THE FIRST CHAPTER OP GENESIS. 



135 



man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance." 

 (i Samuel xvi, 7.) Man sees the outward appearance, the 

 effect, the phenomenon ; God sees the inward substance, the 

 causes, the reaUty ; that wliich lies at the basis of nature, as 

 well as that which is at the basis of character. 



This thought is strikingly expressed in the 139th Psalm : — 



" My substance was not hid from Thee, 

 When I was made in secret. 



And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 

 Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect ; 

 And in Thy book all my members were written, 

 AVhich in continuance were fashioned, 

 AYhen as yet there was none of them." 



And these words are as applicable to the weaving of the 

 wondrous fabric of the Cosmos as to that great mystery, the 

 formation and growth of the yet unborn child. 



" Which in continuance were fashioned." The continuity of 

 nature is the dominant note of science to-day, the thought that 

 nature as it now is, has been fashioned in continuance " from 

 its condition in the past. It is a new thought in these, our 

 times ; it has hardly found general recognition for three 

 generations of men ; yet it is clearly intimated here and else- 

 where in the Scriptures in documents that were written nearly 

 3,000 years ago. 



We have seen that creation precedes continuity, and is not 

 an item in its course, but when did creation take place ? The 

 answer to that question is not so obvious as some have been 

 ready to suppose. 



The existence of man as recognized by God Almighty, did 

 not begin with man's own consciousness of it, but with the 

 beginning of that continuity of nature which eventually resulted 

 in man's coming into living, conscious existence. He existed to 

 God long before he existed to himself. This truth is set forth 

 with great distinctness in the address of Wisdom, in the book 

 of Proverbs, where the work of creatioji is especially referred to. 



" The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, 

 Before His works of old. 



I was set up from everlasting from the beginning, 

 Or ever the earth was. 



***** 



When He gave to the sea His decree, 



That the waters should not pass His commandment : 



