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law to the Israelites, and adopted them for the illustration of religious truths, and as the vehicles of moral instruction to the chosen people."

"The whole representation which Moses has given of the creation of the world," says Dr Knapp, "is as simple as possible, and such as doubtless was perfectly intelligible to those who lived in that infant age of the world, and is still so to men in common life. In the Bible, God speaks with men after the manner of men, and not in a language which is beyond the comprehension of most of them, as the learned would fain make it to be. Well, indeed, is it for the great mass of mankind, that the learned were not consulted respecting the manner in which the Bible should be written.

"The general subject of this passage is indicated in the first verse of Genesis. This is then enlarged upon in the following verses, not to gratify the curiosity of scientific men, but to meet the wants of those who lived in the age in which it was written, and of common men in all ages. This amplification is entirely simple and popular; and the work of creation is here represented as a six days' work. It is to be considered as a picture in which God appears as a human workman, who accomplishes what he undertakes only by piecemeal, and on each successive day lays out and performs a separate portion of his business. By such a representation the notion of the creation is made easy to every mind; and common people seeing it so distinctly portrayed, can form some distinct conceptions concerning it, and read or hear the account of it with interest.

"If we would form a clear and distinct notion of this whole description of the creation, we must conceive of six separate pictures, in which this great work is represented in each successive stage of its progress towards completion; and as the performance of the painter, though it must have natural truth as its foundation, must not be considered or judged of as a delineation of

mathematical or scientific accuracy, so neither must this pictorial representation of the creation be regarded as literally and exactly true.

"The hypothesis of modern naturalists respecting the material of our globe, can neither be confirmed nor refuted from the writings of Moses. Which of all those which have been suggested is true, whether that of Whiston, who supposes the earth to be formed from a comet - that of Leibnitz, who makes it a sun burnt out -that of Buffon, according to whom all the heavenly bodies are fragments, broken off from the body of the sun by the concussion of a comet-or that of Wideburg, who supposes the earth to have been originally a spot on the sun-must be determined on other grounds than the testimony of Moses.

"All these learned speculations and inquiries respecting the material of the earth, &c. lie beyond the object and sphere of Moses; and any of these hypotheses of the naturalist may be adopted or rejected, the Mosaic geogony notwithstanding."-Knapp's Lectures on Christian Theology, vol. i. pp. 355, 356, and 360.

NOTE XI. p. 86.

THE FIRST FOUR DAYS OF CREATION.

Some more acute and more industrious still,
Contrive creation, travel nature up

To the sharp peak of her sublimest heights,
And tell us whence the stars!

COWPER.

To those who will form cosmogonies, and think it a pity to lose the new discoveries in nebular astronomy, without applying them to some useful purpose, it may be suggested that the chaotic state of the earth alluded to in the second verse of Genesis, and the four first

days of creation, may have occurred while the earth and our planetary system were yet in a nebulous state, and dependent upon and revolving round some other greater centre. That as yet the earth and the other planets did not revolve round the sun; but along with a slow orbital movement common to the whole, the earth also performed a revolution round its axis, correspondent to the measurement of a day and night, but of a much greater length than that of the days subsequently established. That, in this period, land, and ocean, and the atmosphere were formed; and towards the close of it, when the earth was fully prepared, the creation of vegetables took place. Immediately on this occurrence, the planetary system, as it at present exists, became established, the sun became the centre of attraction, of light and heat, the moon had her circuit assigned her round the earth, and the other planets theirs round the central luminary. On the fifth morning that dawned on the now green earth, animals were created, and on the sixth day, man. Previous to the third day it had not rained, but a dew or vapour went up from the earth. Supposing that the primary mountains were elevated by igneous actions, the whole surface of the newly formed dry land must have been in a heated state, and from Mr Daniel's exposition of the condition of the atmosphere under an unequal elevation of temperature, this universal vapour is precisely what was to be looked for. One cannot but feel pleased with such coincidences, even though we are not assured of the facts on which they are built; and thus Mr Daniel expresses himself:

"In the Mosaical account of the creation, the question has been asked, How is it that light is said to have been created in the first day, and day and night to have succeeded each other when the sun is described as not having been produced till the fourth day. The sceptic presumptuously replies, This is a palpable contradiction, and the history that propounds it must be false. But

Moses records, that God created, on the first day, the earth covered with water, and did not, till its second revolution upon its axis, call the firmament into existence. Now, one result of the previous inquiry has been, that a sphere, unequally heated, and covered with water, must be enveloped in an atmosphere of steam which would necessarily be turbid in its whole depth with precipitating moisture. The exposure of such a sphere to the orb of day would produce illumination upon it, that dispersed and equal light which now penetrates in a cloudy day, and which, indeed, is 'good,' but the glorious source of light could not have been visible from its surface. On the second day, the permanently elastic fluid was produced, and we have seen that the natural consequences of this mixture of gaseous matter, with vapour, must have been that the waters would begin to collect above the firmament, and divide themselves from the waters which were below the firmament. The clouds would thus be confined to definite plains of precipitation, and exposed to the influence of the winds and still invisible sun. The gathering together of the waters on the third day, and appearance of dry land, would present a greater heating surface, and a less surface of evaporation; and the atmosphere, during this revolution, would let fall its excess of condensed moisture; and upon the fourth day, it would appear probable even to our short-sighted philosophy, that the sun would be enabled to dissipate the still remaining mists, and burst forth with splendour upon the vegetating surface," &c.- Daniel's Meteorological Essays, p. 132. 2d Edition.

Plate III. a represents the supposed nebular condition of the planetary system; fig. 1, The first condition of the sphere of the globe; 2, The formation of the atmosphere; 3, The formation of dry land; 4, The earth and the other planets assuming their orbits round the sun.

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