Now, against this mode of argument it may be objected that much of it does not bear upon the question at issue. The discrepancy is one more of things than of words. It is the physical solution, rather than the critical, that is the important matter of inquiry; and this no mere verbal emendations of the text will altogether and consistently help out. Observe the character of the acts spoken of after the second verse and introduction of the expression, “and God said;”—the calling light into being, the separation of the darkness, the division of day and night, the formation of an atmosphere, the fixed position of the firmament above and the waters beneath, and the separation of the dry land. These are the acts of the first and second days. But what of them before this? These elements and their arrangement were all required, and must have all existed, during the epochs recorded in geology. That is admitted. The light needed no renewal after any geological transposition of the land and sea. The revolutions of the heavenly bodies would be equally unaffected, and days, seasons, and years would remain and proceed in the same order of succession. The firmament and atmosphere would continue to occupy their relative positions. And so, according to the usus loquendi and legitimate import of all the terms employed in the text, we are reading of things that were neither in being nor in operation before, but which now for the first time are represented as being summoned into existence. We are equally unprepared for the admission made by some of the friends of revelation, that Moses knew not the full amount and nature of the knowledge conveyed in his narrative, just as “he was not aware of the profound spiritual meaning of much of the ritual which he was employed to institute. It was an obscure text, which awaited the Divine commentary of the christian dispensation.”[16] There is no analogy between the subjects. The law was confessedly a preparatory, incompleted dispensation. The order of creation as traced by Moses embraces substantively everything which creation contains—the elements, disposition, and collocation of its parts—and that he saw not through the whole of a future, unfulfilled plan, furnishes no good ground for the assumption that he was ignorant of or purposely passes over the history of millions of years of the very subject on which he was inspired to write, and on which he was to build his whole system of theism and of grace. This mode of interpretation, beside, assumes a hiatus in the text for which there is no just warrant, either in the verbal structure of the narrative, or in the physical character and order of the events described. It has always appeared to us to proceed upon principles of explication which violate all the canons of a pure and severe criticism, which indulgently gives way to new and gratuitously assumed difficulties, and which would leave nothing in any writing except what the reader chooses to find in it.
2. The principle of interpreting the days in Genesis as periods of indefinite time, and within which the several geological formations were successively evolved. They who adopt this hypothesis can plausibly argue that the order of creative acts as revealed in the sacred record, harmonizes in a very remarkable manner with the course of creation as detailed in the researches of geology. Hereby a comparison can be distinctly instituted, and a parallelism observed betwixt the peculiar work of each day and the leading phenomena displayed in the earth’s crust—from the first appearance of dry land, when organic bodies had not been as yet created, and the primary rocks in which none have been detected—up through the silurian, devonian, and carboniferous series, in all which plants and marine organisms only are found—and onward until we reach the tertiary strata, where, in succession, the revealed order of animal life is so remarkably coincident. The details of the science are not indeed to be all, and minutely, read in the narrative. But the main truths and the leading dogmata are there; and if any departure from the literal rendering of the text can be permitted, so as to fit in and adjust the geological phenomena, it may be justly contended that there is less of violence and straining by the substitution of periods for days, than by casting aside the whole genetic description as having no bearing whatever upon the primary cosmogony of the globe. Then the various events, it may be farther argued, as recorded in the text—the creation of light—the formation of a firmament—the division of day and night—the appointment of seasons and years—the gathering together of the waters, and the elevation of the dry land—are all so described and placed in such juxta-position as can only be applicable to primary creative acts, to things which were not before, and which now for the first time were brought into being and condition.
The abettor of this view and mode of reconciliation will likewise avail himself, in defense of its being an orthodox interpretation, of the latitude of meaning ascribed to the term “day,” in the Scriptures themselves. Even in the second chapter of the Divine word, and applied to the very subject in question—the order of creation—he finds the term to be used in an indefinite sense: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field.” The solemn announcement at the close of this world’s drama will not fail also to be adverted to—“in the last days perilous times shall come”—wherein periods of longer or shorter duration are implied as existing in the midst of days. Frequently too there occur the expressions: the day of grace—the day of salvation—the day of the Lord—the day of trial—the day of redemption—terms all of unlimited import and not to be defined by the planetary diurnal calendar, but to be determined by the arrangements of a dispensation in which man is viewed as a moral accountable being, and not by any necessities in which his physical condition and the world he inhabits are concerned. Thus by adopting this hypothesis, which assumes the entire narrative as a consecutive description of the order of creation, every day as bearing the initiative of its own class of phenomena, the plan and quality of the Divine works as all delineated and shadowed out, the progressive succession of the whole organic and inorganic historically described, and the phenomena, and the terms descriptive of them, are asserted to be in their proper places, and in harmony each with each.
3. There is another mode of defending the text in consistency with the general facts of the science, by assuming that the course of creation indicated through the epochs was in all its characteristic features reproduced, and substantially represented in the cosmogonic period of the Mosaic account. We have noticed from time to time, in the different stages of our description, in what the analogies consisted. In the earliest, as well as in the last, organic fossil types, there is the most perfect identity with all the vegetable and animal forms described in the narrative. The order of their reappearance is likewise similar. Moses, it is here supposed, saw the casting of the same molds, the agency of the same hand, and the “day” to be successively the period for the reproduction of the work.
Read now consecutively the whole account, and observe how the Historian passes in review the entire series of the Divine acts, and runs over again the great master-keys of this harmonious system. He is present, so to speak, when, in the beginning, the matter of the heaven and the earth was created. He witnesses the arrangement of the parts, which before were without form and void. He hears the command,—Let there be light. And now, as the mighty structure expands in vision before the eye of his mind, the firmament and the waters and the dry land separating and drawing off to their respective places, he introduces a record of the period within which the several operations were effected. How long is that period? Just the division of time with which he was acquainted, and which he knew was amply sufficient for the completion of all the operations in question. The acts are successive. The will that performed them is omnipotent. Everything followed in its order and in the time that all creative power commanded it to be. Hence the days, with regard to all the initial acts, both of creation and arrangement, were literally of the duration assigned in the text. After the introduction of organic life on the third day, geology speaks definitively as to the successive order of the kinds and families of the structural forms created. But it gives no sign, and can give none, as to the portion of time required for their creation. It may have been an instant or a day,—a week or a period. The revealed account speaks positively upon the point; and shows how, at the bidding of the Divine will, the various elements—the water, the earth, the air—were replenished with their respective tribes in the old as in the new world, and under all the phases and epochs of their being.
The inspired narrative, it may be alleged, according to this view, is not only consistent with itself, but becomes a sublime illustrative introduction to the book of revelation. The matter of the heaven and the earth was the effect of a single command. The separation of its elements was the instantaneous effect of another.—Upon the creation of light, a division is given to time, and the morning and the evening hours were established. The arrangements of the second day followed, and were all completed in the period assigned. So with the remanent days and their respective included operations. The eye of the historian sees nothing intervening betwixt the cause and the effect; his mind is fixed upon the action, not the manner of its accomplishment; and knowing the whole to be the result of the same power and the arrangement of the same providence, he combines in one cycle or week the entire series of events, one day of which unto the Eternal is as a thousand, and a thousand, but as one day. The work all accomplished, the immediately revolving period of time was established as the Sabbath of the Lord. Having made man in his own image, with knowledge to apprehend and adore the author of his being, the divine Architect rested; he ceased from any farther acts of creation; nothing of any material existence, nor of any living thing, has been added to his works since the completion of the six days, and so the rest has continued and will continue to the end of time—a Sabbath hallowed by the structure of the globe and the beneficence of the Creator.
These are some of the methods by which the geologist aims in bringing the conclusions of his science within the scope of the Mosaic record, and in freeing his speculations from all their incumbrances and responsibilities. There is still a great deal to be accomplished, even with all these approximations, toward a right and full and literal comparison with the sacred text. There is indeed no real conflict between the discoveries of geology and the declarations of the divine oracles; and, with so many doors of retreat from or avenues of approach into the inviting fields of its research, no friend of the truth need be afraid of an excursion through the most intricate depths of creation’s works. Meanwhile, the metaphysicians have all been driven from the field, with all their untenable dogmas about the eternity of matter. Geologists repudiate the doctrine, and their science refutes it. But there is such a thing as others rashly rushing to conclusions, wherever they can see tendencies or leanings to countenance their impious materialism. In this direction, many think that geology, however falsely, wholly inclines. And even now it is better, infinitely better, to rest with unhesitating confidence in the received interpretation of Scripture than be borne away by sweeping generalizations, built most certainly somewhere upon loose conflicting elements of calculation. Countless millions of years are, we admit, as nothing in the records of eternity—of no account with the Everlasting of days. Nevertheless, if the time can be reduced, as unquestionably there are data for the reduction, the epochs and the days approximate all the closer; the speculations of the science are brought into better keeping with the dicta of revelation; farther discoveries will lead to farther adjustments; until what was done for the interests of the one by detecting the miscalculations of Hindoo astronomy, will again be effected for the other by scanning more intelligibly the geological horoscope.—And thus removing every ground of suspicion or offense, will serve to bring this interesting branch of knowledge from the outer court of the Gentiles to the innermost shrine of the Temple of truth.
The father of the Inductive Philosophy thus expresses his views: “In the works of creation, we behold a twofold emanation of the Divine virtue; of which the one relates to its power, the other to its wisdom. The former is especially observed in the creating the material mass; the latter, in the disposing the beauty of its form. This being established, it is to be remarked, that there is nothing in the history of creation to invalidate the fact, that the mass and substance of heaven and earth was created, confusa, undistinguishable, in one moment of time; but that the six days were assigned for disposing and adjusting it.”[17] This was emitted at a time when geology was in its nonage; the strata of the earth and their singular fossil contents were as yet unexplored;—still it is the oracular voice of one who had looked through the physical universe with the glance of science and of genius, and who knew and sought it only in relation to the Creator and his Word.