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CHAPTER III.

THE HARMONY BETWEEN THE WORD AND
WORKS OF GOD IN RELATION TO

THE EARTH'S ANTIQUITY.

66 Lo, in unfathomable mines,

Which long His skill conceal,
He treasures up the high designs
His Word and Works reveal.

Blind human sense is prone to err,
And scan His works in vain ;

God is His own Interpreter,

And He will make them plain."

HERE are noble harmonies to be heard in the

THERE

concord of converging truths, which are as the symphonies of sweet music to the soul. To the rightly-attuned mind, no enjoyment can be more grateful than those unisons, flowing from different voices, which, swelling into one harmonious note of truthfulness, resound to the Almighty's praise and power. We may believe that one chief charm, destined hereafter to impart to the glorified celestial Choir its highest tones of delight, will be the faultless unison of their voices; the utter absence of every dissonance from their song; its entire all-pervading truthfulness. Sweet indeed must be the melodious flow, when every jarring sound, now, at times,

arising and marring the sense of harmony between God's doings in nature, providence, revelation, or grace, will be utterly overborne by the fully-perceived concord of concurrent truth, and all the various parts of the Divine measure will echo one full chord of deep converging skilfulness, blending into one melody the grand harmonious whole.

And is there no perception of this delightful Harmony, arising from the concurrent voices of God's various revelations of Himself, vouchsafed to be enjoyed by us on this World now? Truly we may believe there are some echoes of this full melody of heaven to be heard as we toil along our earthly path, dispelling at times, with its sweet concords, the conflicting sounds too frequently meeting us on our way and the more we may advance in the perception of those natural accordances, which ever must subsist between all that is recognizable as coming from God, the nearer we shall approach to that serene sense of truthfulness in things, whose perception, in all its plenitude, will form so large a portion of heaven's delight. To discover and establish, then, this concordance of truth, is the proper province of all true philosophy, and of all sound theology too. Truth is one, and to trace out this oneness in any of its obscured phases and different revelations, is no less a labour of wisdom and delight, than it is reverent dutifulness.

Is it in consistency, then, with this love and search for truth, that we should cherish apparent discrepancies, rather than seek for accordances in relation to any of the relative disclosures made by the Deity to man? Should we, when God may be pleased to open a new page of his wonderful works to our view, cling pertinaciously to some prior interpretation we had assigned to another living page he had anteriorly revealed, although such interpretation-formed, neces-sarily, under intelligence then imperfect,-be found irreconcileable with God's now more recent and fuller revelation of Himself? the two must have an inherent bond of accordance. If we listen rightly, we shall ever hear unisons from all the concurrent voices issuing from God's throne.

It is true indeed there is a jealous tenacity, which fondly clings to currently-established notions, as being the accredited results of previously-conceived truths. Such jealousy is by no means reprovable. In this stirring age, the parent of so many novel and untested speculations, it is no mark of wisdom to surrender time-honoured opinions to every opposing proposition; but this same proper conservative feeling-thus indicative of a love of truth-is, nevertheless, consistently carried out, when it may yield up its formerly-entertained convictions, to the needful harmony required to be established with some other clearly, though recently, demonstrated truths. These

latter advanced truths may, indeed, be new and startling, but if undoubtingly authenticated, they claim, equally with older authorities, our ready acceptance, and our faithful application too. They should be hailed, indeed, as sun-rays gleaming forth from heaven. to aid us in adjusting more correctly our prior conceptions; just as a long excluded brighter beam, newly intruding its light into some antique shadowed chamber, shews the objects contained therein,-not indeed different from what in reality they were before,— but more truly discernible in all their parts, and thus enabling us to conceive of each more in accordance with its true nature and its just proportions. "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good"-is a maxim standing upon an authority the highest and the surest; and in that gradual unfolding of Nature's secrets which is continually now progressing, it is a maxim calling for constant and faithful application. We find new disclosures concerning the works and ways of God every day promulgated, which seem to shake the very foundations of old-established convictions, and yet professing to be demonstrable truths; the master-spirits of the age investigate, and are compelled to admit their truth;-the circumstance necessarily produces an intellectual agitation;-many sincere minds,-unable to repudiate the accuracy of the facts promulged, and yet unwilling absolutely to admit their plain legitimate inferences,-strive, by a multi

tude of hypotheses, to reconcile the advanced phenomena with their preconceived convictions; and, by the abortiveness of the attempt, unconsciously own the reality of the revelations they would impugn,the impotency, in fact, of every effort for a forced compromise with Truth.

This process has been particularly discernible in respect to the promulgation of the many novel facts in Geology, and especially as it relates to the palpable inferences deduced therefrom of the Earth's immeasurable Antiquity. This Antiquity claimed for the Globe on which we live may be said to be the grand basis of geological science; and being once firmly established, other extraordinary phenomena of an antique world would henceforth be removed from the region of mere hypothesis; and, in the long-evolving days of an ancient Earth, have space to rest their foot upon, and during its many mighty evolutions to play their wondrous parts.

But the admission of this far-stretching preAdamite condition of our Globe, is found to clash with some currently-entertained interpretations of God's holy Word; and the tendency of our minds in such cases has already been dwelt upon, pertinaciously to adhere to our pre-established conceptions. Yes, frequently is found, indeed, a determination which exalts our own mere interpretation of Scripture into an oracle of infallibility, unwilling to yield its dictum.