Does any one reply, “This is contrary to Scripture?” I ask them what Scripture teaches that the death of animals is the result of man’s sin?—rather would not Scripture sanction the thought that death was a part of the divine plan of God’s creation, and that the certainty of man’s transgression was the reason for giving this constitution to nature? True, Milton sings, in his noble poem, that will live as long as the English language lives—
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe:”
but we are not obliged to call the Paradise Lost our Bible; or to quote Milton as a physiological authority, although the prevalence of the opinion that death was not pre-Adamite, and a good deal of theology besides, is more of Miltonic than of Scripture teaching.
I leave this branch of my subject far before it is exhausted: so far from that, each of the three points enumerated might easily be expanded into a lecture; and I can only hope that my brevity in treating these topics will not be misconstrued into a desire to shirk any of the difficulties with which their investigation is surrounded.
III. I come, lastly, to the question of the Noachian Deluge, and shall again repeat my own words: “What was the character of the Noachian Deluge?—was it partial or universal? and what are the apparent discrepancies, in this case, between science and the Bible?” And I have added to this my belief that the Noachian Deluge was quite partial in its character, and very temporary in its duration: that it destroyed only those animals that were found in those parts of the earth habitable by man, and that it has not left a single shell or fossil, or any drift boulders or pebbles, or any other remains that may be traced to its action.
Very briefly we shall try and prove this; and perhaps the most popular way will be the best remembered,—only that the reader will bear in mind that this little book does not pretend to exhaust the subject, but only to realize the idea expressed at the beginning of this chapter. Presuming, that all have in their recollection the Scriptural account of the Noachian Deluge, instead of quoting words with which all are familiar, I will only remark, as the basis of my illustrations, that rain descended, and probably the ocean overflowed, for forty days; that the waters lay upon the land, and covered them one hundred and fifty days; that at the end of that time they began to subside, and that in twelve months and twenty-seven days they were gone from the face of the earth, and the Noachian family liberated from the ark.
The question is, was this flood universal, and were all kinds of animals preserved in the ark? To which my answer, as involving my belief, is this, that the flood was local, and that only the animals peculiar to Armenia were provided for in Noah’s ark.
“Oh! but the Bible says it was universal,” says everybody. Yes; but that, you know, is just the question between us. The terms “all the earth” seem to imply universality, but they do not necessarily involve this. “All countries came to Egypt to buy corn;” certainly not all the world literally, but all the surrounding countries. So there were once dwelling at Jerusalem devout Jews “from out of every nation under heaven;” but not literally out of every nation, for the names of the nations are immediately given, and we find the nations to have been a few between Egypt and the Black Sea, and between Italy and Palestine. There are many other illustrations of a similar character: these will suffice: I only adduce these to show that at the beginning Scripture does not oblige us to consider “all” as meaning “every one;” or to understand literally “all the inhabitants of the earth” as meaning every creature.