Of the Mofaick Account of the Creation Phil. Well, Sir, I fhall trouble you no more upon this Head, which has already taken up too great a Part of our Difcourfe. But I would fain fee how you will get over our Objections against the Mofaick Hiftory of the Crea tion, which your Bibles begin with. For it seems to me to be fuch a Fardel of unphilofophical contradictious Talk, as is fit only for the Chimney-corner, instead of Witches and Apparitions. One would expect that when an infpired Prophet should go about to give an Account of the Origin of Things, he fhould do it in a noble philofophick Manner, as Virgil tells us of old Silenus, Vti per inane coacta Semina terrarum, animaque marifque fuissent Shews how the Earth By Atoms meeting in the Void had Birth: From whence all these their native Forms had bore; But instead of this he only magifterially tells us, Things were fo; which any thinking Man, that does not fuffer every Thing to pafs upon him, is affured of the contrary of. For tho' your Arguments have convinced me of a temporary Production of the World, and that God fome Time or other, perhaps not many thousand Years ago, did make it; yet I can never believe, it was made in that Sort he would have it. For he makes the whole Universe, as well as this World, or Earth of ours, to be made at the fame Time; as if thofe prodigious Bodies of the Stars, and all the innumerable Furniture of thofe infinite Spaces, were made only to fpangle round this little Speck of ours. Answer to the late He begins with a In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth, as if the Heaven bore any Proportion to this little poor earthy Atom. And again, God made two great Lights, &c. he made the Stars allo; bringing in thofe innumerable prodigious Bodies, with a poor alfo, which are Millions of Times bigger than all the rest of the Creation. No, Sir, I have much more auguft Conceptions of the Deity, than to think he made fuch numerous and glorious Productions to dance Attendance to fuch a puny Point. For I look upon God to be a Being of infinite Power and Goodnefs (efpecially) as well as Duration; and therefore I cannot fuppofe he fhould lie fnug within his own Happinefs from all Eternity, and never difplay a Vein of his good Nature and communica tive Kindnefs 'till within a few thoufand Years last past. That Men should have fuch abject and narrow-fpirited Thoughts of fo diffufive a Goodnefs, raifes in me fuch a Tranfport of Paffion or Zeal, or what you please to call it; that the Names of Atheiftical, Heretical, Papiftical, and an hundred others, which your Folks are fcar'd at, don't seem to me half fo impious and reflecting upon the Deity as this one Heterodoxy. Cred. I am glad to find you have this Concern for the Argu God Almighty's Honour, as to appear thus zealous for it. ment from But you should not be too outragious at the facred ProCommuni- phet, for a Matter it is hard to prove him guilty of. For cation of I look upon this his Hiftory of the Creation, to be the the Divine moft noble Piece of Philofophy, which ever the World Goodness. was acquainted with; and whenever there appear any Blemishes in it, it is only the Sully it has contracted from bad Interpreters. I confefs the Generality of Divines, both ancient and modern, have thought the whole Univerfe was created in the Hexacmeron; becaufe God is faid to have then created the Heaven and the Earth, and be-. caufe the Stars are mentioned in the fourth Day's Work. This Opinion has given indeed mighty Advantage to Atheistical Men, efpecially thofe who had any Tafte of Philofophy, and had confidered what a little Pittance of the Univerfe this Earth of ours was, for the fake of which all all Things feem'd, by this Account, to be framed at the fame Time; nay, this Point is fuppofed to have bufied the Deity, more than all the reft. Now I fhall take off the Force of this Prejudice when I fhall have proved, that Mofes does not affert the Stars to be any Part of the the Adamical Creation; but that in all Probability that Creation was not extended beyond the Sun and the Planers. As for the first Verfe in Genefis, where God is faid The fixed to have created the Heaven and the Earth; it is plain that Stars probably no frequently in Scripture-Language the word Heaven does Part of the not fignify more than the Regions of the Air; as when in Mofaick the 20th Verfe of this Chapter, the Fowls are faid to fly Creation. in the Firmament of Heaven. The Windows of Heaven, Gen. vii. 11. The Bottles of Heaven, Job xxxviii. 37. (i. c.) the Clouds; The boary Froft of Heaven, Job xxxviii. 29. and in an hundred other Places; where Heaven can be extended no farther than the Air. So that when God is faid here to create the Heaven and the Earth, we cannot from hence conclude, that he then created every Thing in the vast extra-mundane Spaces; tho' the Vulgar do fometimes call all this by the Name of Heaven, But this is not the Knot of the Difficulty, the greatest Stress of the Objection lies upon the 16th Verfe, where, among other Parts of the Creation, God is pofitively faid to have made the Stars. And God made two great Lights, the greater Light to rule the Day, and the leffer Light to rule the Night: be made the Stars alfo, Gen. iii. 16. But the Text does But the Text does Gen.iii. 16. not neceffarily denote fo much. Our English Tranflation explained. interpolates the Words [he made] which are not in the Original; for the fimple Tranflation of the Hebrew is only this And God made two great Lights, the greater Light to rule the Day, and the leffer Light to rule the Night, and the Stars. So that here the word Stars feems to come in fo very abruptly, and by the bye, that one would be apt to think, that it was clapt in by fomebody elfe, after Mofes's Time, who had a Mind to be mending his Hypothefis; or else was added as a marginal Note by fome Rabbi, and fo at length crept into the Text, as Father Simon has proved feveral others have done. And there E 4 might 6. R. might be the more Countenance for this, when the Jews found themselves to have been fo horribly plagued, for worshiping the Hoft of Heaven for Gods, when they were Creatures, tho' at the fame Time they could not find any Account of their Creation among the other Parts of the Univerfe. This might be, to afford a Covert to fuch Idolaters, who might from hence infer the Stars to be uncreated Beings; which was fairly taken away, by adding fuch a Glofs in the Margin, or by taking it from thence into the Text, where the Tranfcriber could not think it reasonable it fhould be omitted. Now this is no very improbable Account, to any one who confiders, how much by Head and Shoulders and the Stars comes in; if we take the common Interpretation of the Words. But I think we may give a better Interpretation of them, and that is this. The Words and the Stars are not to be referred to the word made in the beginning of the Verfe, but to the word Rule, which immediately goes before, and are to be coupled not with the Sun and Moon, but the Night. The leffer Light to rule the Night, and the Stars. Whereby is denoted the peculiar Ufefulness and Predominancy of the Moon, above all other Stars and Planets, in this Earth of ours: For this fhines out, when they do but twinkle, and affords a mighty Influence in the Production and Growth of all Vegetables. So that upon this Account, fhe may very well be called the Ruler of the Night, and as it were Prince among the Stars. For as it appears to us, it is a glorious Planet, and a princely Light; and it is no Abfurdity in the divine Legiflator (as fome will have it) in the literal Senfe to call it a Great Light, For the admired Plato himself goes a pitch or two higher, and calls these two Luminaries unos soi, The Great Gods, the Sun and the Moon, Plat. Leg. Dial. 7. Now this Notion of the Words feems more rational; because the Moon's being Prince or Ruler among the Stars, or Governefs of the Night, is the common Language of all People, and what every old Author almoft is full of. Tully fays, fhe was called Diana, because she made a Day of the Night, whilft all the other Stars did not make a Twi 1 light, light, Cic. de nat. Deorum, Lib. 2. Afchylus calls her zęśobusov dsçâv, The Ancient, the Governess, or Mother of the Stars. Æfc. a. Apollinaris upon the Pfalms calls her, νυχίων βασίλεια αταρπῶν, The Queen of the nightly Paths. And Synefius in his Hymns ftiles her Пor vuxíar Star, The Princess of the Nocturnal Gods. Which is agreeable to Horace's Lucidum cœli decus — Syderum regina bicornis audi Roma puellas. Hor. Ep. 18. Virgil calls her likewife Aftrorum Decus, The Ornament of the Stars. Virg. Æn. 6. Seneca in his Hippolytus terms her obfcuri Dea clara Mundi, The bright Goddess of the obfcure World; and presently after, Clarumque Cali Sydus & noctis Decus, The bright Star of Heaven, and the Grace of the Night. Statins terms her, - arcane moderatrix Cynthia noctis. - The Moon the Governess of filent Night. Theb, Lib. 10. So Manilius Aftr. Lib. 2. Phaben imitantem lumina Fratris, Semper, & in proprio regnantem tempore noctis. Phoebe that imitates her Brother's Light, And reigns with her own Scepter of the Night. Now if we lay all this together, we can hardly fuppofe any other Sense of the Words, than that God made this leffer Light, the Moon, to be to us the Governess of the Night, and the Chief or Principal of the Stars. So that, Sir, now you fee, here is no Complaint to be made of the narrow-fpirited Doctrine of us Friends to Mofes, and the Deity's chewing the Cud upon his own Happiness from all Eternity, as a Friend of yours unmannerly expreffes it. o. R. You fee now you are not ftinted for Worlds, for the Com munication |