Literal Week
157
is an unreliable guide. Skeptics who read the Bible for the sake of
caviling, may, through an imperfect comprehension of either science
or revelation, claim to find contradictions between them; but rightly
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understood, they are in perfect harmony. Moses wrote under the
guidance of the Spirit of God; and a correct theory of geology will
never claim discoveries that cannot be reconciled with his statements.
All truth, whether in nature or in revelation, is consistent with itself in
all its manifestations.
In the word of God many queries are raised that the most profound
scholars can never answer. Attention is called to these subjects to show
us how much there is, even among the common things of every-day
life, that finite minds, with all their boasted wisdom, can never fully
understand.
Yet men of science think that they can comprehend the wisdom of
God, that which he has done or can do. The idea largely prevails that he
is restricted by his own laws. Men either deny or ignore his existence,
or think to explain everything, even the operation of his Spirit upon
the human heart; and they no longer reverence his name, or fear his
power. They do not believe in the supernatural, not understanding
God’s laws, or his infinite power to work his will through them. As
commonly used, the term “laws of nature” comprises what men have
been able to discover with regard to the laws that govern the physical
world; but how limited is their knowledge, and how vast the field in
which the Creator can work in harmony with his own laws, and yet
wholly beyond the comprehension of finite beings!
Many teach that matter possesses vital power,—that certain prop-
erties are imparted to matter, and it is then left to act through its own
inherent energy; and that the operations of nature are conducted in har-
mony with fixed laws, with which God himself cannot interfere. This
is false science, and is not sustained by the word of God. Nature is the
servant of her Creator. God does not annul his laws, or work contrary
to them; but he is continually using them as his instruments. Nature
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testifies of an intelligence, a presence, an active energy, that works in
and through her laws. There is in nature the continual working of the
Father and the Son. Christ says, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I
work.” [
John 5:17
.]
The Levites, in their hymn recorded by Nehemiah, sung, “Thou,
even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of