faculties, in multiplying the evidences of the Existence and Attributes and Providence of God.[1]
The alarm however which was excited by the novelty of its first discoveries has well nigh passed away, and those to whom it has been permitted to be the humble instruments of their promulgation, and who have steadily persevered, under the firm assurance that "Truth can never be opposed to Truth," and that the works of God when rightly understood, and viewed in their true relations, and from a right position, would at length be found to be in perfect accordance with his Word, are now receiving their high reward, in finding difficulties vanish, objections gradually withdrawn, and in seeing the evidences of Geology admitted into the list of witnesses to the truth of the great fundamental doctrines of Theology.[2]
- ↑ A study of the natural world teaches not the truths of revealed religion, nor do the truths of religion inform us of the inductions of physical science. Hence it is, that men whose studies are too much confined to one branch of knowledge, often learn to overrate themselves, and so become narrow-minded. Bigotry is a besetting sin of our nature. Too often it has been the attendant of religious zeal: but it is perhaps most bitter and unsparing when found with the irreligious. A philosopher, understanding not one atom of their spirit, will sometimes scoff at the labours of religious men; and one who calls himself religious will perhaps return a like harsh judgment, and thank God that he is not as the philosophers,—forgetting all the while, that man can ascend to no knowledge, except by faculties given to him by his Creator's hand, and that all natural knowledge is but a religion of the will of God. In harsh judgments such as these, there is not, only much folly, but much sin. True wisdom consists in seeing how all the faculties of the mind, and all parts of knowledge bear upon each other, so as to work together to a common end; ministering at once to the happiness of man, and his Maker's glory.—Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies of the University, Cambridge, 1833, App. note F. p. 102, 103.
- ↑ One of the most distinguished and powerful Theological writers of our time, who about 20 years ago devoted a chapter of his work on the Evidence of the Christian Revelation, to the refutation of what he then called "the Scepticism of Geologists," has in his recent publication on Natural Theology, commenced his considerations respecting the origin
