Chapter XI: Daylight Before Sunrise (2)

I have already corrected that confusion of ideas and carelessness of perusal which confounds the two distinct and different words, _create_ and _make_, so as to make both mean the same thing. God _created_ the heavens, as well as the earth, _in the beginning_; a period of such remote antiquity that, in Bible language, it stands next to eternity. The sun and moon then came into being. Through what changes they passed, or when they were endowed with the power of giving light to the universe, the Bible nowhere declares; but on the fourth day, it tells us, they _were made lights_, or, literally, _light-bearers_, to this earth. The comparatively insignificant place allotted to the stars, in the narrative of this earth's formation, corresponds, with the strictest propriety, to the nature of the discourse; which is not an account of the system of the universe, but of the process of preparation of this earth for the abode of man. Compared with the influences of "the two great light-bearers," those of the stars are very insignificant; since the sun sheds more light and heat on the earth in one day, than all the fixed stars have done since the creation of Adam. It is evident, from the words, that Moses is not speaking either of their original creation, or of their actual magnitude, but of their appointment and use in relation to us, when he says, "And God made two great light-bearers (the greater light-bearer to rule the day, and the lesser light bearer to rule the night), and the stars. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness."

Neither here nor elsewhere does he say they were _created_ at this time, but in all the subsequent references uses other words, such as "prepared," "divided," "made," "appropriated," "made for ruling," "gave;" a studious omission, which shows that the Author of the Bible had not forgotten how long it was since he had called them into being. _The Bible, then, does not say that God created the sun and stars only two days before Adam._

Another correction of careless Bible reading is necessary, that we may be satisfied about what the Bible _does not say_, ere we begin to defend what it does say. The Bible does not say, nor lead us to believe, that the darkness spoken of in the second verse of the first of Genesis had existed from eternity. Darkness is not eternal; it requires the exercise of creative power for its production. Light is the eternal dwelling of the Word of God.[251] The darkness which brooded over our earth, at the period of its formation, is very plainly described in the Bible as a temporary phenomenon, incident to, and necessary for, the birth of ocean. It is confined by the adverb of time, _when_, to the period of condensation, upheaval, and subsidence, occupied by the birth of that gigantic infant, "_when_ it burst forth as though it had issued from the womb; _when_ I made the cloud a garment for it, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and broke up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors."[252] The sun may have shone for millions of years before upon the earth, or might have been shining with all his brilliance at that very time, while not a single ray penetrated the thick darkness of the vapors in which earth was clothed. But whether or not, darkness must, from its very nature, be limited, both in space and time. To speak of infinite and eternal darkness is as unscriptural as it is absurd. The source of light is Uncreated and Eternal.[253]

Further--if my readers are not tired with these perpetual corrections of careless reading and mistaken meaning--the light called into existence in the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis is as evidently a different word from _the two lights_ spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the singular is different from the plural; and the thing signified by it is as distinct from the things spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the abstract is from the concrete; as, when I say of the first, "light travels 195,000 miles per second," but mean a totally distinct subject when I say, "Extinguish the lights." The Hebrew words are even more palpably different, the word for _light_, in the third verse, being _aur_, while the words for _the lights_, in the fourth day's work, are _maurt_ and _at emaur_; words as distinct in shape and sense as our English words, _light_ and _the lighthouses_.

The locality of the light of the third verse is, moreover, wholly different from that of the light-bearers of the fourteenth verse. That was placed on earth--these in heaven. It was of the earth alone the writer was speaking, in the second verse; the earth alone is the subject of the following verses. It was the darkness of earth that needed to be illuminated; but there is not the remotest hint, in any portion of Scripture, that any other planet or star was shrouded in gloom at this time. But, on the contrary, we are most distinctly informed that the wonders which God was performing in this world at that very time were distinctly visible amid the cheerful illumination of other orbs, "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,"[254] as this earth emerged from its temporary darkness. It was not from the light of heaven, but out of this darkness of earth, that God, who still draws the lightning's flash from the black thunder-cloud, commanded the light to shine.[255] And it was upon this earth, and not throughout the universe, that it produced alternate day and night. To extend this command for the illumination of the darkened earth, so as to mean the production of light in general, and the lighting of the most distant telescopic, and even invisible stars--which are neither specified in the command itself, nor by any necessity of language or Scripture implied in it, but, on the contrary, excluded, by the express Scripture declarations of the pre-existence of light, and of morning stars--is an outrage alike against all canons of criticism, laws of grammar, and dictates of common sense. The command, "Let there be light," had respect to this earth only.

The Bible does represent this earth as illuminated at a time when the sun was not visible from its surface--perhaps not visible at all. Now, if any one will undertake to scoff at the Bible for speaking of light without sunshine, or of the sun shining upon a dark earth--as Infidels abundantly do--we demand that he tell us, What is light, and how is it connected with the sun? If he can not, let him cease to scoff at matters too high for him.

If he can tell us, he knows that the retardation of Encke's comet, which every year falls nearer and nearer the sun, has discovered the existence of an attenuated ether in the expanse or firmament; and that the experiments of Arago on the polarization of light have finally demonstrated that our sensation of light is exerted by a series of vibrations or undulations of this fluid,[256] he will then be able to perceive the propriety with which the Author of light and of the Bible speaks, not of _creating_ light, as if it were a material substance, but of _forming_ or commanding its display. And he will be better able to comprehend the beauty and scientific propriety with which he selected the active participle of the verb _to flow_, as the name for the undulations of this fluid; for the primary meaning of the Hebrew verb _ar_ is, _to flow_, or, when used as a noun, _a flood_. "It shall be cast out and drowned, as by the _flood_ of Egypt."[257] And of the like import are the nouns, _iar_ and _aur_, formed from it. "Who is this that covereth up like a _flood_, whose waters are moved like the rivers?"[258] The philosopher, even though he be a skeptic, will cease to mock the Bible when he reads there, that 6000 years ago its Author termed light _the flowing--the undulation_. "In the words of the 'Son of God,' and the 'Son of Man,' no less than in his works, with all their adaptation to the circumstances of the times and persons to whom they were originally delivered, are things inexplicable--concealed germs of an infinite development, reserved for future ages to unfold."[259] To the man of learning and reflection, this progressive fullness, and unfathomable depth of the Scripture, is a most conclusive proof that it was dictated by Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

But the ignorant scoffers--the great majority--will mock on, and speak evil of the things they know not. Their mockery is founded on two assumptions, which they believe to be irrefutable; that the sun is the only possible source of light to the earth; and that it is impossible for the sun to exist without illuminating the earth. Unless they can _prove_ both of these assumptions to be true, they can not prove the Bible account of creation to be false, nor even show it to be impossible. Neither of these assumptions can possibly be proved true; for none of them can explore the universe, to discover the sources of light, nor put the sun through every possible experiment, to discover that his light is an inseparable quality. The only thing Infidels can truly allege against the Bible account of the origin of light is, _their ignorance of the process_. The argument is simply this: "God could not cause light without sunshine, _because I don't know how he did it_. Nor _can I understand_ how the sun shone on a dark earth; therefore, it is impossible."

These arguments from ignorance need no other answer than the questions, Do you know how the sun shines at all? Is your ignorance the measure of God's wisdom?

But I shall demonstrate the utter falsehood of both these assumptions, by showing the actual existence of many sources of light besides the sun, and the perfect possibility of the existence of the sun without sunshine, and of sunshine without any light reaching the earth. Thus, both the alleged _impossibilities_ upon which the argument against the truth of the Bible is based will be removed, and the gross ignorance of natural science displayed by professedly scientific scoffers at the Bible exposed.

Light, so far from being solely derived from the sun, exists in, and can be educed from, almost any known substance. Even children are familiar with the light produced by the friction of two pieces of quartz; and no one needs to be informed how light may be produced by the combustion of inflammable substances. But the number of these substances is far greater than is generally supposed, and light can be produced by processes to which we do not generally apply the idea of burning. Resins, wool, silks, wood, and all kinds of earths and alkalies, are capable of emitting light in suitable electrical conditions; so that the surface of our earth may have been a source of light in past ages, as it even now is,[260] near the poles and the equator, flashing its Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis, and sending out its belts of Zodiacal light,[261] far into the surrounding darkness.

Schubert, quoted by Kurtz, says: "May not that polar light, which is called the Aurora of the North, be the last glittering light of a departed age of the world, in which the earth was inclosed in an expanse of aerial fluid, from which, through the agency of electric magnetic forces, streamed forth an incomparably greater degree of light, accompanied with animating warmth, almost in a similar mode to what still occurs in the luminous atmosphere of our sun?"

Again, the metallic bases of all the earths are highly inflammable. A brilliant flame can be produced by the combustion of water. All the metals can be made to flash forth lightnings, under suitable electric and magnetic excitements. The crystals of several rocks give out light during the process of crystallization. Thousands of miles of the earth's surface must once have presented the lurid glow of a vast furnace full of igneous rocks. Even now, the copper color of the moon during an ellipse shows us that the earth is a source of light.[262] The mountains on the surface of Venus and the moon, and the continents and oceans of Mars, attest the existence of upheaval and subsidence, and of volcanic fires, capable of producing such phenomena, and of course of sources of light in those planets, such as exist on the earth. We know, then, most certainly, that there are many other bodies capable of producing light besides the sun. That God could command the light to shine out of darkness, and convert the very ocean into a magnificent illumination, the following facts clearly prove. "Capt. Bonnycastle, coming up the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the seventh of September, 1826, was roused by the mate of the vessel, in great alarm, from an unusual appearance. It was a starlight night, when suddenly the sky became overcast, in the direction of the high land of Cornwallis County, _and an instantaneous and intensely vivid light, resembling the Aurora, shot out of the hitherto gloomy and dark sea_, on the lee bow, which was so brilliant that it lighted everything distinctly, even to the mast-head. The light spread over the whole sea, between the two shores, and the waves, which before had been tranquil, now began to be agitated. Capt. Bonnycastle describes the scene as that of _a blazing sheet of awful and most brilliant light_. A long and vivid line of light, superior in brightness to the parts of the sea not immediately near the vessel, showed the base of the high, frowning, and dark land abreast; the sky became lowering, and more intensely obscure. Long tortuous lines of light showed immense numbers of large fish, darting about as if in consternation. The topsail yard and mizzen boom were lighted by the glare, as if gas-lights had been burning directly below them; and until just before daybreak, at four o'clock, the most minute objects were distinctly visible."[263]

The other assumption, that the sun could not possibly have existed without giving light to the earth, is contradicted by the most familiar facts. The earth and each of the planets might have been, and most probably were, surrounded by a dense atmosphere, through which the sun's rays could not penetrate. It is not at all necessary to prove that such was the fact. I am only concerned to prove the _possibility_; for the Infidel's objection is founded on the presumed _impossibility_ of the coexistence of a dark earth and a shining sun. Any person who has ever been in Pittsburg, Glasgow, or the manufacturing districts of England, and has seen how the smoke of even a hundred factory chimneys will shroud the heavens, can easily comprehend how a similar discharge, on a larger scale, from the thousands of primeval volcanoes,[264] would cover the earth with the pall of darkness. By the eruption of a single volcano, in the island of Sumbawa, in 1815, the air was filled with ashes, from Java to Celebes, darkening an area of more than 200,000 square miles; and the darkness was so profound in Java, three hundred miles distant from the volcano, that nothing equal to it was ever witnessed in the darkest night.[265] Those who have witnessed the fogs raised on the Banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in the Bay of San Francisco, by the mingling of currents of water of slightly different temperatures, can be at no loss to conceive the density of the vapors produced by the boiling of the sea around and over the multitude of volcanoes[266] which have produced the countless _atolls_ of the Pacific, and by the vast upheavals of thousands of miles of heated rocks of the primary formations into the beds of primeval oceans. While such processes were in progress, it was impossible but that darkness should be upon the face of the deep.[267] Even now, a slight change of atmospheric density and temperature would vail the earth with darkness. We see this substantially done every time that God "covereth the light with clouds, and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt," although the sun continues to shine with all his usual splendor. To understand how there may be a day without sunshine, we need only conceive the whole earth temporarily enveloped in the vapors of the unastronomical atmosphere of Peru, thus described by Humboldt:

"A thick mist obscures the firmament in this region for many months, during the period called _tiempo de la garua_. Not a planet--not the most brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere--are visible. It is frequently almost impossible to distinguish the position of the moon. If, by chance, the outline of the sun's disc be visible during the day, it appears devoid of rays, as if seen through colored glasses. According to what modern geology has taught us to conjecture concerning the ancient history of our atmosphere, its primitive condition in respect to its mixture and density _must have been unfavorable to the transmission of light_. When we consider the numerous processes which, in the primary world, may have led to the separation of the solids, fluids, and gases around the earth's surface, the thought involuntarily arises, _how narrowly the human race escaped being surrounded with an untransparent atmosphere_, which, though not greatly prejudicial to some classes of vegetation, would yet have completely vailed the whole of the starry canopy. All knowledge of the structure of the universe could then have been withheld from the inquiring spirit of man."[268] The sun, then, may have shone with all his brilliancy, for thousands of years, and a single ray never have penetrated the darkness upon the face of the deep.

But we will go further, and show that so far from light being an essential property of suns, it is a very variable attribute, and that in several cases suns have ceased, and others begun, to shine, before our eyes.

The fixed stars are self-luminous bodies, similar to our sun, only immensely distant from us. Their numbers, magnitudes, and places, are known and recorded. But new stars have frequently flashed into view, where none were previously seen to exist; and others have gradually grown dim and disappeared, without changing their place; and a few which had disappeared have reappeared in the same spot they formerly occupied; while others have changed their color since the era of astronomical observation. In short, there is no permanence in the heavens, any more than on the earth; but a perpetual progress and change is the destiny of suns and stars, of which the most conspicuous indication is the variability of their powers of giving light, of which I shall transcribe a few instances.

"On the eleventh of November, 1572, as the illustrious Danish astronomer, Tycho, was walking through the fields, he was astonished to observe a new star in the constellation Cassiopea, beaming with a radiance quite unwonted in that part of the heavens. Suspecting some delusion about his eyes, he went to a group of peasants, to ascertain if they saw it, and found them gazing at it with as much astonishment as himself. He went to his instrument, and fixed its place, from which it never after appeared to deviate. For some time it increased in brightness--greatly surpassed Sirius in luster, and even Jupiter. It was seen by good eyes in the daytime; a thing which happens only to Venus, under very favorable circumstances; and at night it pierced through clouds which obscured the rest of the stars. After reaching its fullest brightness, it again diminished, passed through all degrees of visible magnitude, assuming in succession the hues of a dying conflagration, and then finally disappeared." "It is impossible to imagine anything more tremendous than a conflagration that could be visible at such a distance."[269]

Astronomers now recognize a class of such _Temporary Stars_, which have appeared from time to time in different parts of the heavens, blazing forth with extraordinary luster, and after remaining awhile, apparently immovable, have died away, and left no trace.[270] Twenty-one of such appearances of new suns are on record.[271]

Still further, many familiar suns have ceased to shine. "On a careful re-examination of the heavens, _many stars are found to be missing_."[272] "There are many well authenticated cases of the disappearance of old stars, whose places had been fixed with a degree of certainty not to be doubted. In October, 1781, Sir William Herschel observed a star, No. 55 in Flamstead's Catalogue, in the constellation Hercules. In 1790 the same star was observed by the same astronomer, but since that time no search has been able to detect it. The stars 80 and 81 of the same catalogue, both of the fourth magnitude, have likewise disappeared. In May, 1828, Sir John Herschel missed the star No. 42, in the constellation Virgo, which has never since been seen. Examples might be multiplied, but it is unnecessary."[273]

The demonstration of the variableness of the light-giving power of suns is completed by the phenomena of the class called _Variable Stars_; though the best astronomers are now agreed that _variability, and not uniformity_, in the emission of light, is the general character of the stars.[274] But the variations which occur before our eyes impress us more deeply than those which require centuries for their completion. Sir John Herschel has observed, and graphically described, one such instance of variation of light.

"The star Eta Argus has always hitherto been regarded as a star of the second magnitude; and I never had reason to regard it as variable. In November, 1837, _I saw it, as usual_. Judge of my surprise to find, on the sixteenth of December, that _it had suddenly become a star of the first magnitude_, and almost equal to Rigel. It continued to increase. Rigel is now not to be compared with it. It exceeds Arcturus, and is very near equal to Alpha Centauri, being, at the moment I write, the fourth star in the heavens, in the order of brightness."[275] It has since passed through several variations of luster. Humboldt gives a catalogue of twenty-four of such stars whose variations have been recorded.

"A strange field of speculation is opened by this phenomenon. Here we have a star fitfully variable to an astonishing extent, and whose fluctuations are spread over centuries, apparently in no settled period, and with no regularity of progression. What origin can we ascribe to these sudden flashes and relapses? What conclusions are we to draw as to the comfort or habitability of a system depending for its supply of light and heat on such an uncertain source? Speculations of this kind can hardly be termed visionary, when we consider that, from what has been before said, we are compelled to admit a community of nature between the fixed stars and our own sun; and when we reflect, that geology testifies to the fact of extensive changes having taken place, at epochs of the most remote antiquity, in the climate and temperature of our globe; changes difficult to reconcile with the operation of secondary causes, such as a different distribution of sea and land, but which would find an easy and natural explanation in a slow variation of the supply of light and heat afforded by the sun himself."[276] "I can not otherwise understand alterations of heat and cold so extensive as at one period to have clothed high northern latitudes with a more than tropical luxuriance of vegetation, and at another to have buried vast tracts of Europe, now enjoying a genial climate, and smiling with fertility, under a glacier crust of enormous thickness. Such changes seem to point to causes more powerful than the mere local distribution of land and water can well be supposed to have been. In the slow secular variations of our supply of light and heat from the sun, _which, in the immensity of time, may have gone to any extent, and succeeded each other in any order, without violating the analogy of sidereal phenomena which we know to have taken place_, we have a cause, not indeed established as a fact, but readily admissible as something beyond a bare possibility, fully adequate to the utmost requirements of geology. A change of half a magnitude on the luster of our sun, regarded as a fixed star, spread over successive geological epochs--now progressive, now receding, now stationary--_is what no astronomer would now hesitate to admit as a perfectly reasonable and not improbable supposition_."[277]

The most eminent astronomers are perfectly unanimous in their deductions from these facts. They regard _variability as the general characteristic of suns and stars, our own sun not exempted_. "We are led," says Humboldt, "by analogy to infer, that as the fixed stars _universally_ have not merely an apparent, but a real motion of their own, so their surfaces or luminous atmospheres are generally subject to those changes (in their "light process") which recur, in the great majority, in extremely long, and therefore unmeasured, and probably undeterminable periods, or which, in a few, recur without being periodical, as it were, by a sudden revolution, either for a longer or a shorter time." And he asks, _Why should our sun differ from other suns?_

In reference to the extinction of suns, he says: "What we no longer see is not necessarily annihilated. It is merely the transition of matter into new forms--into combinations which are subject to new processes. Dark cosmical bodies may, by a renewed process of light, again become luminous."[278]

In confirmation of the fact adduced in support of this view, by La Place, "that those stars which have become invisible, after having surpassed Jupiter in brilliancy, have not changed their place during the time they continued visible," he adds, "The luminous process has simply ceased." Bessel asserts[279] that, "_No reason exists for considering luminosity an essential property of these bodies._" And Nichol sums up the matter in the following emphatic words: "No more is light _inherent_ in the sun than in Tycho's vanished star; and with it and other orbs, a time may come when, through the consent of all the powers of nature, he shall cease to be required to shine. _The womb which contains the future is that which bore the past._"[280]

Here, then we behold astronomy presenting to our observation facts and processes so similar to those which revelation presents to our faith, that all those men who are most profoundly versed in her lore, reasoning solely from the facts of science, and without any reference to the Bible, unanimously conclude that there was such a state of darkness and confusion before our era, as the Bible declares--that its causes were most probably such as the Bible implies--and that the sudden illuminating of dark bodies, and their extinction, and even re-illumination, are facts so perfectly well authenticated as matters of observation in regard to other suns, that no reasonable man can hesitate to believe any credible assurance that our sun has passed through such a process. With what feelings, then, are we to regard men who, in defiance of the most common facts, and in contradiction to the demonstrations of science, blaspheme the God of truth as a teacher of falsehood, because he speaks of light distinct from that of the sun? Surely, such men are those whom he describes as "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts. In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not."[281]

These facts, of the sudden kindling of stars, their gradual passage through all the hues of a dying conflagration, and their final extinction, and present blackness of darkness, are facts of fearful omen to the enemies of God. They are the original threatenings of Heaven, whence the fearful language of Bible warning is derived. They attest its truth, and illustrate its import.

The favorite theory of the unbeliever is the uniformity of nature. "Where," says he, "is the promise of Christ's coming to judgment; for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were since the beginning of the world?" But the telescope dispels the illusion, exhibits the course of nature as a succession of catastrophes, displays the conflagration of other worlds, and the extinction of their suns, before our eyes, and asks, _Why should our sun differ from other suns?_ It is not the preacher, but the philosopher, who has turned prophet, when--looking back on the period when the Siberian elephant and rhinoceros were frozen amid their native jungle, and icebergs visited the plains of India--he proclaims, "_The womb that bore the past contains the future._"

The threatenings of God's Word are invested with a mantle of terrible literality by the facts we have been contemplating. Raised at the day of resurrection, in these bodies, and with these senses, and this capability of rejoicing in the light, and shuddering and pining amid outward gloom, physical darkness will be the terrible prison of those who chose darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. The Father of Lights shall withdraw his blessed influences from the hearts, the dwellings, the eyes, of those who say to him, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." The sun shall cease to vivify God's corn, and wine, and oil, which ungodly men consume upon their lusts. The moon shall cease to shine upon the robber's toil, and the stars to illumine the adulterer's path. The light of heaven shall cease to gild the field of carnage, where men perform the work of hell. In the very midst of your worldliness and business, unbeliever, when you are in all the engrossment of buying and selling, and planting and building, and marrying and giving in marriage, without warning or expectation, "the sun shall go down at noon, and the stars shall be darkened in the clear day." As in the warning and example given to the enemies of the Lord in Egypt, thick darkness, that may be felt, shall wind its inevitable chains around you, preventing your escape from the judgment of the great day, and giving you a fearful foretaste of that "blackness of darkness for ever" of which you are now forewarned in the Word of Truth.

"The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
And the stars shall fall from the heavens,
And the powers of the heavens shall be shaken;
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens,
And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn;
And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven,
With power and great glory."

"Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness;
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

"Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud,
For the Lord hath spoken.
Give glory to the Lord, your God,
Before he cause darkness,
And before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains;
And while ye look for light,
He turn it into the shadow of death,
And make it gross darkness."

"I am the light of the world;
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,
But shall have the light of life."[282]

FOOTNOTES:

[218] Duff's India, 127.

[219] Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, p. 83.

[220] Poole's Horæ Egyptiacæ.

[221] Henri L'Egypte Pharonique.

[222] Atlas Ethnographique, Eth. I.

[223] See Cruden's Concordance, Art. _Day_.

[224] Dan., chap. xii. 10. Job, chap. xxxviii. 4. Col., chap. ii. 18.

[225] Chap. I. _Did the World Make Itself?_

[226] Genesis, chap. i. 21.

[227] Genesis, chap. i. 27.

[228] Psalm civ. 30. Eccl., chap. xii. 1.

[229] Psalm li. 10. Ezekiel, chap. xxxvi. 26.

[230] Genesis, chap. ii. 1-5. Isaiah, chap. xliii. 1-7; chap. xlv. 1, 2.

[231] Wiseman's Lectures on the Connection of Science and Revealed Religion, 1-297.

[232] Commentary on Genesis, i. 2.

[233] Exodus, chap. i. 5, 8.

[234] Isaiah, chap. xi. 3, 4.

[235] Psalm xc.

[236] John, chap. i. 1.

[237] Revelation, chap. i. 8.

[238] Proverbs, chap. viii. 22.

[239] Samuel, chap. xxii. 43. Isaiah, chap. xl. 19; chap. xliv. 24; chap. xlii. 5. Psalm cxxxvi. 6. Numbers, chap. xvii. 38. Job, chap. xxxvii. 18.

[240] Cosmos v. 2, p. 60.

[241] Genesis, chap. xix. 26. Exodus, chap. xiii. 20; chap. xxxiii. 10. Jeremiah, chap. i. 18. Galatians, chap. ii. 7. Song, chap. iii. 6. Job, chap. ix. 6; chap. xxvi. 11. Psalm lxxv. 3. 1 Timothy, chap. iii. 15. Revelation, chap. iii. 12.

[242] Job, chap. xxxvi. 27.

[243] Job, chap. xxviii. 24--literal reading.

[244] Ecclesiastes, chap. i. 6.

[245] Isaiah, chap. xl.

[246] Job, chap. xxvi. 7.

[247] Ruth, chap. iii. 15.

[248] Job, chap. xxxviii. 37; chap. xxvi. 8; chap. xxxviii. 9; chap. xxxvi. 29. Psalm cv. 39; lxxvii. 17.

[249] Isaiah, chap. xliv. 22. Jeremiah, chap. iv. 13. Job, chap. xxxviii. 37. Proverbs, chap. xxx. 4.

[250] Ecclesiastes, chap. xi. 4. Psalm civ. 3. Matthew, chap. xxix. 30.

[251] Isaiah, chap. xlv. 7. 1 John, chap. i. 5. Daniel, chap. ii. 22. 1 Timothy, chap. vi. 16.

[252] Job, chap. xxxviii. 9, 10. Literally, _In my making_, etc.

[253] Revelation, chap. xxi. 23; chap. xxii. 5. Isaiah, chap. lx. 19.

[254] Job, chap. xxxviii. 7.

[255] 2 Corinthians, chap. iv. 6.

[256] Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, Sec. 19-23.

[257] Amos, chap. viii. 8.

[258] Jeremiah, chap. xlvi. 7. Genesis, chap. xli. 1-18. See Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, sub voce.

[259] Neander.

[260] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 196.

[261] Annual of Scientific Discovery. 1856.

[262] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 196. Nichol's Solar System, 184.

[263] Somerville's Connection of Physical Sciences, 288.

[264] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 250.

[265] Lyell's Principles of Geology, 465.

[266] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 250.

[267] Cosmos, Vol. I. pp. 198, 216.

[268] Cosmos, Vol. III. p. 139.

[269] Nichol's Solar System, 188. Connection of Physical Sciences, 363.

[270] Herschel's Outlines, Sec. 827.

[271] Cosmos, Vol. VIII. p. 210.

[272] Herschel's Outlines, Sec. 832.

[273] Mitchell's Planetary and Stellar Worlds, 294.

[274] Cosmos, Vol. III. p. 253.

[275] Astronomical Observations, 351.

[276] Herschel's Outlines, Sec. 830.

[277] Astronomical Observations, 351.

[278] Cosmos, Vol. III. pp. 222-232.

[279] Cosmos, Vol. III. p. 246.

[280] Solar System, 190.

[281] Ephesians, chap. iv. 18. 2 Corinthians, chap. iv. 4.

[282] Matthew, chap. xxiv. 29. John, chap. viii. 12. Jeremiah, chap. xiii. 15. Matthew, chap. xxii. 13 and chap. xxv. 30.