The Bible, a scientific revelation

Introduction

Speculative scientists say, That a miracle is impossible, because physical laws are immutable. The opinion is absurd, because creation began with a miracle. All science is founded on that miracle, and many physical laws are as miraculous in their operation as they were in their inception.

A miracle is a supernatural act, caused by GoD*s will. All physical laws, therefore, are subject to His will. Miracles and scientific action united in the creation of all physical laws ; yet they are liable to interruption by man's will.

The most essential physical and spiritual laws are partially under man's control. He can modify even attraction and gravitation ; he can violate God's most essential spiritual laws, and dishonor His name, and word, and works.

IV. V INTRODUCTION,

It is therefore irrational to doubt that God can control His laws by His will, which enacted them. He doubtless can do so far more easily than an engineer can control or reverse the power of an engine which he has constructed.

The creation of the vegetable world, with its kind of life in its seed, was a miracle; but the growth of each one was according to a physical law. The creation of animals, with a soul-life, each one after its kind, was a miracle ; but the reproduction of their lives after their kinds, was by a physical law.

The creation of man, with an immortal spiritual life connected with his animalsoul-life, was a miracle ; but the ability to reproduce his life after his kind was by a physical law.

This analogy exists in the spiritual world. Mankind and the material creation, according to the Bible, are tending towards a spiritual condition. Spiritual laws produce spiritual life, good or evil, after its kind.

The beginning of a righteous human

INTRODUCTION. V.

spiritual life was a miracle. The conception of Jesus by the Spirit of God was a miracle. He Himself is the miracle of miracles, because He was, and is, a miracle worker. The work of Redemption began as Creation did, by a miracle, and the greatest one God ever wrought — so far as is revealed — was His becoming incarnate in matter and man's nature.

It was as natural an act of Jesus' higher nature as the Son of God, to control the winds and the waves, to change water to wine, and to raise the dead, as it was to create the winds and water, to make grapes to produce wine, or to give life to man.

Furthermore, Christ said of Creation's end, that as the Son of Man, He would gome in the glory of the Father, and raise the dead ; and St. Peter adds what he could have learned only from Christ, ''The Heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the Earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned

VI. INTRODUCTION.

All that IS confirmed by our knowledge of the nature of the elements, and that such would be the result were such a melting to take place.

But the Apostle adds also, ** Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

Any reasonable person, who believes in these Revelations, must be convinced that no one is competent to investigate the physical side of them without considering it in both relations.

But speculative scientists refuse to recognize the Bible revelation, and go beyond their legitimate sphere by denying the possibility of a miracle, which does not belong to physics, only as a collateral work of God, and so is superhuman.

Their speculations, therefore, are worthless, and as untenable as the ravings of religious fanatics against true science. They have supreme faith in their own reason, but none in the God who gave it to them.

God has revealed Himself to man in a

INTRODUCTION, Vll.

three-fold way. In His Works, in His Words, and in His Life. The first manifests His power, the second shows His wisdom, the third reveals His love and mercy to us men. To separate these, in their mutual relations, is to sunder what God has joined together. The result must be failure to discern the truth, or His designs.

This volume was written, chiefly with the intent, to counteract the evil of such modern thinkers as propose a better religion than Christianity. One of them recently published his Creed in the following words :

**I do not hesitate to say that Humanity is greater than any god, because all the gods in every age have only been ideals imaged from and created by herself. She has written all Bibles, so is greater than any Bible. She has founded all religions, so is greater than any religion. She has discovered all science, so is greater than any science. She is the Supreme Being on this planet."

Three thousand years ago Solomon said, '* Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit ! There is more hope of a fool than of him." As it was then, so it is now.

viii. INTRODUCTION.

The writer probably did not know that he was teaching the old Pagan Pantheism. Its religion and morality were scientific. Its faith was Nature and the order of the universe, in which God and men had their proper places. Christianity changed that, and made God the Author of Nature, and man subject to His physical and spiritual laws. In every age since, increased knowledge of His laws has confirmed the faith of the best men who lived, in their wisdom, and in God's beneficence.

St. Mary's Rectory, 1882.

Chapter I. Page

The effect of Science on the Bible. — Creation and the Bible the source of Science. — The Bible claims to be a Revelation from God, the Creator of all things. — Error of Scientists and Theologians. — Why Scientists differ, 13

Chapter II

Physical Science is in its infancy. — Theologians are co-workers with Scientists. — Physical Science cannot solve the mysteries of Creation. — Why the Ancients failed as Scientists. — Christ taught men how to think. — The Spirit of God the agent. — Two classes of scientists, --.------20

Chapter III. The First Day's Creative Work

Time Began.— Creation a Miracle. — The Earth an Eminent part of Creation. — Bible Science. — The Laws of Matter. — Creation Sudden and Recent. — Light. — Day and Night. — Creation unfinished, - - - 28

X. CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. The Second Da Y' S Crea Tive Work

PAGE.

The Firmament Created. — Mechanical Agency. — The Atmosphere. — The completion of the Second Day's Work, 40

Chapter V. The Third Day's Creative Work

The Earth fitted for Plants and Animals. — God named the Land, and Water, and the Sea. — The Vegetable Kingdom formed. — Geology confirms it. — No development in the Vegetable World, - - - -49

Chapter VI. The Fourth Da Y' S Creative Work

The Divine order of Creation. — Light for the Sun and Earth. — ^A Creative Day. — Sun and Moon Light-bearers. — The Earth unique. — Solar System in motion. — The Sun. — Christ in Creation. — Creation's End, - 58

Chapter VII. The Fifth Da F'5 Crea Tive Work

New Exercise of God's Power and Wisdom. — Marine Creatures Created. — Fossil Historians. — Each one after its kind. — Geology confirms Scripture, - - 75

CONTENTS, xi.

Chapter VIII. The Sixth Day's Crea Tive Work

Cattle, Creeping things and Beasts Created. — No ground for Evolution. — Testimony of the Chalk. — St, Paul. — Man named the Animals, - - - - - 8i

Chapter IX. Man Created

Man's dominion. — A link between Matter and God. — A Day. — Man first an Animal, then a Man. — Woman. — Soul and Spirit. — Christ in Creation. — Garden of Eden. — Satan.— Remedy for Evil, - - - - 88

Chapter X. Sixth Day's Work Continued

Man's Intellect and Anatomy testify to Genesis. — Geology confirms it, — Man's free Will. — ^Another Revelation required. — Time. — Prof. Huxley. — No evidence of Evolution. — Prof. Harvey. — Good consequent on the knowledge of Evil, ------ loi

Chapter XI. The Incarna Tion

The perfection of Creation. — Satan. — Covenants. — The Redeemer. — Prophecies. — Gabriel's Annunciation. — The Angels.— Christ essential in Creation, — The Magii, — Tiberius. — Christ began a New Era. - - no

XI 1. CONTENTS.

Chapter XII. Christ's Messianic Kingdom

PAGE.

Redemption provided before Creation. — The Church. — Christianity older than Creation. — Christ in two Kingdoms. — He showed the Relation between the Material and Spiritual Worlds. — The Unity of God's Revelations, - - - - - - 126

Chapter XIII. Christ's Ministry On Earth

The World in Christ's Day. — Evil explained. — His Divinity unknown until after His Ascension. — He began a New Era. — He Revolutionized the Spirit of the Age. — One more stage of Creation, - - - 138

Chapter XIV. The Reign Oe The Hol Y Spirit

The Comforter. — The Mystery of His Reign. — Christ in the Spirit. — In the Apostles. — To Train Men for Paradise and Heaven. — His Power in the Ages to Come, 152

Chapter XV. Crea Tion Finished

Creation to introduce a Redeemer. — Revelation a Trilogy. — Christ its central object. — No break in the chain of His Revelations. — New Heavens and New Earth. — Creation finished, 163

The Bible a Scientific Revelation.

Chapter I

The effect of Science on the Bible. — Creation and the Bible the source of Science. — The Bible claims to be a Revelation from God, the Creator of all things. — Error of Scientists and Theologians. — Why Scientists differ.

THERE is nothing in human history more remarkable than the progress of modern science, in this nineteenth century, respecting the laws of matter, force, and motion, and their application to the business and enjoyments of physical life. The same is true also of the discoveries of the more subtle laws of life, light, and magnetism.

And these investigations have helped us to better understand the higher spiritual laws and forces revealed in the Bible, which constitute the whole of science ; that is, of all laws as they are known to

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God, so far as they come within reach of man*s observation.

Every new discovery in physical laws is enlarging our views of the wisdom and wonders of the visible and invisible worlds, and of the intimate relations between them, and proving the unity and harmony of their laws. Many elementary laws of matter exist in man's body, joined with spiritual laws that constitute his humanity.

And we are discovering that what God and the Bible call science includes all the laws of the visible and invisible universe, so far as man is concerned with them. And that they are revealed in the best way to awaken his curiosity, to develop his moral and intellectual nature, to exercise his faith, inspire the love of God, and cause obedience to His laws.

This truth was known a thousand years before Christ. The Psalmist said, *' It is God who teacheth man science," ^ ^ * and ** the entrance of Thy word giveth light and understanding unto the simple." These include both branches of science revealed in the Bible, and it is vain to expect to understand the one without the help of the other.

The Bible revelation embraces the whole universe of God, and penetrates into all the mysteries of God and eternity, of Heaven and Hell, as well as of Creation, and refers to laws and truths which could be revealed by no one but their Author. Without it man would not have known that creation had a beginning, nor its design, nor how the drama of time will end, nor whence he came, and what will be his future destiny, nor anything of God's moral and spiritual laws, or the duties he owes to Him.

The Bible claims to be a revelation from the Almighty God, who created the heavens and earth, and as their elements and forces have in themselves the laws which constitute physical science, the revelation must be scientific to be of any use to men who study these laws, or be any evidence to satisfy their minds that one person was their Author. That is, the laws of the created and written revelations must be in perfect harmony, so far as there are any relations between them, and such is positively the case.

The Bible alone bridges over the seeming chasm between these two revelations, between creation and the Creator, between matter and life, between force and mind, between natural and spiritual laws, and reveals their mutual relations so far as we are able to discern them. And it gives the only reasonable and probable account man has of those mysteries.

Without a Bible the ancients aimed to prove matter eternal, the result of the concourse of fortuitous atoms, and there are but three ways imaginable by which creation began : I. It is self-existent and eternal. II. Or it was the result of matter and forces having in themselves chemical laws which caused the organization. III. Or it was created, as the Bible says, by a self-existent Almighty Personal Being, called God, and we should have no name for such a being without the Bible.

Science teaches that matter was not

A SCIENTIFIC RE VELA TION.

eternal, and could not be self-created, because something cannot come from nothing, and there can be no law, nor life, nor motion, without a Creator of it, and superior to it. That admission compels the investigator to seek for some other origin of creation.

And nowhere else is there a reasonable explanation of it but in the Bible. That refutes the eternity of matter, or self-production, saying that it had a beginning. God created and organized it by physical laws, under His will and direction, into worlds and systems, and gave them their laws.

At the same time He created all things on the earth, plants and trees after their kinds, and animals, and all living creatures, and man after their kinds as they now exist, to produce themselves unchangeably after their kinds. And none but God could have looked forward six thousand years, and made a revelation to refute the unbelief of men whom He foresaw would deny His words and works.

It is an error of both scientists and theologians who assert that the Bible was not given to teach man science, and that it has no order, method, or classification, for it is positive in all those particulars ; and they are such as only God, their Creator, could have given. And it has taken man six thousand years to discover their meaning and mysterious depths, and to interpret the synoptical and scientific account of creation, revealed to Adam by God, and transmitted by Noah to the world after the deluge. Job, and Moses, and the Psalmist, and later prophets, and Jesus Christ, all testify to its truth.

Some skeptics say that the Bible is an old, worn out fable, no longer useful in the world, in the onward movement of human thought, and so deny its Divine origin, and prophesy that its fall as a fetich, which it has been to some credulous people, will take down with it all popular religion, and prepare the way for the new scientific religion. Nevertheless every stage of progress in science has helped to a better understanding of the Bible.

A SCIENTIFIC RE VELA TION.

Men who study only the material and dark side of God's revelations, or physical laws, and know nothing of their harmony and relations to the spiritual laws, as the Bible presents them, must come to different conclusions from those who study both as parts of a connected revelation of God to man. Designed to make known not only His words and works, but also His own nature, power, and wisdom, and to assist in developing his spirit and intellect, with reference to his well-being in time, and his preparation for a higher life and condition in eternity.

Chapter II

Physical Science is in its infancy. — Theologians are co-workers with Scientists. — Physical Science cannot solve the mysteries of Creation. — Why the Ancients failed as Scientists. — Christ taught men how to think. — The Spirit of God the Agent. — Two classes of Scientists.

PHYSICAL science is in its infancy. It is only within the present century that it has established some of the fundamental laws of astronomy and chemistry, of geology and biology, without which it was impossible to imagine how the earth was created. These laws perfectly accord with, and assist in explaining, the work of creation, as it is revealed in the Bible. Thus the tables are turned on the speculative scientists, and they will be compelled to look to the Bible to find light to guide them to the truth, as to the origin of all things.

It is only a little over a century since oxygen was discovered, and has since been found one of the most abundant elements in the crystalline rocks, and in the air and the water, as well as in the sun and other worlds. And it has only recently been found out that it^ and other gases, can be liquefied, and that there is a mutual convertibility of motion and heat, of light and electricity, and magnetism. And it proves how impossible it was to ascertain how God created the earth, until these facts were known.

At the time oxygen was discovered, the ablest scientists denied that the billions of remains of animals in a fossil state ever had formed parts of living creatures. And it is only within the last decade that the ablest scientists have given up the theory that animal or vegetable life can be produced from matter — or in any way, except as the Bible teaches, from antecedent life, and each kind after its own kind.

Every stage of this advance has been helped by theologians as well as scientists. And we see now how impossible it was to interpret the Bible account of creation until these facts were known ; and the disputes between scientists and theologians were settled, and those laws firmly established. Thus it has resulted that neither the mistakes of scientists, nor their disagreements respecting physical laws and facts, nor the mistakes and fears of theologians — fears lest science would undermine the Bible — have injured religion, or retarded the progress of science. The contests have helped to develop and confirm the truth in both.

Scientists admit that, by searching the laws of matter, they cannot find out God. There He is unknowable. There is much that passes for science which is only speculation. Nevertheless the unity and harmony of the created and revealed laws teach one lesson. Both display infinite wisdom. Both have the same hidden peculiarities and unite their testimony that one Law-giver enacted them ; and that both must have had, as the Bible says, so far as man is concerned, a common origin.

There are difficulties arising from our imperfect knowledge of both kinds of laws, and of their mutual relations. But every year we are learning more of them, and of their harmony. And that physical science cannot throw any light on the mysteries of the spiritual laws ; but that the latter do help much towards the understanding of the former.

The ancients failed to make any progress in science, because they had no knowledge of the telescope, and microscope, and spectroscope. Nor of practical chemistry, and the part it played in the manifold combinations which the gases made with the elementary matter in forming the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Nor how motion, and light, and electro-magnetic force helped to organize creation, as it is represented in Genesis, and now is.

And above all, the ancients had not the knowledge of the relations of natural and spiritual laws, nor of the inductive mode of reasoning, and conveying truths by their analogies, such as Christ revealed. He first taught men how to think and to reason, in ways to which modern science traces its beginning. But it was more especially the gift of the Holy Spirit, who caused the organization of matter, and the creation of life, whom Christ sent into the world after His glorification in the Godhead. He has enlightened men's intellects, guided them into all truth, and gradually illuminated the realms of theology and science. He is the sole cause of the increased power of modern human thought, discoveries, and inventions.

We discover the nature and design of physical laws by reason, observation, and experiment. We discern the nature and design of spiritual laws by faith and experience. Both laws are united in man ; and, though they are encompassed by mysteries, there is no antagonism between them. Their union — universally considered — ^constitutes the science of God, so far as it is revealed and adapted to man, and his present and future condition.

Indeed, St. Paul says, faith is essential to understand the original creative work :

"By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God ; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." And again : ** For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse " who do not believe.

Three thousand years ago the Psalmist — the wisest scientist then living, because he was enlightened by God, and had studied both laws of God's revelations — said: '*Thy Word is a lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my paths.'' But now Comte says, ^*A11 knowledge is founded on facts;, or phenomena, and all else is unknowable."

These two men represent two classes of modern scientists. One rejects God's latest revelation, and trusts to reason and experiments to find his facts. The other, exercising faith, reason and experience, finds in physical laws a full confirmation of the correspondence of the spiritual laws, and so of the probability of their common origin.

Which one of these classes will be the safest teacher, each one must decide for himself The time, however, has now forever passed, when there is a possibility of any antagonism between the works and words of God, or His physical and spiritual laws.

Moreover, it is not probable that there is any way by which God could have revealed Himself to man, that there would not be some who would doubt, or reject it. Because there is no doctrine of revelation, or law of matter, that has not been so treated, as has been also the existence of God who gave the revelations.

It is unbelief in God, or His laws, which makes speculative scientists. They are bewildered by looking only on the dark side of His revelations. If anyone will believe only what he can understand and demonstrate, he will travel on a narrow path, and never be of much use to God, or man, or science, or religion.

For skepticism is what Carlyle calls

A SCIENTIFIC RE VELA TION.

^' the prurience of self-conceit." Such thinkers and reasoners are soon stranded on the quick-sands of materialism ; God does not reveal Himself to such men.

Chapter III. The First Da Y' S Crea Tive Work

Time Began. — Creation a Miracle. — The Earth an Eminent part of Creation. — Bible Science. — The Laws of Matter. — Creation Sudden and Recent. — Light. — Day and Night. — Creation Unfinished.

*'/« the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth,'*

THIS was the beginning of time. It declares a Personal God their Creator. It means that before that there was no such matter and forces as exist in the heaven and the earth.

God was there alone and created them suddenly by His WILL. It was a miracle. The matter, gases, and forces were created with laws inherent in them. Those laws were to cause further organization. And the knowledge of the laws, so far as they come within man's observation, constitute physical science.

That was God's primary revelation of His power and wisdom, to make Himself known to the intelligent beings He had created, and to man whom He was about to create. The beginning, though miraculous, had in it the laws of all the sciences. They are now the objects of scientific investioration.

The Bible being a later revelation to man, after he was created, begins by informing him of the origin of creation, and of himself, and of all things. Then follow other laws for his moral, physical, and spiritual well-being. And there is a visible and mysterious relation between those laws, which proves that one Law-giver enacted both of them.

The Hebrew word to create has but the one meaning, of bringing into existence something that did not before exist. Or else to separate and divide, which the laws of matter show was part of the first day's work. It occurs but three times in the narrative. I. In the primary work of creation. II. When the vegetable and animal life were created. And III. When God breathed into man His immortal spiritual life.

so

These are the bases of all the physical and spiritual laws relating to man. God then came out of His eternal spiritual kingdom. He appeared on the outer circle of the infinite, to begin the finite creation and time. Man cannot imagine what existed before, nor anything beyond what God has revealed.

The Old and New Testament declare that the Heavens and Earth were made in the beginning by the Word of God. They mean the ponderable and imponderable elements of the created cosmos. The gases, and forces, and elementary minerals and metals were then prepared. Because later, when the earth was separated from the original chaos, God so called the dry land, and the water seas.

One thing is remarkable, that the earth is mentioned in the primary work, but neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars. There is an eminence foreshadowed for the earth. It was named before all other worlds while in the original magma. Subsequent acts show that it was intended to hold a unique place in

A SCIENTIFIC RE VELA TION.

creation. It was to support animal and vegetable life, and become in its elements a partaker, first of the life of man, and then of God.

Whatever scientists may assert to the contrary, the nature, order and relations of the spiritual world, revealed in the Bible, constitute a branch of science as positive as the nature, and order, and relations of the physical laws revealed in Creation. Both have positive relations to another life, and other worlds, of which the Scriptures alone give us any knowledge. There mankind are destined to eternally live, when their present life is ended.

The Word of God, therefore, has its internal evidence, that it was given to teach man science as well as religion. And as the instinct to know both revelations, and some laws of both are in man, it is vain to attempt to interpret the laws without the help they mutually furnish.

That creation, which began by a miracle, had the elements, forces, and laws now existing in its first stage is apparent from the next creative work. It was preparation for another miracle based on it.

** The Earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep ; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.*'

That proves that the elementary forces and matter were ready for a new creative act, which immediately followed. Water was created by the original act. That proves that the gases also were then created, for they exist everywhere in the visible universe.

Experiments prove that oxygen and hydrogen, burned in proportions to produce water, cause intense heat. Hence chemical action then had produced organization. The gases form manifold combinations with minerals and metals, as well as form water and air.

We see the wisdom of the work thus far, because they were also essential for forming the plants and animals which were soon to be created. This reveals the scientific character of creation in its primary

Stages. God has not told how He worked. The laws were there for man to study. But in later parts of His work He gives some details, relating to the earth and all things on it. And the names God gives are the beginnings of science.

Heaven and the earth are names oriven

o

by God to the two grand divisions of creation. They were the miraculous part of it. Yet they are the terms, or bases, on which the science of astronomy and geology are founded. They have grown up out of these germinal words.

From the latest scientific investigations it is evident that the elements and forces of nature were simultaneously created. There research comes to the unknowable. That is testimony to the Mosaic account, that the beginning was miraculous.

Experiments on molecular construction prove that manifold substances, formerly supposed elementary, are now known to be chemical compounds. This is one of the best evidences ot the truth of the Mosaic narrative. That under Gon's direction, chemical action produced the organization of the materials of the universe. For it applies to all the members of our solar system, and others so far as the spectroscope has revealed their nature. This being so, the creation and compounding of the elements must have been sudden and simultaneous.

It is not therefore probable, as some scientists and theologians teach, that there was a vast interval between the creation of matter and force, and its organization into worlds and systems ; a time said to be beyond all calculation. Therefore ''the latitude of millions of years" must be assigned to the six days' work.

When all the general preparations were ready, '' God said, Let there be light : and there was light." Light results from motion. There were two forces present to produce it. The will of God calling it, and the physical force obeying Him. Baruch said, '' God sendeth forth the light and it goeth."