OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING TABLES. from the earth. the heaven be gathered together b A. M. 1. B. C. 4004. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; 2 Pet. iii. 5.-b 2 Pet. iii. 5. See the remarks on the sun, moon, and stars, after ver. 16. Verse 2. The earth was without form and void] The original terms tohu and a bohu, which we translate without form and void, are of uncertain etymology; but in this place, and wherever else they are used, they convey the idea of confusion and disorder. From these terms it is probable that the ancient Syrians and Egyptians borrowed their gods, Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their Chaos. God seems at first to have created the elementary principles of all things; and this formed the grand mass of ment, or any distinction of parts: a vast collection of indescribably confused materials, of nameless entities strangely mixed; and wonderfully well expressed by an ancient heathen poet: IN Table I. the quantity of the periodic and sidereal revolutions of the planets is expressed in common years, each containing 365 days; as, e. g., the tropical revolution of Jupiter is, by the table, 11 years, 315 days, 14 hours, 39 minutes, 2 seconds; i. e. the exact number of days is equal to 11 years multiplied by 365, and the extra 315 days added to the product, which make in all 4330 days. The sidereal and periodic times are also set down to the nearest second of time, from numbers used in the construction of the tables in the third edition of M. de la Lande's Astro-matter, which in this state must be without arrangenomy. The columns containing the mean distance of the planets from the sun in English miles, and their greatest and least distance from the earth, are such as result from the best observations of the two last transits of Venus, which gave the solar parallax to be equal to 8 three-fifth seconds of a degree; and consequently the earth's diameter, as seen from the sun, must be the double of 8 seconds, or 17 seconds. From this last quantity, compared with the apparent diameters of the planets, as seen at a distance equal to that of the earth at her mean distance from the sun, the diameters of the planets in English miles, as contained in the seventh column, have been carefully computed. In the column entitled "Proportion of bulk, the earth being 1," the whole numbers express the number of times the other planet contains more cubic miles, &c., than the earth; and if the number of cubic miles in the earth be given, the number of cubic miles in any planet may be readily found by multiplying the cubic miles contained in the earth by the number in the column, and the product will be the quantity required. Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, cœlum, OVID. Before the seas and this terrestrial ball, The most ancient of the Greeks have spoken nearly in the same way of this crude, indigested state of the primitive chaotic mass. When this congeries of elementary principles was brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials, out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the This is a small but accurate sketch of the vast solar system; to describe it fully, even in all its known revolutions and connexions, in all its astonishing energy and influence, in its wonderful plan, structure, opera-whole of the solar system. tions, and results, would require more volumes than can be devoted to the commentary itself. As so little can be said here on a subject so vast, it may appear to some improper to introduce it at all; but to any observation of this kind I must be permitted to reply, that I should deem it unpardonable not to give a general view of the solar system in the very place where its creation is first introduced. If these works be stupendous and magnificent, what must HE be who formed, guides, and supports them all by the word of his power! Reader, stand in awe of this God, and sin not. Make him thy Friend through the Son of his love; and, when these heavens and this earth are no more, thy soul shall exist in consummate and unutterable felicity. The Spirit of God] This has been variously and strangely understood. Some think a violent wind is meant, because ruach often signifies wind as well as spirit, as vενμа does in Greek; and the term God is connected with it merely, as they think, to Others understand express the superlative degree. by it an elementary fire. Others, the sun, penetrating and drying up the earth with his rays. Others, the angels, who were supposed to have been employed as agents in creation. Others, a certain occult principle, termed the anima mundi or soul of the world. Others, a magnetic attraction, by which all things were caused But it is sufto gravitate to a common centre. ficiently evident, from the use of the word in other places, that the Holy Spirit of God is intended; which our blessed Lord represents under the notion of wind, John iii. 8; and which, as a mighty rushing rind on the day of Pentecost, filled the house where the disciples were sitting, Acts ii. 2, which was immediately followed by their speaking with other tongues, because they were filled with the Holy Ghost, ver. 4. These scriptures sufficiently ascertain the sense in which the word is used by Moses. Moved] merachepheth, was brooding over; for the word expresses that tremulous motion made by the hen while either hatching her eggs or fostering her young. It here probably signifies the communicating a vital or prolific principle to the waters. As the idea of incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the original word, hence probably the notion, which prevailed among the ancients, that the world was generated from an egg. Verse 3. And God said, Let there be light] a 1 clothed with trees, herbs, grass, &c. 11 And God said, Let the earth A. M. 1. B. C. 4004. bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit fire, < Luke vi. 44. C raithi ur, which a modern philosopher who understood the language would not scruple to translate, I have received caloric, or an additional portion of the matter of heat. I therefore conclude that, as God has diffused the matter of caloric or latent heat through every part of nature, without which there could be neither vegetation nor animal life, that it is caloric or latent heat which is principally intended by the original word. That there is latent light, which is probably the same with latent heat, may be easily demonstrated: take two pieces of smooth rock crystal, agate, cornelian, or flint, and rub them together briskly in the dark, and the latent light or matter of caloric will be immediately produced and become visible. The light or caloric thus disengaged does not operate in the same powerful manner as the beat or fire which is produced by striking with flint and steel, or that produced by electric friction. The existence of this caloric-latent or primitive light, may be ascertained in various other bodies; it can be produced by the flint and steel, by rubbing two hard sticks together, by hammering cold iron, which in a short time becomes red 'hot, and by the strong and sudden compression of atmospheric air in a tube. Friction in general produces both fire and light. God therefore created this universal agent on the first day, because without it no operation of nature could be carried on or perfected. Light is one of the most astonishing productions of the creative skill and power of God. It is the grand medium by which all his other works are discovered, examined, and understood, so far as they can be known. Its immense diffusion and extreme velocity are alone sufficient to demonstrate the being and wisdom of God. Light has been proved by many experiments to travel at the astonishing rate of 194,188 miles in one second of time! and comes from the sun to the earth in eight minutes 11}} seconds, a distance of 95,513,794 English miles. * YEHI OR, vaihi or. Nothing can be conceived more dignified than this form of expression. It argues at once uncontrollable authority, and omnific power; and in human language it is scarcely possible to conceive that God can speak more like himself. This passage, in the Greek translation of the Septuagint, fell in the way of Dionysius Longinus, one of the most judicious Greek critics that ever lived, and who is highly celebrated over the civilized world for a treatise he wrote, entitled Пle Yovs, Concerning the SUBLIME, both in prose and poetry; of this passage, though a heathen, he speaks in the following terms: Ταυτη και ὁ των Ιουδαίων θεσμοθετης (οὐχ ὁ τυχων ανηρ), επειδη την του θείου | δυναμιν κατα την αξίαν εχώρησε, καξέφηνεν ευθύς εν τη εισβολή γράψας των νόμων, ΕΙΠΕΝ Ο ΘΕΟΣ, φησι, τι; ΓΕΝΕΣΘΩ ΦΩΣ και εγένετο. ΓΕΝΕΣΘΩ ΓΗ' και eyevero. "So likewise the Jewish lawgiver (who was no ordinary man) having conceived a just idea | of the divine power, he expressed it in a dignified manner; for at the beginning of his laws he thus speaks: GOD SAID-What? LET THERE BE LIGHT! and there was light. LET THERE BE EARTH! and there was earth." Longinus, sect. ix. edit. Pearce. Many have asked, "How could light be produced on the first day, and the sun, the fountain of it, not created till the fourth day?" With the various and often unphilosophical answers which have been given to this question I will not meddle, but shall observe that the original word signifies not only light but fire, see Isai. xxxi. 9, Ezek. v. 2. It is used for the sux, Job xxxi. 26. And for the electric fluid or LIGHTNING, Job xxxvii. 3. And it is worthy of re-earth, to produce this merciful provision of day and mark that it is used in Isai. xliv. 16, for the heat, derived from wx esh, the fire. He burneth part thereof in the fire (wx bemo esh): yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha! I have seen the Verse 4. God divided the light from the darkness.] This does not imply that light and darkness are two distinct substances, seeing darkness is only the privation of light; but the words simply refer us by anticipation to the rotation of the earth round its own axis once in twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and four seconds, which is the cause of the distinction between day and night, by bringing the different parts of the surface of the earth successively into and from under the solar rays; and it was probably at this moment that God gave this rotation to the night. For the manner in which light is supposed to be produced, see ver. 16, under the word sun. Verse 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament] Our translators by following the firmamentum of Creation of the A. M. 1. B. C. 4004. after his kind, whose seed is in it- | after his kind: and God saw that self, upon the earth: and it was so. it was good. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, a Luke vi. 44. A. M. 1. B. C. 4004. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 And God said, Let there be lights b Deut. iv. 19. Ps. lxxiv. 16. cxxxvi. 7. flatted at the poles and raised at the equator. This was first conjectured by Sir Isaac Newton, and afterwards confirmed by M. Cassini and others, who measured several degrees of latitude at the equator and near the north pole, and found that the difference the Vulgate, which is a translation of the σrepewμa of the Septuagint, have deprived this passage of all sense and meaning. The Hebrew word yp rakia, from yp raka, to spread out as the curtains of a tent or pavilion, simply signifies an expanse or space, and consequently, that circumambient space or expan-perfectly justified Sir Isaac Newton's conjecture, sion separating the clouds, which are in the higher regions of it, from the seas, &c., which are below it. This we call the atmosphere, the orb of atoms or inconceivably small particles; but the word appears to have been used by Moses in a more extensive sense, and to include the whole of the planetary vortex, or the space which is occupied by the whole solar system. Verse 10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters culled he Seas] These two constitute what is called the terraqueous globe, in which the earth and the water exist in a most judicious proportion to each other. Dr. Long took the papers which cover the surface of a seventeen inch terrestial globe, and having carefully separated the land from the sea, he weighed the two collections of papers accurately, and found that the sea papers weighed three hundred and forty-nine grains, and the land papers only one hundred and twentyfour; by which experiment it appears that nearly three-fourths of the surface of our globe, from the arctic to the antarctic polar circles, are covered with water. The doctor did not weigh the parts within the polar circles, because there is no certain measurement of the proportion of land and water which they contain. This proportion of three-fourths water may be considered as too great, if not useless; but Mr. Ray, by most accurate experiments made on evaporation, has proved that it requires so much aqueous surface to yield a sufficiency of vapours for the purpose of cooling the atmosphere, and watering the earth. See Ray's Physico-theological Discourses. An eminent chemist and philosopher, Dr. Priestley, has very properly observed that it seems plain that Moses considered the whole terraqueous globe as being created in a fluid state, the earthy and other particles of matter being mingled with the water. The present form of the earth demonstrates the truth of the Mosaic account; for it is well known that if a soft or elastic globular body be rapidly whirled round on its axis, the parts at the poles will be flattened, and the parts on the equator, midway between the north and south poles, will be raised up. This is precisely the shape of our earth; it has the figure of an oblate spheroid, a figure pretty much resembling the shape of an orange. It has been demonstrated by adineasurement that the earth is and consequently confirmed the Mosaic account. The result of the experiments instituted to determine this point, proved that the diameter of the earth at the equator is greater by more than twentythree and a half miles than it is at the poles, allowing the polar diameter to be th part shorter than the equatorial, according to the recent admeasurements of several degrees of latitude made by Messrs. Mechain and Delambre.-L'Histoire des Mathem. | par M. de la Lande, tom. iv., part v., liv. 6. And God saw that it was good.] This is the judgment which God pronounced on his own works. They were beautiful and perfect in their kind, for such is the import of the word a tob. They were in weight and measure perfect and entire, lacking nothing. But the reader will think it strange that this approbation should be expressed once on the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth days; twice on the third, and not at all on the second! I suppose that the words, And God saw that it was good, have been either lost from the conclusion of the eighth verse, or that the clause in the tenth verse originally belonged to the eighth. It appears, from the Septuagint translation, that the words in question existed originally at the close of the eighth verse, in the copies which they used; for in that Version we still find, Kai dev d Oeos ôti kaλov And God saw that it was good. This reading, however, is not acknowledged by any of Kennicott's or De Rossi's MSS., nor by any of the other Versions. If the account of the second day stood originally as it does now, no satisfactory reason can be given for the omission of this expression of the divine approbation of the work wrought by his wisdom and power on that day. Verse 11. Let the earth bring forth grass-herbfruit-tree, &c.] In these general expressions all kinds of vegetable productions are included. Fruittree is not to be understood here in the restricted sense in which the term is used among us; it signifies all trees, not only those which bear fruit, which may be applied to the use of men and cattle, but also those which had the power of propagating themselves by seeds, &c. Now as God delights to manifest himself in the little as well as in the great, he has shown his consummate wisdom in every part of the vegetable creation. Who can account for, or comprehend, the structure of a single tree or plant? The roots, the stem, the woody fibres, the bark, the rind, the air-vessels, the sap-vessels, the leaves, the flowers, and the fruits, are so many mysteries. All the skill, wisdom, and power of men and angels could not produce a single grain of wheat! A serious and reflecting mind can see the grandeur of God, not only in the immense cedars on Lebanon, but also in the endlessly varied forests that appear through the microscope in the mould of cheese, stale paste, &c., &c. Verse 12. Whose seed was in itself] Which has the power of multiplying itself by seeds, slips, roots, &c., ad infinitum; which contains in itself all the rudiments of the future plant through its endless generations. This doctrine has been abundantly confirmed by the most accurate observations of the best modern philosophers. The astonishing power with which God has endued the vegetable creation to multiply its different species, may be instanced in the seed of the elm. This tree produces one thousand five hundred and eighty-four millions of seeds; and each of these seeds has the power of producing the same number. How astonishing is this produce! At first one seed is deposited in the earth; from this one a tree springs, which in the course of its vegetative life produces one thousand five hundred and eighty-four millions of seeds. This is the first generation. The second generation will amount to two trillions, five hundred and nine thousand and fifty-six billions. The third generation will amount to three thousand nine hundred and seventy-four quadrillions, three hundred and forty-four thousand seven hundred and four trillions! And the fourth generation from these would amount to six sextillions, two hundred and ninety-five thousand three hundred and sixty-two quintillions, eleven thousand one hundred and thirty-six quadrillions! Sums too immense for the human mind to conceive; and, when we allow the most confined space in which a tree can grow, it appears that the seeds of the third generation from one elm would be many myriads of times more than sufficient to stock the whole superficies of all the planets in the solar system! But plants multiply themselves by slips as well as by seeds. Sir Kenelm Digby saw in 1660 a plant of barley, in the possession of the Fathers of the Christian Doctrine at Paris, which contained 249 stalks springing from one root or grain, and in which he counted upwards of 18,000 grains. See my experiments on Tilling in the Methodist Magazine. Verse 14. And God said, Let there be lights, &c.] One principal office of these was to divide between day and night. When night is considered a state of comparative darkness, how can lights divide or distinguish it? The answer is casy: The sun is the sun, moon, and stars. A. M. 1. 15 And let them be for lights B. C. 4004. in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the c Ps. cxxxvi. 7, 8, 9. cxlviii. 3, 5. b Ps. lxxiv. 17. civ. 19. monarch of the day, which is the state of light; the moon, of the night, the state of darkness. The rays of the sun, falling on the atmosphere, are refracted and diffused over the whole of that hemisphere of the earth immediately under his orb; while those rays of that vast luminary which, because of the earth's smallness in comparison of the sun, are diffused on all sides beyond the earth, falling on the opaque disc of the moon are reflected back upon what may be called the lower hemisphere, or that part of the earth which is opposite to the part which is illuminated by the sun: and as the earth completes a revolution on its own axis in about twentyfour hours, consequently each hemisphere has alternate day and night. But as the solar light reflected from the face of the moon is computed to be 50,000 times less in intensity and effect than the light of the sun, as it comes directly from himself to our earth (for light decreases in its intensity as the distance it travels from the sun increases), therefore a sufficient distinction is made between day and night, or light and darkness, notwithstanding each is ruled and determined by one of these two great lights; the moon ruling the night, i. e. reflecting from her own surface back on the earth the rays of light which she receives from the sun. Thus both hemispheres are to a cer tain degree illuminated: the one, on which the sun shines, completely so; this is day: the other, on which the sun's light is reflected by the moon, partially; this is night. It is true that both the planets and fixed stars afford a considerable portion of light during the night, yet they cannot be said to rule or to predominate by their light, because their rays are quite lost in the superior splendour of the moon's light. And let them be for signs] leothoth. Let them ever be considered as continual tokens of God's tender care for man, and as standing proofs of his continual miraculous interference; for so the word noth is often used. And is it not the almighty energy of God that upholds them in being? The sun and moon also serve as signs of the different changes which take place in the atmosphere, and which are so essential for all purposes of agriculture, commerce, &c. For seasons] Dmoadim; For the determination of the times on which the sacred festivals should be held. In this sense the word frequently occurs; and it was right that at the very opening of his revelation God should inform man that there were certain festivals which should be annually celebrated to his glory. Some think we should understand the original word as signifying months, for which purpose we know the moon essentially serves through all the revolutions of time. For days] Both the hours of the day and night, lesser light, with the stars, to rule the night. See Hic Hyperionis solem de semine nasci From famed Hyperion did he cause to rise OF THE SUN. On the nature of the sun there have been various as well as the different lengths of the days and nights, are distinguished by the longer and shorter spaces of time the sun is above or below the horizon. And years.] That is, those grand divisions of time by which all succession in the vast lapse of duration is distinguished. This refers principally to a complete revolution of the earth round the sun, which is accomplished in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 48 seconds; for though the revolution is that of the earth, yet it cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies. Verse 16. And God made two great lights] Moses speaks of the sun and moon here, not according to their bulk or solid contents, but according to the pro- conjectures. It was long thought that he was a vast portion of light they shed on the earth. The ex-globe of fire 1,384,462 times larger than the earth, and pression has been cavilled at by some who are as devoid of mental capacity as of candour. "The | moon," say they, "is not a great body; on the contrary, it is the very smallest in our system." Well, and has Moses said the contrary? He has said it is a great LIGHT; had he said otherwise he had not spoken the truth. It is, in reference to the earth, next to the sun himself, the greatest light in the solar system; and so true is it that the moon is a great light, that it affords more light to the earth than all the planets in the solar system, and all the innumerable stars in the vault of heaven, put together. It is worthy of remark that on the fourth day of the creation the sun was formed, and then "first tried his beams athwart the gloom profound;" and that at the conclusion of the fourth millenary from the creation, according to the Hebrew, the Sun of Righteousness shone upon the world, as deeply sunk in that mental darkness produced by sin as the ancient world was, while teeming darkness held the dominion, till the sun was created as the dispenser of light. What would the natural world be without the sun? A howling waste, in which neither animal nor vegetable life could possibly be sustained. And what would the moral world be without Jesus Christ, and the light of his word and Spirit? Just what those parts of it now are where his light has not yet shone: "dark places of the earth, filled with the habitations of cruelty," where error prevails without end, and superstition, engendering false hopes and false fears, degrades and debases the mind of man. Many have supposed that the days of the creation answer to so many thousands of years; and that as God created all in six days, and rested the seventh, so the world shall last six thousand years, and the seventh shall be the eternal rest that remains for the people of God. To this conclusion they have been led by these words of the apostle, 2 Pet. iii. 8: One dag is with the Lord as a thousand years; and a thousand years as one day. Secret things belong to God; those that are revealed, to us and our children. He made the stars also.] Or rather, He made the 38 that he was continually emitting from his body innumerable millions of fiery particles, which, being extremely divided, answered for the purpose of light and heat without occasioning any ignition or burning, except when collected in the focus of a convex lens or burning glass. Against this opinion, however, many serious and weighty objections have been made; and it has been so pressed with difficulties that philosophers have been obliged to look for a theory less repugnant to nature and probability. Dr. Herschel's discoveries by means of his immensely magnifying telescopes, have, by the general consent of philosophers, added a new habitable world to our system, which is the SUN. Without stopping to enter into detail, which would be improper here, it is sufficient to say that these discoveries tend to prove that what we call the sun is only the atmosphere of that luminary; "that this atmosphere consists of various elastic fluids that are more or less lucid and transparent; that as the clouds belonging to our earth are probably decompositions of some of the elastic fluids belonging to the atmosphere itself, so we may suppose that in the vast atmosphere of the sun similar decompositions may take place, but with this difference, that the decompositions of the elastic fluids of the sun are of a phosphoric nature, and are attended by lucid appearances, by giving out light." The body of the sun he considers as hidden generally from us by means of this luminous atmosphere, but what are called the macula or spots on the sun are real openings in this atmosphere, through which the opaque body of the sun becomes visible; that this atmosphere itself is not fiery nor hot, but is the instrument which God designed to act on the caloric or latent heat; and that heat is only produced by the solar light acting upon and combining with the caloric or matter of fire contained in the air, and other substances which are heated by it. This ingenious theory is supported by many plausible reasons and illustrations, which may be seen in the paper he read before the Royal Society. On this subject see the note on ver. 3. |