Revelations of Geology
Geology attests that man was the last of created beings in this planet. If her data be consistent and true, and worthy of scientific consideration, she affords conclusive evidence that, as we are told in Scripture, he cannot have occupied the earth longer than 6000 years. (Hitchcock, Religion of Geology.)
Sir Isaac Newton’s sagacious intellect had arrived at a similar conclusion from different premisses, and long before the geologist had made his researches and discoveries. “He appeared,” said one who conversed with him, not long before his death, and has carefully recorded what he justly styles “a remarkable and curious conversation,” “to be very clearly of opinion, that the inhabitants of this world were of short date; and alleged as one reason for that opinion, that all arts—as letters, ships, printing, the needle, &c.—were discovered within the memory of history, which could not have happened if the world had been eternal; and that there were visible marks of ruin upon it, which could not have been effected by a flood only.”—Brewster’s Life of Newton.