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means the land of Canaan. So that as little difficulty meets 
us in assigning to “all the earth 33 a limited meaning, as in 
assigning it to the expression “under the whole heaven.” 
Then in dealing with the universal terms whereby we are 
told that “ all flesh died that moved upon the earth ” — that 
“ all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in 
the dry land, died ” ; I cannot do better than quote from 
Professor Hitchcock's exhaustive review of this question : — 
“ In Genesis it is said that * all countries came into Egypt to J oseph to 
buy corn, because the famine was sore in all lands.’ This certainly could 
apply only to the well-known countries around Egypt, for transportation would 
have been impossible to the remotest parts of the habitable globe. In the 
account of the plagues that came upon Egypt, it is said, that ‘ the hail 
smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field,’ but a few days 
afterwards it is said of the locusts, that ‘ they did eat every herb of the land, 
and all the fruit of the trees, which the hail had left.’ .... Alike figurative 
mode of speech is employed in the description of Peter’s vision, in which he 
saw a great sheet let down to the earth, ‘ wherein were all manner of four- 
footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of 
the air.’ Who will suppose, since it is wholly unnecessary for the object, 
which was to convince Peter that the Mosaic distinction into clean and 
unclean beasts was abolished, that he here had a vision of all the species of 
terrestrial vertebral animals on the globe 1 It would be easy to multiply 
similar passages. In many of them we should find that all the earth signifies 
the land of Palestine.” 
Scripture being its own interpreter, then, there is no diffi- 
culty in explaining the bistory of the Deluge in perfect 
harmony with a limited flood. And we are bold to say that 
w~e have really no choice in the matter. The arguments 
against the universality of the Deluge are so various, so 
cumulative, so weighty ; they are drawn from such indubitable 
facts, supplied by so many sciences, that they can be ignored 
only by setting science in irreconcilable antagonism to Scrip- 
ture. The necessity is urgent which requires us to acquiesce 
in a limited deluge ; and it is plain from the usus loquendi of 
the Sacred Books, that the narrative of the Flood may be so 
explained. Why should we refuse to do this, when by doing 
it, we do no violence to Holy Scripture, and remove objections 
which cannot be regarded otherwise than as fair and well- 
grounded ? Acknowledge that the Deluge was limited to that 
area which the antediluvians inhabited, and you cut away 
the ground from under scepticism ; you satisfy the require- 
ments of historic and scientific research; you re-assert the 
righteous judgment from which the catastrophe sprang ; and 
