Doctrinal Value of First Chapters of Genesis 89 promise the miraculous history of the Hebrew race is inex- plicable. In him centers, and on him hangs, the central fact of the whole of the Old Testament, the promise of the Sa- viour and His glorious salvation. (Gen. 11:3; 22:18; Gal. 3:8-16.) In an age, therefore, when the critics are waxing bold in claiming settledness for the assured results of their hypothetic eccentricities, Christians should wax bolder in contending earnestly for the assured results of the revelation in the open- ing chapters of Genesis. The attempt of modernism to save the supernatural in the second part of the Bible by mythicalizing the super- natural in the first part, is as unwise as it is fatal. Instead of lowering the dominant of faith amidst the chorus of doubt, and admitting that a chapter is doubtful because some doc- trinaire has questioned it, or a doctrine is less authentic be- cause somebody has floated an unverifiable hypothesis, it would be better to take our stand with such men as Romanes, Lord Kelvin, Virchow, and Liebig, in their ideas of a Creative Power, and to side with Cuvier, the eminent French scientist, who said that Moses, while brought up in all the science of Egypt, was superior to his age, and has left us a cos- mogony, the exactitude of which verifies itself every day in a reasonable manner; with Sir William Dawson, the eminent Canadian scientist, who declared that Scripture in all its de- tails contradicts no received result of science, but anticipates many of its discoveries; with Professor Dana, the eminent American scientist, who said, after examining the first chapters of Genesis as a geologist, “I find it to be in perfect accord with known science” ; or, best of all, with Him who said, “Had you believed Moses, you would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. But if you believe not his writings, how shall you be- lieve My words?” (John 5:45, 46.)
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