own;' 'the sun rises, or sets;'
meaning only that so the thing appears to us, although it is not truly
so, as all astronomers are agreed. How much less should we require that
the Scriptures of divine inspiration, setting aside the common modes of
speech, should shape their words according to the model of the natural
sciences, and by employing a dark and inappropriate phraseology about
things which surpass the comprehension of those whom it designs to
instruct, perplex the simple people of God, and thus obstruct its own
way toward the attainment of the far more exalted end to which it aims."

It is evident, then, that God not only may, _but must_, use popular
language in addressing the people, in a work not professedly scientific;
and that if this popular language be scientifically incorrect, such use
of it neither implies his ignorance nor approval of the error.

But it may be worthy of inquiry whether this popular language of
mankind, used in the Bible, be scientifically erroneous. If the language
be intended to express an absolute reality, no doubt it is erroneous to
say the sun rises and sets; but if it be only intended to describe an
appearance, and the words themselves declare that intention, it can not
be shown to be false to the fact. Now, when the matter is critically
investigated, these phrases are found to be far more accurate than those
of "earth rising," and "earth setting," which Infidels say the Author of
the Bible should have used. For, as up and down have no existence in
nature, save with reference to a spectator, and as the earth is always
down with respect to a spectator on its surface, neither rising toward
him, nor sinking from him, in reality, nor appearing to do so, unless in
an earthquake, the improved phrases are false, both to the appearance of
things, and to the cause of it. Whereas, our common speech, making no
pretensions to describe the causes of appearances, can not contradict
any scientific discovery of these causes, and therefore can not be false
to the fact; while it truly describes all that it pretends to
describe--the appearance of things to our senses. And so, after all the
outcry raised against it by sciolists, the vulgar speech of mankind,
used by the Author of the Bible, must be allowed to be philosophical
enough for his purpose, and theirs; at least till somebody favors both
with a better.

Though we are in no way concerned, then, to prove that every poetical
figure in Scripture