CHAPTER III.
All the Scripture References to Cosmology are in Harmony
with the Book of Job.
1. Peter must have understood the import of this divine poem, when he wrote, “For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.” So also “The earth, that then was, being overflowed.”
2. So Solomon understood the poem. Personifying the eternity of wisdom, under things timely, he wrote, “Before the mountains were settled, before the hills were brought forth.” Notice the sedimentary character of the mountains! “While as yet he had not made the earth (in form). When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass (circle) upon the face of the depth (space).”
3. The spirit of this poem must have inspired the Psalmist, when he ascribed thanks unto “Him who stretcheth out the earth above the waters.” And again, “He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”
4. Moses must have possessed this sublime poem in the wilderness. By an easy succession of steps, he could find his way back to where suns, in gathering, kept time to the marching forces of Jehovah, as a well trained choir. “When the morning stars sang together.” Not content here, he sought farther aid of God, and swung out into the voids of space, where heat, light, force, and gravitation slept in the embrace of chaos; yea, still farther back to when and where matter was not. He heard God speak matter into existence. It was from this vision he wrote, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” As it came from the hand of God, “It was without form, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
Matter without form is in gas; and to be in equilibrium, it must be equally diffused in all that portion of space now containing matter. Inertia would incapacitate its moving. Without motion, light was impossible; without centers, gravitation had not commenced. Such was matter in the darkness of chaos without form, called night. A force from without must overcome inertia, and give birth to form, light, heat, gravitation, and power at the same time. This power is brought to our view in the following sublime sentence: “And the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the waters” (fluids). Gravitation acts instantaneously throughout space. Therefore the gathering of any one center as a sun, would necessitate the gathering of every central sun in relative accord.
5. Gravitating centers account for centripetal motion only. Acted upon by gravitation alone, all matter within each system would start for the center direct. Hence, centrifugal force also must have been imparted to all that portion of gaseous chaos, destined to become planets. With these two forces acting upon them, they would naturally assume the shape of an immense ring about the sun. Those gases destined to make our sun, must have traversed a space of not less than twenty trillion of miles; possibly, in some directions thirty trillion of miles. The center would be small at first; and should these gases float thirty miles per hour, it would take ninety million of our years to gather the sun complete. In such condition, from the voids of space Moses beheld our system, and noticed that the “waters above the firmament were not separated from the waters beneath.” If from a tall mountain we behold a rainbow, when the sun is quite low we shall see a complete circle of prismatic colors. If one should report that the colors above the firmament were not separate from the colors beneath the firmament, we should readily understand that the bow was continuous as a circle. Now imagine these colors tangible gases, and a sun placed in the center, and you have some faint conception of the grand objective view of the prophet, as he beheld the first morning of creation. The condition in darkness, unmeasured by time, he had called night. The condition in light, unmeasured by flight of years, he called morning. “And the evening and the morning were day first.” The vision, from contemplating matter as divided into systems, now changes to prospective Earth, as yet without form. If the lack of form constituted its evening, then, when it gains a form, it will be its morning. The gases that were to form earth, then lay diffused in the firmament ring.
6. A spark would unite a field of Hydrogen and Oxygen, and cause a division in the ring, as a new element much lighter, formed in space in the condition of superheated steam. Its lightness would cause it to evolve outside the ring, and take the form of a globe. “And God made the firmament,” and he called it “heaven,” which is the visible expanse of a half circle or sphere above our heads; “and he divided the waters which were under the firmament, (the first, which was a tangible circle) from the waters which were above the firmament.” The Earth is in form, but has, as yet, but two gases; and these unite in steam. The second day of creation ends without a “footprint” for the unassisted geologists to trace. Well may Job refer man to the voice of the Lord for the wisdom of first cause and the early changes of matter. This newly formed firmament, or visible expanse, which, by figure of metonymy means a newly formed globe, differs materially from the ring substance of the sun, which gave rise to the term firmament. This second firmament is not made of tangible gases, nor is its appearance to dwellers on the earth continuous. Hence, the making of this firmament is the objective description of the formation of our Earth as a globe. With a world of steam in globe form, the second age or day of creation ended. The matter, that gathered would constitute Earth, while floating in chaos was called evening. When the globe took its form, though only a world of steam, it was called morning. “And the evening and the morning were the second day.” No measurement of twenty-four hour days had commenced yet. Having followed our globe out into space, the prophet now confines his observations to this single planet. He beholds the outside liquifying, and he follows it into its present orbit. He made no mention of the “swaddling band,” it took out of the ring as it passed back toward the sun. This had been well noticed by Job, as well as the manner of the first deposits. But he noticed the appearance of dry land; and the introduction of terrestrial vegetation, and described them as cryptogam “having the seed in itself.” He had followed the gathering together of the waters as a grand sea, and the inorganic deposits as a long evening; and now, to bring out a grand contrast, as morning, he waited until the forests sung the praises of God’s creative hand in bestowing life. “And the evening and the morning were the third day.” But this vegetation grows in the veiled light, much as the gray of twilight. This twilight is the evening of the fourth day. Contrasting with it is pure sunlight. The Carboniferous age of the world cleared the air of these deadly gases, and let in the sunshine upon the earth. This was morning. In noticing this, he is reminded that this globe is occupying his entire attention; and yet God made all the planets and suns of the heavens. So the source of light is again noticed and its proper name given to it, and the relation it sustains to our own time noticed and recorded, “The sun to give light by day.” In a similar manner the moon and the stars were all noticed. As vegetation had now arrived at its climax, Moses closed this age, making the cryptogram in the gray twilight the evening, and its contrast the gay flower basking in clear sunlight the morning. “And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
7. Gases are combined into rock through the agency of air and water. There are three methods of conveying or changing gas into rock. The first is by gases mingling directly with the water. This gave us the larger portion of sedimentary rock. For aught that science has yet discovered, the entire bed of primary granite was made in this manner. The second is by combining the gases by means of diatoms and polyps of the seas. These animals do not depend upon vegetation, but draw their nourishment directly from the waters. Their remains constitute large portions of sedimentary rock. The marble and chalk are formed almost entirely of their remains, while all sedimentary rock this side the granite contains more or less of their remains. A third way is by gases combining in vegetation. Anthracite coal is ninety-six per cent. carbon, combined through vegetation.
8. It is evident that the days of creation were not given to mark an order of time. (1.) Creation commenced before time. (2.) Without motion there could be no measure of duration. (3.) The fifth day includes all the fourth and part of the third; and could therefore be no order of time.