so much surpass the views they have been accustomed to entertain respecting the beginning and the end of the material universe? But why should they be unwilling to have geology liberalise their minds as much in respect to duration as astronomy has done in respect to space? Perhaps it is a lingering fear that the geological views conflict with revelation. Such fears formerly kept back many from giving up their souls to the noble truths of astronomy. But they learnt, at length, that astronomy merely illustrates, and does not oppose, revelation. It showed men how to understand certain passages of sacred writ respecting the earth and heavenly bodies which they had before misinterpreted. Just so is it with geology. There is no collision between its statements and revelation. It only enables us more correctly to interpret some portions of the Bible; and then, when we have admitted the new interpretation, it brings a flood of light upon the plans and attributes of Jehovah. Geology, therefore, should be viewed, as it really is, as the auxiliary both of natural and revealed religion. And when its religious relations are fully understood, theology, I doubt not, will be as anxious to cultivate its alliance as she has been fearful of it in days past.

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'Shall it any longer be said," remarks Dr. Buckland, "that a science which unfolds such abundant evidence of the being and attributes of God, can reasonably be viewed in any other light than as the efficient auxiliary and handmaid of religion? Some few there still may be, whom timidity, or prejudice, or want of opportunity, allow not to examine its evidence; who are alarmed by the novelty, or surprised by the magnitude and extent, of the views which geology forces on their attention; and who would rather have kept closed the volume of witness which has been sealed up for ages beneath the surface of the earth, than to impose on the student in natural theology the duty of studying its contents-a duty in which, for lack of experience, they may anticipate a hazardous or laborious task, but which, by those engaged in it, is found to be a rational, and righteous, and delightful exercise of the highest faculties, in multiplying the evidence of the existence, and attributes, and providence of God. The alarm, however, which was excited by the novelty of its first discoveries, has well nigh passed away; and those to whom it has been permitted to be the humble instruments of their promulgation, and who have steadily persevered, under the firm conviction that 'truth can never be opposed to truth,' and that the works of God, when rightly understood, and viewed in their true relations, and from a right position, would at length be found to be in perfect accordance with His word, are now receiving their high reward in finding difficulties vanish, objections gradually withdrawn, and in seeing the evidences of geology admitted into the list of witnesses to the truth of the great fundamental doctrines of theology."-Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 593.

Such, then, in conclusion of the subject, is the religion of geology. It has been described as a region divided between the barren mountains of scepticism and the putrid fens and quagmires of infidelity and atheism; producing only a gloomy and a poisonous vegetation;

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covered with fogs, and swept over by pestilential blasts. But this report was made by those who saw it at a distance. We have found it to be a land abounding in rich landscapes, warmed by a bright sun, blest with balmy atmosphere, covered by noble forests and sweet flowers, with fruits savoury and healthful. We have ascended its lofty mountains, and there have we been greeted with prospects of surpassing loveliness and overwhelming sublimity. In short, nowhere in the whole world of science do we find regions where more of the Deity is seen in His works. To him whose heart is warmed by true piety, and whose mind has broken the narrow shell of prejudice, and can grasp noble thoughts, these are delightful fields through which to wander. More and more they must become the favourite haunts of such hearts and such minds. For there do views open upon the soul, respecting the character and plans of the Deity, as large and refreshing as those which astronomy presents. Nay, in their practical bearing, these views are far more important. Mechanical philosophy introduces an unbending and unvarying law between the Creator and His works; but geology unveils His providential hand, cutting asunder that law at intervals, and planting the seeds of a new economy upon a renovated world. We thus seem to be brought into near communion with the infinite mind. We are prepared to listen to His voice when it speaks in revelation. We recognise His guiding and sustaining agency at every step of our pilgrimage. And we await in confident hope and joyful anticipation those sublimer manifestations of His character and plans, and those higher enjoyments which will greet the pure soul in the round of eternal ages.

LECTURE XIV.

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH, RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD, IS
RELIGIOUS TRUTH.

THE connection between science and religion has ever been a subject of deep interest to enlightened and reflecting minds. Too often, however, up to the present time, has the theologian, on the one hand, looked with jealousy upon science, fearful that its influence was hurtful to the cause of true religion; while, on the other hand, the philosopher, in the pride of a sceptical spirit, has scorned an alliance between science and theology, and even fancied many a discrepancy. Both these opinions are erroneous; and disastrously have they operated, as well upon science as upon religion. The position which I take, and which I shall endeavour to maintain, is, that scientific truth, rightly understood, is religious truth.

The proposition may be misunderstood at its first announcement,

T

but I hope, ere its examination be finished, to satisfy you that it is true; and if so, that it ought to reconcile religion to science, and science to religion.

In arriving at correct conclusions concerning this statement, much will depend on the meaning which we attach to the phrase religious truth. Religion is properly defined to be piety towards God. This piety implies two things: first, a correct knowledge of God; and, secondly, the exercise of proper affections in view of that knowledge. The former constitutes the theoretic part of religion, and is investigated solely by the understanding. The latter constitutes the practical part of religion, and depends much upon the will, the heart, or the moral powers of man. All truth, therefore, which illustrates the divine character or government, or which tends to produce right affections towards God, is properly denominated religious truth. If, then, I can show that all scientific truth, rightly understood, has one or both of these effects, it will follow that it is strictly religious truth.

Scientific truth is but another name for the laws of nature. And a law of nature is merely the uniform mode in which the Deity operates in the created universe. It follows, then, that science is only a history of the divine operations in matter and mind.

In order to avoid mistake, we must make a distinction between the principles of science, and the application of those principles to the useful arts of life. The principles themselves are an illustration of the divine wisdom and benevolence, but their application to the arts illustrates the ingenuity and wisdom of man. At the most, therefore, the latter only indirectly and remotely exhibits the character of the Deity, while the former directly shows forth His perfections.

I now proceed to establish my general proposition, by showing, in the first place, that all scientific truth is adapted to prove the existence or to illustrate the perfections of the Deity.

After all that has been written on the subject of natural theology, by such men as Newintyt, Ray, Derham, Wollaston, Clarke, Butler, Tucker, Paley, Chalmers, Crombie, Brown, Brougham, Harris, M'Cosh, and the authors of the Bridgewater Treatises, I need not surely go into details to prove that science in general is a great storehouse of facts to illustrate the divine perfections and government. It is, indeed, a vast repository, from which materials have been drawn on which to build the argument for the divine existence and character. Efforts have been made, it is true, in modern times, to show that the whole argument from design is inconclusive. It is said, that though the operations of nature seem to show design and contrivance, they need no higher powers than those that exist in nature itself. They do not prove the existence of an independent personal agent, separate from the material world. Animals, and even plants, possess an inherent power of adapting themselves to circumstances; and may not a higher exercise of this same power explain all the operations of nature without any other Deity?

This argument appears to me to be utterly set aside by the following

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considerations: In the first place, there is no power inherent in vegetable or animal natures which can properly be called the power of contrivance and design, except so far as it exists in their minds. All other examples show merely the operation of impulse, or instinct, and will not at all explain that wide-reaching contrivance and design which causes all the operations of nature to conspire to certain great results, and to constitute one, and only one, great system. In the second place, the operations of intellect furnish us with the only examples in nature of that kind of contrivance and design which must have arranged and adapted the parts of the universe. But, in the third place, no intellect, within our knowledge, is capacious enough to have contrived and arranged the universe. Indeed, to the capacity of that mind which could have done this, we can assign no limits, and, therefore, infer it to be infinite. In other words, we infer the existence of the Deity. In the fourth place, the whole force of this argument rests upon the supposed uniformity of nature. For no one imagines that there exists at present, in nature, any power of contrivance and design sufficient to work a miracle; in other words, to introduce new races of animals and plants. "Could this uniformity once be broken up," says an ingenious expositor of this atheistic argument, "could this rigid order be once infringed, for a good and manifest reason, it would change the whole face of the argument. Could we see the sun stand still in heaven that the wicked might be overthrown, then should we be assured of a personal power with a distinct will, whose agents and ministers these laws were. Such an event would be a miracle. But if such events have happened, they are not a part of nature; it is not nature that tells us of them, and it is only with her that we are at present concerned."-President Hopkins, Quarterly Observer, Oct. 1833,

p. 309.

Geology, however, does reveal to us miracles of stupendous import, miracles of creation, which infinite power and wisdom alone could have produced. Hence, if the testimony of that science be admitted, this reasoning can no longer stand the test of examination, and it must be acknowledged that the argument for God's existence from design, which has ever been so satisfactory to every mind not clouded by metaphysics, is left standing on an immovable foundation.

To return to the point from which we started: it is not necessary, I say, to go into a detailed examination of each particular science, and show how its principles prove and illustrate the being and attributes of the Deity, for the work has already been done more ably and thoroughly than I can do it, and admitted by all, save the few who reject the argument from design altogether. There are a few sciences, however, which have been hitherto chiefly passed by, because they were not supposed capable of throwing any light of consequence upon theology. Let us see whether these sciences are as barren of religious interest as has been supposed.

Geology is a branch of knowledge which, a few years ago, would have been at once selected as not only destitute of any important religious applications, but as of a positively injurious tendency; and

even now, such is the feeling probably of a majority of the religious world. True, it touches religion, natural and revealed, at many points; but so novel and startling are its conclusions, that they are thought to unsettle more minds than they confirm. They fall in with many of the views of scepticism, and especially confirm its doubts concerning the age of the world, and compel the religious man to give up long-cherished opinions upon this point, and on other collateral subjects. But we have gone into a careful examination of the religious applications of this science, and have we not found it most fertile in its illustrations both of natural and revealed religion? Let us just recapitulate the conclusions at which we have arrived.

In the first place, geology furnishes important illustrations of revealed religion. It confirms the statement that the present continents of our globe were once, and for an indefinite time, beneath the ocean, and that they were subsequently lifted above the waters by internal agencies. It agrees with revelation in making water and heat the two great agents of geological change upon and within the earth, and that the work of creation, after the production of matter. was progressive. It shows us, equally with revelation, that the existing races of animals and plants on the globe were created at a comparatively recent epoch, and that man commenced his existence not more than six thousand years ago. It shows us, also, that the earth contains within itself the volcanic agency necessary for its future destruction by combustion, as described in the Bible.

But, perhaps, the most important illustration of revealed truth which geology affords, is the light which it casts upon certain passages of the Bible relating to the creation. As those texts which represent the earth as immovable, and the heavenly bodies as moving diurnally around it, were not rightly understood, until astronomy had discovered the true theory of the solar system, so those passages which relate to the period of the creation of the universe, the introduction of death into the world, and the extent and operation of the deluge, were misinterpreted until geology disclosed their true meaning. It is still customary, indeed, to speak of geology and revelation as in collision with each other on these subjects; but this is a false view of the case. Revelation is illustrated, not opposed, by geology. Who thinks, at this day, of any discrepancy between astronomy and revelation? And yet, two hundred years ago, the evidence of such discrepancy was far more striking than any which can now be offered to show geology at variance with the Scriptures. We ought, therefore, to look upon that science as illustrating, instead of opposing, the Scriptures.

Once admitting the conclusions of geology as to the great age of the world, a flood of light is shed upon some of the most difficult points both of natural and revealed religion. It shows the occurrence of numerous changes on the globe which nothing but the power of God could have produced, and which in fact were most striking and stupendous miracles. Hence the arguments which have so long been employed to show that the world is eternal are rendered nugatory; for if we can point to epochs when entire races of animals