abstract reasoning or empty speculation about God's nature; but the burning words which the apostles spoke about Him, whom they had looked upon and their hands had handled.

Other illustrations of our position might be brought forward; but this will be enough to show that the teaching of God has been what it might have been expected to be, a teaching by the eye.

With this position in view, let us turn to the task of examining portions of the first chapter in Genesis.

Several theories have been advanced about it, in order to show that the discoveries of science are not at variance with the records of the Bible. By some it has been proposed to consider the six days as representing six periods of immense duration. We must, however, agree with those who maintain that the language of the fourth commandment is full against this theory. If the words of that commandment only mean that God has devoted one portion of time out of seven to the purposes of rest, then it will be difficult to avoid the force of such reasoning as this. If God only designed to devote one part out of seven to rest, then if I give up one month in seven, or one year in seven, to Sabbatical purposes, I shall obey that command as fully as if I were to give up one day out of seven to those purposes; and thus the command would practically leave every man at liberty to do what was right in his own eyes; and apart from other considerations, the use of the day as a benevolent appointment for the benefit of wearied man and beast, would be destroyed, uniformity in the observance of the Sabbath being evidently essential to its very existence as an institution of benefit.

But how is the language of this command to be reconciled with the discoveries of geology? Geology tells us that there have been fixed periods of life-vegetable and animal life, clearly defined and marked out. Geology reads with a great amount of certainty the dates of rocks, of animal and vegetable deposits. But it does not appear that geology can tell us how long it took to place upon the earth any new species of either animal or vegetable life: but it only tells us how long each species existed, or rather that each species did exist upon the earth for a lengthened period. It appears also that geology is silent upon the actual state of the earth at the termination of one creative period and the commencement of another.

Now if we take the theory that the fourth commandment only refers to the epoch when these successive periods had all passed away, and tells us that in six actual days God did finally arrange the earth for man's immediate habitation, and did fill it with those creatures which were destined to be man's contemporaries; then all is plain. And it only remains to inquire, does Moses,

in the first chapter of Genesis, give us an account of what is referred to in the fourth commandment? We believe that he does.

It has been said that this account is only the effort of some Hebrew Descartes or Newton, introduced with all the pomp of oriental literature and eastern assumption. Not now to pause upon some internal difficulties in the account itself, in taking such a view we would ask this simple question, Is there nothing superhuman, nothing divine, nothing beyond the reach of man's imagination or the scope of man's thoughts, in the writings of Moses? If there is not, Moses stands unrivalled among his fellows, a giant among pigmies, a demi-god among men; and the very existence of such a man and such a writer in the early days of the world is itself a greater wonder, a more stupendous miracle, than any wonder which in later days daring and designing writers have attempted to foist upon the weak, the credulous, the superstitious.

But if we grant that there is a something savouring of more than human knowledge, a portion of something divine in his writings, he must have got it from above; his intercourse must have been with Heaven. Are we to believe that a man who had received instruction from God, from the fountain of truth itself, should have imbibed so little of the love of truth, should have drunk so little of the spirit of his teacher, as to have deliberately built up a scheme of his own devising, and then handed it down to his people as a Heaven-taught record.

But let us examine the record itself. We are told that light appeared on the first day, the sun and moon on the fourth day. Are we to suppose that this man Moses-this Hebrew Newton -this impostor, who has palmed upon the world his own imaginings as God's word-had at that period conceived the idea that the world had received light which had emanated not from the sun?

Are we to suppose that a man who could believe that the firmament was a solid dome, through certain holes in which the stars shone like the kitchen fire through the holes in a cullender; or else that the stars were like studs with polished heads hammered into its under surface; are we to suppose that a man who could seriously hold such a ridiculous theory about the firmament, should, by his own unaided understanding, in that dark day of the world's infancy, have arrived at the notion that the earth could have received light from some other source than the sun; or that the sun itself was not a mass of light, but only a place of light; not the flame itself, but the lamp which holds the flame? Or, conversely, can we suppose that a man holding such singular views about light should, at the same time, hold such absurd views about the firmament? It is said that the firmament was to divide the waters from the

waters, and that therefore Moses intended to show that it was a solid dome. If so, why does he not explain to us how the clouds were to be seen through it? Are we to understand that the dome was transparent, so that the clouds could be seen through it? Is it to be supposed that the sublime spectacle of the apparent movement of the stars round the earth should have failed to impress this Hebrew Newton? If he had observed this, why does he not explain how it could have taken place consistently with the idea of the existence of a solid dome resting upon immoveable pillars?

If it be answered that the account of Moses' cosmogony is consistent with the cosmogony of the ancients generally, we answer, it may be so: one tissue of puerilities may be consistent in itself; but it is absurd to suppose a statement of the veriest puerilities to be consistent with the enunciation of such truths as it is inconceivable Moses could have guessed at.

Once more, by what effort of human imagination could this Hebrew Newton have conceived such a sublime thought as that contained in verse 26? "And God said, Let us make man," &c. Why should he have passed out of the simple declaration, God said, Let the thing be, to the more wonderful and mysterious one, "God said, Let us make." Without putting a violence upon the plain meaning of language, we must explain the image of God as referring to the whole man, alike to his body as to his soul? Are we to suppose that the idea brought before us here could have been conceived by a man's imagination? Can we suppose it possible that a man could have imagined that in the Godhead there should be one Person ordained to be the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His person, and that in the image of this Person man was formed? If we suppose that he had been favoured with a vision of this Person, we could understand his representing man as formed in His image, but not otherwise. But then, if he had been favoured with such a vision, he must have been taught of God. Without such an hypothesis it is utterly inconceivable that he could have invented such a sublime wonder as the formation of man in the likeness of the Creator.

Look at it from what side we will, it is difficult, it is impossible, to conceive that Genesis i. can contain the fine-spun imaginings of a mere man, however wise he might be.

This idea is still more absurd if it can be shown that the order of creation here described corresponds with the order of the various periods of creation as discovered by geological investigations.

Now it has been admitted on all hands that these investigations of modern science appear to conflict with the account givon by Moses, and certainly do conflict with the formerly received interpretations of that account. In answer, we are

told that the question to be first determined is, whether our interpretation of the account be correct, or whether we have given to the language of Moses a meaning which it does not of necessity convey. This position has been attacked as entirely reprehensible; but is there any really sound reason for thus repudiating it? Are we to suppose it impossible that any writer of the Bible should have given utterance to sentiments of a deeper meaning than he conceived at the time of utterance, and of a higher thought than his cotemporaries could reach to? or are we to suppose that the progress of time, the occurrence of circumstances, and even the discoveries of science, were not intended to throw increasing light upon any portion of revealed truth?

Are there no dicta of man's genius to be quoted, which evidently have borne a deeper meaning than the original authors intended? Are there no inventions of man's skill which have been turned to purposes higher and more extended than those the original inventors designed?

And if man's unaided genius has conceived notions and ideas of greater grasp and higher reach than their own conceptions originally aimed at, surely it is not too much to suppose that men taught of Heaven might have uttered truths the full length and breadth of which themselves did not realize at the time of utterance. And why should we fear to allow that God did intend that the progress of time should throw a light upon parts of His word-a light which has, and will have, the effect of showing men a path not divergent from, but convergent towards, the Fountain of truth and life?

Some interpreters of Genesis i. have supposed that the narrative of the creation is an account of what Moses saw in vision. There is certainly much probability in this view.

It has been already argued that there is reason from analogy to expect that revelation would primarily appeal to the eye rather than to the ear.

We are positively told that when God directed Moses to build a tabernacle, he showed him a pattern of the building upon the mount. We find also the Bible concluded with the account of a vision. Agreeable to all this it is to suppose that Moses in Genesis i. gives an account of a vision which God made to

him.

In confirmation of this view we have the work of the fourth day. There he speaks of the sun and moon as two greater lights; now, if he speaks of what God told him, there is unquestionably a difficulty in his calling that, viz. the moon, a greater light, which we know to be a very small body compared with other celestial bodies. This difficulty, however, is not insurmountable, because the writer may be speaking of these bodies, the sun and moon, not as they are absolutely in their

bulk, but simply as regards the amount of light which they convey to the earth; and of course when compared with the stars as light-giving bodies, they are undoubtedly greater lights. But the difficulty vanishes if we suppose that Moses relates what he saw in vision, for then he necessarily speaks of the sun and moon as in every respect two greater lights; greater in bulk compared with the stars as seen from the earth, as well as greater in respect of the amount of the light which they supply to the earth. But whichever way we interpret the term "greater lights," the expression occurring in the very commencement of the Bible is valuable, because thus is indicated to us the manner in which it was God's design that natural phenomena should be spoken of throughout His word: viz., not as these things are in their abstract state, but as they are relatively to man. The language employed about them is the language of sight. To this agree intimations in Scripture tending to show that it is the design of God to tell us only so much of things and purposes as is needful to lead to practical results, and no more. Of other worlds and their inhabitants, of His future purposes, of the hereafter condition of men, He has revealed so much as is required to lead to action, but nothing to satisfy curiosity. The language descriptive of Himself and His own nature is evidently, in a great degree, such language, addressed to our understanding by appealing to what we see in others and feel in ourselves; and doubtless is the best calculated to enable us to rise up to the high idea of the Godhead.

It must be by no means forgotten that neither geology, nor astronomy, nor chemistry, nor any other science, have as yet exhausted their resources, and unfolded to men all the arcana of nature which they may yet lay bare. Astronomy was once supposed to shake the truth of revelation. Geology has been sup posed to do the same; possibly some future insight into some new secrets of nature may hereafter be supposed to assail the truth of revelation.

Would it not be for the happiness and comfort of believers in revelation to accept at once this maxim?—That God has spoken of such things as are the objects of scientific investigation, not as they are essentially in themselves, but as they are in their uses and advantages to us. The language which speaks of them is rather relatively than absolutely true.

But while we are yet learners in the school of nature, not having yet opened all her treasures of knowledge, is it time to take the language of arrogant assumption, as though we had read from end to end the book of nature, and there were not a secret there with which we were not fully familiar? If we cannot perfectly see the reconciliation between revelation and science, let modesty, let self-diffidence, let the consciousness itself of a knowledge that is growing and progressive, not