CHAPTER IV.

Unity of the Heavens and the Earth-Unity in the Structure of the Earth, and in its Life-Forms.

"Order is Heaven's first law; and the second is like unto it, that everything serves an end. This is the sum of all science. These are the two mites, even all that she hath, which she throws into the treasury of the Lord; and as she does so in faith, Eternal Wisdom looks on and commends the deed.”—Principal M‘Cosh.

I.-UNITY OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH.

THE

HE first reference in Genesis to the unity of "the heaven and the earth," is amply confirmed and illustrated by subsequent statements. The Israelites of old never doubted this doctrine; they believed that "the heaven and the earth" were necessarily one, because they were created and governed by the ONE omnipotent Ruler. It could scarcely be otherwise, for no truth was taught by their prophets with greater directness and felicity of expression.

"While philosophy was still breathing mist, and living in a chaos, the opening sentence of the Bible had been shining on the Hebrew mind for centuries, a ray direct from heaven." 1 This unity was as fully and as emphatically taught, as were its commencement and its close. That the Israelites had any such conceptions of the vastness of the universe as has has been unfolded by modern astronomy, no one supposes; but their conceptions were accurate in so far as they were based on revelation.

The freedom and clearness of the announcements in the

1 "Man Primeval," J. Harris, p. 15.

Bible, have become only the more remarkable through the increasing light of astronomical science. God is called the "possessor of heaven and earth," "the maker of heaven and earth." "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's." 2 "Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it."3 In the New Testament, the same explicitness prevails. "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth."4 And the angel 66 sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and the sea and the things which are therein." 5 Other passages in the same strain might be adduced, showing the necessary unity of the cosmical system as dependent on the will of ONE Omnipotent and infinitely wise Being. There is, in the Bible, no conflict of creative powers; there is no incongruity of adjusted worlds, such as other records present. No one can peruse the books of the Bible, bearing in mind that they are separated by centuries, without being impressed by the fact of one design and one pervading spirit.

You cannot reflect on the immeasurableness of the universe as taught in the Bible, without at once recognising the exactness of the terms used. They are not vague and shadowy or incongruous, but are so definite as to meet the generalisations of astronomy. Ideas were at one time not uncommon as to the measurableness of the heavens and the numbering of the stars; but in the Bible this arrogance found only rebuke, as it ever assigned to Deity alone the prerogative of measuring space and counting the stars. "Look now

1 Genesis, xiv. 19. 2 Psalm cxv. 15, 16; Psalm cxxiv. 8; Psalm cxlvi. 6. 3 Isaiah, xlii. 5. 4 Matthew, xi. 25. 5 Revelation, v. 6.

toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them." 1 "He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them by their names." "To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

high they are!" 4

"2

"Is not God in the

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by names, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” 3 height of heaven? and behold the height of the stars, how "For by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” 5 These and similar sublime passages we can hold firmly in the light of modern discoveries; they sustain all that has been yet transcribed on the side of science, and astronomy cannot dissociate itself from these great truths.

The idea of unity is strengthened by the impressive conclusion of M. Maedler, that this visible universe of suns and their systems is moving around some grand centre, in a ceaseless, and, to us, mysterious march. Guided by analogy, Herschel reached this inference; and, since that time, definite reasoning has confirmed it. M. Maedler's conclusion that the star, Alcyone, one of the Pleiades, the well known seven stars, represents the common centre of the cosmical system, has in its support such concurrent approval that it may be accepted. While admitting the soundness of the inference that there is such a centre, some doubt whether it has yet been ascertained, and, like the late Sir David Brewster, sup

1 Gen. xv. 5. 2 Psalm cxlvii 4. 3 Isaiah xl. 25, 26. Job. xxii. 12. 5 Colossians i. 16.

pose that the centre may be dark, and, of course, not visible; but whether Alcyone be the real centre or not, does not affect the conclusion as to unity. That there is a centre somewhere, is admitted; and long ages ago, before the light of astronomy dawned on this fact, it was in dim vision revealed to Job. It was unfolded to him as a truth, the full import of which possibly he did not comprehend, and he repeats it in the question, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" The profound significance of this long-hidden or mysterious question has, of late years, attracted attention as strangely prophetic of a truth which, at last, the once distant future has begun to unveil. That Job had penetrated the secrets of the heavenly mechanism, we do not affirm; but his expressions clearly sustain that truth as to a grand centre, which has only of late been accepted. May we not legitimately suppose that the glorious Being who hath not only framed the heavens in all their vastness, but hath also given delicate structure to an insect's wing and enriched the lily with its beauty and its fragrance, would give with equal condescension, to subserve a moral purpose, a prophetic series of truths in the economy of the universe? Accepting prophecy as valid in relation to the human race, is it entirely improbable that He who has given glimpses of unforeseen changes in distant centuries of national histories, would vouchsafe some gleam of those facts or laws in the amplitude of space and the multitude of systems, which progressive science should ages afterwards fully interpret? As He has given the greater, we may surely anticipate the bestowment of the lesser; as He has revealed distant secrets in the moral universe which we readily accept, may we not assume the probability of His giving glimpses of realities also in the material universe?

1 Job xxxviii. 31.

Not only is the language of Job very definite, but its precision is beginning to be recognised as in harmony with scientific discovery. The more we learn of the mechanism of the heavens, the more significant does Job's inquiry become. For many centuries, mystery so shrouded the question "Can'st thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?" that men concluded it was meaningless. It is now intelligible. The word rendered Pleiades,-Chimah, in the original,-while held by some to represent a "heap" or "group," is said by others to mean literally a hinge, that around which other bodies turn or move. "The sweet influences" are "the ties" or the strong forces of Chimah; and the phrase legitimately suggests the idea of a controlling power which connects with this centre the circling march of the universe. "Truly, there are glories in the Bible on which the eye of man has not gazed sufficiently long to admire them; and there are difficulties, the depth and inwardness of which require a measure of the same qualities in himself. There are notes struck on places, which, like some discoveries of science, have sounded before their time, and only after many days have been caught up and found a response on earth. There are germs of truth which, after a thousand years, have yet taken root in the world." And are not Job's questions, chords struck long before their time, and only now is the responsive note beginning to be rightly heard and understood!

Still grander and more imposing is the conception of the universe to which recent discoveries have led us. Its immeasurableness is overwhelming. The naming of the stars is not within the compass of human effort. It is the prerogative of the Creator alone to comprehend "the All." While the astronomer who neglects the guidance of the Bible, is powerless amid the mysteries of numberless stars, the student who accepts its teaching, while he traverses space,