not only in the midst of the exactest records of antiquity, but in the light of those modern discoveries in physical science which bear most directly on its statements. In reliableness and in consistency, it stands alone. The myths of heathenism regarding the origin of the world can be easily separated from it. They are all rebuked by its accuracy. While it contains every element of truth which imparts to them any coherency which they possess, it gives no place to their grotesque and deformed traditions.

Whence this exact and most impressive record? In the midst of that intellectual and superstitious chaos which, some say, antiquity at first presented, how arose this bright, solid, and wondrously harmonious system? Traditions could not aid Moses. They only darkened while they multiplied the elements of confusion. Had he really, as some suppose, the sagacity to select, and the skill to combine, separate truths as to creation, while he cast aside the errors of the refuse of ages? Before you can answer that question, you require to pass in review the grotesque beliefs and practices of all the surrounding nations at the time in which he lived, the ignorance of the people, the defective scholarship of the priests, and the absence of attainments in natural science; and you must inquire into the mere possibility of Moses or of any other man, however refined in feeling and profound in thoughtfulness, producing of himself such a history as shines in the first chapter of Genesis. The production of such a record as that out of the materials then existing, may be held as beyond the capabilities of any unaided human intellect. We do not reason here as to the inspiration of the record; we are dealing only with the superiority of the Bible record over all others, as presumptive evidence that it is worthy not only of your careful study, but of your unhesitating acceptance.

It does not avail, for the settlement of this question, to say that the singular excellencies of the Bible account of creationis due to the comparatively pure and correct views of the Divine Being which were held by the Hebrews; for there is this prior question, how came the Hebrews to have these correct views? Seeing their tendency to idolatry and to other heathen practices, how is it that they preserved this historic gem in undimmed lustre? If this history is indeed to be regarded as no more than a mere deduction from different traditions by a philosophic thinker, it is certainly a solitary result in the region of human effort. It has no parallel. In exactness, in splendour, in magnitude, and in far-reaching insight, there can be found no similar result in the history of the most cultivated nations of either ancient or modern times.

Passing from the connexion of this portion of Bible history with those cosmogonies, let us examine its constituent sections in their mutual relations. Can they be adjusted to one another? And can they be satisfactorily harmonised with the facts of science?

II. A BEGINNING.

In the very first verse, we have an announcement which distances all that natural science can reach or reveal,"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." The doctrine of creation confronts us. The origination of matter, as against its eternal existence, is proclaimed. God is directly connected with the universe. As already indicated, the last position which natural science can reach, and which limits natural theology, is the starting point of Biblical or systematic theology. It begins where the others end. There is no shelter given to Pantheism or Atheism. Both are alike repudiated. God is not set forth as a mere power contained within the mysterious haze of in

finity, and having no more relation to the world and its inhabitants than that which is represented by the cold gaze of a distant star. There is no hesitancy nor ambiguity. By this positive exclusion of eternity from the existence of the uni verse, and by repelling the idea of accidental creation, the fact of a beginning is raised not only above all the entangling speculations of recent philosophy, but above the reasonings of modern scepticism. This is, indeed, in some instances, frankly admitted by those who have pushed the discoveries of science to their present limit. They tell us that however much farther they may hereafter proceed, they have no hope of gaining the least insight into that origination of matter of which the Scriptures speak. This is beyond the aim of the sciences, for each is restricted to its own facts and laws, and is necessarily silent as to history antecedent to itself. "To ascend to the origin of things," says Sir John Herschel, "and speculate on creation, is not the business of the natural philopopher." 1

But men of lesser capacity, though of equal sincerity, profess to scorn the Bible declaration as to a beginning. Their scorn is unavailing, for their reasoning and inferences are rapidly yielding to the pressure of the very sciences which they most revere and serve. Historically, the changed tone of scepticism is encouraging. Spurning the subjection of their reason to revelation, and pitying the "weakness" of those who disliked their arrogance and rejected their dogmas, they demanded proof of a beginning and evidence for the probability of a close or change in the future.

The highest Christian apologists found it vain to reason with those who paid servile homage to Plato while they ridiculed Moses, and who carried the principles which Newton

1

1 Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 38.

enunciated beyond their legitimate application; and were constrained to be silent because, as yet, the sciences gave them no argument by which to meet the questions of their opponents. But the most recent findings of natural philosophy have strikingly vindicated the Scriptures, and cast discredit on the boasted assumptions of an imperfect science. Almost no man of acknowledged eminence can now be found to vindicate the eternity of the present cosmical dispensation; and sceptical theorists have to content themselves by boldly asserting that creation, or a beginning by the will of a Creator, is altogether inconceivable.

Some of our highest authorities in physical science, prosecuting their investigation without the slightest reference to Scripture statements, have given to them direct confirmation, and have set aside the assertion of "inconceivableness." "The doctrine of a resisting medium leads us towards a point which the nebular hypothesis assumes,—a beginning of the present order of things. There must have been a commencement of the motions now going on in the solar system. Since these motions, when once begun, would be deranged and destroyed in a period which, however large, is yet finite, it is obvious we cannot carry their origin indefinitely backwards in the range of past duration. The argument is indeed forced upon our minds, whatever view we take of the past history of the world. Some have endeavoured to evade its force by maintaining that the world, as it now exists, has existed from eternity. But we may observe that the doctrine of a resisting medium, once established, makes the imagination untenable, compels us to go back to the origin, not only of the present course of the world, not only of the earth, but of the solar system itself; and thus sets us forth upon that path of research into the series of past causation, where we obtain no answer of which the meaning corresponds

to our questions, till we rest in the conclusion of a most provident and most powerful Creating Intelligence."1

And the following results, stated by Sir William Thomson, are, by their definiteness, very encouraging to the Bible student, as confirming the declarations of the Scriptures, not only as to the commencement, but as to the close, of the present cosmical dispensation.

1. "There is at present, in the material world, a universal tendency to the dissipation of mechanical energy.

2.

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Any restoration of mechanical energy, without more than equivalent dissipation, is impossible to inanimate material processes, and is probably never effected by means of organised matter, either endowed with vegetable life or subjected to the will of an animated creature.

3. "Within a finite period of time past, the earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation of man as at present constituted, unless operations have been, or are to be, performed, which are impossible under the laws to which the known operations going on at present in the material world. are subject." 2

That statement is itself a valuable contribution to Biblical apologetics. Inexorable fact and demonstration have not only dissipated perpetually recurrent theories as to the eternity of the present material system, but furnished presumptive evidence of a new and higher order of existences. These remarkable conclusions not only confirm the Bible delaration as to a commencement, but with prophetic directness sustain its delineations of change and dissolution, and of the establishment of "new heavens and a new earth."

1 Bridgewater Treatise, by Dr. Whewell, p. 206. Edition, 1833. 2 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1852.