Reason is quite
sufficient to teach us all those sanitary laws by which our bodies will
be maintained in healthful vigor. Whatever we can attain by our mental
powers, we are to attain by them. Physical and metaphysical science
alike lie remote from the object matter of revelation. The Bible never
gives us any scientific knowledge in a scientific way. If it did, it
would be leaving its own proper domain. When it seems to give us any
such knowledge, as in the first chapter of Genesis, what it says has
always reference to man. The first chapter of Genesis does not tell us
how the earth was formed absolutely, but how it was prepared and fitted
for man. Look at the work of the fourth day. Does any man suppose that
the stars were set in the expanse of heaven absolutely that men might
know what time of the year it was? They _did_ render men this service,
but this was not their great use. As the Bible speaks to all people, at
all times, it must use popular language.'
This writer, like many others when they approach this subject, speaks
timidly, and in consequence somewhat vaguely and obscurely; but his
meaning is, that we must expect the Bible, on scientific subjects, to
speak, not according to science, but according to the prevailing ideas
of their times on scientific subjects; and that we are to regard the
Bible as our teacher, not on every subject to which it may allude, or on
which it may speak, but only on matters of religious truth and duty.
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