The solemn temples, the great globe itself
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind.”
The word rendered melt, is a metaphor taken from metals, dissolving in the fire, or wax before the flame; so will the fierce and spreading fire of the last day melt down this globe, and its surrounding atmosphere.[36] That the world was to be dissolved by fire was the opinion of Anaximander, Anaxiphanes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Diogenes, and Leucippus.[37] The inference which the apostle deduces from this view of the general and final conflagration of the world, is highly impressive. “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.”
Section III.—Light.
Motion of luminous and fiery particles the first cause of light — Light the most simple body — Velocity of light — Light diffusive — Light the medium through which objects become visible — Light beautiful, or its rays of different colors — Light a visible resemblance of its Divine Author, in his spirituality, simplicity, purity, energy, goodness, manifestation, glory.
Moses, in the original word אור aur, seems plainly to hint at the operation of a principle in the universe which, as a second cause, produced the phenomenon of light. This, most probably, was the motion of the luminous and fiery particles in the chaotic mass which, at the Divine command, separated themselves from the other gross materials of the miscellaneous composition, and by an attractive sympathy associated in one body.
It is conjectured, that light was at first impressed on some part of the heavens, or collected in some lucid body. Dr. Wall says, Though the sun was not yet formed into a compact body, yet the most subtile and active particles had already begun to fly together to the centre of the solar system, which gave some light; though probably not so great as when afterward they made the compact body of the sun. And the earth, which was then only a round lump of mud, or muddy salt-water, being turned, as it has been ever since, upon its own axis, receiving that light on its several hemispheres successively, made night and day, or evening and morning. Milton gives his opinion in the following lines: