ften but rudely resembling them,
because the nature of human thought and language render this
necessary, not only to the unlearned, but in some degree to all; but
this principle of adaptation can not be applied to plain material
facts. Yet a confusion of these two very distinct cases appears to
prevail almost unaccountably in the minds of many expositors. They
tell us that the Scriptures ascribe bodily members to the immaterial
God, and typify his spiritual procedure by outward emblems; and this
they think analogous to such doctrines as a solid firmament, a plane
earth, and others of a like nature, which they ascribe to the sacred
writers. We shall find that the writers of the Scriptures had
themselves much clearer views, and that, even in poetical language,
they take no such liberties with truth.

As an illustration of the extent to which this doctrine of
"accommodation" carries us beyond the limits of fair interpretation, I
cite the following passage from one of the ablest and most judicious
writers on the subject:[16] "It was the opinion of the ancients that
the earth, at a certain height, was surrounded by a transparent hollow
sphere of solid matter, which they called the firmament. When rain
descended, they supposed that it was through windows or holes made in
the crystalline curtain suspended in mid-heavens. To these notions
the language of the Bible is frequently conformed. * * * But the most
decisive example I have to give on this subject is derived from
astronomy. Until the time of Copernicus no opinion respecting natural
phenomena was thought better established than that the earth is fixed
immovably in the centre of the universe, and that the heavenly bodies
move diurnally round it. To sustain this view the most decisive
language of Scripture might be quoted. God is there said to have
'_established the foundations of the earth, so that they could not be
removed forever_;' and the sacred writers expressly declare that the
heavenly bodies _arise and set_, and nowhere allude to any proper
motion of the earth."

Will it be believed that, with the exception of the poetical
expression, "windows of heaven," and the common forms of speech
relating to sunrise and sunset, the above "decisive" instances of
accommodation have no foundation whatever in the language of
Scripture. The doctrine of the rotation of solid celestial spheres
around the earth belongs to a Greek philosophy which arose after the
Hebrew cosmogony w