just as, with all our knowledge of the solar system, we speak, even in scientific works, of the sun as rising and setting. For example: had there been an unscientific human spectator of the creative process, the atmosphere would have appeared to his eye as it does still to every untutored eye, a firm and solid expanse, sustaining the waters above. The sun and the moon would have appeared to be "two great lights" of nearly equal magnitude, compared with which all the astral systems deserved only that which is allotted to them- a passing word. The describer is supposed to occupy an earthly position — himself the centre of the universe. The earth is said to have brought forth grass, and the waters to have produced living creatures; though we are to believe that no creative power was delegated to the elements to produce them, but that they were made in full perfection by the simple volition of Omnipotence; but then, to a human looker-on, they would so appear to have been produced. And the fiat is said to have been issued, "Let the dry land appear;" when there was no human eye to see it; but had there been a spectator, it would have risen to his view as if such a command had been literally given. And if to this optical mode of description it be objected that as there was no human spectator, the account can only be received and interpreted as an allegorical representation, we reply that it is the very method for answering its great design-that of being popularly intelligible; and that the way in which it becomes both intelligible and vividly graphic is by placing the reader, in imagination, in the position of a spectator.* But much more inconsistent are manner of speaking it is pedantry."— Essay on the Influence of Opinions on Language, and of Language on Opinions. 1769.

* Gen. i. 25; ii. 5. In accordance with this rule of interpretation, we find Gregory of Nyssa, (394,) who wrote an apologetic explanation of the six days' work, teaching that the phrase, "God said,' should not be understood of an articulate sound: a supposition which were contrary to the nature and unbecoming the majesty of God, but of an intimation of will." Similar is the remark that it "is the manner of Scripture to describe what appears to be, instead of what really is." — Ep. de Pythonissa, p. 870. And Chrysostom, on Gen. i. 5, says, "Do you see what condescension (accommodation to our weakness) this blessed prophet (Moses) has used; or, rather, the benevolent God, by the mouth of the prophet? . . the Holy Spirit moved the tongue of the prophet in adaptation to the weakness of the hearers, and thus expressed all things to us in an intelligible manner utters everything in conformity with the manner of men. - Hom. in Gen. vol. i. pp. 12, 13. Quoted by Dr. Davidson in Bib. Hermeneutics, pp. 118, 120.

To the same effect is the great Talmudic maxim, The expressions used in the law are like the ordinary language of mankind. De Sola's New Trans

those who, while they would admit that, in all instances we have named, and in many others, the language is evidently that of optical description, would yet regard the extension of the same principle of interpretation to the account of the creation of the sun on the fourth day, as a sacrifice of the truth of inspiration; although it is said that God made a firmament or solid plane to sustain the clouds on the second day, as distinctly as that he made the sun on the fourth day. The former, however, they would explain optically; the latter, with a rigorous literality. Surely some steadier rule of interpretation than that of caprice should be adopted, and a more charitable construction than that usually held should be put on the conduct of those who think they have found that rule, not in popular whim and prejudice, but in the Sacred Record itself.

6. But not only is the language of the Mosaic cosmogony popular, and that of a supposed witness, it relates specifically to the race of man. Besides being prepared for man, it concerns itself chiefly, if not exclusively, with what belongs to him. Of the creation of angels nothing is said. Respecting the starry heavens a brief clause is employed; for what are they all to man, in his present state, compared with the sun which makes his day, the moon which rules his night, and the earth on which he dwells. In the account of the vegetable creation, no mention is made of timber-trees, the giants of the botanical kingdom; the history is confined to the production of grasses, or food for cattle; to herbs, or grain and leguminous plants for his own use, and to fruit-bearing trees; all relating, directly or indirectly, to the wants and conveniences of mankind. Nor does the account of the animal creation contain a hint in reference to the production of stationary beings, or of microscopic animalcules, though these form numerically the vast majority of animal existences. The history relates to the familiarly known, the visible, and the useful, among animals. Man himself is described as created last; plainly intimating that all which had gone before was only a means of which he was to be the subordinate end. And not only the process, but even its termination is made to subserve his welfare, for it is laid as a reason for the institution of the Sabbath. If the crea tion itself, then, be thus designed to subserve his welfare, it is only in harmony with this fact that the account of the creation

lation of the S. S., vol. i. p. 19, 1844. See also Dr. J. P. Sm th's Scripture and Geology, pp. 241, 266. Sec. Ed.

should be given in a style so familiar as to be easily understood by him; in a manner so graphic as to make him present, and to paint it to his eye; and that it should confine itself chiefly to that which more immediately concerns him.

7. The Scriptural account of creation is in strict analogy with the prevailing character of the Divine arrangements. To have spoken scientifically of the subject-in other words, to have made science the subject of revelation - would have been to degrade the character of revelation by making it minister to man's curiosity; to defeat its unique design by diverting his attention from the permanent to the passing, aggravating the very evil it was meant to remedy by absorbing him in the interests of the present; for if it expounded science, why not also art, political economy, and all the formula of civilization? and to repeal some of the deep-laid laws of the Divine plan, and, as such, to impugn the Divine origin of the revelation; for the entire scheme of things is constructed with a view, not to exempt man from effort, but to invite him to it; to enable him to make discoveries for himself; to engage his powers so as to reward them, and by engaging and rewarding to augment them. But the sacredness of its origin is deducible from more than analogical grounds. Even in a literary respect it is unique.. Ease, simplicity, and grandeur characterize its stateinents. Myth and speculation are unknown to it; the historical element predominates. No other ancient cosmogony will sustain a comparison with it.* While philosophy was still breathing mist, and living in a chaos, the opening sentence of the Bible had been shining on the Hebrew mind for centuries, a ray direct from heaven. Nor has science been able to transcend that sublime affirmation. It is too spiritual for materialism to embrace; too personal and substantial for pantheism to dissipate. True, the narrative of the Adamic creation which follows that primary announcement wears a peculiar form; the spirit is clothed in mortal vesture; but the Divine image shines through. Obscured though it may sometimes have been by the false glosses of its friends, the transfiguring power of the indwelling truth cannot be concealed. Science has had to recal her imputations on it, and to confess herself forestalled in her own department. Modern scepticism may be safely challenged even to imagine a more credible account of creation. As science multiplies her

Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. i. cc. 9, 10. Cory's Fragments, p. 26. Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry, vol. i. p. 232.

† As an example, see Oken's Isis, (1819,) p.

1117

ascertained results, new accordances with the Biblical narrative come to light. The higher deductions of reason harmonize with it. Nor can the time be hopelessly distant when, in the blended radiance of revelation and science, nothing shall be left for their mutual friends to deplore but the long want of that wise confiding patience, and that candid forbearance, which would have hastened their union, and have added to their lustre.

8. Now, the creative process immediately preparatory to the coming of man, as described in the opening of the Book of Genesis, is remarkably illustrative of the law at present under consideration. Thus, no intimation is given that a particle of new matter was originated on the occasion. The Adamic "earth" was formed from the matter which had been created

"in the beginning" at a period indefinitely distant and every atom of which existed still, notwithstanding all the combinations and changes which it had undergone.

9. That the ancient originating act is described in the sentence placed at the opening of the Bible, appears evident from such considerations as these: First, the creative acts of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days, begin with the formula, And God said; it is only natural to conclude, therefore, that the creative act of the first day begins with the third verse, where the same formula is first employed, " And God said, Let there be light." But if so, it follows that the act described in the first verse, and the chaotic state of the earth spoken of in the second, must have both belonged to a period anterior to the first day. Secondly, the only adequate reason assignable for the account given in the second verse is to prepare the reader for the description which follows of the six days' work; for it both intimates the necessity for such work by affirming the chaotic condition of the earth, and describes the Spirit of God as brooding over the chaos, preparatory to it. Not only the originating act in the first verse, therefore, but also the commencement of the energizing process in the second, appears to have preceded the opening fiat of creation on the first day, and to have been introductory to it. Thirdly, if it be admitted that the regular unfolding of the six days' work begins with the utterance of the first fiat in the third verse, it follows that the origination of the earth, in the first verse, was anterior to and independent of it; for no such an act is again adverted to in the subsequent verses. In other words, the same material,

*

*See on Gen. i. 1—3, “Pre-Adamite Earth," pp. 273 — 281.

originated at an unknown period before, and which had been already employed in successive formations of the earth, was now to be employed anew in the Adamic earth.

10. At the eventful moment when, according to the Divine purpose, the Adamic creation was to commence, "the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." How much of the entire surface of the planet was in this chaotic state, is not ascertainable. The generality of the Mosaic statement is quite compatible with the limited extent of the chaos described.* The just inference appears to be, that the desolation and ruin were universal over that region which was about to be prepared for the reception of the first inan and his antediluvian posterity. Now that the desolation was not universal over the globe, geological evidence abundantly attests.† Even the great epochs of geology do not exhibit signs of universal disorder and ruin; much less do the tertiary and posttertiary changes of our planet. And that the creation which followed the chaos of which we are now speaking, was local, seems clear from Gen. ii. 19, 20: "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cat

*The Hebrew term, pronounced eretz, whence, ultimately, our earth, is by no means restricted to the single meaning of the entire planet. Sometimes, like its equivalent in other languages, it is employed in opposition to the heaven, Gen. i. 1; and to the seas, Gen. i. 10. Sometimes it stands

for a particular land or country, Gen. ii. 11; Ex. iii. 8; for a piece of land, a field, Gen. xxiii. 15; for the ground, xxxiii. 3; for earthy matter, Ps. xii. 7; and, at others, for the inhabitants of a land, and of the world. If, now, it should be insisted on, notwithstanding these instances (a few among many) of the varied application of the word earth, that it must have precisely the same extent of application in the second verse of Gen. i. which it has in the first verse, I can only suppose that the objector has some particular theory to sustain by his interpretation. It is of little weight for him to allege that the general reader would infer from the second verse that the chaos was universal. To a human spectator surveying the scene from the centre, it would doubtless have appeared universal; and the description, we repeat, is optical, or according to the appearances of things. But as, even in this opening history, the term earth is applied to the entire planet, to the dry land on its surface, and then to a single district, we are left to infer the extent of chaos spoken of in the second verse, by an examination of the context, if it contains any evidence on the subject, and by an investigation of the earth itself, and not by the arbitrary construc tion of a term.

† Lyell's Principles of Geology, B. I. cc. x. xiii.; B. III. c. xi.