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"The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." Can he deserve a milder name who holds his irrational creed? All nature proclaims his existence; and every feeling of the heart is responsive to its voice. The instant we begin to breathe, our connexion with God is commenced, and it is a connexion which cannot be dissolved for ever. All other unions are formed for a season only: time will waste them: death will destroy them: but this connexion looks death in the face, defies the injuries of time, and is commensurate with the ages of eternity. The moment we are capable of distinguishing between good and evil, our responsibility to God is begun-it commences with the dawn of reason, it looks forward to the judgment seat as its issue. At every period, and under every circumstance of human life, man still draws his existence from the "Fountain of life:" he may be cut off from society, but cannot be separated from God: he may renounce his fellow men, but never can burst the bonds of obligation by which he is held to his Maker, till he shall have acquired the power to extinguish that immaterial principle within him, which can never be subjected to decay or to dissolution. The last sigh

which rends the bursting heart, terminates the correspondence between man and man; but strengthens the union between God and man. All the springs of enjoyment and of existence, are hidden in the Deity, and the fates of the human race are suspended in the balances sustained by his unshaken arm. It is an object of the first magnitude, to learn something of the Being, with whom we stand thus intimately and inseparably connected: who is light and warmth in the sun, softness in the breeze, power in the tempest, and the principle which pervades and animates, which regu lates and sustains universal nature; but to deny his ex

istence, is the madness of desperation, and the temerity of presumption: of all insanity, it is the worst; and of all ingratitude, it is the deepest. I see him rolling the planets in their orbits, controlling the furious elements, and stretching an irresistible sceptre over all things created. I see the globe suspended, and trembling in his presence; and the kingdoms of this world, absorbed in his empire, rising to distinction, or falling into irrecoverable desolation, according to the counsel of his will. My heart is not at ease. I am instructed, but not tranquillized. The infinity of God overwhelms me: his majesty swallows me up: his inflexible justice and purity fill me with dismay: his power makes me afraid. It is this volume which first brings me acquainted with him as God, and afterwards as a friend: which represents him at once the Creator and Redeemer of the human race; and while his attributes command my admiration, his

mercy forbids

my terror.

THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION

He conducts us at

remains to be briefly examined. once to this great Architect: "In the beginning GoD created the heavens and the earth." He represents the earth, after its creation, as a dark fluid, and an unformed chaos, or mass of matter, which in six days God reduced to order, and disposed in its present form. "And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." A modern critic* has translated this passage, “a vehement wind oversweeping the surface of the waters." He founds his criticism upon the circumstance that the Hebrew

Dr. Geddes.

language calls "thunder the voice of God; a great wind his breath; the clouds his habitation, his chariot; the lightnings and winds his ministers and messengers, &c." and the possibility of rendering the words either the spirit of God, or the wind of God, which he translates, a mighty wind. He produces various quotations from the scriptures, in which n must be rendered wind, and accumulates much criticism to prove that this is the primary sense of the original word, and of the terms usually employed in translating it. An equal number of passages might easily be extracted from the sacred writers, in which

would bear no other translation than spirit. Neither is it quite clear that signifies spirit only in a secondary and metaphorical sense: since by their arrangement of explanatory terms, lexicographers seem divided upon the subject.† Respecting there can be but one opinion; and while our translators have preserved the literal rendering of the words, the translation proposed is confessedly justified only on its resemblance to some Hebrew phrases, the correspondence of which may or may not be admitted. This premised, I object further to the rendering "a vehement wind," because a very beautiful idea suggested by the literal reading of the words is lost in that, adopted by this critic: an idea which is so well expressed by our inimitable poet, who was himself well versed in the original language of the Sacred Scriptures; and who in his beautiful address to the Holy Spirit, says,

† Parkhurst gives, as its primary sense, cir in motion; which corresponds with Dr. Geddes's opinion: yet in his translation of Gen. i, 2, Parkhurst renders the words "the spirit of the Aleim:" Stockius gives, as the primary sense, spiritus, then ventus, &c. How little can be inferred from verbal criticism!

+ Milton.

"Thou from the first

Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like, satst brooding on the vast abyss,

And madst it pregnant."

But it was impossible to maintain the simple translation, without admitting a doctrine, which this critic could not reconcile with the religious principles which he had adopted, the personality of the Holy Spirit;† and he therefore substituted one which did not clash with his sentiments: and on the same principle I prefer the common reading of our Bibles, because it accords with a system which appears to me both rational and scriptural, and which does include the personality of this divine Agent; and because the words are by our translators literally rendered.

The first thing which appeared was light; the separation of which from darkness, was the work of the first day. "And God said, let there be light; and there was light." A more simple and more literal This very translation is, "Be light; and light was." passage, in its connexion, has been marked by the elegant Longinus, as a specimen of the true sublime.‡ Nor did it escape the observation of the psalmist, who has well expressed it. "He spake, and it was done: he commanded, and it stood fast."

On the second day, God made an expansion: for so the Hebrew word which our translators have rendered "firmament," implies. It is derived from a root which signifies "outstretching," and corresponds with that beautiful passage in Isaiah xl, 22. "It is he

† Dr. Geddes has said, "those who have found in this passage the person of the HOLY GHOST, have been very little versed in the language of the East: and paid very little attention to the construction of the text." So easy is it to deal in bold and unqualified assertions, and call them critical remarks. Surely he forgot that Milton was an Hebrew scholar of no common standard.

+ See note 5, at the end of the volume.

that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." It is the atmosphere which surrounds our globe, and which possesses density sufficient to sustain the waters above it. Its design said Moses, is, "to divide the waters that are above this firmanent"-or atmosphere, "from the waters that are under this expansion." This atmosphere is perpetually drawing up particles of water, till they accumulate, and become too heavy for the air to sustain them, and fall in showers of rain.

On the third day, the earth was drained, and the waters which before triumphed over its surface, were gathered into one grand receptacle. The land appeared, dry and fit for vegetation-received the name "Earth" and produced, at the Divine command, herbs, plants, trees, and all the endless varieties of the vegetable world, bearing their several seeds and fruits, according to their different kinds. The congregated waters he called "seas;" and drawing boundaries around them, he said "Hitherto shall ye come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves be stayed."

On the fourth day, the sun and moon were formed, and placed in the heavens to illuminate the earth, to distinguish between day and night; to divide, and to rule the revolving seasons of the year. "He made the stars also."

On the fifth day, were created fishes, and the swarming, multiform inhabitants of the hoary deep, the fowls of heaven, and whatsoever flieth in the expansion above us: these all were produced from the

waters.

On the sixth day, were formed all terrestrial animals. Then also MAN, his last, best work, was “fashioned" from the "dust of the earth," and animated

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