nce, Psalm civ. 1-6, where, in one line, the
world is described as God's house, with beams, and chambers, and
foundations; but in the very next line the figure is changed, and it is
viewed as an infant, covered with the deep, as with a garment.

"Bless, the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, thou art very great;
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty:
Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment;
Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain;
_Who layeth the beams of his chambers upon the waters_:
Who walketh upon the wings of the wind:
Who maketh his angels spirits:
His ministers a flaming fire:
_Who laid the foundations of the earth,
That it should not be removed for ever_.
Thou coveredst it with the deep, as with a garment:
The waters stood above the mountains."

But if any one is so gross as to insist on the literality of such a
passage, and to allege that it teaches the absolute immobility of the
earth, let him tell us what sort of immobility the third verse teaches,
and how a building could be stable, the beams of whose chambers are
_laid upon the waters_--the chosen emblems of instability. "He hath
founded it upon the seas: he hath established it upon the floods," says
the same poet, in another Psalm--xxiv 1. This, and all other expressions
quoted as declaring the immobility of the earth _in space_, are clearly
proved, both by the words used, and the sense of the context, to refer
to an entirely different idea: namely, _its duration in time_. Thus,
Ecclesiastes i. 4, "One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but
the earth abideth forever," is manifestly contrasting the duration of
earth with the generations of short-lived men, and has no reference to
motion in space at all.

Again, in Psalm cxix. 89-91, our objectors find another Bible
declaration of the immobility of the earth in space:

"For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven;
Thy faithfulness is unto all generations;
Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.
_They continue to this day_, according to thine ordinances."

The same permanence is here ascribed to the heavens (to which, as our
objectors argue, the Bible ascribes a perpetual revolution) as to the
earth. The next verse explains this permanence to be _continuance to
this day_; durability, not immobility. That the word _establish_ does
not necessarily imply fixture, is evident from i