Part 21

The author of the “Vestiges,” with this, the fundamental portion of his case, granted to him by the Dean, will have exceedingly little difficulty in making out the rest for himself. The passage is, however, not without its value, as illustrative of the darkness, in matters of physical science, “even darkness which may be felt,” that is suffered to linger, in this the most scientific of ages, in the Church of Buckland, Sedgwick, and Conybeare.

The common objection to that special view which regards the days of creation as immensely protracted periods of time, furnishes a specimen, if not of reasoning in a circle, at least of reasoning from a mere assumption. It first takes for granted, that the Sabbath day during which God rested was a day of but twenty-four hours; and then argues, from the supposition, that in order to keep up the proportion between the six previous working days and the seventh day of rest, which the reason annexed to the fourth commandment demands, these previous days must also have been days of twenty-four hours each. It would, I have begun to suspect, square better with the ascertained facts, and be at least equally in accordance with Scripture, to reverse the process, and argue that, because God’s working days were immensely protracted periods, his Sabbath must also be an immensely protracted period. The reason attached to the law of the Sabbath seems to be simply a reason of proportion;—the objection to which I refer is an objection palpably founded on considerations of proportion. And certainly, were the reason to be divested of proportion, it would be divested also of its distinctive character as a reason. Were it to run as follows, it could not be at all understood:—“Six days shalt thou labor, &c., but on the seventh day shalt thou do no labor, &c.; for in six immensely protracted periods of many thousand years each did the Lord make the heavens and earth, &c., and then rested during a brief day of twenty-four hours; therefore the Lord blessed the brief day of twenty-four hours, and hallowed it.” This, I repeat, would not be reason. All, however, that seems necessary to the integrity of the reason, in its character as such, is, that the proportion of six parts to seven should be maintained. God’s periods may be periods expressed algebraically by letters symbolical of unknown quantity, and man’s periods by letters symbolical of quantities well known; but if God’s Sabbath be equal to one of his six working days, and man’s Sabbath equal to one of his six working days, the integrity of proportion is maintained. When I see the palpable absurdity of such a reading of the reason as the one given above, I can see no absurdity whatever in the reading which I subjoin:—“Six periods (a=a=a=a=a=a) shalt thou labor, &c., but on the seventh period (b=a) shalt thou do no labor, &c.; for in six periods (x=x=x=x=x=x) the Lord made heaven and earth, &c., and rested the seventh period, (y=x;) therefore the Lord blessed the seventh period, and hallowed it” The reason, in its character as a reason of proportion, survives here in all its integrity. Man, when in his unfallen estate, bore the image of God, but it must have been a miniature image at best;—the proportion of man’s week to that of his Maker may, for aught that appears, be mathematically just in its proportions, and yet be a miniature image too,—the mere scale of a map, on which inches represent geographical degrees. All those week days and Sabbath days of man which have come and gone since man first entered upon this scene of being, with all which shall yet come and go, until the resurrection of the dead terminates the work of Redemption, may be included, and probably are included, in the one Sabbath day of God.

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