SUPERIORITY OF CHRISTIANITY.

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Advantage of

Again the completed manifestations of the LECT. VII. Divine Will in the New Testament raise us to a Christianity. justness and purity of conception concerning "the things of God," far superior to that which the ministration of Moses and the prophets could supply. The one was obscure, tinctured with the spirit of bondage, only a preparatory and temporary system: but the other is "the ministration of righteousness," in comparison with which the former "had no glory."* We stand therefore upon safe ground, and are fully warranted by divine authority, to translate the language of the Old Testament upon physical subjects, into such modern expressions as shall be agreeable to the reality of the things spoken of.

Bible, in relation to the objects of natural science, by any writers in particular, I am not able to say. I am aware of but two distinguished authors who have expressly pointed it out: and, as they only indicate it in general terms, the effort in this lecture to pursue it into its details, and to shew its application as a shield to scientific investigations, against the misconceptions and alarms of some wellintentioned men, will not, I trust, be held superfluous. The two authors alluded to, are John George Rosenmüller, in a book published more than sixty years ago, and from which the relevant extracts are given in the Appendix, Supplementary Note F; and my honoured friend, Professor Sedgwick, in his Discourse on the Studies of Cambridge :-A "source of error, on physical questions, has been a mistake respecting the import of certain scripture-phrases. These writings deal not in logical distinctions or rigid definitions. They were addressed to the heart and understanding in popular forms of speech, such as men could readily comprehend. When they describe the Almighty as a being capable of jealousy, love, anger, repentance, and other like passions, they use a language accommodated to our wants and capacities, and God is put before us in the semblance of humanity." Page 147.

* 2 Cor. iii. 10, 11.

LECT. VII.

Mosaic account of the creation.

PART II.

UPON the principle which has been explained, I now propose to the impartial judgment of Bible-scholars, that method of understanding the Mosaic account of the Creation and the Flood, which appears to me just and safe. The way is sufficiently cleared, and the principles explained and confirmed; so that little will be necessary in shewing the application to the cases before us. I. With respect to the account of the CREA

TION.

Gen. i. 1. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

The phrase "the heavens and the earth," though not always used by the sacred writers in the full sense, is the most comprehensive that the Hebrew language affords, to designate the universe of dependent being; and, on account of the connexion, it requires to be so taken in this place. It thus corresponds to the expressions in the New Testament; "All things, that are in the heavens and that are on the earth, the visible and the invisible; the all things."* sublime sentence therefore stands, at the head of the sacred volume, announcing that there was an epoch, a point in the flow of infinite duration, when the whole of the dependent world, or

This

τὰ πάντα.

TO THE MOSAIC RECORDS.

The

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whatever portion of it first had existence, was LECT. VII. brought into being; and that this commencement of being was not from preexistent materials, nor by fortune, chance, or accident, nor through the skill of any finite agent, but absolutely and solely by the will, wisdom, and power of the ONE and ONLY GOD. It was a creation, in the proper sense; not a modelling or new-forming. phrase, "In the beginning" is used several times in Scripture, to denote the commencement of whatever flow of time, or series of things, the subject spoken of requires. One of the primary doctrines of the New Testament is, "In the beginning was the WORD;" shewing that the Word was already in existence, at the point of time spoken of, did not then begin to be, and consequently must have existed in all prior time. But here the expression specifies an action as taking place at this point of time; an act of the Infinite Being. But WHEN that beginning was, when that act was put forth, it was not the design of revelation to inform us. Carry it back as far as we may, there is ETERNITY beyond it: and, compared with that eternity, all finite duration sinks into a moment.

In the same manner we understand the recapitulation in chap. ii. 1-3; the commencement of the briefer narrative, in chap. ii. 4; and the reason of the sabbath given in the fourth commandment, Exodus xx. 11. All that the Israelites could understand by "the heavens and

The fourth commandment.

LECT. VII. the earth," all that they knew and all that it concerned them to know, was "made," (adjusted, arranged, appropriated to new purposes, for so the word often signifies,) "in six days." There is just as much reason to interpret that commandment, as representing the Deity to "faint and be weary," in direct contradiction to other parts of the Bible,* as to maintain that it teaches the proper creation of the universe to have taken place immediately before the institution of the sabbath.

Here I trust that, without assumption or captiousness, I may express regret that Dr. Buckland, in his Bridgewater Treatise, instead of relying on his own sound and clear judgment, obtained a note from one of his learned fellow Professors, which appears very obscure and quite nugatory. If it had any application to the matter at all, it would rather go to darken the evidence of a proper creation being here asserted, or declared in any other part of the Bible. Such aid was not needed.

Whether the original writer of this sacred archive was Moses, or whether he was placing at the head of his work, a composition of an earlier patriarch, the calm majesty and simplicity of the declaration give, as a matter of internal evidence, the strong presumption that he spoke with autho

"Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary ?" Is. xl. 28.

CREATION.

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rity; that he only repeated what the Omniscient LECT. VII. Spirit had commanded him to say and write. The declaration is, in the New Testament, adduced as an object of faith; which implies a divine testimony.*

dition of the

What was the condition or constitution of the Primary confirst created matter?-Certainly it falls within earth. the province of General Physics to examine this question and if the investigation be conducted in the true spirit of philosophy, which is modest, reverential, and cautious,—in a word, the spirit of genuine religion,-though it may not be demonstratively answered in the present life, yet valuable approximations may be made to it. The nebular hypothesis, ridiculed as it has been by persons whose ignorance cannot excuse their presumption, is regarded as in a very high degree probable by some of the finest and most christian minds. If I may venture to utter my own impressions, I must profess it as the most reasonable supposition, and the correlate of the nebular theory, that God originally gave being to the primordial elements of things, the

*Heb. xi. 3.

+ If the reader be not already acquainted with the nature and the reasons of this doctrine, he owes himself a great duty. Let him consult Prof. Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, book II. chap. vii.; Dr. Mantell's Wonders of Geology, Lect. I. § 17, 18; and Prof. Nichol's Architecture of the Heavens, Letters vii. and viii. "The Nebular Hypothesis, in its relations to the Planetary System, may be termed complete; it comprehends its beginnings, establishes those elements on which its duration depends, and exhibits the causes and mode of its ultimate transition into a novel form.-Surely the vision