76 THE VEN. ARCHDEACON W. MACDONALD SINCLAIR, D.D., ON 
that the earnest ex ‘pectation of the creature waiteth for the mani- 
festation of the sons of God, and that the whole creation groaneth 
and travaileth in pain together until now, waiting for the adoption, 
we cling rather to the more clumsy and less enlightened 
notion that this purpose ceased when in the beginning He 
foreswa everything that was to be, the same writer con- 
tinues :— 
‘Creation by fabrication (or actual direct handiwork) 
seems less a matter for admiration than creation by evolution ; 
a man can bring a machine together; he cannot make a 
machine that develops itself. That our harmonious universe 
should formerly have existed undeveloped in a state of 
diffused matter, without ferm, and that 1t should gradually 
have attained its present organization, is much more 
marvellous than its formation according to the artificial 
method supposed by the unlearned would be.” ‘ Thou art 
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour and power: for 
Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and 
were created.” “My Father worketh hitherto.” 
4, Matter the Externalization of the Thought of the Eternal. 
If we want some adequate though necessarily imperfect 
notion of the method of creation, we may remind ourselves 
that it is impossible to conceive of the Eternal Self-existent 
Being as subsisting without thought; and the expression or 
externalization of His thoughts was the beginning of matter. 
If He wished to create an infinite series of minds capable of 
enjoying His own happiness, it was, as far as we can see, 
necessary that they should have a mode of existence differ- 
entiated from His own. He thought of forming such a 
series, that His own illimitable perfection might be shared ; 
and instantaneously the whole Universe glowed and 
shivered with unthinkable myriads of atoms, the materials 
for providing a differentiated existence for the innumerable 
mental units designed. Matter became a mode of being 
differentiated from spiritual self-existence. The processes 
of Evolution correspond to the execution of the Divine 
thoughts in thei perfection. “The created Universe is a 
form of Divine force, endowed with such an existence 
as the Eternal found necessary to effect His creature 
purposes.” 
