A pious expositor very justly observes, By faith assenting to Divine revelation, and not by reason we understand the truth and wonders, the reasons and causes, the manner and end, of the creation of the world. Reason indeed tells us that there was a creation, consequently a Creator; but reason without Divine revelation could never have discovered the circumstances and manner of the creation, which wholly depended upon the will of God. Reason could never have known them, if God had not in his word first revealed them. Reason may propound the question, How was the world made, and all things therein? But revelation must resolve it.
“Oh Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever. Thou coveredst it with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.” Such is the sublime language of Divine revelation!
CHAPTER II.
FIRST DAY.
Section I.—Chaos.
Inquiry into the origin of things natural to man — Character of Moses as a sacred historian important — Explanation of the term Created — Chaotic state of the elementary principles of matter — Influence of the Spirit of God upon the chaotic mass — Opinions of the ancients — Similitude between the first and second creation — Agency of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration asserted and proved.
As creatures possessed of conscious existence, and furnished with both intellectual and moral powers, it is very natural for us to inquire into the origin and first state of things; and, when difficulties present themselves, to meet with clear and satisfactory solutions of them, removing the darkness in which they were enveloped, affords to reflecting minds a high gratification. Without the aid of divine revelation, the creation of the world would have been involved in uncertainty, and our unassisted reason left to speculate in fields of wide conjecture. But in following the luminous torch of sacred communication, we are safely conducted to the first great Cause, by whose almighty fiat matter was called into existence, and afterwards disposed and modified according to the plan devised by the eternal Mind.
Moses, considered as a man of scientific habits, being well versed in all the “wisdom of the Egyptians”—mathematical, physical, moral, and divine; could not but know that his cosmogony would have to pass the ordeal of critical investigation, and undergo the best of philosophical inquiry: that contemporaries, as well as future and remote nations and generations, would minutely examine his historical record; and science, in its progressive state of improvement, try the validity of his system: that it would meet the inquisitive eye of genius and learning, and fall into the hands of both sincere friends and insidious enemies to religious truth: that candor would patiently search into its pretensions, impartially weigh its evidence, and sober inquiry respect its claims: while narrow prejudice, blind bigotry, or superstitious enthusiasm, would dispute its authority, deny its veracity, and disdainfully reject its aid. But listening to an all-wise Instructor, following a Guide that could not deceive him; and disregarding the envenomed tongue of calumny, the lampooning pen of the satirist, the surly frown of literary pride, and the imperious authority of exalted rank; he committed to writing a true account of the creation of the world, for the information and religious improvement of mankind to the latest generation.
Viewed as the ground-work of all future revelations, if any defect or false position were discovered in his relation of things, that would deprive his history of credibility, and decisively prove him to have been led by the sallies of a vain and heated imagination, and not the Spirit of the living God. But of this there was no danger; and, as a distinguished author pertinently observes, “from the book of Genesis, almost all the ancient philosophers, astronomers, chronologists, and historians, have taken their respective data: and all the modern improvements and accurate discoveries in different arts and sciences have only served to confirm the facts detailed by Moses, and to show, that all the ancient writers on these subjects, have approached to, or receded from truth, and the phenomena of nature, in the exact proportion as they have followed the Mosaic history.” As a writer, Moses does not attack other systems, formed on this or that hypothesis; but in a simple and incontrovertible narrative, acquaints us with the origin of matter, and the progressive formation and completion of the solar system.
The Scriptures inform us, that Moses was privileged to converse with God “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend,” and from him received clear and manifest revelations, not by visions, ecstasies, dreams, inward inspirations, or the mediation of angels, but familiarly and with confidence, by articulate sounds, in his own language. The Lord said, “With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold.” God being a Spirit, has neither shape nor parts, consequently is invisible, and cannot be seen by eyes of flesh: he is the most simple essence. When he speaks of himself as having a face, mouth, eyes, hands, &c., he adapts his language to our capacities, designing to express by these figures the perfections of his nature; but he is really one undivided essence. That which Moses saw, was only the Shekinah, a glorious brightness, the symbol of the Divine presence, and not the essence, which is invisible.