"My firm persuasion is," says Dr. Harris, "that the first verse of Genesis was designed, by the divine Spirit, to announce the absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and that it is so understood in the other parts of holy writ; that, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation, and, that the third verse begins the account of the six days' work." "If I am reminded, in a tone of animadversion, that I am making science, in this instance, the interpreter of Scripture, my reply is, that I am simply making the works of God illustrate his word in a department in which they speak with a distinct and authoritative voice; that "it is all the same whether our geological or theological investigations have been prior, if we have not forced the one into accordance with the other."--(Davidson, _Sacred Hermeneutics_.) "And that it might be deserving consideration, whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just animadversion, who first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of a passage of Scripture, irrespective of all the appropriate evidence, and who then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist on their _a priori_ interpretation as the only true one."--_Pre-Adamite Earth_, p. 280. "Our best expositors of Scripture," says Dr. Daniel King, of Glasgow, "seem to be now pretty generally agreed, that the opening verse in Genesis has no necessary connection with the verses which follow. They think it may be understood as making a separate and independent statement regarding the creation proper, and that the phrase 'in the beginning' may be expressive of an indefinitely remote antiquity. On this principle the Bible recognizes, in the first instance, the great age of the earth, and then tells us of the changes it underwent at a period long subsequent, in order to render it a fit abode for the family of man. The work of the six days was not, according to this view, a creation in the strict sense of the term, but a renovation, a remodelling of preexisting materials."--_Principles of Geology explained_, &c. p. 40, 1st edit. "Whether the Mosaic creation," says Dr. Schmucker, of the Lutheran church in this country, "refers to the present organization of matter, or to the formation of its primary elements, it is not easy to decide. The question is certainly not determined by the usage of the original words, [Hebrew] which are frequently employed to designate mediate formation. Should the future investigations of physical science bring to light any facts, indisputably proving the anterior existence of the matter of this earth, such facts would not militate against the Christian Scriptures."