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Page 65
[Page 231]
XI.
_THE WORLDS AND THE WORD._
Men have found the various worlds to be far richer than they originally
thought. They have opened door after door in their vast treasuries,
have ascended throne after throne of power, and ruled realms of
increasing extent. We have no doubt that unfoldings in the future
will amaze even those whose expectations have been quickened by
the revealings of the past. What if it be found that the Word is
equally inexhaustible?
After ages of thought and discovery we have come out of the darkness
and misconceptions of men. We believe in no serpent, turtle, or
elephant supporting the world; no Atlas holding up the heavens;
no crystal domes, "with cycles and epicycles scribbled o'er." What
if it be found that one book, written by ignorant men, never fell
into these mistakes of the wisest! Nay, more, what if some of the
greatest triumphs of modern science are to be found plainly stated
in a book older than the writings of Homer? If suns, planets, and
satellites, with all their possibilities of life, changes of flora
and fauna, could be all provided for, as some scientists tell us,
in the fiery star-dust of a cloud, why may not the same Author
provide a perpetually widening river of life in his Word? As we
believe He is perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has
[Page 232] promised to be perpetually present in his Word, making it
alive with spirit and life.
The wise men of the past could not avoid alluding to ideas the falsity
of which subsequent discovery has revealed; but the writers of the
Bible did avoid such erroneous allusion. Of course they referred
to some things, as sunrise and sunset, according to appearance;
but our most scientific books do the same to-day. That the Bible
could avoid teaching the opposite of scientific truth proclaims
that a higher than human wisdom was in its teaching.
That negative argument is strong, but the affirmative argument is
much stronger. The Bible declares scientific truth far in advance
of its discovery, far in advance of man's ability to understand
its plain declarations. Take a few conspicuous illustrations:
The Bible asserted from the first that the present order of things
had a beginning. After ages of investigation, after researches in
the realms of physics, arguments in metaphysics, and conclusions
by the necessities of resistless logic, science has reached the
same result.
The Bible asserted from the first that creation of matter preceded
arrangement. It was chaos--void--without form--darkness; arrangement
was a subsequent work. The world was not created in the form it
was to have; it was to be moulded, shaped, stratified, coaled,
mountained, valleyed, subsequently. All of which science utters
ages afterward.
The Bible did not hesitate to affirm that light existed before
the sun, though men did not believe it, and used it as a weapon
against inspiration. Now we praise men for having demonstrated
the oldest record.
[Page 233]
It is a recently discovered truth of science that the trata of
the earth were formed by the action of water, and the mountains
were once under the ocean. It is an idea long familiar to Bible
readers: "Thou coverest the earth with the deep as with a garment.
The waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at
the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. The mountains ascend;
the valleys descend into the place thou hast founded for them."
Here is a whole volume of geology in a paragraph. The thunder of
continental convulsions is God's voice; the mountains rise by God's
power; the waters haste away unto the place God prepared for them.
Our slowness of geological discovery is perfectly accounted for by
Peter. "For of this they are _willingly ignorant_, that by the word
of God there were heavens of old, and land framed out of water, and
by means of water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed
by water, perished." We recognize these geological subsidences,
but we read them from the testimony of the rocks more willingly
than from the testimony of the Word.
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