Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/257

Rh if this be attained, it will go but a little way towards that acquaintance with God, which will set a man "at peace," and to communicate which is the object of the Divine Revelation. A man may be a most learned and complete expounder of the truths of natural theology, and yet be pitiably blind on the all-important subject of a Sinner's justification with God.

Perhaps the best mode of arriving at the true use of the natural sciences, is to examine how they are treated in the Word of God. And it appears to me that there are three distinct modes of instruction, under one or other of which, most if not all of the passages which speak of natural objects may be arranged.

When Jehovah breaks in upon the unsatisfactory conference between Job and his friends, He uses this vehicle of instruction. The construction of the material universe, the phenomena of light and darkness, of heat and cold, of meteors, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, the structure of the earth, the proportions of land and sea, and especially the economy and instincts of various animals, are appealed to, in a series of interrogations of unparallelled majesty, as witnesses to Him. But here there are two methods of appeal. The one rests on man's ignorance, the other on his knowledge. "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth?"