In giving an account of the true origin of things, he attends particularly to the mode, agent, and time of their being produced. His history commences with the creation of matter, “In the beginning.” Before the creative acts mentioned by him, all was eternity. Time signifies duration measured by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; but prior to the creation of these bodies, there could be no measurement of duration, and consequently no time; therefore, “In the beginning,” must necessarily mean the commencement of time which followed, or rather was produced by God’s creative acts, as an effect follows, or is produced by a cause.
[From several expressions in this chapter, it is obvious that Mr. Wood considered the account given by Moses, in the first chapter of Genesis, to apply to universal creation, and not to be restricted to our Solar System. It is also plainly inferable, that he considered this the first exercise of God’s creative energy in any way. This view is entirely too contracted, is not clearly warranted by the text of the sacred historian, and is unnecessary.
There are no passages of Scripture which say distinctly, the Mosaic creation is the first or only acts of creative energy: but there are several which intimate the previous existence of creatures, and of course imply a previous exercise of creative power.
It is sufficiently clear that there were intelligent beings existing at the creation of this world. Hence it is said, “the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy,” in view of the rising creation.
Since, therefore, the previous existence of intelligent beings is established, we must, of course, assign to them some mode of subsistence; and this will compel us to assign at least what must be necessary to every creature, a place of abode, suited to his wants and conditions, without which he cannot subsist. Thus we establish even a material creation, anterior to the creation mentioned by Moses.
After weighing the account which Moses gives in the first chapter of Genesis, together with the facts and analogies in Nature, the conclusion seems irresistible, that he describes only our Solar System; which includes the seven primary planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Herschel: the four asteroides, Vesta, Juno, Ceres, and Pallas: and the eighteen moons which attend the primary planets. Because,
1. As this account forms the introduction to a revelation designed for the human family only, it is reasonable to conclude it would have reference to those bodies only which operate materially to their benefit or injury. But there are no such bodies except in the Solar System.
2. Moses in describing the formation of the heavenly bodies, mentions only the sun and moon in a conspicuous manner: because, these are the only luminaries which contribute essentially to our comfort: and then, lest a beholder might imagine God did not also make the other suns and stars, says incidentally, “He made the stars also.”
3. The conclusion is clear from the fact, that the Solar System is complete in itself: forming a perfect whole, which could exist were all other stars and suns destroyed, and vice versâ, all other systems could exist were the Solar System destroyed.
4. It does not well comport with the character of the Divine Being, when we consider his eternal power, infinite wisdom, and boundless goodness, to suppose He never exercised his creative energies but once, and that not until a few thousand years since. Yet we are compelled to this conclusion, however reluctantly, unless we restrict the Mosaic account of the creation to our Solar System.
This argument will derive additional weight, when we recollect the immensity of God’s works taken together, and the illimitable space in which he has, and may, exercise his creative energy. We may approximate towards a very faint idea of their immensity, by calling to mind the immense number of fixed stars. All astronomers admit their number to be very great indeed, but how many cannot be correctly known. There may be millions whose light has not reached us yet. Of those which may be detected, Professor Vince, says, there are at least seventy-five millions; and each the centre of a system as large, possibly much larger than our own. Indeed we can scarcely approach towards a competent idea of illimitable space. The nearest fixed star is supposed to be Sirius, or the dog-star, at the lowest calculation twenty-two billions of miles distant. If we compute according to this analogy, and say there are seventy-five millions of fixed stars, each the centre of a system, perfect, and independent: what mind can conceive the illimitable space through which these worlds must lie? Yet this would scarcely be an approximation towards the true extent. Beyond this there is still unoccupied space, “where existence sleeps in the wide abyss of possibility.”
It may, therefore, be asked with justice, whether a being capable of creating, even in this limited view, would have exercised his creative powers but once, and that not until a few thousands years since? Credat qui posset, non ego. Who can tell what may have been the successive creations, durations, and, possibly, destructions of those worlds which we see, and of others, of which the inhabitants of this earth have never heard, whose light has not yet reached us since their creation, though coming at the rate of nearly twelve millions of miles in a minute?
Finally: A succession of creative acts, whose commencement runs back almost parallel with eternity, and will extend forward almost ad infinitum, seems to comport best with the eternal, immense, and immutable activity, energy, and goodness of the Divine Being.]
The word created means, that God caused that to exist which, previously to this moment, had no being. The Rabbins, who are legitimate judges in a case of verbal criticism on their own language, are unanimous in asserting, that the word ברא bara expresses the commencement of the existence of a thing, or its egression from nonentity to entity. It does not, in its primary meaning, denote the preserving or new forming things that had previously existed, as some imagine; but creation, in the proper sense of the term, though it has some other acceptations in other places. The supposition that God formed all things out of a pre-existing eternal nature, is certainly absurd: for, if there was an eternal nature besides an eternal God, there must have been two self-existing, independent, and eternal Beings, which is a most palpable contradiction. Ex nihilo nihil fit, “That out of nothing, nothing is produced” is a maxim that applies itself in every case where Deity is not concerned; it was the main argument used by Aristotle and his followers, but is completely refuted by the authority of Divine revelation. God created את השמים ואת הארץ eth hashamayim veet haarets, “the heavens and the earth.” The word את eth, which is generally considered as a particle, simply denoting that the word following is in the accusative or oblique case, is often understood by the Rabbins in a much more extensive sense, “The particle את eth,” says Aben Ezra, “signifies the substance of the thing.” The like definition is given by Kimchi in his Book of Roots. “This particle,” says Mr. Ainsworth, “having the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet in it, is supposed to comprise the sum and substance of all things.” “The particle את eth,” says Buxtorf, Talmudic Lexicon sub voce, “with the Cabalists, is often mystically put for the beginning and the end, as Α alpha and Ω omega are in the Apocalypse.” On this ground, these words should be translated, “God in the beginning created the substance of the heavens, and the substance of the earth: i.e. the prima materia, or first elements, out of which the heavens and the earth were successively formed.”[23]
During the first state of things, Moses informs us, that “the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The original terms תהו tohoo, and בהו bohoo, translated, “without form and void,” convey the idea of confusion and disorder. The translation by Paginus, is desert and emptiness; in the Vulgate, it is empty and void; in the Septuagint, invisible and incomposed; from the Syriac, desert and uncultivated; the Samaritan is the same as the Vulgate; the Arabic, covered with abysses: these translations are allowed by the learned Walton. There is but little difference in their real meaning, and all the Versions express the first state of things.[24] The whole collection of matter, created in a fluid state, was a crude, indigested chaos: all belonging to our system, as the sun, moon, stars, earth, and seas, lay blended together in one vast, confused mass, without any arrangement of their constituent particles, heavy and light, dense and rare, fluid and solid, being all mixed together; air, water, and earth, (which have since obtained the name of elements,) were promiscuously scattered throughout.
The chaotic mass remained in this primitive state, till God was pleased to assimilate, assort, and arrange the materials,—out of which he built up, in the space of six days, the whole of creation.[25] The Spirit of God, represented us sitting upon the vast abyss, like a bird, while either in the act of incubation or fostering its young, moved or brooded upon the face of the waters, communicating, by his vital energy, life and motion to the unformed chaos.
Some writers understand by רוח אלהימ the Spirit of God, a “mighty sweeping wind,” a “tremendous tempest,” separating diversified particles of the elementary principles of matter, and combining those of the same kind together. But this is making an effect to be produced by a cause, which, as yet, had no existence; nor, as a cause, is it sufficient to produce so great an effect. To make an effect superior to its cause, is as absurd and contradictory as to say, a long line and a short one are equal. That the single Hebrew word רוח ruach, the Greek πνευμα pneuma, the Latin spiritus, and the ancient Saxon ghost or gast, signifies wind, as well as the vital breath, the soul of man, a created spirit good or evil, is readily admitted. But concerning the phrase רוח אלהימ, the Spirit of God, so frequently used in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, there is not one instance that it signifies wind, and to attempt to force such meaning upon it, is a most manifest violation done to the text. By the Spirit of God, is meant the third subsistence in the Divine essence, distinguished from the person of the Father, and that of the Son; he is called a Spirit, to signify his spiritual and immaterial nature, as well as to express his mighty agency; and the works of which he is the author can only be effected by an omnipotent power.
Milton, who was well versed in the Hebrew language, in his address to the Holy Spirit, says,
“Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like, sat’st brooding on the vast abyss,