"
Peter Martyr clinched the matter by declaring: "So important is it
to comprehend the work of creation that we see the creed of the
Church take this as its starting point. Were this article taken
away there would be no original sin, the promise of Christ would
become void, and all the vital force of our religion would be
destroyed." The Westminster divines in drawing up their Confession
of Faith specially laid it down as necessary to believe that all
things visible and invisible were created not only out of nothing
but in exactly six days.
Nor were the Roman divines less strenuous than the Protestant
reformers regarding the necessity of holding closely to the
so-called Mosaic account of creation. As late as the middle of the
eighteenth century, when Buffon attempted to state simple
geological truths, the theological faculty of the Sorbonne forced
him to make and to publish a most ignominious recantation which
ended with these words: "I abandon everything in my book respecting
the formation of the earth, and generally all which may be Contrary
to the narrative of Moses.
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