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mind of man beyond the visible to the invisible. Now, that is the essence 
of what we properly call “ Natural Theology it is, I might say, the constant 
burden of the teaching of the prophets in the Old Testament as against 
idolaters ; and it is just what St. Paul argues to the Romans. The allusions 
to the facts of natural science in Scripture are oftenincidental, and yet I 
venture to say they are always characterized by extreme accuracy, although 
necessarily appeals to the actual knowledge, or science, of those addressed. 
When Dr. Gladstone tells us that the notion of the earth not being a level 
plain was opposed as being unscriptural, I can only say that whoever made 
that objection must have known very little of the Scriptures. What is the 
fact ? In the Book of Job — and I believe that is the oldest book in the 
world in which the idea occurs— the earth is distinctly spoken of as hung 
upon nothing, or as we should say, suspended in free space, in the beautiful 
passage, “ He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth 
the earth upon nothing.’' There is there no notion of a flat plam with a 
solid arch over it ; but, on the contrary, as correct an allusion to the earth as 
we now understand it, as a globe suspended in space, as we ourselves could 
indite. Then in Job, besides, look at the allusions to the sweet influences of 
the Pleiades, and to some other of the constellations. I believe it is also the 
first book in which the extraordinary far-sight of the eagle is noticed. This 
fact in natural history you will find in modern books, like Bishop Stanley’s 
History of Birds ; but many such facts are now spoken of always as if only 
we moderns had discovered them ; and we take credit for this, though you 
may find them in the Scriptures. The theory of the circuits of the wind and 
what we now call “ the law of storms,” was suggested by the language of 
Scripture, as has been frankly acknowledged by Captain Maury. There are 
many other allusions to the facts of nature in Scripture which are very 
important ; and I must say I think Dr. Irons has overlooked them, and will 
acknowledge this, because some of them have an important bearing upon 
those teachings of Christianity which relate to the mysteries of grace. For 
instance, there is St. Paid’s argument from the engrafting of the wdd olive* 
Now, it is a very curious fact, that we have nothing in science, so far as I am 
aware, to explain to us what constitutes the difference thus produced between 
the wild and cultivated fruits. We are all acquainted with the fact, and 
with the mode of engrafting upon the wild tree ; but we cannot convert the 
latter into a cultivated tree without this mysterious engrafting. We must ad 
recollect how St. Paul makes use of this, as an analogy between nature and 
the operation of grace in man. I recollect, at the meeting of the British 
Association at Cambridge, in 1862, hearing Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, 
speak, if I may so say, an admirable “paper” to a number of gentlemen 
around him out of doors, in the course of which he declared there was no 
cultivated plant and no tame animal that had not always been cultivated or 
tame from time immemorial. And he then challenged Colonel Sykes and 
* This method of reasoning is, moreover, strictly “ theological for instance, 
in the Athanasian Creed we have the argument, “ Formas the reasonable 
soul and flesh is one man ; so God and man is one Christ.” 
