It may be said that the Bible does not dogmatically teach this doctrine of the antiquity of the globe; and we reply, Very true; but how have we got the idea that the Bible was to teach us all physical science, as well as theology. Turretin went to the Bible for _Astronomy_: Turretin was a distinguished professor of theology in his day, and has left behind him large proofs of scholarship and piety. Well, Turretin went to the Bible, determined to find _his system_ of astronomy in it; and of course he found it. “The sun,” he says, “is not fixed in the heavens, but moves through the heavens, and is said in Scripture to rise and to set, and by a miracle to have stood still in the time of Joshua; if _the sun did not move, how could birds, which often fly off through an hour’s circuit, be able to return to their nests, for in the mean time the earth would move 450 miles_?” And if it be said in reply, that Scripture speaks according to common opinion, then says Turretin, “We answer, that the Spirit of God best understands natural things, and is not the author of any error.” We smile at such “ecclesiastical drum” noise now, and we can well afford to do so: but when people go to the Bible, determined to find there, not a _central truth_, but the truths of physics, in every department of natural science, are we to be surprised that they come away disappointed and angry? As Michaelis says, (quoted by Dr. Harris, in his “Man Primeval,” p. 12,) “Should a stickler for Copernicus and the true system of the world carry his zeal so far as to say, that _the city of Berlin sets at such an hour_, instead of making use of the common expression, that the sun sets at Berlin at such an hour, he speaks the truth, to be sure, but his manner of speaking it is pedantry.” Now, this is just the way to make thoughtful men unbelievers: and we will not adopt that plan, because it is not honest, neither is it clever; the Gordian knot of every question might easily be solved in this way. Bearing in mind that the question we are now trying to solve is this, “What is the evidence afforded by Geology, as to the history of creation, and in what way does the geological age of the world affect the supposed statement of Scripture, that the world is only 6,000 years old?” I reply thus, and I prefer to use the words of others rather than my own, lest it should be supposed that I am introducing mere novelties of opinion on this subject:—“That the first sentence in Genesis is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom to this effect; that matter, elementary or combined, aggregated only or organized, and dependent, sentient and intellectual beings have not existed from eternity, either in self-continuity or in succession: but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of One Being, the self-existent, independent and infinite in all perfection, and that the date of that beginning is not made known.”