Inspiration and Interpretation / Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford

by John William Burgon

Now, on a review of all this wondrous History, I profess myself at a loss to see what special note of impracticability it presents that I should hesitate to embrace it, in the plain natural sense of the words, with both the arms of my heart. That it is not such an account of the manner of the Creation as you or I should have ourselves invented, or anticipated, or on questionable testimony have felt disposed to accept,—is very little to the purpose. Apart from Revelation, we could really have known nothing at all about the works of the Days of the first Great Week. Ejaculations therefore concerning the strangeness of the record, and cavils at the phraseology in which it is propounded, are simply irrelevant.

There exists however a vague suspicion after all that the beginning of Genesis is a vision, or an allegory, or a parable,—or anything you please, except true History. It is hard to imagine why. If there be a book in the whole Bible which purports to be a plain historical narrative of actual events, that book is the book of Genesis. In nine-tenths of its details, it is as human, and as matter of fact, as any book of Biography or History that ever was penned. Why the first page of it is to be torn out, treated as a myth or an allegory, and in short explained away,—I am utterly at a loss to discover. There is no difference in the style. Long since has the theory that Genesis is composed of distinguishable fragments, been exploded[294]. There is no pretence for calling this first chapter poetry, and treating it by a distinct set of canons. It is a pure Revelation, I admit: but I have yet to learn why the revelation of things intelligible, where the method of speech is not such as to challenge a figurative interpretation, is not to be taken literally: unless indeed it has been discovered that a narrative must of necessity be fabulous if the transactions referred to are unusually remote and extraordinary. The events recorded are unique in their character,—true. But this happens from the very necessity of the case. The creation of a world, to the inhabitants of that world is an unique event.

But we are assured that some of the statements in this first chapter of Genesis are palpably untrue;—as when it is said that the Sun, Moon, and Stars were created on the fourth Day,—which, it is urged, is a physical impossibility: for what forces else sustained, and kept this world a sphere? The phenomena of Geology again prove to demonstration, it is said, that the structure of the earth is infinitely more ancient than the Mosaic record states: and also that there must have been Light, and sunshine too, at that remote epoch,—which fostered each various form of animal and vegetable life.—Further, we are assured that it is unphilosophical to speak of the creation of Light before the creation of the Sun.—Then, the simplicity of the language is objected to:—"the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night:"—"dividing the light from the darkness:"—"waters above the firmament:" and so forth. The very ascription of speech to God, gives offence.—Again, some raw conceit of the advanced state of the human intellect rejects with scorn the notion of Adam oracularly bestowing names on God's creatures. Finally, the creation of Eve, moulded by God from the side of the Protoplast, is declared to savour so plainly of the mythical, allegorical, or figurative; that the narrative must be allowed to be altogether unworthy of such wits as ours.

But we have seen that the creation of Sun, Moon, and Stars is not assigned to the fourth day—but to "the beginning"—The antiquity of this Earth we affirm to be a circumstance left wholly untouched by the Mosaic record: or, if touched, it is rather confirmed; for, before beginning to describe the work of the first Day, Moses describes the state of "the Earth" by two Hebrew words of most rare occurrence[295], which denote that it had become waste and empty: while "the deep" is spoken of as being already in existence.—There is nothing at all unphilosophical in speaking of Light as existing apart from the Sun. Rather would it be unphilosophical to speak of the Sun as the source and centre of Light.—I see nothing more childish again in the mention of "the greater and the lesser light," than in the talk of "sun-rise" and "sun-set,"—which is to this hour the language of the Observatory.—As for attributing speech to God, I am content to remind you of Hooker's explanation of the design of Moses therein, throughout the present Chapter. "Was this only his intent," (he asks,) "to signify the infinite greatness of God's power by the easiness of His accomplishing such effects without travail, pain, or labour? Surely it seemeth that Moses had herein besides this a further purpose; namely, first to teach that God did not work as a necessary, but a voluntary agent, intending beforehand and decreeing with Himself that which did outwardly proceed from Him; secondly, to shew that God did then institute a Law natural to be observed by Creatures, and therefore according to the manner of laws, the institution thereof is described, as being established by solemn injunction. His commanding those things to be which are, and to be in such sort as they are, to keep that tenure and course which they do, importeth the establishment of Nature's Law.... And as it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, that after a Law is once published, it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto; even so let us think that it fareth in the natural course of the world. Since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of His Law upon it, Heaven and Earth have hearkened unto His voice, and their labour hath been to do His will[296]."—"He spake the word, and they were made: He commanded and they were created. He hath made them fast for ever and ever. He hath given them a law which shall not be broken[297]."

Whether or no South overestimated Adam's knowledge, I will not pretend to decide: but I am convinced the truth lies more with him than with certain modern wits, when he says concerning our first Father:—"He came into the world a philosopher; which sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their names.... His understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the certainties of prediction. Till his Fall, he was ignorant of nothing but sin.... There was then no struggling with memory, no straining for invention. His faculties were ready upon the first summons.... We may collect the excellency of the understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now: and guess at the stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins.... And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young! An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam; and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise[298]."

And lastly, as for so much of the Divine narrative as concerns the Creation of the first human pair, I am content to remind you of a circumstance which in addressing believers ought to be of overwhelming weight: namely, that our Saviour and His Apostles, again and again, refer to the narrative before us in a manner which precludes the notion of its being anything but severest History. Our Saviour Christ even resyllables the words spoken by the Protoplast in Paradise; and therein finds a sanction for the indissoluble nature of the marriage bond[299].

I take leave to add that even the respectful attempt to make Genesis accommodate itself to the supposed requirements of Geology, by boldly assuming that the days of Creation were each a thousand years long,—seems inadmissible. Even were such an hypothesis allowed, nothing would be gained: for Geology does not by any means require us to believe that after a thousand years of misty light, there came a thousand years of ocean deposit: and again, a thousand years of moist and dry, during which vegetable life alone prevailed: and then a thousand years of sun, moon, and stars. The very notion seems absurd[300].—But, what is more to the purpose, such an interpretation seems to stultify the whole narrative. A week is described. Days are spoken of,—each made up of an evening and a morning. God's cessation from the work of Creation on the Seventh Day is emphatically adduced as the reason of the Fourth Commandment,—the mysterious precedent for our observance of one day of rest at the end of every six days of toil,—"for in six days" (it is declared,) "the Lord made Heaven and Earth[301]." You may not play tricks with language plain as this, and elongate a week until it shall more than embrace the span of all recorded Time.

Neither am I able to see what would be gained by proposing to prolong the Days of Creation indefinitely, so as to consider them as representing vast and unequal periods; (though I am far from presuming to speak of any pious conjecture with disrespect.) My inveterate objection to this scheme is again twofold. (1) The best-ascertained requirements of Geology are not satisfied by a sixfold division of phenomena corresponding with what is recorded in Genesis of the Six Days of Creation. (2) This method does even greater violence to the letter of the inspired narrative than the scheme of reconcilement last hinted at.

I dare not believe that what has been spoken will altogether meet the requirements of minds of a certain stamp. A gentleman, who certainly has the advantage of appearing in good company, has lately favoured the world with the information that the first chapter of Genesis is the uninspired speculation of a Hebrew astronomer, who was bent on giving "the best and most probable account that could be then given of God's universe[302]." The Hebrew writer asserts indeed "solemnly and unhesitatingly that for which he must have known that he had no authority[303];" but we need not therefore "attribute to him wilful misrepresentation, or consciousness of asserting that which he knew not to be true[304]." If this "early speculator" "asserted as facts what he knew in reality only as probabilities," it was because he was not harassed by the scruples which result "from our modern habits of thought, and from the modesty of assertion which the spirit of true science has taught us[305]." The history of this important discovery and of others of a similar nature, (which, by the way, are one and all announced with the same "modesty of assertion" as what goes before,) would appear to be this.—Natural science has lately woke up from her long slumber of well nigh sixty ages; and with that immodesty for which youth and inexperience have ever been proverbial, she is impatient to measure her crude theories against the sure revelation of God's Word. Where the two differ, she assumes that of course the inspired Oracles are wrong, and her own wild guesses right. She is even indecent in her eagerness to invalidate the testimony of that Book which has been the confidence and stay of God's Servants in all ages. On any evidence, or on none, she is prepared to hurl to the winds the august record of Creation. Inconveniently enough for the enemies of God's Word, every advance in Geological Science does but serve to corroborate the record that the Creation of Man is not to be referred to a remoter period than some six thousand years ago. But of this important fact we hear but little. On the other hand, no trumpet is thought loud enough to bruit about a suspicion that Man may be a creature of yet remoter date. Thus, fragments of burnt brick found fifty feet below the surface of the banks of the Nile, were hailed as establishing Man's existence in Egypt more than 13,000 years; until it was unhappily remembered that burnt brick in Egypt belongs to the period of the Roman dominion.—More recently, implements of chipped flint found, with some bones, in a bed of gravel, have been eagerly appealed to as a sufficient indication that the Creation of Man is to be referred to a period at least 10,000 years more remote than is fixed by the Chronology of the Bible.... Brick and flint! a precious fulcrum, truly, for a theory which is to upset the World!

But I shall be told,—with that patronizing air of conscious intellectual superiority which a certain class of gentlemen habitually assume on such occasions,—that I mistake the case completely: that no wish is entertained in any quarter to invalidate the truth of Revelation, or to shake Men's confidence in the Bible as the Word of God: that it has been the way of narrow-minded bigots in all ages, and is so in this, to raise an outcry of the Bible being in danger, and so to rouse the prejudices of mankind: that the error lies in claiming for the Bible an office which it nowhere claims for itself, and which it was never meant to fulfil: that the harmony between the Bible and Nature is complete, but that it is not such a harmony as is sometimes imagined: that the Bible is not a scientific book, and was never meant to teach Natural Science: that it was designed to inculcate moral goodness, and is clearly full of unscientific statements, which it is the office of Science to correct; and, if need be, to remove. All this, and much beside, I shall be told. Such fallacious platitudes have been put forth by men who are neither Divines nor Philosophers, ad nauseam, within the last forty or fifty years.