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primeval and pre- Adamic deluge, there would be no difficulty in allowing 
twenty of such deluges in those geological epochs within that portion of 
illimitable time which Mr. Moule has called attention to. The cataclysms 
and vast changes upon the earth in those geological epochs are probably 
beyond dispute, and therefore that that which is depicted in the 2nd verse 
of the first chapter of Genesis should have been pointedly referred to by the 
Divine penman, Moses, as that which preceded the six days of creation, is 
not to be wondered at. But I cannot help thinking that the passages from 
the Book of Job and the Psalms are rather hardly pressed. Viewed as a 
matter of scholastic and theological interpretation, there is too much hard 
pressing of poetry and metaphor into scientific and dogmatic statement in 
Mr. Moule’s paper. I do not know whether you felt this generally, but it 
seemed to me that a rather rigid pressure was put on the poetic inspiration 
of J ob and David in these Divine records, and that they were being pressed 
scientifically beyond their proper scope. But I will pass now to another 
point. I, for one, have long been impressed with the conviction, apart from 
the scientific merits of the question, that the Scriptures do not require us to 
believe in the universality of the Noachian deluge. I cannot see any weight 
in the arguments which have been brought forward upon that point. Those 
arguments have been brought before us over and over again, but I must 
confess that the calmest and most reverential investigation of the Word of 
God — and I speak as a clergyman — leads me to an opposite view. I cannot 
but remember that passage in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians, in which 
St. Paul uses language in every respect as full and unreserved and unlimited 
as Moses, when he says, “ The Gospel was preached to every creature under 
the whole Heaven.” Just in the same way we are told that the mountains 
under the whole of the heavens were covered with water. We must take it 
that the language of the Scriptures is often only partial and limited in its 
application, and there is not the slightest irreverence in taking it so. I will 
not refer to that other text which declares that all the world went up to be 
taxed, because that one from the Epistle to the Colossians is unanswerable, 
both showing that from the New Testament point of view there was the 
same line of thought prevailing as in the Old Testament. If science tells me 
that the Deluge was not universal, still I maintain that the Word of God is as 
inspired and as true and as accurate as ever to my mind. When we speak of 
things universal, but limit them to special circumstances, our words have no 
longer that wide signification which originally belonged to them. Even 
Stillingfleet, 200 years ago, and in an age long before theology was invaded 
by the theories which we have now, said distinctly in his Origmes Sacra, 
that he believed that the Deluge was not universal, and his argument was 
this : — (to the Chairman) I see you have Stillingfleet there, and I am quite 
willing to be brought to book for what I say, though it is many years since I 
read him ; his argument was this — that it is in the nature of God’s attributes 
and God’s moral government, not only never to work a miracle without 
necessity, but never, as a God of love and benevolence, to destroy life without 
necessity. Therefore Stillingfleet says that as in all probability the human 
