The present relations of science to religion : a sermon preached on Act Sunday, July 1, 1860, before the University of Oxford, during the meeting of the British Association / by Frederick Temple.

  • Temple, Frederick, 1821-1902.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The present relations of science to religion : a sermon preached on Act Sunday, July 1, 1860, before the University of Oxford, during the meeting of the British Association / by Frederick Temple. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    direction. Geology, for instance, has already altered our conception of a great part of the Book of Genesis. Eesearches into ancient records seem likely to affect the details of the history of the early races of man- kind. How each one of the many questions thus started will be ultimately answered it is impossible to say. The probability is that both the agreements and the discrepancies between science and the Bib- lical narrative will be very different from what we now suppose: but, at any rate, it is tolerably plain that the Bible is not to look to science for that con- firmation of minute details which not very long ago was confidently expected, and in many cases appa- rently produced. Is there, then, no harmony between the Bible and science? Are they, if not foes, yet so distinct as to have no point of meeting? Not so. But this harmony is to be looked for in a different di- rection; not in petty details of fact are we to find it, but in the deep identity of tone, character, and spirit which pervade both the books. Where, for in- stance, in all literature is the wonderful patience of God's operations more clearly exhibited than in the Bible ? Again and again are we, as it were, reminded that to Him a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years. To Him, an absolutely infinite Being, what difference can there be between long and short ? why should He not spend ages as willingly as seconds? So He chooses out a people two thousand years before it is wanted, and drills it and disciplines it from the call of Abraham to the coming of our Lord; all, as it seems, to make a fit scene for that four years of our Lord's ministry, and a fit instrument for conveying His message to