PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 3 



We are told that the word which is translated day, does in fact, signify 

 an indefinite period of time ; but common sense ought to have led us to 

 the same conclusion, in regard to the three first days. For how could 

 Moses intend to limit the duration of the day to its present length, 

 before, according to his own shewing, the sun had begun to divide the 

 day from the night. 



But there are other prevailing errors with respect to the Mosaic 

 account, of much greater consequence as touching the discoveries of 

 Geology. 



Moses is generally understood to give a particular description of the 

 Creation of the World out of nothing ; and he is supposed to fix the 

 date of this creation, to a period, either immediately previous to, or 

 actually contemporary with the three first days afterwards mentioned. 



But surely these suppositions are wholly gratuitous. Ail that Moses 

 says of the creation of gross matter is, 1st, that it was created by God ; 

 2dly, that this creation took place in the beginning. Nothing can be 

 more summary than the first of these declarations, nothing can be more 

 indefinite than the second. 



First, as to the manner in which the mass of the earth came into 

 existence, we are left wholly in the dark ; Moses simply declares it to be 

 a creation; and he claims the glory of its creation for the one true God. 



Secondly, as to the period when tliis mass was made, he only says that 

 it was in " the beginning," a period this, which might have been a million of 

 years before, just as well as on, or immediately previous to, the three first 

 days. But that it could not have been on these days, appears to me plain 

 from Moses' own words in the second verse ; " And the earth was without 

 form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit 

 of God moved upon the face of the waters." Moses here describes an 

 intermediate state of our planet, between the creation in the beginning, 

 and that of the six days ; and it is especially remarkable, that he speaks 

 of the earth and water, as being actually in existence during this inter- 

 mediate state — " The earth loas" — " the deep" of " waters" also was. 



The force of these remarks is much increased, first, by the negative 



B 2 



