ON GEOLOGY, 



be, "and there was dusk as there was dawn, the first day."— nriK tZ3V 

 ip3 ^n^i 3nr 'r\')' 



It has, indeed, been contended that each of these periods constituted a 

 solar day, or a revolution of the earth round its own axis, and conse- 

 quently answered to the measure of twentj'^four hours as at present. But 

 to maintain this opinion it is necessary to suppose, that the sun and the 

 moon were set in the sky " to rule over the day and over the night," — 

 " to divide the light from the darkness," — and to " be for signs, and for 

 seasons, and for days, and for years," on or before the very first day or 

 generation ; for otherwise there could be no solar day, or such as we have 

 at present, produced by a revolution of the earth round her own axis. 

 And there have not been wanting cosmologists and critics, as Whiston 

 and Rosenmiiller, who have maintained that the sun and the mooti Were 

 created antecedently to the earth ; that they had their statioiis allotted 

 them in the heavens, and actually produced solar days and diurnal revolu- 

 tions of the earth from the first. But though their own hypotheses require 

 this, the idea is directly opposed to the spirit and the letter of the Mosaic 

 narrative, and hence can in no respect be acceded to by any one who is 

 anxious to preserve this narrative in its integrity and simplicity. 



How much more explanatory and pertinent is the remark of our own 

 excellent Bishop Hall, when speaking of the primaeval light, that during 

 the first three days illuminated the face of nature : " Not," says he, " of 

 the sun or stars, which were not yet created ; but a common bright- 

 ness only, to distinguish the time, and to remedy the former confused 

 darkness." And how admirably to the same effect does Bishop Beveridge 

 thus express himself : " When he said, let there he lights by that word the 

 light, WHICH WAS NOT BEFORE, BEGAN TO BE. But whcn he Said, (that is? 

 three days or generations afterwards,) let there be lights in the firmament^ 

 to divide the day from the nighty he thereby gave laws to the light he 

 had before made, where he would have it be, and what he would have it 

 DO. This is what we call the law of nature : that law which God hath put 

 into the nature of every thing ; whereby it always keeps itself within such 

 bounds, and acts according to such rules as God hath set it, and by that 

 means shows forth the glory of his wisdom and power." 



Nothing, indeed, can be clearer, than that, according to Moses, the sun 

 and the moon were only set in the heavens during the fourth day or gene- 

 ration in the work of creation ; and that, whatever may be the relative pro- 

 portion of the times and the seasons, the light and the darkness, the day 

 and the night^that have occurred subsequently, we have no reason to sup- 

 pose they occurred in the same proportion antecedently ; since we are 

 expressly told by the same inspired writer, that their immediate office, on 

 being set in the sky, was to rule these divisions of time, as they have 

 ruled them, with a single miraculous exception or two, ever since, and to 

 divide the light from the darkness, as it has since been divided. 



We have no knowledge whatever, therefore, of the length of the first 

 three or four days or generations that marked the great work of creation 

 antecedently to the completion of the sun and moon, and their appointment 

 to their respective posts. And hence, for all that appears to the contrary, 

 they may have been as long as the Wernerian system, and the book of 

 nature, and I may add the term generations, employed by Moses him- 

 self, seem to indicate. 



Nor let it be supposed for a moment, that the term day in the Hebrew 

 tongue seems to demand a limitation to the period of four-aiid-t'w«ntj' 



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