Movement of Sun and Stars. 439 candour; if opponents would remember that no science is involved here, that these are the every-day statements of all ages; and if they discriminate as to what is fact and what figure, where literal accuracy is to be looked for and where a poetic thought, they will be preserved from an infinity of folly. The firmament is that in which, to the eyes of the people, sun and stars do set; and is, indeed, a space for waters. The earth, in common language, is ever spoken of as a plane. In a higher sense even than is stated, the sun does go forth as a giant to run a race. The stability of the earth is counted an error:— "The world also shall be stable, that it be not moved" (1 Chron. xvi. 30). "The world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved" (Ps. xciii. 1, xcvi. 10, cxix. 90; Eccl. i. 4). The real meaning is-God, who made the earth, will support it; the excellent order which He established shall be maintained; neither storms from without, nor any commotion from within, shall unsettle its abiding. The principal texts mentioning the movement of sun and stars are: "The sun was risen upon the earth" (Gen. xix. 23). ... "The sun is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it" (Ps. xix. 5, 6). "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose" (Eccl. i. 5). Science uses the same language now, and it is the best language. He who finds fault with Scripture for poetically and popularly speaking of the sun, must deal with other books in the same manner. If, however, scientific accuracy is unreasonably demanded; we answer that even here, "deep answers to deep within the sacred oracles "-the sun revolving on his axis, as actually viewed from the earth by scientific men and as revolving around his own great centre, does rise, set, go forth and return, in a manner truly wonderful, and surpassing all expectation. Two other passages are asserted to be incorrect :— Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon" (Josh. x. 12). The sun and his shadow are stated to have returned ten degrees (2 Kings xx. 10; Isai. xxxviii. 8). The words translated "sun" and "moon," rather refer to the light than to the substance of those bodies. In what way God continued the sunlight, or a light resembling it, so that Israel fought as in the day, we know not, nor does it seem in the power of man to explain the wonder which confirmed Hezekiah's faith; but a scientific eye-witness might possibly have discerned some of the means by which the different marvels were wrought, though the stopping of the earth in its axial rotation, or the return of degrees, may be inexplicable as a change in natural order naturally effected. No human effort can bring Scripture miracles within the understood range of natural order; indeed, their evidential value may depend upon deviation from that order. Both of those in question may have been special providences—coincidence of the physical event with the moral lesson in illustration of Divine rule. Providential and miraculous arrangements are probably similar to those operations which we see day by day in the course of Nature; for all things, ordinary and extraordinary, are wrought by the eternal omnipresent Power. As Nature, ever flowing onward in the uninterrupted rhythm of cause and effect, is mediately used and subordinated by the human will acting as a trigger to liberate controlling power, so Divine Will acts mediately by Nature, and directly upon Nature, with infinite wisdom and might. With somewhat of scientific affectation calculations have been made to show that the miracle wrought on behalf of Israel, in the days of Joshua, required the energy of six trillions of horses; was a wasteful expenditure, in a few hours, of that which would have provided fighting power for all the armies of the world during millions of years. Such trifling needs no grave reply. Match it with another calculation: the wisdom and power requisite to form and give life, by human means, to a cheese mite, would require more than all "Miracles and Special Providences: " Prof. Tyndall. Charge as to Waste of Power. 44I the millions of men from the beginning of creation till now have possessed; what a waste of power for God to have been at such expenditure for a cheese mite! Moreover, of 2,300 million parts of light and heat emitted by the sun, our earth only receives one part. Surely those who blame us for likening God to man-when we exhort men to be God-like, are more blameable for making God man-like, by accounting that anything is either little or much to Him. Greatness and smallness are relative-nothing more: "there is absolutely nothing to show that even a portion of matter which in our most powerful microscope appears as hopelessly minute as the most distant star appears in our telescopes, may not be as astoundingly complex in its structure as is that star itself, even if it far exceed our own sun in magnitude.” 1 If miracles were bound up with credulous prattle, and stood alone, doubtless, faith in miracles would pass away with our childhood; but, being associated with words and deeds of imperishable wisdom and sublime purity, they are regarded as sparks from the great wheel of Divine operation. They are in connection with examples of moral grandeur, nowhere matched in the history of mankind, proving that they are not inventions of the crafty and deceitful. If opponents answer "We do not deny the moral grandeur of those who asserted the miracles, but we maintain that in an unscientific age moral grandeur is compatible with an uncritical belief in the marvellous;" then we reply-The men used as agents to work them, and many of the eye-witnesses, were the most thoughtful and experienced of our race: not likely to be, and, in many cases, could not be deceived: and the Power displaying the marvels is that very Power which Science acknowledges to exist behind all phenomena. Nor is that all those physical marvels are given in attestation of whatever knowledge is possessed concerning Forgiveness of sin, Redemption from evil, Immortality of life. We are gravely told "The universe of the Bible is limited to a few thousand years in time, and to a narrowly bounded area in space." Where is it so limited? Certainly not in the Bible, where "Recent Advances in Physical Science," p. 284: Prof. P. G. Tait. 1 66 are glowing descriptions of the grandeur and antiquity of the universe. Limitations, that do exist, must be interpreted by the larger accounts; or explained by the purpose for which limitation is made. The Inspiration of a Prophet was not universal as to knowledge; but special for his ministry. As to the Earth's antiquity, the Rev. R. Greswell, in "The Threefold Cord," says "In the very year, which, it has often been shown, is assigned by the chronology of the Hebrew Bible as the year of the Mosaic Creation itself, B.C. 4000, we find all the measures of time, both the natural and the civil, which have entered this system from the first and are still making part of it, meeting together." We cannot agree with the above statement. It is not in man to know, with any accuracy, when time began to be measured by day and night. Job was admonished of this-"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" (Job xxxviii. 4). Moses, so far from counting the world new, spoke of the mountains as very old (Ps. xc. 2). Other passages (Gen. xlix. 26; Deut. xxxiii. 15; Job xv. 7; Prov. viii. 22-31) plainly declare the antiquity, even as "The laying of foundations," "The laying of the cornerstone," "The stretching out of the line upon it,” mark a slow and progressive operation. The time occupied by the Mosaic Days has been a subject of controversy from the earliest times. Some great men, considering the eternity of God and the infinitude of His works, maintained that everything done in connection with the earth occupied only a moment of time; but that this moment it is impossible to imagine or to explain. Biblical archæologists, of modern times, agree that the common chronology is too narrow. Ancient records, the development of commerce and government, the time required for the production of a thousand languages from the confusion of early speech at Babel, the separation of so many human families from the early race, "require a cradle of larger dimensions than Archbishop Ussher's Chronology." The early Church at Antioch counted six thousand years from the Creation till the birth of Christ; the Greeks took five hundred from that number; Eusebius, taking three hundred more, was content with an antiquity of five thousand two hundred years; the Blindness of Secularists. 443 Samaritans counted thirteen hundred and seven years from the Creation to the Deluge; the Hebrews, sixteen hundred and fifty-six; the Septuagint, two thousand two hundred and sixty-three. The sum of all is-we have no revelation as to the time which has elapsed since God made the world. We agree with Sir G. B. Airy, concerning the tenth chapter of Genesis, to interpret "the filial relation of persons as meaning the colonial relation of tribes." 1 We agree with Aristotle-Nature is not full of incoherent episodes, like a bad tragedy; yet we supplement the dictum of Leibnitz-"La nature n'agit jamais par saut," by wider experience" Nature sometimes does make a leap." While allowing the Pythagorean doctrine of pervading order in the universal kooμós; or, as the Bechuana chief said—“One event is always the son of another, and we must not forget the parentage; " we do not reduce history to nothing better than an almanac, nor allow that morals can be explained by mechanics. It is somewhat premature for a few physicists to account orthodox theology a graveyard, the Bible a coffin, and our Lord that dead one to be buried out of sight. Those who will not believe, who arrogantly refuse Scripture, and choose to be guiltily ignorant of its marvellous evidence and proof of Divinity; who want the Lord to be always walking on the sea-but, even if He did, would have less than the little faith of Peter; who profess to educe the world from something that was ever less and less, so that Nature began from no Nature, and life from no life; surrender their position and accept the miracle of miracles-"Can there be anything more miraculous than the existence of man and the world? anything more literally supernatural than the origin of things?" 2 From many painful examples of the unbelief that clings as a parasite to certain physicists, take a work from the pen of a leader. He says concerning the observance of the Sabbath Rest"To give sanction to this precept, the authority of at least a myth was requisite. I believe it was simply for this reason that the myth of the six days of creation was preserved.” 3 "Lothair." "Notes on the Earlier Hebrew Scriptures," p. 45. |