“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” “He prepared the heavens, he set a compass upon the face of the depth. He established the clouds above, he strengthened the foundations of the deep. He gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment.” “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” He is “the great God that formed all things.” “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.” “The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down dew.” “Of old thou hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands” “The sea is his,—he made it; and his hands formed the dry land.” “Mine hand hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens.” “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?” “I have made the earth—the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my out-stretched arm.” “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof? Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the day-spring to know his place? Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof? Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or guide Arcturus with his sons? Who hath put wisdom into the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?” “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” God made “man in his own image.” He is “the Father of spirits.” “The heavens declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” “That which may be known of God is manifest” to men, “for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead;” so that men are “without excuse,” if, knowing God, or not liking “to retain God in their knowledge,” they “worship him not as God,” but, “professing themselves to be wise, become fools,” changing “the truth of God into a lie.”
Such are some of the statements of Scripture respecting the creation of the world and man. To admit these, it is not necessary to deny the revelations of science as to the physical antiquity of the globe, and the successive phenomena that distinguished the history of the pre-adamite earth. There might have been then a wonderful series of gradual developments, and various material and animal formations;—the point to be kept in view is, that all these were intelligently presided over by the Author of nature; and that they all followed in obedience to laws, which he not only ordained, but administered. The “Crystal Palace” is the embodiment of an idea conceived and perfected in a personal intelligence. It has been constructed and reared by rule and compass, measure and weight, and according to the suggestions of wisdom and skill. All the variety of its extraordinary contents bear the impress of thought and purpose, design and contrivance, faculty and power; but no one confounds the work with the workmen, or imagines that the skill impressed on the productions is something inherent in the productions themselves, or that they have sprung, by necessity, from the impulse or operation of unintelligent force! Any one who saw the apparently confused and chaotic jumble of coarse packages and unarranged materials, as they lay about the building, previous to being put into harmonious order, could never have imagined that they had in themselves any tendency to take the places and assume the appearances to which they were destined, independently of the mind, the thought, plan, reason, and ability of the person or persons by whom all was to be effected. Even if it had been possible to conceive such a thing,—to conceive, namely, that they should, without the immediate agency of hands, have gradually arranged themselves into beautiful groups, and that thus confusion was to be succeeded by order,—this would only have been regarded as the result of processes to which they had been subjected by human sagacity, and as the proof of profounder and more wonderful contrivance on the part of the presiding genius of the scene. Instead of tempting a thoughtful observer to confound and identify the thing done with the actual doer,—or to lose sight of him, and to attribute all to necessity or chance, or to some mysterious appetencies in the things themselves,—it would only have carried the idea of personality further back, and have augmented his admiration of the attributes that distinguished it. In the same way, adhering to the truth that the heavens and the earth are an actual creation, then, whatever may have been the processes through which they gradually passed till the whole fabric was developed and perfected, all was the work of a personal agent distinct from the actual universe itself, and all that was done was accomplished through the action of those laws which he framed,—to which he subjected them,—which he administered,—which the things did not originate,—which they could not understand, and from which they could not escape. He—the living, spiritual, personal God—was the Mover and Maker, the Designer and Doer from first to last. In the same way, just as nothing can be more completely a man’s own than that which is the product of his own skill, when acting independently, and operating on his justly obtained material, so nothing can be such a proof of the proprietorship of God in the universe and its inhabitants, as that by him they were all alike “created and made.” “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and hath established it upon the floods.”
III.
Providence.
The idea suggested by the words of the inscription, of the “FULNESS” of the earth belonging to God, deserves a distinct and specific consideration.
By the “fulness” of the earth, we understand all that it contains of raw material capable of being subjected to human skill, and all that it produces, of whatever sort, animal or vegetable, for the service of men,—for the sustenance of sentient nature,—for happiness, or glory and beauty. By all this being God’s, by this “fulness of the earth” belonging to him, we understand that it is to be attributed to him as its Author; that he originally deposited, in the depths of the mountains and the womb of the world, their mineral wealth; that he covered the earth with verdure and fruitfulness, and filled the air, the sea, and the field with their numerous inhabitants; that he established the laws by which there should be a constant succession in all the varieties of animal and vegetable nature; and that he so superintends the whole arrangement, and personally administers these laws, that all that they produce may be properly regarded as the immediate product of his power and skill. “Fulness,” so produced, is his, “from whom and by whom” it comes, with scarcely less emphasis than if it was to be spoken into being in the “twinkling of an eye,”—at the utterance of a single word, or by a sudden act of omnipotent volition.
The inhabitants, then, of this great city are reminded every day, as they look up at the front of their Royal Exchange, not only of the existence and personality of God, and of his being the proprietor of all things, but of his being this, by his continued providence and government of the world, as well as by his having created it at first. It was God that for ages wrought in secret, constructing the rocks and consolidating the mountains, depositing the useful and precious metals, spreading the coal-field, and preparing materials of every sort for future society. It was he who commanded “the dry land to appear,” and the waters to be gathered into seas: who covered the earth “with the grass of the field, and with the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit;” who fixed the sun in the heavens, and gave him to the world for cheerful light and genial warmth; who “spread abroad the clouds,” and “caused rain,” and established the laws of vegetable production: it was God who caused the waters to be filled “with the moving creature that hath life;” that caused “the fowl to fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven;” and that made “the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle, and everything that creepeth upon the earth;”—it was God that gave to them the law “to increase and multiply, and to fill the earth;” and then gave the earth to the children of men, and commanded them, too, not only “to increase and multiply and to replenish the earth,” but “to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” It was God who “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,” and who, as “the Most High, who ruleth over the children of men, and doeth as he will with the inhabitants of the earth,” “separated the sons of Adam, and divided to the nations their inheritance,” and “determined their appointed times, and the bounds of their habitation.” It was God who appropriated to different climes their diversified productions;—who hid beneath the surface of various peoples mineral varieties;—who conferred on the nations different talents and different tastes;—who made exchange of productions a mutual want, necessity, or convenience;—and who thus established the law of commercial intercourse. It was God that gave to man improvable reason, so that he was not bound down to unintelligent instinct in constructing his habitation or providing for his necessities, but was empowered and intrusted with the inventive head and the skilful hand; could become the accomplished and cunning artificer, so that out of the raw material of the world he could call forth new appearances and forms of things, and thus cover the earth with another creation! It was God who appointed wood to swim, and water to flow, and fixed the poles, and fashioned the loadstone, and gave the compass, and bound the breast of the first mariners as with triple brass, that all the wonders of navigation might ensue, and enterprise and discovery, and the peaceful and profitable intercourse of nations. And it is God that still presides over and governs all things; that gives spring and summer, and winter and harvest; it is he who distils the influences of the heavens, and perpetuates the fertility of the earth; it is he who gives annual abundance, and causes all nations, the world over, to rejoice in what comes to them as if it were a new and instant creation,—a gift and gratuity dropped from the sky! It is God “that gives to man power to get wealth,” and that confers on the nations their respective tastes and distinctive genius,—their capacity for labour, or their love of the beautiful, or their skilful handicraft, or their omnipotent enterprise, or their gigantic achievements! It is God that thus makes them useful to each other;—that binds them together from the very circumstance of their separate gifts and their mutual necessities;—and that imparts to them an interest in each other’s industry, from the different forms and uses that it takes;—and it is he, we trust, who is bringing them together to the Great Exhibition, so that, while they wonder at the result, the vastness and the variety of their own doings, they may acknowledge Him, to whom they are indebted for material and skill, time and capacity, life and all things;—whose they themselves are;—from whom cometh every good and every perfect gift; and, as whose property, all that they possess should be held and used. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”
The propriety of thus attributing everything to God, and of recognising his providence in the laws of the world, the productions of the seasons, the results of industry, the instruments of commerce, and even in the adornments of civilization, and the allowable luxuries of elegance and refinement, and also in the gifts of invention, subtlety, and mechanical skill,—all this is so frequently taught or referred to in Scripture, that a few appropriate illustrative passages may with great propriety be inserted here.
The attentive reader will notice that the several quotations that follow illustrate the most of the ideas that have been advanced, and that they do this very much in the order in which they have been given. The first passage, from the Book of Job, we give in the language of Mr. Goode’s translation, as it expresses the sense of the original, with some approach to scientific exactness.
“Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a bed for the gold which men refine. Iron is dug up from the earth, and the rock poureth forth copper. Man delveth into the region of darkness, and examineth to the utmost limit the stones of darkness and death-shade: he breaketh up the veins from the matrice, which, though nothing thought of under the foot, are drawn forth, are brandished among mankind. The earth of itself poureth forth bread, but below it windeth a fiery region. Sapphires are its stones, and gold is its ground.”
The following sentences, while forming part of an argument respecting moral and spiritual wisdom,—the fear of God and departure from evil,—are remarkable as an enumeration of valuable substances, and are here quoted simply as such.