64 Does the Mosaic Cosmogony 



that the six days of creation might Hterally correspond with our 

 six working days, we should then find the apparent disagree- 

 ment, which, by this process, we would endeavour to avoid, 

 transferred to our weekly period of rest, and the rest from the 

 work of creation. 



It will surely be readily allowed, that the sanctification of the 

 Sabbath has respect to man and his duties ; and since his Crea- 

 tor has been made known to him, and the order of the six suc- 

 cessive epochs in which the earth was rendered fit for his habi- 

 tation ; if we are to allow, what surely no reflecting mind will 

 ever deny, that it is his duty to reflect with gratitude on the 

 blessing he has received, and to maintain in his heart a sense of 

 his dependence upon, and responsibility to him, who made the 

 heavens and the earth, and all that they contain, no method 

 could have been devised better calculated for preserving these 

 feelings in constant activity than appointing some definite por- 

 tion of time, returning at short intervals, to be devoted to the 

 contemplations that awaken them, nor any interval more appro- 

 priate than that which so directly recalls the order of the events 

 of the creation. 



Since we have here introduced the subject of the measure of 

 our present day, we would offer an observation regarding the 

 work of the fourth day, which includes the sun, moon, and 

 stars. Respecting the period of their creation, geology, from its 

 nature, gives us no precisely definite indications. The history 

 regarding them is from the 14th to the 18th verses, and we 

 would observe of it, that the terms employed are such as do not 

 absolutely imply that these bodies were at this epoch first crea- 

 ted, but admit of the interpretation that their motions were then 

 first made the measures of our present days and seasons. We 

 had found it already stated in the 1st verse, that the heavens 

 and the earth were created in the heginnirig, antecedently to the 

 work of the six days, by which they were reduced to their pre- 

 sent order, and the earth was peopled with organized beings. 

 It would seem an unwarrantable interpretation to exclude the 

 sun, moon, and stars from among the objects expressed by the 

 general terms, the heavens and the earth. It is the most obvi- 

 ous interpretation, that they were then created, and were lighted 

 up on the first day, but that it was only during the fourth epoch 



