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anything like a relative period of which we do not know the dimensions, 
that when one advocates a relative rather than an absolute period, it is 
difficult to comprehend the idea at all. I do not believe that by the 
days in Genesis we are to understand periods of enormous length, nor do I 
believe that we are to understand periods of twenty-four hours each. I 
do not think either of these ideas was in the mind of the writer. I wish 
to shut out the idea of absolute duration altogether, and to take simply a 
relative duration, which would be to God what a day is to man. Not 
knowing the nature of God, we are not in a position to judge what that 
period would be. We are not to take the days literally, but as representa- 
tive, given in accommodation. It is said that if we take days in that way, 
we put a sense upon them which they will not bear. I fail utterly to see 
how that is the case. I know that when Hugh Miller put forth the theory 
that by the word day we, were to understand a period of enormous length, 
that was putting a different meaning on the word which it would not bear, 
and bringing in an interpretation of science which should not have been 
brought in. But I do not go to science — I go simply to Scripture. I ask 
how does Scripture speak of God’s actions. Never by literal terms, but in- 
variably by representative terms, and I feel bound, therefore, as a matter of 
exegesis, to give such a sense to the word day, and no other. If it was clear 
that the whole creation took place in less than six natural days, I should find 
no more difficulty in believing it than in believing that it took a great deal 
more. I am not bound to any definite period, long or short, but I am bound 
to believe that the Biblical cosmogony was not to teach us how long the 
work of creation occupied, but in what relation creation stood towards the 
nature of God. The instant you attempt to put any absolute duration at all, 
you go away from the spirit of the narrative, and land yourself in difficulties. 
The moment you give definite duration, you sin against the spirit of Genesis. 
That does away with the difficulties which have been raised with regard to 
the nights. If I thought the days were definite periods, I should think I 
was bound also to find definite periods of rest — certainly those who hold to 
definite periods of twenty-four hours are so bound. Hugh Miller has pro- 
fessed to find one period of rest, but not seven such periods. This difficulty 
I am free from. I have no need to show definite periods of rest to correspond 
to the nights— the nights, too, are simply representative, — the imperfect 
human symbols of otherwise unintelligible divine realities — 
Mr. Reddie.— And all merely in accommodation to our understanding. 
Rev. W. Mitchell. — Granted that the earth revolves on its axis, we do 
not know how long that revolution has always lasted. We do not know how 
long the days have been always, and certainly we should not attempt to 
define them. But I say there is a danger in this interpretation which does 
not take in the “ evening and morning ” of the Scriptures. 
Mr. Warington. — It seems to me that having given the force and sense 
to the rest at night which I have done— and it is not altogether original, 
because I found it in another book, adopted purely on exegetical grounds, 
and without the slightest hint of anything approaching geology — it relieves 
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