from a mere assumption, and taking for granted two things, which any person was at liberty to deny, and for which he could not produce the shadow of proof, that the universe will last for ever, and that it is impossible for a being to last for ever which had a beginning. It is impossible, he says, for any thing to be produced out of nothing, ex Tv Tv, or to be resolved into nothing. He does not speak of a Being distinct from matter, by whom it was reduced to order. The doctrine of Plato was, that there were two principles of the universe, both self-existent and independent, matter and God; and that God wishing all things good, and as far as his power extends, nothing evil, having received matter in a discordant state, brought it from disorder into order, judging this to be preferable. Even Socrates treated as fools and madmen those who attempted to solve the question, whether all things were generated and perished, or were eternal and indestructible. Epicurus admitted, that the heavens and the earth had a beginning in respect of their present form, and, as we may infer from his disciple Lucretius, seems to have considered their origin as not very remote; but he maintained, in common with other philosophers, the eternity of the matter of which they were composed. According to his fanciful theory, it existed in the form of atoms, which moving in the immensity of space, met at last, and formed that stupendous and beautiful system, which no man can contemplate without admiration and delight. In order to accomplish this design, Epicurus was under the necessity of making many gratuitous assumptions. He supposed that his atoms were in motion, although no reason could be assigned why they were once in motion, and are now at rest; that their motion up or down, was not perpendicular but somewhat inclined, so that there might be a possibility of their meeting; and that, small as they were, they were not of a uniform shape, but that while some were smooth, others were hooked, and so could lay hold of their neighbours, and coalesce into a palpable body. Furnished with these postulates, he was ready to show how the universe was framed by mechanical causes, without the intervention of an almighty and intelligent Agent. His theory has been repelled by heathen and christians writers; but the ravings of wild speculation never deserved a serious answer. You will observe, that as Archimedes could not move the earth, as he promised, because he could not find a place on which to rest his lever, so without atoms Epicurus could have done nothing. Like the other philosophers, he conceived it impossible that the heavens and the earth should have been made, without pre-existing materials.

It is, then, with propriety and justice, that an Apostle declares, that "through faith" we understand, that the worlds were framed by the word of God. It is revelation which has informed us, that all things had a beginning, and reason assents to the doctrine as true, and derives from its own reflexion new arguments to support it.

The act of creation, which we ascribe to God, is the production of something out of nothing. The power by which creation was effected, we may not be able to conceive, because it is different from the power which we exert, or which we have seen exerted by others. All that we can do is to operate upon materials already existing; and even here, the sphere of our activity is very limited. But there is no reason why we should deny or doubt, that there is such power in God; for it is one of the first dictates of reason, that we ought not to measure him by our standard. As there is nothing to limit the perfections of the First Cause, we believe his power to be infinite, by which we mean, power which can perform every thing that does not imply a contradiction, or which can perform every thing possible. It is plain, I think, that the production of something out of nothing implies no contradiction; and to say, therefore, that God could not create, in the sense already explained, would be to say, that his • Chap. i.

power was not the greatest conceivable, that he was finite in one of his attributes, and consequently finite in them all.

In speaking of the creation of the universe, the sacred historian adopts the common and obvious division of it into two parts, the earth and the heavens. The earth, indeed, is but a very small part of the universe, like a drop to the ocean; but, as it is the allotted habitation of the human race, it was worthy of distinct mention, and a particular description. At first, it seems to have existed in a fluid form, without order and beauty, or to have been covered with water. "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."* As the word rendered Spirit, signifies also wind, some have supposed, that in this place it may be so translated; and that Moses meant to inform us that a mighty wind, called in the Hebrew idiom, a wind of God, agitated the unwieldy mass. But this view of the passage is destitute of any foundation. Wind is air in motion; but at this period, it would seem the atmosphere did not exist. It appears to have been the work of the second day, when God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters."t The word 'p, which is translated by the Seventy

, and in the Vulgate firmamentum, from which our "firmament" is derived, signifies an expanse; a term which very aptly denotes the atmosphere, capable as it is of being so much expanded by heat, and extending to a great distance from the surface of the earth. Besides, the office assigned to the firmament, of dividing the waters from the waters, belongs to no part of nature which we know, but the atmosphere, in which the water exhaled from the earth and the sea is suspended, till, condensed by cold, it falls down in dew and rain. Whatever, then, may have been the operation to which Moses refers, it was the Spirit of God who moved upon the face of the waters.

It is unnecessary to enter upon a particular detail of the successive steps by which the earth was brought into its present form. On the first day, light was created; on the second, the atmosphere was formed; on the third, the water was collected in the seas and lakes, and the dry land appeared, which was immediately clothed with grass, and herbs, and trees; on the fourth, the sun, and moon, and stars were made, or became visible; on the fifth, the waters and the air were replenished with inhabitants; on the sixth, terrestrial animals were produced, and man, last of all, appeared to have dominion over this lower world.

I shall take notice of only one particular in this narrative, which, to those who are acquainted with the actual system of the universe, may seem to render it incredible. The sun is the great fountain of light to the inhabitants of the earth; but, according to Moses, light existed prior to the sun. The objection supposes us to know what we certainly do not know, that light is necessarily dependent upon the sun. But, although it now comes to us principally from him, yet he is not the only source from which it flows. There is light produced by the ignition of combustible substances, light struck out from hard bodies by percussion or friction, phosphoric light, and electric light, of which we sometimes see a brilliant display in the Aurora Borealis. As there is light, even at present, without the sun, what difficulty or improbability is there in conceiving light to have been without him at the beginning?

We cannot tell whether it now proceeds from his body or from his atmosphere; and on this subject, philosophers are divided in opinion. We know not, indeed, what light is, although we are acquainted with its laws and properties; but whatever is its nature and its connexion with the sun, I would understand the making of that luminary on the fourth day, not to be the creation of the matter of which it consists, but the collection of light in him as its grand † Gen. i. 6.

• Gen. i, 2.

repository. My reason for doing so is, that God is said at first to have created the heaven as well as the earth, and that the six days were employed merely in arranging them in their present form. This view will obviate another objection which may occur to a philosophical mind,-that the earth could not have occupied its proper place in the system, if it had been made before the sun, by which it is retained in its orbit. But, if the law of gravitation had then been established, and the planetary movements had begun, the matter can be satisfactorily explained, by supposing that the sun was created at the same time with the earth, but that it was not till the fourth day that he became a luminous body. The influence which he exerts upon the motion of the earth, depends not upon his light, but upon his sold mass.

All the other parts of creation are comprehended under the name of the heavens, which, in the plural number, signifies in the language of the Jews, the region where clouds and meteors are formed, or the air; the region of the sun, moon, and stars; and lastly, the heaven of heavens, the habitation of the blest. We have spoken of the first, which properly belongs to the earth, in our remarks upon the firmament or expanse. The sun, we have already seen, is the great source of light to our system; and the moon, although probably created as soon as the earth, is said to have been made on the fourth day, because then only it became visible by reflecting the rays of the sun. Under the denomination of the stars are included not only those luminaries, which are properly called so, but the planets also which belong to our system. Our Bibles give us no farther account of them, than that they were appointed for signs and for seasons; and any additional information respecting them, is founded on observation and reasoning. The discoveries of modern science make no part of Theology; but they are worthy of attention, because they exalt our ideas of the might and beneficence of our Creator. As the planets are removed from us by many millions of miles, they could not be visible unless their magnitude was great. How much greater is the magnitude of the fixed stars, the distance of which from the earth is such, that it seems but a step to the utmost planet which revolves around the sun! It is natural to ask, for what purpose they were placed in the heavens? It was not surely to give light to the earth; for all their light is of little account, and more would be furnished by a single additional satellite of a size far less than the moon. It is not to mark the revolution of the year, and the progress of the seasons; for this is ascertained by the motion of the sun, and the changes which take place upon the surface of the earth. Shall we then suppose that they were created in vain? Shall we suppose that a Being of infinite wisdom, who made the little ball which we inhabit for great purposes, and made that star which we call the sun, to give it light, has lavished his power in the production of thousands and millions of suns for no assignable end? Why are such vast bodies so situated as to appear to us only as points? Was their surpassing splendour, which attracts, indeed, the eye of a spectator upon earth, but darts upon it only a faint and ineffectual ray, bebestowed to be wasted on the barren fields of ether? We cannot for a moment admit a conclusion which seems to charge the Lord of nature with folly, and is at variance with the proofs of intelligence and design which are so amply supplied by his other works. The opinion, that around those suns planets revolve, the inhabitants of which rejoice in their light, and are cheered by their influences, is something more than a flight of fancy. It rests upon strong grounds of belief; and while it vindicates the wisdom of God in replenishing with so many bodies the wide regions of space which would be otherwise useless, it fills us with admiration of his inexhaustible goodness, which has diffused life and happiness far beyond the reach of the eye, and the more extended range of imagination. It may be mentioned as a corroboration of this theory, that in the heavenly bodies which lie nearer us, we observe certain phenomena, which indi

cate that they are destined for some other purpose than to give light to the earth. The surface of the moon, like that of our globe, is diversified by hills and vallies, which we cannot conceive to be of any use, if the moon is a solitude. In three of the planets, we observe a provision similar to what is made for us, to alleviate the darkness of the night, in the satellites which move around them, in different times, and at different distances. Why are they accompanied with moons, if there are no inhabitants to whom their light would be grateful in the absence of the sun? To us they can be of no use, because they are invisible to the unassisted eye. There is another wonderful fact, from which, however, we cannot reason so certainly, the ring of Saturn, because we are unacquainted with its use; but we may be confident that it was not placed there in vain. If it was intended for ornament, there must be some spectators nearer than the inhabitants of this globe, to whom it was unknown till modern times, and of whom scarcely one in a hundred thousand has ever seen it, and then very imperfectly through a telescope: if it was intended for accommodation, it was the accommodation not of the planet itself, which no more needed this appendage than Jupiter or Mars, but of the beings who reside upon its surface. Upon the whole, it is highly probable, that as the fixed stars are luminous bodies of an immense size, or in other words, suns, they are surrounded, like our sun, with planets, which are not deserts, but the seats of life, and activity, and enjoyment. Thus, the universe opens upon us in all its magnificence and extent; and lifting up our thoughts to Him, at whose fiat it arose out of nothing, we feel ourselves constrained to express our admiration and praise in the words of the Psalmist, "How manifold, O Lord, are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches."

The heavens signify, in the last place, the region of peace, and purity, and joy, where God manifests himself in all his glory to his perfect creatures. It must be a place, because human bodies at present dwell in it, and it is the destined abode of the just after the resurrection; and it must therefore, have been created. We can say little more about it; but we may bestow a few words in passing, upon its original inhabitants, the angels, although no mention is made of them in the Mosaic account of the creation. We know that they are creatures, who, as an Apostle informs us, were called into existence by our Saviour, who created things visible and invisible, probably at that time when the heavens were made, with all their host. We are told, that when God laid the foundation of the earth, "the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy." * They are pure spirits, although they have occasionally assumed a visible form. They were created in a state of holiness and felicity, from which some of them fell through pride, and have been cast down into darkness, where they are "reserved in chains unto the judgment of the great day." They excel in wisdom and strength, are possessed of knowledge far superior to that of man, and of power which his mightiest efforts could not resist. They are employed by God in the affairs of his government. They execute judgments upon the wicked, and minister to them who are the heirs of salvation. Although we do not see them, yet they are well known to us by means of the Scriptures, which make frequent mention of them, and give a detail of their offices and operations. But I shall not enlarge upon this subject at present: it is sufficient to have referred to angels as a part, and a distinguished part of the creation.

Accord

Our next inquiry relates to the time when the world was created. ing to the Hebrew chronology, as ascertained by Archbishop Usher, the creation took place four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ; but according to the Septuagint, nearly six thousand years. There can be little doubt which of these computations should be preferred. The original, when all the † Jude 6.

*Job xxxviii. 7.

copies agrec, is surely higher authority than a translation. With me, the authority of the version would go but a short way; and I cannot conceive for what reason some learned men are disposed to pay such deference to it in this and in other matters, as it is full of mistakes and blunders, and is probably the most inaccurate of all translations. But, here we are encountered by the pretended discoveries of modern science; and the observations which have been made upon the structure of the earth, are supposed to contradict the Mosaic account, by proving that it must have been created at a more distant period, if it was created at all; and that it must have undergone many revolutions prior to what we call the beginning. Some reject the account of Moses entirely; and others conceive that it tells us, not of the original creation of the earth, but of the changes which took place upon it after some terrible convulsion. Thus, according to the words of a celebrated poet,

"Some drill and bore

The solid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn

That He who made it, and revealed its date

To Moses, was mistaken in its age."*

This is manifestly a subject beyond the reach of our faculties; and geology, as sometimes conducted, is a monument of human presumption, which would be truly ridiculous were it not offensive by its impiety. "Where wast thou," said the Almighty to Job, "when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding." Our philosophers do not pretend to have been present when the earth was founded; but they profess to shew us how it was made, and that a much longer period was necessary to form its rocks and its strata, than the Scriptures assign. Thus puny mortals with a spark of intel lect, and a moment for observation, during which they take a hasty glance of a few superficial appearances, deem themselves authorised to give the lie to Him who made and fashioned them, and every thing which they see. It happens, however, that forsaking the only safe guide in such high speculations, and following the faint and deceitful light of reason, they wander in the mazes of error and uncertainty. Their theories are different; what one builds up, another destroys; and amidst the conflict of opinions, all equally false, the narrative of Moses stands unmoved, like the rock amidst the waves, resting on the solid basis of all the proofs by which the genuineness and inspiration of his writings are demonstrated. "From the endless discordance in the opinions of philosophers on this point," says a learned Professor; "from the manifest inadequacy of the data we are at present in possession of; and from the physical impossibilities which must forever be a bar to any thing more than a superficial knowledge of the earth's structure, it is preposterous to suppose, that that high decree of moral evidence on which the credibility of Scripture rests, can with any justice be weakened by our interpretation of phenomena, the connexion of which among themselves even, we certainly are at present, and probably ever shall be, incapable of explaining."

The vanity of the reasoning of modern geologists, may be made manifest, and the basis of their theories overturned, in a very easy way. They talk of primitive formations, and ascribe the origin of rocks to precipitation and crystallization. Looking at a piece of granite from the mountains, they point out the characters of aqueous or igneous fusion, and say that it was formed by the agency of water or fire, carried on through a long process, which it required ages to complete. It is not denied that the substance might have been produced by the laws of chemistry, but is it certain that it was so produced? Those laws are at present operating throughout our world; but, if it was not eternal, they must have had a commencement. Why may we not * Cowper's Task, B. III. † Job xxxviii. 4.