
intelligent men as the instruments of His revelation, and that they have 
understood these things in the way in which they have represented 
them. Of course, this does not affect the question with regard to prophetic 
utterances ; but we are not discussing prophetic utterances, we are discuss- 
ing the meaning of the ordinary language of Scripture, and that I think is 
plainly the popular language applied to the theories of the day in which the 
writers of that language lived. So far from this being a derogation from 
the divine authority of Scripture, it is to me the most fitting way in which I 
VOL. XI. 2 H 
