THE

HISTORY OF THE BIBLE.

BOOK I.

CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THINGS FROM THE CREATION TO THE FLOOD, IN ALL 1656 YEARS; ACCORDING TO DR HALES 2256 YEARS.

A. M. 1. A C. 4004; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, 5411. GEN. CH. 1. AND PART OF CH. 2.

Mosaic account of the origination of this planetary world | turn, Herschell, or Urania describes about the sun, have begins.

so near a similitude and relation: the same form, the same centre, and the same common luminary with one another, that it can hardly be imagined but that they were the production of one and the same creation. And therefore, though the historian seems chiefly to regard the earth in his whole narration; yet there is reason to presume, that the other parts of the planetary world went all along on in the same degrees of formation

In the introduction of the history indeed we are told, that God created a the heaven and the earth :' but when it is considered, that heaven in Scripture language, is very commonly set to signify no more than the upper region of the air; that we frequently read of1the firmament of heaven, the windows of heaven,3 the bottles of heaven, and the hoary frost of heaven,' &c., none of which extend beyond our atmosphere, we have no | with it. grounds to conclude, that at one and the same time God 2. It is to be observed farther, that this planetary created every thing that is contained in the vast extra-world, or system of things, was not immediately created mundane spaces of the universe. On the contrary, when out of nothing, (as very probably the supreme heavens we find him recounting to Job, that at the time when | were,) but out of some such pre-existent matter as the he laid the foundations of the earth, the morning stars ancient heathens were wont to call chaos. And accordsang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,' ingly we may observe, that in the history which Moses we cannot but infer, that these stars, and these sons of gives us of the creation, he does not say, that God at God, were pre-existent; and consequently no part of the once made all things in their full perfection, but that Mosaic creation. c' In the beginning he created the earth,' that is, the matter whereof the chaos was composed, which was without form,' without any shape or order, and void,' without any thing living or growing in it; and darkness was upon the face of the waters,' nothing was seen for want of light, which lay buried in the vast abyss.

By the heaven therefore we are to understand no more, than that part of the world which we behold above us: but then I imagine we have very good reason to extend our conceptions of this world above us so far, as to include in it the whole planetary system. The truth is, the several planets that are contained within the magnus orbis, (as it is called), or the circle which Sa - |

1 Gen. i. 20. : Gen. vii. 11. 3 Job xxxviii. 37. 4 Job xxxviii. 29. Ibid. ver. 4, 7. fifth century, it was the common opinion of Catholics, that before the beginning of the Geneseos, viz., the birth of the Mosaic world; it was beyond a doubt God must have created all these heavenly powers." Burnet's Arch. Phil. c. 8.

in an

a By heaven, some understand in this place the highest super-firmamentary heaven, and by the earth, that pre-existent matter whereof the earth was originally made; and so the sense of the words will be-"that God at first created the matter whereof the whole universe was composed, all at once, instant, and by a word's speaking; but it was the supreme heaven only which he then finished, and formed into a most excellent order, for the place of his own residence, and the habitation of his holy angels; the earth was left rude and indigested, in the manner that Moses has described it, until there should be a fit occasion for its being revised, and set in order likewise."

The better to understand this, and some other matters, in our explication of the formation of celestial bodies, it is proper to observe, that there are three more remarkable systems of the world, the Ptolemaic, Copernican, and what is called the New System, which astronomers have devised.

1. In the Ptolemaic, the earth and waters are supposed to be in the centre of the universe, next to which is the element of air, and next above that the element of fire; then the orb of Mercury, then that of Venus, and then that of the Sun; above the sun's orb those of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; and above them all, the orbs of the fixed stars, then the crystalline orbs, and lastly, the cœlum empyreum, or heaven of heavens. All these massy orbs, and vast bodies borne by them, are in this system supposed to move round the terraqueous globe once in twenty-four hours; and beside that, to perform other revolutions in certain periodical times, according to their distance from the supposed centre, and the different circumference they take.

2. In the Copernican system, the sun is supposed to be in the centre, and the heavens and earth to revolve round about it, according to their several periods; first Mercury, then Venus, then the Earth with its satellite the Moon; then Mars, then Jupiter with its four moons; lastly, Saturn with its five, or more moons revolving round it; and beyond, or above all these, is the firmament, or region of fixed stars, which are all supposed to be at equal distances from their centre the sun.

3. In the New System, the sun and planets have the same site and position as in the Copernican; but then, whereas the Copernican supposes the firmament of the fixed stars to be the

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According to tradition, then, and the representation which this inspired author seems to give us, d this chaos

bounds of the universe, and placed at equal distance from its centre the sun; this new hypothesis supposes, that there are many more systems of suns and planets, besides that in which we have our habitation; that every fixed star, in short, is a sun, encompassed with its complement of planets, both primary and secondary, as well as ours; and that these stars, with their planets are placed at regular distances from each other, and, according to their distances from us, seem to vary in their respective magnitudes.-Derham's Astro-theology, in the preliminary discourse.

c What our translators render in the beginning' some learned men have made in wisdom God created the heavens and the earth;' not only because the Jerusalem targum has it so, but because the Psalmist, paraphrasing upon the works of the creation, breaks forth into this admiration. O Lord! how wonderful are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made them all,' Ps. civ. 24. And again, exhorting us to give thanks unto the Lord for his manifold mercies, he adds, who by wisdom made the heavens,' Ps. cxxxvi. 5. where, by wisdom, as some imagine, he means the Son of God, by whom, says the evangelist, John i. 3. all things were made, or all things created,' says the apostle, Col. i. 16. that are in heaven, and that are in the earth;' and therefore the meaning of the phrase must be, that God, in creating the world, made use of the agency of his Son. Among the ancients (says Petavius, on the work of the six days, B. 1., c. 1.) it was a well known and very common opinion, that by the noun principium, or beginning, was signified the Word or Son. And to this interpretation the word Elohim in the plural number, joined with bara a verb singular, seems to give some countenance; though others are of opinion, that a noun plural, governing a verb singular, is no more than the common idiom of the Hebrew tongue; and for this idiom a very considerable commentator assigns this reason:-That the Hebrew language was originally that of the Canaanites, a people strangely addicted to idolatry and polytheism; and who therefore made more use of the plural Elohim, than of the singular Eloah; which usage the Jews continued, though they were zealous assertors of the unity of the Godhead, and thereupon most commonly joined a verb of the singular number with it, pursuant to their notions of the divine unity.-Le Clerc's dissert. De ling. Hebraica.

d To mention one author out of the many which Grotius has cited, Ovid, in the beginning of his Metamorphoses has given us this description of it:

Before the appearance of the earth and sky
Which covereth all things, Nature

A. M. 1. A. C. 4004; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, 5411. GEN. CH. 1. AND PART OF CH. 2. was a fluid mass, wherein were the materials and ingre- is sometimes in love with one, and sometimes with andients of all bodies, but mingled in confusion with one other. But this account of Moses was to last for ever, another, so that heavy and light, dense and rare, fluid as being the ground-work which God designed for all and solid particles, were jumbled together, and the his future revelations; and therefore it was requisite to atoms or small constituent parts of fire, air, water, and have it framed in such a manner, as that it might conearth, (which have since obtained the name of elements), descend to the meanest capacity, and yet not contradict were every one in every place, and all in a wild confu- any received notions of philosophy. sion and disorder. This seems to be a part of God's original creation; but why he suffered it to continue so long, before he transformed it into an habitable world, is a question only resolvable into the divine pleasure: since, according to the ideas we have of his moral perfections, there is nothing to fix the creation of any thing sooner or later, than his own arbitrary will determined. Only we may imagine, that, after the revolt of so many angels, God, intending to make a new race of creatures, in order to supply their place, and fill up (as it were) the vacancy in heaven; and withal, resolving to make trial of their obedience before he admitted them into his beatific presence, singled out one (as perhaps there might be many chaotic bodies in the universe) placed at a proper distance from his own empyrean seat, to be the habitation of the creatures he was about to form, and might delay the fitting it up for them until the time which his infinite wisdom had determined for their creation was fully come.

3. It is to be observed farther, that though Moses might have in his view the whole planetary system, and know very well, that every day each planet advanced in the same proportion, as the earth did in its formation: yet what he principally chose to insist on (as a specimen of all the rest) was this sublunary creation. He who was versed in all the learning of the Egyptians,' could not be unacquainted with the vulgar, or what is usually called the Ptolemaic hypothesis, which came originally from Egypt into Greece; and yet, instead of expressing his notions according to this, or any other system, we find him giving us a plain narrative, how matters were transacted, without asserting or denying any philosophic truth. Had he indeed talked a great deal of globular and angular particles, of centrical motion, planetary vortices, atmospheres of comets, the earth's rotation, and the sun's rest, he might possibly have pleased the taste of some theorists better; but theories we know are things of uncertain mode. They depend in a great measure upon the humour and caprice of an age, which

Throughout the Universe had but one form
Which men have named Chaos-'Twas a
Raw and shapeless mass-a heap of nature's
Discordant seeds wildly huddled together
Nor else but useless weight, &c.

The Jews, it must be owned, were a nation of no great genius for learning; and therefore, if Moses had given them a false system of the creation, such as a simple people might be apt to fancy, he had both made himself an impostor, and exposed his writings to the contempt and derision of every man of understanding: and yet, to have given them a particular explication of the true one, must have made the illiterate look upon him as a wild romancer. By God's direction, therefore, he took the middle and wisest way, which was to speak exact truth, but cautiously, and in such general terms as might neither confound the minds of the ignorant Jews, nor expose him to the censure of philosophizing Christians: and we may well account it an evident token of a particular providence of God overruling this inspired penman, that he has drawn up the cosmogony in such a manner, as makes it of perpetual use and application; forasmuch as it contains no peculiar notions of his own, no principles borrowed from the ancient exploded philosophy, nor any repugnant to the various discoveries of the new.

4. It is to be observed farther, in relation to this account of Moses, that when God is said to give the word, and every thing thereupon proceeded to its formation, he did not leave matter and motion to do their best, whilst he stood by (according to Dr Cudworth's expression) as an idle spectator of this sport of atoms, and the various results of it; but himself interposed, and, conducting the whole process, gave not only life and being, but form and figure to every part of the creation.

The warmest abettors of mechanical principles do not deny, but that 1a divine energy at least must be admitted in this case, where a world was to be formed, and a wild chaos reduced to a fair, regular, and permanent system. The immediate hand of God (they cannot but acknowledge) is apparent in a miracle, which is an infraction, upon the standing laws of nature; but certainly, of all miracles, the creation of the world is the greatest, not only as it signifies the production of matter and motion out of nothing, but as it was likewise the ranging and putting things into such order, as might make them capable of the laws of motion which were to be ordained for them. For whatever notions we may have of the stated economy of things now, it is certain that the laws of motion (with which philosophers make such noise) could not take place before every part of the creation was ranged and settled in its proper order.

a If matter existed as chaos before the beginning of the Mosaic world, what was it? for what purpose, or in what place did it exist before that time? I answer, that things such as these are not too narrowly to be searched after, since, in a great measure, they exceed the power of human investigation. Thus, It may be allowed however, since, even in the Mosaic we see at times stars arising in our hemisphere which never before had been apparent, but whose pre-existence in some shape, account, there are some passages, such as, 'Let the and in some quarter of the universe, cannot properly be doubted. earth bring forth grass, let the earth bring forth the living And, also, comets are frequently discovered, concerning whose creature after his kind, and it was so,' that whatever origin and first place of abode the abilities of man cannot elicit comes under the compass of mechanical causes, might the least dawning of information. In fine, it is not to be supposed that the heavens themselves are free from decay,-the possibly be effected by matter and motion, only set on celestial as well as the terrestrial bodies must have their inver-work by infinite wisdom, and sustained in their being sions and transmutations; and by the lapse of time and return of and operation by infinite power; but whatever is above chaos, the fixed stars may be converted into planets, and planets, when their deteriorated matter is consumed, in their turn may become fixed stars, &c.-Burnet's Archeol. Phil., c. 9.

1 See Whiston's Theory.

Sce Hale's Origin of Mankind