References thing apprehended by man's senses. The Hebrew word and Authorities. for Heaven is plural, like our welkin. Heaven and earth. Ver. 2. WITHOUT FORM AND VOID; Heb. tohu-vaTohu-va bohu. Some think the expression suggests the wreck of a former world. Comp. Job xii. 22; xxvi. 7; Isa. xxiv. 10: xxxiv. 11; Jer. iv. 23. bohu. Spirit or breath. Light shining through. The earth story began DARKNESS; an envelope of thick mist, through which light could not pierce. SPIRIT OF GOD; here not to be confounded with the Holy Ghost of Christian doctrine. It stands for the Divine quickening principle: literally, the breath of God which gives life, as His hand may be said to give form. "The agency of God as directed by the Divine Will." Ver. 3. LET THERE BE LIGHT; this may have come by the thinning of the enveloping mist. Astronomy declares that light, the sun, and the stars have existed for ages before the era of the human race. So we must conceive of God here as dealing not with light absolute, but with light in relation to the earth which He would fashion for man. Ver. 4 LIGHT FROM DARKNESS; this indicates that the earth then moved on its axis. Ver. 5. EVENING AND MORNING; evening put first with dark- simply because the story of our earth began with the darkness. Jews reckoned from evening to evening. ness. Word "fir Ver. 6. FIRMAMENT; an atmosphere between the mament.' earth and the clouds. The word is derived from one meaning to beat or stamp on: to beat out metal into thin plates. To us the firmament seems an expanse or expansion. Some have unreasonably suggested that Moses taught the sky to be a hard metallic vault. See "Bib lical Things WATERS FROM THE WATERS; and still the air, or Not Gener- atmosphere, divides the waters of the seas from the waters of the clouds. ally Known," No. 633. Sun and Ver. 9. INTO ONE PLACE; note that this includes God's ordering of the mystery of the tides. Ver. 14. LIGHTS; these are mentioned after the and arrangement of the vegetation because the order of the References seasons bears direct relation to the life of the soil. Authorities. These "lights" came into direct relation to the earth when the mist was cleared, and an atmosphere made. It is remarkable that they are called light-bearers, and modern astronomy has discovered that the sun is in reality an opaque body, bearing an atmosphere of light around it. fishes. Ver. 21. GREAT WHALES; or sea monsters. ABUNDANTLY; it has been stated that so remarkable is Fecundity of the fecundity of fishes that the progeny of one pair of herrings would, in a few years, crowd the Atlantic. Ver. 25. BEAST, CATTLE; probably intended to distinguish wild from domestic creatures. NOTE ON THE SUN AS A LIGHT-BEARER. (By CANON CHAMPNEYS.) The book of God tells us that light was created three The sun not a light, but days before the sun, and that the light thus created was a lightbearer. placed in the sun, which is therefore not so much a light as a light-bearer (as, indeed, the word means in the Hebrew, wornpes Septuagint). Now, has modern science discovered anything that tallies with this fact? The astronomer of later times, by means of those powerful glasses which have brought far-distant worlds within the range of our minute observations, has discovered dark spots on the sun's blazing disc-whose regular motion from west to east has proved that the bright day-star revolves on its own axis. But they have proved more than this; they have proved that the body of the planet is not luminous, but opaque-that its atmosphere only is luminous. Science and revelation here speak the same word, and both say that the sun is a light-bearer. "That God hath withdrawn Himself, and left this His temple desolate, we have many sad and plain proofs before us. The stately ruins are visible to every eye that bear in their front, yet extant, their doleful inscription- Here God once dwelt.' Enough appears of the admirable frame and structure of the soul of man to show the Divine presence did sometime reside in it; more than enough of vicious deformity to complain He is now retired and gone."-John Howe. and Question of of man. Southall. References IT is not possible, within our limits, adequately to Authorities, discuss the question of the antiquity of man, though the antiquity it is so "intimately connected with the truth or falsity of the theories of evolution which colour so Dr. 7. C. materially all current scientific investigations." We may direct our readers to a volume lately published by Dr. J. C. Southall, on the "Recent Origin of Man," in which the subject is fully and fairly discussed. He shows that the evidences for the antiquity of man on the evolution theory are purely speculative; and he asks, as we think very perti. nently, why, if man, as geologists and archeologists affirm, has been on the earth several hundred and thousand years, there are no traces of him anterior References to the organized and civilized communities in Egypt Authorities. and Babylonia? Our concern in this chapter is chiefly with the The terms of Man's Createrms in which the creation of man is recorded tion. by the sacred writer, and with the nature of that Divine image in which he is said to have been made. These are given to us in Genesis i. 26, 27; ii. 7. The expression, "Let us make man," it is now generally felt, must not be pressed into service as a proof of the Divine Trinity. It is probably no more than the plural of dignity, with which we are familiar in all public documents. Moses was the great revealer of the truth of the Unity of God. It is impossible to conceive that the modern developed conception of the Trinity, or three persons and one God, could ever have entered his mind. And certainly if that had been the early association with this plural pronoun, the subsequent teachings of Moses concerning the Divine Unity must have sadly confused the people. It is not easy to see how the modern idea of a triune Jehovah could have been fashioned until Christ had been revealed in human form, and, through him, the living energies and inward workings of the Holy Spirit had been recognized. We may see in Genesis the hint of the great truth, but the full revelation of it belongs to later days. The assertion is, that man is made in the likeness or image of God. But at once the difficulty meets us, that we do not know, we have not seen God. What, Hint of the Divine Trinity. Mos s' teaching of the Divine Unity What is God's image? and References then, is God like? He has not given us any other Authorities. image of Himself with which to compare man. It Man's upright position. God an Inteligent may be that the angels are also in His image, but He does not let us see them, or know them. God will not permit us to consider that anything in Creation is adequate to represent Him; and we must not even fashion a form for Him in our minds. He is a spirit; we can only worship Him in spirit; and we can only know Him in spirit, in thought. He gives us facts to think about, makes revelations of His will, and from these expects us to reason out for ourselves what He must be. Our spirit alone, in its high spiritual manner, can conceive the great Spirit. It has been suggested that the image of God which was impressed on man was his upright position, his erectness, which contrasts so decidedly with the attitude taken by any other creature. This may be part of his distinction from the lower creatures, but it is impossible for us to be satisfied with this as an explanation, for it involves the assumption that God has a form, and such an assumption we are forbidden to make. To understand what is the likeness of God on man we must plainly get some fitting idea of God, and of what may be regarded as essential to Him, and characteristic of Him. Keeping our attention fixed on the great work of Creation, as recorded in this chapter, we find that four conceptions of God are necessary. 1. We must think that He is an Intelligent Being. Being. Creation everywhere bears the marks of design, and |