OMPHALOS. 
127 
absurd to give up the belief in it for a bare possibility.” And I do freely 
concede this vast preponderance of probability, supposing that the phy¬ 
sical facts afford the only source of our information. 
But Christians cannot forget that there is another, and a quite inde¬ 
pendent source of information. Information on the very subject—not 
incidental only, but direct and historic; not confined to generals, but 
descending into copious details—has been given by One infinitely com¬ 
petent to instruct us; One to whom mistake is impossible; One in whom 
there is no darkness at all. What, then, saith the Scripture ? And if 
it can be shown that the Word of the “ God that cannot lie” is utterly 
irreconcilable with the hypothesis, the mind which is subject to Christ 
will not hesitate a moment in preferring th q possible solution which agrees 
with the written Word, to the probable one which sets it aside. 
It has been customary for disputants to rest the question, so far as 
the Revelation of God is concerned, upon the six-day statements in Ge¬ 
nesis i., and one or two parallel passages in the Decalogue and in the 
Psalms. But this is needlessly to narrow the ground of inquiry. I am 
content for the present to waive these passages altogether, and to put the 
issue on the broader ground of the grand counsels of God concerning his 
Son, which are developed throughout the Word; and especially that 
glorious purpose which has determined “ to gather together into an head” 
( apaKecpaXaitoaaaOai ) all things in Him, as Son of Man (Eph. i. 10). 
With this purpose Creation is inseparably connected; and I think I 
may venture reverently to affirm, from what is revealed in the Scriptures, 
that this world could never have existed otherwise than in direct and 
manifest subordination to a Human Headship. A world full of sentient 
beings, without a responsible, intelligent Head, is an idea wholly foreign 
to all that the only wise God has made known to us of his plans. His works 
are marked by the most perfect order and rule; and there is an unity in his 
plans which enables us to argue from one to another. Ho sooner was 
the present constitution of things prepared, than a Head was placed over 
it, to have dominion. In this consisted, there can be little doubt, that 
“ image of God” in which the Head was made (cf. Ps. lxxxii. 6; John, x. 
34, 35); he was to Creation a Yice-God, if I may use such a term; God’s 
representative and vicegerent; God’s rule being vested in him. This 
Head was Man; and yet not Adam, individually and personally, so much 
as the progenitor of a race ; for, by a careful comparison of Gen. i. 28, 
Ps. viii. 6, and Heb. ii. 6-9, we find, that there was involved in the 
headship a certain “ Son of Man,” whom the Holy Ghost explains to 
mean the Lord Jesus. And so we see that, as it is elsewhere affirmed 
(Col. i. 16), t( all things were created” not only “ by Him,” but “for 
I believe this federal connexion of Creation with Humanity to be a 
fact of the utmost importance to the understanding of the claims of Geo¬ 
logy. I am amazed that Christians generally have ignored it, and allowed 
judgment to go by default, when they had an impregnable position, which 
they might have defended against all assailers. 
vol. v.— REV. 
T 
