God's First Work

The Book of Genesis is, in every view, a most wonderful book. If it be a fable, Christianity itself is fabulous. Not only does it furnish the earliest narrative of the earliest times, but abounds in facts which lie at the foundation of revealed religion, and render it impregnable to all the assaults of infidelity. The first two chapters speak of times and events which existed before the sun was set in his tabernacle, or man dwelt on the earth. It is not of science and the arts that they treat, nor of the rise and fall of empires, nor of battles lost and won; when its narrative begins, there were no empires, no cities, no din of warfare, no rivalships of art, and no researches of science. The subject of it is the beginning of time; it is God’s first work, — in its commencement, its progress, its completion; in all the exactness of its design, in all its order and simplicity, beauty and

stupendousness.

Yet the writer of it speaks, throughout, with the familiarity and simplicity of one who was an eye-witness of the magnificent scenes he describes; and he does so because, though not an eye-witness, he was taught of God. Nor does he speak with hesitation; he has no doubts to express and no theories to propose, or defend. It is a statement of facts which he presents us, on the authority of the revealing Spirit, and therefore everything that he says is consistent and harmonious.

IlSr THE BEGINNING God CREATED THE HEAVENS

AND THE EAKTii. We read this introductory sentence, and feel a strong desire to know what the book, which is thus introduced to us, contains. What an impregnated announcement is this! how much truth does it afiirm! how much error does it refute! how much that is fabulous does it put to shame!

The first great fact here disclosed, is that there was a heginninf, to the heavens and the earth — a period when they did not exist. It is the dream of atheism that they have existed always. We see for ourselves that thpiesent form, of the world, and the particles of which it is composed, are subject to incessant changes and revolution. “The fashion of this world passeth away;” mutability is stamped upon everything around us; and we cannot fail to demand, can such a world have existed from eternity? That which may be one thing to-day, another thing to-morrow, and the next daynothing at all, cannot be independent and eternal. Variation in the nature, or mode of the world’s existence, is an effect which cannot be produced without a cause. And whence that cause? Not from itself, for it is dead matter and powerless; not from without itself, for this the hypothesis denies. If the matter of which the world is composed be eternal, how came the world to assume its present form? If it existed from eternity with all its parts united and at rest, how was it set in motion? or if it existed from eternity in an infinite number of detached particles, and in motion, in what lucky moment, and by what fortuitous concourse did they come together, and form this beautiful and splendid world? Nor does it owe its existence to an infinite succession of causes. The notion of an infinite progression of dependent causes, without any beginning, or first cause, involves an obvious contradiction. If each distinct cause in the series is dependent, how can the entire series itself be independent? Where nothing in the series is without a beginning, whence is it that there is no beginning to the series? How can an infinite and eternal whole be made up of parts that are not eternal and finite? This hypothesis is adopted in order to get rid of the idea that any one cause in the series is without beginning. If this be so, then there was a beginning to each cause in the succession, so that if this hypothesis be true, “we have a succession of causes infinitely earlier than any cause in the succession,” which is an absurdity. Whether this supposed progression commences a thousand years ago, or from eternity, it is equally a contradiction that every link in the chain is suyported by one that is antecedent, and that there is no parent link to support the whole.

There is too a total want of testimony in favor of the hypothesis, that the existence of the world runs back to a remoter period than that spoken of by Moses. No human records reach farther back than that period. The traces of higher antiquity said to have been found in the history of Egypt, Phoenicia, Hindostan, and China, have long since been abandoned as fabulous; so far from countervailing, they substantiate the Mosaic history. Had the world existed for any great period lieyond the date specified by Moses, it is incredible that numerous elddences of this fact should not exist, and that all veritable history and tradition should terminate within the limits of the scriptural chronology. The scantiness of population, the progress of society, agriculture, and arts and improvements universally, clearly show that this earth began to exist at no very remote period. We are able to ascertain the time when the most useful arts were invented, and the sciences discovered; and can go back to the origin of the earliest nations, and the foundation and progress of the earliest works of man.

We have, moreover, facts which lie at the basis of chronological computations which cannot deceive us.* Jesus Christ was born while Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome — a date well known in the history of nations. From the birth of Christ upward to the calling of Alraham, the Scripture chronology, fortified by profane authors almost without number, is exact and determinate. From that period to the exile of the Jews in Babylon were fourteen generations; from the exile in Babylon to David fourteen genera-. tions; and from David to Abraham fourteen generations; in all forty-two generations. From Abraham to Noah were four hundred and thirty years; and from Noah to the creation between sixteen and seventeen hundi-ed.f Making all due allowance for the different chronology of the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch, the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint and Josephus, there are nearly six thousand years from the present date to the creation.

There was a beginning, therefore, to the heavens and the earth; the time was when they did not

* See Lightfoot’s Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations upon Matthew.

—Works, vol. xi. p. 27.

Comp. Wallace’s True Age of the World, Blair’s Chronological Tables, Winder’s History of Knowledge, and the Encyclopedias. exist, and when nothing was in existence but the ever-living God. What efforts of the divine power, and what expressions of the diT[ne goodness may have been made in the creation of other systems and other worlds besides those of which the Scriptures speak, and which have no revealed relation to “the heavens and the earth,” it is at least safe to say we a/ie utterly ignorant. To erect any theory at all upon such an hypothesis, is utterly unphilosophical. So far as the Creator himself has informed us, the creation of “the heavens and the earth” was his first work, and constituted the earliest manifestations of his glory, the first ray of the divinity which bro*ke forth. *

The next fact here taught us is, that the heavens and the earth not only had a beginning, but were created. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It is no marvel that the idea of a ci’eative power that produced all things out of nothing was above the reach of men who were destitute of a supernatural revelation. Men have no experience, no observation of such a fact as this, and no science that can account for it. We may be allowed to remark, and with emphasis, that the scriptural doctrine of creation is so purely a historical question that it does not seek any philosophical solution. It is a subject on which science is entitled to no theory, because it is decided by the divine testimony; a subject with whidi science may not interfere; nor was it ever designed to be investigated by human philoso-The great and radical error of modern philosophers lies in supposing that the primeval creation was effected by a process which natural science prescribes. Science may have much to do with the changes and revolutions which have taken place in the material world; this is her province; while upon the doctrine of creation itself, she has no claim to be heard. What does science know of creation f or what has she to do but “stand STILL AND CONSIDER the woudrous works of God?” “Dost thou know when God disposed them? dost thou know the wondrous works of him which is perfect in knowledge?” God speaks to these presumptuous world-makers in the language, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest? or who hath stretched out the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened, or who hath laid the corner-stone thereof?” We have no need of the lights of natural science, but to illustrate and to pour their radiance on the works of God. Creation is a miracle, if ever there was a miracle in the world; and what need is there of scientific principles in order to explain a miracle? The Creator does not tread in the footsteps of physical science; true science treads, and treads cautiously in the footsteps of the Creator.

We take our position on the broad and immovable basis of God’s word, and ask, what is the scriptural idea of creation? Let the answer be given in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. Let it be given in the language of the prophet, “Thou, even thou art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein.” Let it be given in the language of the Psalmist, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth.” Let it be given in the language, “Thus saith God the Lord; he that created the heavens and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it.” Let it be given in the language of the apostle, “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” It is not to the cabinet of the geologist, nor laboratory of the chemist, that we make our appeal for information on this high subject. It belongs to them to inquire how material things are sustained, and perpetuated, and by what laws they granulate and grow, after they are created; of deation they know nothing. The Scriptures mean by creation those acts of omnipotence by which God gives being to that which did not exist before; they mean by it, not only to cause existence, but entire and completed existence. “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them.” They convey the thought, that creation was the matured act of God; it was performed by a word, and under the direct and immediate influence of a dildne command. This may not accord with the rationalism of modern science, but is in strict accordance with Christian faith. It is not by science that we arrive at this conclusion. The sacred writers instruct us, that “through FAITH we understand, that the worlds were framed by the word of GodT The Creator himself knows how the worlds were created; and he has told us. He knows the influence of second causes; for he called them into being at the primeval creation, and gives them their place in his government and control of the natural world. But he claims for himself the prerogative of the mighty Creator. The third fact here revealed, is that this world was created in six days. Here again the Scriptures are at issue with science. Modern geologists tell us that this is not possible; and all we need reply to the bold assertion is, “With men it is impossible, but all things are possible with God.” Everything is possible with God that does not involve a contradiction. And where is the contradiction in God’s creating this material world in six days? Revealed theology, we are told, must be in “organic connection” with natural science. We are instructed that that theology is not true which is at war with the true science of nature; and that to make revelation and science harmonize with reason, we are driven, from an inspection of the internal organization of our globe, to the conclusion, that “the mere shell of the earth takes us back through an unknown series of ages, in which creation appears to have followed creation at the distance of vast intervals between.” There are, it is said, strata, or layers in the earth’s foundation, which must have been formed in a certain order; that we scarcely leave the surface of the earth without finding deposits which take us beyond the limits of recorded time; that there are fossil remains, and beds of coal and limestone, which must have been the spoils of other and departed worlds; that countless ages were necessary for this arrangement, and that “the earth itself is a crowded store-house of evidence of its gradual formation.” It is enough in reply to such a statement, that it is inconsistent

with the Mosaic narrative. Although our main object is to show the inconsistency of these positions with the sacred writings, we may be permitted here to remark, that even upon the hypothesis that the earth exhibits evidence of its formation through the power of natural causes, it does not follow that it was not formed in six days, because the very idea of creation supposes an unwonted Energy in those causes. What if it be so, that no small portions of large continents are covered with rocks of many miles in depth, all exhibiting a stratified formation, and arranged in the order of a mineralogical cabinet; where is the evidence that they were not formed by the operation of causes acting with a rapidity and force unknown to modern geology? What if it be so, that these strata contain “pebbles rounded and smoothed as if they had been rolled in water;” can it be shown that God Almighty could not, even by the action of water, have created a round and smooth pebble in six days? And what if it is ascertained, that these strata are fossiliferous and contain the bones of animals; or are carbonic, and contain beds of coal; or are formed of salt and limestone; can it be shown that no organic remains of animals were deposited between the creation and the flood, or that races of animals that are now extinct, were not deposited in mountain and valley by the waters of the deluge? Geologists assume that the operation of natural causes is at all times equal, which they have not demonstrated.

The remark was made on a preceding page, that natural science is concerned with the changes that have taken place in the material world; while upon the doctrine of creation she has no claim to be heard. No man supposes that the earth, as it runo W”, is the same earth that was originally created. It was greatly changed by the Deluge; was no doubt gradually changing between the deluge and the creation; it has been subjected to change ever since, sometimes by the laws of a universal providence, sometimes by a providence that is special. Where is the geographer who can now tell us where the rivers are that once bounded the original Paradise? We have abundant proof that what are now large and extensive lakes, were once solid. land; and that what is now solid land, was once covered with water. We see for ourselves large tracts of alluvial soil, formed by the accumulation of matter washed down from mountains, and formed by the action of rivers which have changed their beds. Rocks, too, are wearing away by the action of the ocean; while what is now solid land, may in past ages have formed the bed of the ocean itself Decayed forests are forming new soil beneath. But it does not follow, because the earth has been gradually moulded by the operation of second causes, or changed in many of its aspects by violent concussions and eruptions, that it did not originally possess tJie great and distinctive features of land and water, and in their marked varieties. Geologists tell us that very large portions of the earth were formed gradually and in the progress of indefinite ages; that granite rocks could not have been formed except by the action of subterranean fire; and that the metallic substances which are found in the earth, are all to be traced to the action of natural causes since the creation. But Jioio do they hnoiv this f This one thing is obvious from the Mosaic narrative, that on the third day of the creation, God said, “Let the dry land appear.” Will geologists inform us what were the component elements of the dry land? Were there no mountain ranges? no granite hills; no metallic substances; no sand; no gravel; no loam; no clay? Where were Sinai, and Horeb, and Hor, and Gilead, and Paran, and Carmel? Where were the “high hills” that were covered by the flood; and the “everlasting hills” that are spoken of in the book of Genesis; and the “precious things of the everlasting hills;” and the land “whose stones are ii’on, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass?” Whence were the idols of silver and gold in kingdoms far more ancient than the Hebrew state? Whence was it that Tubal Cain, the fourth in descent from Adam, was “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron?” Did not the “dry land” and the “high hills” which God formed at the creation, contain these metallic substances at that dawn of the world, as truly as they now contain them, and were they not produced by God’s creative power? Were there no ‘continents at the original creation; or were they all originally loose and incoherent masses in “the dry land,” and formed by “a sediment deposited in the waters,” or by “accumulations of transposed matter,” and not a few of them by “the melting of other rocks, and cooled down” into their present solidity?

I confess I am no professed geologist, while I have taken some pains to acquaint myself with the best treatises on this interesting department of natural science. And in doing this, I have become satisfied that their theories are far from being satisfactory to the authors themselves. The most candid writers acknowledge that there are difficulties in their system, and phenomena which they cannot account for. It would be no difficult matter to expose the fallacy of their reasoning in its apj)lication to the Mosaic narrative of the creation. Take, for example, the following facts. It was asserted not many years since, that a stratum of lava flowed from mount Etna, in the time of the second Punic war, which is about two thousand years ago, which is not sufficiently covered with soil, to produce either corn or vines. The conclusion was hence drawn, that it requires two thousand years to change the surface of lava into fertile soil. Seven distinct lavas, one under the other, have been discovered in digging a pit near Jaci, in the neighborhootl of mount Etna, most of them covered with a thick stratum of rich soil.

GOD’S FIRST WORK. 4t

And the conclusion was that the lowest of these lavas flowed from the mountain fourteen thousand years ago, and that the earth, which, according to the Mosaic narrative, is six thousand years old, is actually more than fourteen thousand. But it has been since ascertained, that the mass which covers Hercidaneum and Pompeii consists also of seven distinct lavas, with veins of good soil between them; while it is well known that the lowest of these lavas flowed from Vesuvius in the year 79 of the Christian era, a little more than eighteen hundred years ago; and that, instead of taking two thousand years to be covered with soil, lava is thus covered in a little more than two hundred. Within the memory even of the young among us, it was also the received doctrine of physical science, that there are substances in nature so hard that it is impossible to form them except by the slow process of centuries; yet it has since been ascertained by the French chemists, that those very substances, by the force of electricity acting upon water, can be mmiufactured in a week. When the Scriptures teach us, therefore, that the work of creation was completed in six days, we have no questions to ask of geologists.

Geologists not a few are enlightened and Christian men. It may serve our purpose to allude to the construction which such writers put upon the Mosaic narrative, in order to make it consistent with geological science. One of these theories is the hypothesis of a material creation prior to that recorded in Scriptures, and of which the Scriptures say nothing. It inculcates the existence of a “pre-adamite earth,” which for unnumbered ages was first held in fusion by fire, and afterwards in solution by water; and that during these periods rocks were crystallized, and masses of animal and vegetable matter made their appropriate deposits, in strata conformed to subsequent geological discoveries; and that when the requisite materials were thus laid up in storehouses, /rom these God formed the world we inhabit, as narrated in the book of Genesis. Of this whole theory, we say, and say with confidence, it is the mere romance of natural science. It is conjecture simply, unbecoming the name of science. It is mere imagination and theory, in which science not only vaults and soars beyond the limits of known fact, but of remote probability. The most extravagant tales of chivalry do not go Ijeyond it, nor is it transcended by the most fanciful Pagan Cosmogonies. I would as soon believe the account of the generation of the world among the Chaldeans as given by Berosus, or the Phcenician account as given by Sanchoniathon, or the Egyptian as given by Diodorus Siculus, or the Grecian as given by Ilesiod, as believe this mere unsupported hypothesis of modern science.

The next of these theories is more sober and plausible. It is, that when the Scriptures assert that the world was created in six days the meaning is -six indefinite periods; and in support of this construction, it is said that the word day is not unfrequently used in this indefinite sense in the Scriptures. Among the modern and more scientific advocates of this hypothesis are Professor Silliman of Yale College and Professor Jameson of Edinburgh. The philological and theological objections to this hypothesis are so many and conclusive, that, so far as my knowledge extends, it is for the most part abandoned. Dr. Buckland, in his Bridgewater Treatise, while he does not deem it necessary to adopt it, ventures to adopt it so far as to believe that the creation was “succeeded by cycles of ages, during which all the physical operations disclosed by geology were going on.” To us his ingenious theory appears to be contrary to the plain teachings of Moses. He supposes, for a single example, that the lights of heaven existed long before Moses affirms they were created, and only came into view on the day spoken of in the Mosaic narrative; God did not then create them. Yet Moses affirms, God then “made two great lights,” and “set them in the firmament.” And the Psalmist reiterates the fact when he says, “To him that made great lights, the sun to rule by day, and the moon and stars to rule by Dight;” and be does so in a song that celebrates the work of creation as narrated by Moses.

A still more plausible theory, and that which is now generally adopted by those geologists who disclaim the first, is to give a latitude of interpretation to the first two verses in the book of Genesis, which has not generally been allowed. That paragraph is, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The construction put upon this paragraph is, that the time occupied in thus calling into existence the chaotic mass of which the material universe was formed, is not specified, but left entirely open; that it is not included in the six days of the subsequent creation; and that these unarranged materials thus called into being, must have remained untold ages in that forming condition and process; by which time was furnished for the peculiar and stratified organization of the earth as it exhibits itself to the examination of the geologist. The difficulty in adopting this construction is the fact, that, according to the Mosaic narrative, the different animals of which the fossil remains are composed, and the vegetable substances which compose the carbonic, and which enter so largely into the interior structure of the earth, did not exist in the chaotic period, and were not created until the third, and fifth, and six days of the creation. When, therefore, geologists tell us that the earth must have been in the progress of a gradual and slow formation for millions of years before the days spoken of by Moses, and that there are phenomena in its interior organization that cannot be accounted for but by these millennial processes; we feel authorized and constrained to say to them, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” They aim at too much. The knowledge of God’s word is too wonderful for them; it is high, they cannot attain unto it. The infinite One can perform what the finite cannot comprehend. When will man, proud, reasoning man, learn to confide in the word of Him who cannot err, and will not deceive? K to the humble and Christian inquirer there are facts in the organic texture of our globe, which seem to be inconsistent with the Mosaic history, we may be satisfied that it is but a seeming incoherency. If human science is inconsistent with the sacred record, so much the worse for human science. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s word shall not pass away.”

We are not a little alarmed at the tendency of the age to reduce the great facts narrated in the Bible to the standard of natural science. Books of natural science are the text books of our schools; they supersede the Bible; it is from these, and not from the Bible, that the rising generation are taught how and when God made the world. Yet, what is more fluctuating than such instructions? With all its noble advances, natural science is confessedly progressive, and therefore comparatively crude. Geology is in its infancy. How much does it know of the rapidity with which second causes accomplish their work? how much of the mechanical action of water and fire, and of their chemical effects? how much of galvanism and electricity, directed by omnipotence? how much of the general deluge? What does it know of the internal structure and organization of the earth? Not a thousandth, not a millionth part of our globe has yet been submitted to its inspection. The diameter of the earth is nearly eight thousand miles. If we are rightly informed, the deepest mine is a mine in Bohemia, of the depth of three thousand feet; and this, which is little more than half a mile, is scarcely penetrating the earth’s crust. A late distinguished European geologist, remarks, “We have attempted to penetrate as far as possible beneath the surface, into the interior of the earth. But if we compare the depth to which we have actually penetrated, with the real diameter of the earth, it will be seen, that we have scarcely broken the surface, and that the scratch of a needle on the varnish of one of our terrestrial globes is proportionally much deeper than the deepest perforations with wHcli we have ever penetrated into the interior of the earth.” And may we not ask, if a science which is thus in its infancy, shall be allowed to rob us of our confidence in the verity of the scriptural account of the creation? It has been well remarked, that “the collision is not between the Bible and nature, but between the Bible and natural philosophers.”

When science is better informed, it will have fewer scruples in endorsing the Mosaic narrative. As the most learned are often said to be more deeply sensible of what is not known, than what it knows, so one of the high attainments of science is, that it is a standing comment, not only upon what it knows, but what it does not know. It is not many years ago that a distinguished astronomer afiirmed that the last discovery had been made in the planetary system; and the reason he assigned for the assertion was that the relative motions of the system could be accounted for by the existence of those already discovered, and that the addition of another planet would disturb this harmony. Yet, since that period, other planets have been discovered; and what is remarkable, the last discovery was made by observing the aberration of a planet which human science had thus predicted could never occur. Human science is a changing, restless thing. It is well that it is SO; the world is the gainer hj all her advances. It is one of her excellencies that she gives rise to more inquiries than she sets at rest. “In not a few of her efforts to explain inexplicable phenomena, she does, in that very explication, add to the mass of inexplicable facts.” What science was even twenty years ago is not science now, but is exploded by other and later discoveries.

We demand then, is human science a safe expositor of the word of God, and may it hold a place above the settled principles of biblical exegesis? It is not denied that the physical state of our globe has undergone great clmnges since its creation. What those changes are, is the province of science to search out and disclose, as well as to inquire into their causes, and thus ascertain, as we before intimated, the laws by which the Creator still governs the material creation. Bat when it would instruct us on the great subject of creation, it is out of its province. God himself is the great teacher here. We are firm believers in the doctrine of Creatioi; and we hold that doctrine to be “God’s making all things out of nothing, by the word of his power, in the sj)ace of six days, and all very good.” So God himself instructs us, not only in the revelation to Moses as the selected jiarrator, but with memorable solemnity, when he said to the nation of Israel 2500 years after the creation itself, “Six days shall thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shall not do any work; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is.” We may not give up the Sabbath from our regard to human science. It will be time enough for science to plead the inconsistency of its discoveries with the literal truth of the Mosaic narrative, when God shall commit to it the work of creation. Creation is Ids work. Human science might as well teach us that God did not in a single day create the oak of the forest, because facts show that it never comes to its maturity except by the growth of years; or that he did not in a single day create the first man, because facts show that the human frame reaches its maturity only by the slow and gradual growth of thirty years; as that the successive formations of aqueous and igneous rock which existed within the earth, required greater time for their formation than the six days spoken of by Moses. It was indeed a wondrous exhibition of his power which thus called all things into being. It was the great miracle. “Power belongeth unto God.” From the deep abyss he hidj this wonderful creation rise, and poised it by its own weight without any other support than his own almighty and invisible hand. “He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”

A fourth fact connected with the subject of which we are speaking, is, that this great work was prosecuted wider the most perfect arrangement. There is no confusion in the works of God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” What the narrator here affirms is, that the first act of creation was the formation of the primordial elements, from which the organized heavens and earth were formed. They constituted a commingled substance, made up of earth ,and water, light, heat, and electricity, blended in disorder, a rude and shapeless mass, an undigested, dense, and floating chaos. Darkness covered it; and “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” This life-giving agent brooded there, and made this chaos, this vast valley, this dark ocean of floating death, the first scene of his vivifying power.

It became fitted to be the dwelling-place of man and beast, and to all the purposes of this fair creation, l)y being reduced to form, order, and beauty. This was eftected by the creation of ligltt the most suljtle and the most important of all material substances. It was first created after the chaos, because by his own laws of gravity and crystallization, the Creator selected it in his organization of a material world. The sun had been dark without it, or had never been called into existence, and the planetary world had stood still. Without it, the vapors had never ascended from the chaotic mass with which they were inmingled; vegetable and animal life would have found no ahment; living beings would never have found a habitation on the face of the earth; and cold and darkness would have left the original elements of the universe condensed into a solid mass. Heathen writers have expressed their admiration of the sublimity and majesty of the words, “God SAID, let there he light and there was light P Plato is said to have imitated it; and Longinus, the celebrated Athenian philosopher and critic, speaks of it as an instance of the sublime which is unsurpassed. “God said;” what words are these! Who shall speak of the power, the wisdom, the goodness they contain? What wondrous all-sufficiency, what wondrous fulness of the Deity flow out in these few words, “Let there be light!” Before the sun, or the moon, or the stars, this luminous substance was diffused throughout the universe, existing at fii’st in a state of universal expansion, and subsequently distributed into distinct bodies. Truly the light “is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” “And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.”

Ever after, in the progress of time, day and night were thus to succeed each other, each in its proper place, and each fraught with its appropriate blessings; the one bringing tranquillity and repose, the other diffusing wide its beauty, and spreading over the face of the infant creation its assemblage of graces and its coloring of joy.

With this change only, that the light was divided from the darkness, the rude and undigested mass remained the same. There was as yet no separation of the commingled substance; it was an unmeasured, turbid lake, the “vast whirlpool of future things,” with all its unseparated elements tossed and agitated in indiscriminate confusion. To separate these mingled substances, and assign them their proper place, God said “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament.” The agitated and unseparated chaos is described as a mass of waters. The earth, when formed, stood between waters: there were waters above, and waters beneath it; and these waters were divided by a firmament or that outstretched arch, or expansion over the earth, in whi(^h are placed the atmosphere and the clouds, and which forms the canopy adorned with all the luminaries of heaven. The Scriptures speak of the heavens and the earth as they appear to men; they are optical rather than astronomical or philosophical representations. Such are the representations of Moses, and such is the language of Elihu, when he represents the outspread sky as a “molten looking-glass” — a barrier so formed as to separate the superior from the inferior waters, that it is as impassable as though it were a canopy of brass, fixed and permanent as the statutes and ordinances of the Creator. There it stood, when God gave the decree that the fountains of the great deep should be broken up, and the windows of heaven should be opened, in order to drown the earth by the flood; and there it will stand, in all its varied brilliancy, spread out like a molten mirror, until that last change in its constituent elements, by which this same earth shall be destroyed by fire.

This heavenly, or aerial firmament, thus formed, the waters that were above it were held back and kept in their assigned chambers; but the inferior waters, constituting by far the greater portion of the substance from which the world was formed, overlay the whole of this lower creation. It was the primeval flood. It was the vast deluge. Day and night visited it; it was overhung by a pure atmosphere and a clear sky; but there were no valleys nor plains, nor had it the firmness of dry and solid land. The inspired Psalmist, when praising

God for his goodness, declares, “He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap; he layeth up the depth in store-houses.” Such is the narrative of Moses. And God said “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear!” In order to. leave the earth a firm and compact globe, there was an upheaving of the submerged land, the everlasting hills lifted themselves up, and the waters were thus drained off. The deep abyss was excavated for them; they were laid up in their appointed channels, and there the sovereign decree was imposed, “Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed!”” And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters called he seasy It was now a terraqueous globe, its surface presenting all the variety of land and water, continent and ocean, sea and island, bay and promontory, hill and plain, mountain and valley, beauty and majesty, while its subterranean apartments unfolded a scene of wonders everywhere exhibiting the depths of the divine wisdom.

Thus prepared, this outspread earth was next clothed with verdure, and devoted to the uses for which it was thus arranged. “And God said Let the earth luring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth!” Not a root could germinate, not a tree blossom, nor a spire of grass vegetate throughout the range of the drear earth, without the immediate power of God. When he speaks, this new and almost endlessly diversified creation, with all its grasses and plants, forest and fruit-bearing trees, with all their varieties of structure, form, and foliage, waiting for no tedious process to reach maturity, and delayed by no laws subsequently controlling the world of nature, comes into perfected being with the heaven-imparted power to reproduce itself to the end of time. How emphatic with the signature and stamp of Deity is every plant and leaf and flower! how fragrant with his praise! A day of wonders was this memorable day to this new-born world; hitherto cold and unmantled, now cheered and kissed by the warm breath of heaven, and clothed with budding leaf, and blushing rose, and bending forest, and laughing meadow. “And God saw that it was good.”

With the exception of the earth, the whole solar system was created on a subsequent day. By far the largest body in this system is the sun; planets also there are much larger than the earth; yet was the earth the first created world. Though comparatively a little world, our earth is vastly more valuable and important than other planets which are greater. We are thus instructed by the whole scope and design of God’s revelation; nor is it an unnatural, nor illogical conclusion from the order of time in wliicli they were created, that these lights of heaven were formed for the earthy and not the earth for them. “And God said Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.” Whatever other and incidental ends they may answer, the Scriptures teach us that they were formed to give light to the earth, to designate the vicissitudes of day and night, to mark their revolutions, and to perform their functions in subservience to the earth. And with what fidelity do they perform this service! with what incredible promptness and velocity! with what wonderful accuracy and precision, no one interrupting the movements of another, but all keeping their prescribed paths and performing their revolutions in their appointed times! And with what persevering obedience to the edict of their great Author have they been thus revolving in majestic order and harmony ever since the morning of their creation, and everywhere so eagerly observed as the unfailing chronometers of the universe!

No sooner was provision made for the animal tribes to subsist upon the thus prepared earth than again “God said Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven!” The creation of the inhabitants of the waters and the firmament appears to have been simultaneous; though the command was first given to the waters, beginning with the lower, and proceeding to the higher orders of being. The waters were commanded to “bring forth abundantly;” — a most wise and munificent provision for a large portion of mankind; for while millions of the poor draw their subsistence from these sources, other and richer classes draw from them untold wealth. The riches of the ocean exceeds all calculation. Everything swarms with life in these perpetually replenished departments of the divine bounty; the original blessing still rests with them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.” In the formation of the purely terrestrial animals, “God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after then’ kind, and everything that a^eepeth upon the earth after his kind.” Everything was formed distinct, “each after his kind;” every class, order, genus and species was distinctly recognized and formed, and so constituted as to produce its kind thi’ougliout successive generations.

Man was the last formed of all the animal creation, and was the noisiest monument of the Creator’s power. We shall say little in this place of this great work of God, because we propose to make it the exclusive topic of the following chapter. When God created this his last and best work, his language is, “Let us make tnany And what was the hisrh model after which he was to be made? Wonderful is the recorded answer to this question. “Let us make man in our oicn image after our likenessP He bore the lineaments of the Deity, reflected his light and love; and though a created and borrowed, a faint and finite, was, nevertheless, a real radiance of his divine glory.

Such was the infancy of our world; such the beginning of the creation of God. “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” Survey them, even defaced and spoiled as they are now by the wickedness of man. What power, what wisdom, what greatness, what goodness shine in them all! Surely their great Author has not left himself without witness. What a wonderful Being is God! how vast! how incomprehensible! Great and marvellous are thy works. Lord God Almighty! No marvel that holy men have exclaimed, “Among the gods, there is none like unto Thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works!” Atheism, polytheism, idolatry, irreligion and impiety, mournful realities as they are, and impotent to rob the Creator of his glory, would never have found a place on this beautiful earth, but as dark monuments of human apostasy. Reason rebukes them; conscience rebukes them; the works of God rebuke them. The whole creation is the legitimate school of piety, and has a voice that speaks for the mighty Maker. “Their line is gone out throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” They impart instruction everywhere; there is no restriction of time, or place to these universal teachings; they lift up their voice and utter words of knowledge in the hearing of all men. If all that may be learned of God is not gathered from this field of observation, enough may be learned to make men wiser and better, and leave them without excuse. It is no sealed book, but an open volume, legible and beaming throughout with light and truth.

He whose voice was heard in the primeval paradise, and who “walked in the garden in the cool of the day,” walks still in the midst of this broad and lofty edifice of nature, whose arch is the unmeasured heaven, whose pillars are the everlasting mountains, and whose lamps have emitted their light from the time when the morning stars first sang together to the present hour. Every motion in unmeasured space indicates the hand, every sound in the immense universe indicates the voice of God. O why is it, that amid these scenes of beauty and sublimity, these smiles of field and forest, this exuberance of land and ocean, this uncounted variety and annual reproduction of all that they can need or ask, thus adding to their enjoyment the freshness of almost perpetual novelty, and pervading every land and clime; men are so slow to bring these lessons home to the mind and heart? True piety here finds copious and consecrated materials for thought. Nature may well become the handmaid to grace, and creation subservient to redemption. The harp of David did not hang upon the willows when creation was his theme. There was no tameness in those notes of praise which sang of “the river of God which is full of water;” nor were they the less sweet because they were elicited by the light of that moon which is “the work of God’s fingers;” nor were they discordant when he “covered the heavens with a cloud;” nor, though wild, as they sometimes are, and in keeping with these expressions of majesty, were they less thrilling when the voice of the Thunderer spake, or when he “gave his snow like wool, and scattered his hoar-frost like ashes.” An humble and devout mind will gratefully meditate on

GOD’S FIRST WORK ’ 6tall the works of God, and muse on the work of his hands.

So true it is that the works of God are seen with new eyes, where the heart is taught by his Spirit. Gratitude has claims in view of the world we occupy. When angels fell, it was a bleak and desert world to which they were destined — a world where no dew descends, and where are no genial skies — a world where the seeds of immortality germinate in weedlike rankness, and fit only for unquenchable flames. Surpassing kindness was it, and sovereign mercy, to assign the fallen race of man to this green earth, where day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, do not cease, and each successive season bears testimony to the divine mercy and forbearance. It is a privilege to live in such a world, if life be wisely employed; because such a life answers life’s great end, and such a world furnishes a fitting education for a brighter and a better. Give place, then, to these grateful thoughts; let them call forth the tribute of praise. Praise him, all, ye nations; laud him, all ye people. To him who by wisdom made the heavens; for his mercy endureth forever! To him that stretched out the earth above the waters; to him that made great lights; for his mercy endureth forever! To him that remembered us in our low estate; for his mercy endureth forever! Praise him in the sanctuary of hia power. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion. Let everything that hath breatl praise the Lord.

While the preceding chapter was going through the press, the authoi has fallen in with some observations, to which he may be allowed to refer

“To any one who has watched the progress of theoretical geology for the last few years, where opinion has so often vacillated and changed on the subject, and where so many hasty conclusions have bean formed, that scarcely an author has his speculations half through the press, when the last

Eart must accumulate as much on the one side as they hitherto appear to ave done on the other.” — The Age of the Earth considered Geologically and Historically, by William Rhind, of Edinburgh.

“While 60 large a portion of the globe is geologically unexplored; while all the general views which are to extend our classifications satisfactorily, from one hemisphere to another, from one zone to another, are still unformed; while the oiganic fossils of the tropics are almost unknown, and their general relations to the existing state of things has not even been conjectured, how can we expect to speculate rightly and securely respecting the history of the whole of our globe? Geologists have only just thrown open the door of a vast labyrinth, which it may employ many generations to traverse, but which they must needs explore before they can penetrate to the oracular chamber of truth.” — Whewell’s History of Inductive Bciences.

Let any one examine the history of geology from the days of Piatt, Lester, Leibnitz, Hooke, Woodward, Whiston, and Burnet, to the later theroics by Gesner, Warner, Hutton, Smith, Buckland, Sedgwick, Lyell, and Silliman, and he will see cause to suspend his judgment in all the questions which put any other construction than that which a sound philology put a upon the Mosaic narrative.

“We hold then that the idea of the Adamite strata containing organic remains, in whatever condition these strata are seen, or may be discovered, whether arranged in the order of a first creation, or seen in the position of secondary deposits from this, is at total variance with the narrative of Moses, and was never meant to be implied in his words, or dreamt of by his predecessors or contemporaries. ‘J’here are also geological objections to this theory of a previous world. If it was entirely distinct from the present earth in point of the period of its existence, and if it was completely overthrown :it the time of the second creation, how does it happen that existing species are found in contemporary strata with extinct ones?” — Jihind’s Age of the Earth.

“If the geological creeds of Baron, Cuvier, and Professor Buckland be established as true in science, then inust the Book of Genesis be blotted out from the records of inspiration.” — Edinburgh Philo.ioph. Journ. vol. xiv.

We are not confident that the mine in Bohemia referred to is the deepest excavation. There are at Schemnitz, on the southern slope of the Carpathian mountains, two silver u)iiica, which are no longer worked on account of their depth; but they do materially differ from 3000 feet.