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this brotherly love furnishes the doubting soul with a comfortable mark of its state. It is impossible for the love of the brethren, to be separated from the love of God. Whoever loves the original, will also love the copy. Whoever loves God, will love him who belongs to God, in whom he discerns the excellencies of God, and whom he believes to be beloved of God.h Happy the man whose spirit bears witness with the Spirit of God, that these distinguishing characters of God's children, are found in himself.

1 John iii. 14.

h 1 John iv. 20.

DISSERTATION VIII.

ON THE CREATION.

I. THE work ascribed in the Creed to the Father is that of CREATION; on which we now proceed, concisely, to discourse. Let us begin with explaining the word. What the Latins call Creare, the Hebrews express by the term " (bara ;) which signifies, to produce some new thing, solely, by one's will and command, or nobly to effect and accomplish something by a surprising energy. Thus Moses says, "If the Lord "make a new thing," that is, produce a strange thing by his powerful word, causing the earth to open her mouth: and, likewise, Jeremiah, " The Lord hath cre"ated a new thing in the earth," b that is, hath commanded a thing to exist, nothing equal, or similar, to which was ever beheld.

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II. We are not, however, to imagine, that the word

does uniformly, or by its own proper power, denote the production of a creature out of nothing. It is applied to those works which are expressly recorded to have been formed, during the first six days, from pre

.30 .Num. xvi בריאה יברא 8

b prxa nwin n177) 872 Jer. xxxi. 22.

existent matter. Though men are the offspring of their parents, too, by natural generation, God is denominated the Creatord of every man; and this not merely with regard to the soul, which, indeed, he creates out of nothing, but with regard to the whole person, which owes its existence to his good pleasure, and is " fearfully and wonderfully made." In like manner, it is said in the Psalms, "The people who shall be created "shall praise the Lord;" and in Ezekiel," I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in "the land of thy nativity."s

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III. Besides, no one doubts, I suppose, that the new heavens and the new earth, for which, according to the promise of the Supreme Being, we look, are to be constructed out of the rubbish and ashes of the world which now exists. Yet God says of them, "Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth.”h

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IV. There is even a passage, where things which exist already, are said to be created, when new vigour is infused into them: "Thou sendest forth thy

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Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face "of the earth." From these instances it appears, that the word is sometimes used in relation to things, which are, by no means, made out of nothing, and yet are so far created, that, by the will and command of God, they pass, in a certain respect, from a state of nom-existence to a state of existence.*

.as Kimchi speaks,מאין ליש *

12 Eccles. xii. 1.

• Gen. i. 21, 27.

.14 .Ps. xxxix נוראות נפלא *

.18 .Ps. cii עם נברא יהלל יה

.30 .Ezek. xxi נבראת 8 .17 .Is. lxv הנני בורא 5

.30 .Ps. civ תשלח רוחך יבראון

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v. Correspondent to the Hebrew, is the Greek verb zw; whence ros, creation, is derived; that is, an act which gives existence to a creature. But this word is also of extensive application, and signifies the producing of things in any way; as appears from the definition of Hesychius,* and from the Apostle Peter's denominating a magistrate divinely appointed for regulating the affairs of men," an ordinance (a crea"ture) of man."k

The

VI. The Seventy Interpreters, also, have not scrupled to make use of this term in reference to the supreme Wisdom, and as our Divines are acsustomed to explain it, in reference to the generation of the Word. Chaldee Paraphrast, likewise, on the same passage, employs the word . Some, too, derive from this Hebrew verb the noun, a son; the Latin word parere, (to beget :) and the Dutch word baren.† But, as these words have now a different signification in the schools of theology, I deem it neither prudent nor safe, whilst the heretics discover so much perverseness, for any Divine to imitate that phrase, when discoursing of the Only-begotten Son of God, by calling him Created, in whatever sense the expression be used.

VII. It may be added, that the Latin verb creare, in like manner, does not signify, precisely, what we now usually intend by this term. It may even admit of a doubt whether the ancient Romans ever recognised this signification. With them creare is gignere, (to be

* Κτίσαι est ίδρυσαι, 'οικησαι, ἀρξασθαι. Κτίσμα, ποίημα, οικοδόμημα. + The Scottish word bairn, (a child,) may, with equal probability, be traced to the same Hebrew origin. T.

‡ 872), xviodus, creatus.

j 2 Pet. iii. 4. Mark x. 6.

̓Ανθρωπίνην κτίσιν. 1 Pet. ii. 13.

1 Prov. viii. 22.

get;*) to make in any manner;† or even to appoint to any dignity, in which sense Consuls, Generals, and Magistrates are said creari, to be created.

VIII. Although it appears, then, that as well in sacred as in common use, the signification of these words is very vague and indeterminate; yet, because that mode of creation by which something is produced out of nothing is the most excellent and wonderful, it is usual in theological discourses, for an act of this sort to be strictly called Creation, and to be distinguished from generation, and other modes of producing.

IX. To pass, therefore, from an examination of the word to the illustration of the subject; CREATION 18 THAT ACT OF GOD, IN WHICH, BY THE ALL-POWERFUL COMMAND OF HIS WILL, HE MADE OUT OF NOTHING, AND PERFECTED, THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, IN THE SPACE OF SIX DAYS.

x. Before the Creation, nothing at all existed, excepting God:-No world such as this we now behold, which some have falsely supposed to have been co-eternal with God:-No shapeless matter, from which, by means of motion, other substances were formed by some imaginary Mind; according to the expression of Anaxagoras in Laertius, "All things existed in one irre

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gular mass; then Mind came, and reduced them to "order :"+-In fine, no spirits distinct from God, as, in opposition to Scripture, the adversaries of the eternal Divinity of Christ contend-But absolutely nothing.

*As in Virgil, Sulmone creatos, begotten, or born, at Sulmo: and in Horace, Fortes creantur fortibus; The brave are begotten by the brave.

+ Ennius accordingly says, Dicitur Vesta hanc urbem creavisse ; Vesta is reported to have created, that is, founded, this city. + Πάντα χρήματα την ομδ· ειτα νοῦς ἐλθων, αυτα διεκόσμησε.

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