and

for our own, so as to wish that Holy Scripture should Reference mean what we mean, whereas we ought to wish the mean- Authorities. ing of Holy Scripture to be ours.

NOTE ON THE LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE.

The following passage is taken from a very valuable sermon on the "Harmony of Religion and Science," preached before the students of Oberlin College, by Dr. J. R. Fairchild. It well fits into, and supports, the points which we have endeavoured to impress in the chapter:

"The forces of Nature have not displaced God. Whatever physical science may have seemed to demonstrate in regard to them (their unity, their interconvertibility, and their persistence), the fact still remains, confessed by every one who has given the subject thought, that these forces explain nothing-that they cannot be accepted as the origin or cause of things. They are themselves a part of the effect, and require for themselves an origin-a cause-as truly as visible Nature requires such cause. The machinery of a watch is moved by a spring, and it is just as reasonable to stop with the spring and call it a complete solution of the problem of the watch, as to rest in the forces of Nature as the ultimate explanation of the existence and adjustments of the universe. Physical science must stop with these forces. This is its limit. Its methods and appliances are here exhausted. The profoundest scientist must here drop his science, and walk by the common light of men, till he stands in the presence of the Infinite Personality, 'who is before all things and by whom all things consist.' It is not for him to say that these forces are final; that there is nothing beyond. On that question he can speak with no authority."

"Wise and mighty are the works of Him Who stemmed asunder the wide firmaments (heaven and earth). He lifted on high the bright and glorious heaven. He stretched out apart the starry sky and the earth." From the Rig-Veda.

"Genesis is neither like the Vedas, a collection of hymns more or less sublime; nor like the Zend-avesta, a philosophic speculation on the origin of all things; nor like the Yih-king (of China), an unintelligible jumble whose expositors could twist it from a cosmological essay into a standard treatise on ethical philosophy. It is a history, and a religious history." Dean Perowne.

and

Genesis the oldest of books.

References THERE is little reason for doubting that Genesis is Authorities. the oldest book that has been preserved to mankind. "The Mantras, the oldest portions of the Vedas, or sacred books of India, are, it would seem, as old as the fourteenth century B.C. The Zend-avesta, of Persia, is of much more modern date. The Yih-king, of China, is of a venerable antiquity, but the writings attributed to Smith's Bib. Confucius are not earlier than the sixth century B.C." The superiority of the Bible records can best be

Dict.

and

The Bible records honoured by

shown by a few specimens taken from various sacred References books and philosophies. We ask our readers to Authorities. turn from the following extracts to the Word of God, and, with them in his mind, to quietly read the first contrasts. chapter of Genesis. An impression of the Divine Inspiration of the Bible will thus be gained, such as

no laborious arguments could produce.

Philosophical conceptions of the origin of the world are sufficiently gathered up by Neander, who says:"Natural Religion, formed by the contemplation of Nature, and a comparison of it with human relations, was unable to rise to the idea of a creation as the free act of God; an absolute act of unconditioned freedom performed by God was a thought totally foreign to antiquity. The phenomenal world was supposed to spring of itself out of Chaos; many attributed the same origin to the gods. Even when no Autonomy (or self government) was ascribed to the world, no Pantheistic view adopted, no development of Nature from itself allowed, but a Supreme Spirit was regarded as the Framer of the Universe, this was not considered as an unconditioned, absolutely free act on the part of God, but conditioned by a pre-existent matter: with this assumption was connected the assertion of a necessary principle of Evil and Defect in the World. As long as evil was regarded as founded in Nature, and necessary, the Divine agency must be supposed to be conditioned."

"The doctrine of the Jewish Cabbala in regard to creation is, that the whole universe is an emanation from God, and thus that the universe is God manifested,

Philoso

phies.

Neander's

Dogmas,
Vol. I.,

p. 112.

The Jewish Cabbala on creation.

and

References or an evolution and expansion of the Deity, Who is Authorities. concealed in His own essence, but revealed and

visible in the universe. According to the nearness of the different worlds to the Great First Cause, is the degree of splendour with which the revelation of Divinity takes place. The last and remotest producArt. tion of emanative energy is matter, which is rather a the World." privation of perfection than a distinct essence."

"Creation"in

Egyptian The Egyptian theory is that which we may suppose Theory of Creation. Moses to have known, and we may observe concerning it that its natural philosophy is good enough, but its theology is bad. It presents a plurality of deities, and affirms a divine power to have been in the Chaos, in the matter itself. Without the guidance of Divine revelation man has always been disposed to conceive of many gods, or to worship the mere forces of Nature as if, of themselves, they could exert a divine energy. The Egyptian theory is as follows :—

The

Chaldæan theory as given by Berosus.

"An illimitable darkness once covered the abyss, while water and a subtile spirit resided through Divine power in Chaos. A holy light now shone; the elements condensed, or were precipitated beneath the sand from the humid parts of rudimentary creation, and nature, thus fecundated, the gods diffused through space all the objects, animated and inanimated, which are found in the Universe."

Berosus, a learned Babylonian, who wrote about B.C. 260, gives the following as representing the ancient Chaldæan legends: In the beginning all was darkness and water, and therein were generated monstrous animals of strange and peculiar form.

and

There were men with two wings and some even with References four and two faces; and others with two heads, a Authorities. man's and a woman's, on one body; and there were men with the heads and horns of goats, and men with hoofs like horses, and some with the upper parts of a man joined to the lower parts of a horse, like centaurs; and there were bulls with human heads, dogs with four bodies and with fishes' tails, men and horses with dogs' heads, creatures with heads and bodies of horses but with tails of fish, and other animals mixing the forms of various beasts. Moreover there were monstrous fish, and reptiles, and serpents, and divers other creatures which had borrowed something from each other's shapes; of all which the likenesses are still preserved in the temple of Belus. A woman ruled them all, by name Omorka, which is in Chaldee Thalatth, and in Greek Thalassa, the sea. Then Belus appeared, and split the woman in twain, and of the one half of her he made the heaven, and of the other half the earth, and the beasts that were in her he caused to perish. And he split the darkness, and divided the heaven and the earth asunder, and put the world in order; and the animals that could not bear the light perished. Belus upon this, seeing the earth was desolate, yet teeming with productive power, commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, and to mix the blood which flowed forth with earth, and form men therewith, and beasts that could bear the light. So man was made, and was intelligent, being a Bib. Things not Gen. partaker of the Divine wisdom. Likewise Belus made Known." No. the stars, and the sun and moon, and the five planets."" also No. 820.

707. See