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takes hold of a certain objection urged against a universal flood, and goes on 
to say : — 
“ The only ground of questioning the possibility of such a flood as that 
which is related in Scripture hath been from hence : that some have supposed 
it impossible that all the water which is contained in the air, supposing it to 
fall down, should raise the surface of water upon the earth a foot and a half 
in height ; so that either new waters must be created to overflow the earth, 
or else there must be supposed a rarefaction of the water contained in the 
sea and ail rivers, so that it must take up at least fifteen times the space that 
now it doth ; but then, they say, if the water had been thus rarefied, it could 
neither have destroyed man nor beast, neither could Noah’s ark have been 
borne up by it any more than by liquid air. To this, therefore, I answer : 
first, I cannot see any urgent necessity from the Scripture to assert that the 
flood did spread itself over all the earth ; that all mankind (those in the ark 
excepted) were destroyed by it is most certain according to the Scriptures, 
when the occasion of the flood is thus expressed : ‘ And God saw that the 
wickedness of man,’ &c.” 
Then he takes the destruction of animals, and says you have no necessity to 
admit more than that ; and then he goes on : — 
“ Secondly, suppose the flood to have been over the whole globe of the 
earth, yet there might have been water enough to have overwhelmed it to 
the height mentioned in Scripture.” 
And he goes on to show what are the arguments which prove that that was 
possible. But a little further on he says : — 
“ I come now, therefore, to the evidence of the truth and certainty ” 
Of what ? Of a partial deluge ? No. 
“ Of this universal deluge, of which we have most clear and concurring 
testimonies of most ancient nations of the world ” 
Mr. Titcomb. — Universal as regards man. 
The Chairman. — No ; as regards the destruction of all the animals. He 
says : “ I am not afraid of admitting a universal deluge, though I can make 
you a present of a partial deluge if you like and he then goes on to show 
the evidence upon which he rests his case. Now that shows the difficulty 
which often arises in partial quotations. But Mr. Henslow has reminded me 
that I am not following the text-books of geology as regards this matter. I 
know I am not ; but everybody knows that geology has completely outstripped 
its text-books. Any man who denied that would be laughed at as a man far 
behind his age. The text-books do not now come up to the theories main- 
tained by the great authorities in the Geological Society, who do not see any 
necessity for admitting these successive creations. I think that when we 
begin to understand these things more we shall find that old Dr. Cockburn 
was not so far wrong as a scientific man when he maintained that all the 
phenomena presented to us by the strata might be perfectly accounted for by 
a universal deluge. I do not agree with Mr. Moule that he has proved the 
