IN REGARD to the second scheme of reconciliation, it may be well to spend a few words; though we can scarce hope to make any material addition to what was gained from Professor Lewis in the review of his book in our number for September, 1857.

Now, it is remarkable, that within the first two chapters of Genesis the word day is undeniably met with in no less than three different senses. First, we find it used as the simple antithesis of night, without reference, apparently, to any particular duration of time: "And GOD called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night." Second, we have it used for a period of time, perhaps of indefinite length, but having two contrasted portions or states, which are spoken of as an evening and a morning. The literal rendering of the passage is, "And there was an evening, and there was a morning; one day," or "the first day;" and so on through the six periods of the creative work. It is urged that in all these cases the words evening and morning may be used, not with reference to any sun-marked divisions of time; for, according to the record, the sun was not optically created till the fourth day; but merely to denote two antithetic parts of a cycle of time, as being analogous to the evening and morning of a solar day; just as we are

wont to designate youth and old age as the morning and evening of human life, or the growth and decline of kingdoms and states as the morning and evening of national existence. However, that is not the point now. Third, we find the term employed to denote the whole six foregoing periods, all grouped together in one great round of time, with its included series of creative acts: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day when the LORD GOD made the earth and the heavens."

Further: On turning to the fifth chapter of Micah we find the word day occurring in a very different sense certainly from what Mr. Lord attaches to it in any of the forecited instances. The Prophet is speaking of the Divine Logos, of Him who “in the beginning was with GOD, and was GOD: " "Whose outgoings are from of old, from the days of eternity." For such is the marginal reading of the English version, and is much truer to the original, than that of the regular text. So, again, in the eighth chapter of Proverbs, where the same Divine Logos, or Wisdom, is represented as speaking of Himself in connection with the Father, or the PRIMAL SOURCE of Deity: "The LORD possessed Me as His only-Begotten, the Beginning of His ways, before His works of old. From eternity was I anointed; when He had not made the earth, or the parts beyond, or the very beginning of the dust of the world; when He prepared the heavens I was there; when He made a law for the sea, even when He ordained the supports of the earth; I was ever with Him as an only Child; every DAY was I His delight, rejoicing always before Him." We quote only so much of the sublime passage as seems needful to our purpose; giving in this case also a more literal version than that of the English text. Likewise, in the seventh of Daniel, "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" is repeatedly designated as "the Ancient of days: "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, His garment white as snow, His throne the fiery flame, His wheels burning fire: a fiery stream issued from before Him; thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him." For of what days could "He that inhabiteth eternity' be fitly spoken of as the Ancient? What must we conceive to

be the days of Him "in whose sight a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night?" What can they be but some vast circles of duration, which pass man's understanding; which bear some such relation to the Divine Nature as a common circuit of the sun does to the human; and which are perhaps therefore called days, because the diurnal rounds of our life are vastly attenuated, or infinitesimal miniatures of them? And so, again, in the first of Hebrews, GOD the Father is represented as saying to Him "who is before all things, and by whom all things consist; Him "whose throne is for ever and ever," and "whose outgoings are from the days of eternity;" "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee." For that this refers to "the eternal generation of the Son," seems evident from the context: "And Thou, LORD, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands." And what kind of a day must that have been, when the birth or generation of Him took place, who was "begotten before all worlds?" Was it such a day as is marked off by "one complete revolution of the earth on its axis," or any sun-made division of time at all? or was it rather such a day as we may faintly conceive to be rounded out in "worlds not lighted by the sun," and the light of which is none other than the presence of GOD Himself?

We venture, then, to presume that even Mr. Lord may possibly admit, that in these cases at least the word day means something more than our solar diurnal periods; that these "days of eternity" are vast time-cycles, (if indeed they should not be regarded as standing outside of time,) such as are not expressible in human language, nor measurable by any scale of human calculation; and which can only be imaged in little to the mind's apprehensive power, under forms and measures borrowed from the conditions of our earthly state. As the image of GOD in the human soul, though a true image, is yet but a miniature image; so the ways, the periods, the laws of the Divine Being, His working, and His rest, all ineffable though they be, may still be regarded as bearing some likeness or analogy to those of our being, and are therefore diminutively figured under the forms of ours. GOD's days are not as our days; but it is under

an image of ours that we can best conceive something of His. Hence words derived from the passages of earth and time are continually transferred to those of heaven and eternity: hence Scripture, as every one knows, describes the thoughts, movements, purposes of the Divine Mind in the language of ours; because it is only under the forms of this language that we can even approach to any conception of them; it is only from the pattern of our own nature that we can draw any idea of the Divine.

Many other passages might be quoted from Scripture, to approve the exceeding compass and variety of usage which prevailed among the ancient Hebrews in regard to the word day. Nor are there wanting divers instances of a similar usage in case of other words; as in the first of Hebrews, GOD the Father being the Speaker, and GOD the Son the Person addressed: "But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail." And here it may not be amiss to remember what our SAVIOUR of Himself in the last of Revelation: "I am the root and says the offspring of David; the bright and morning star." For what was the morning, where the dayspring, whose divine beauty He ushered in? But the expression is metaphorical? Of course it is; but that does not make it any the less pertinent to ask, how long, of what nature, when began, the day to which He bore any such relation as the morning star bears to our day? So, too, in the 110th Psalm, where, again, the Messiah is evidently the Person addressed: "From the womb of the morning Thou hast the dew of Thy youth;" or, as rendered in the Psalter, "The dew of Thy birth is of the womb of the morning." For what day-dawn was it, or what analogue of our daily mornings, from, or before, the dews of which the Eternal Word had the freshness of His nativity? So, again, we might ask, when was the beginning, what the nature of that day which broke in heaven when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of GOD shouted for joy?" Was it such a day as is rounded out by the earth's diurnal motion? Finally: When it is said, "How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" how are we to understand the passage? What, where was the day, from the dawn of which Lucifer took his title of son of the morning? To each of these questions Mr.

Lord can only answer, "Morning is never caused by any other light than that of the sun."

From all which it may be thought to appear, that Scripture recognizes such things as Divine periods, or æonic circles of eternity, which are therefore called days, because they have in them something analogous to the diurnal circles of earthly time; in a word, GoD's days, and bearing some such proportion to His thoughts, as man's days bear to man's thoughts. And it may be, that as the diurnal periods of earth have each their evening and morning, the alternation of which both makes their periodic nature, and marks their periodic recurrence; so the several parts of this arrangement find their analogues in the olamic periods of heaven; these also having each their two contrasted portions, the alternation of which serves in like sort to determine their periodic character, and mark their recurrence on the divine chronometer; and which are therefore called evening and morning, because these terms aptly suggest their nature, and come as near the truth of things as any furnished by human language. It may be, too, that of these divine olamic circles, or "days of eternity," six were meant to be included, and by the old Hebrew mind were understood to be included, in the Mosaic record of creation; the six days or periods of the narrative, with their respective goings-forth of the Omnific Word, being used, to mark the several stages of the creative work; each period having, moreover, its evening of decline from a former state, and its morning of resurgence to a higher state; or, perhaps, each earlier day being but as an evening, compared to the supervening dawn of a diviner epoch. And it may be, that as these six periods of Divine Work were followed by a like period of Divine Rest, the morning of which has not yet dawned; so a miniature image of this order was appointed for man: in pursuance of which appointment every six diurnal periods of our human work are to be followed by a like period of human rest. And that as GoD's Sabbath Work is for the redeeming and saving of men, so all our Sabbaths should be spent in coöperating with Him to this end, till, perhaps, the seventh morning shall break with the unimaginable light of the Resurrection.

Once more: What should hinder the belief, that St. Paul