tially with the former in contradicting the Divine testimony, which ought to be exposed in their true colors, so that if any one will maintain them he may be placed where he of right belongs in this respectin the ranks, and fighting side by side with the deadly and determined enemies of Divine revelation.

One of these is that the period occupied in making the world was six thousand years, or periods of time of an indefinite length. On this point a few

But we have

remarks will be made in their place. to do at present principally with the position of Mr. Buckland, which, in his own words, "suppose the word 'beginning,' as applied by Moses in the first verse of the book of Genesis, to express an undefined period of time, which was antecedent to the last great change that affected the surface of the earth, and to the creation of its present animal and vegetable inhabitants, during which period a long series of operations and revolutions may have been going on, which, as they are wholly unconnected with the history of the human race, are passed over in silence by the sacred historian, whose only concern with them was barely to state that the matter of the universe is not eternal and self-existent, but was originally enacted by the power of the Almighty." (Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. I, p. 25.)

This position is a contradiction to the received doctrine of the Christian church, which dates the

creation of the world at the first six days of Moses, and denies the existence of its material before that period. Both sides of a contradiction cannot be true.

Either the Christian church or Mr. Buckland is grievously in error. The appeal is "to the word and to the testimony; if they speak not according to these things it is because there is no light in them." And as the Bible is to Christians the only infallible rule of faith, it is to be interpreted according to the rules by which we would interpret any other document, and chiefly by its own rule-" comparing spiritual things with spiritual."

2. That the church here is not mistaken in the doctrine which she believes and inculcates, will be evident to any one who, without the bias of any favorite theory, will humbly submit his understanding to be taught by the Father of lights, as his testimony is recorded in the history of Moses, in references to it by different inspired writers, and by the Son himself, and by the formal decision of the apostle. "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were NOT made of things which do appear."-Heb. xi., 3.

The first chapter of Genesis contains a formal, particular, and chronological account of the work of creation, when it was made, and what was done in each division of the whole time employed in it. The very first word informs us that the account commences in the beginning of the whole subject,

and of which before this period there was nothing. The first act of creating power gave being to the heavens and the earth. The appearance of things at that point is described in the second verse. The second movement of Almighty power produces the light. Then follows a description of the work at this stage of it. And thus, the Creator himself informs us, one day has passed. Here we have a description of two acts of Divine power, and a description of the work, following each. The only date of the whole work, thus far, is the first of the six days. The third movement was the production of the atmosphere, called the expanse and heavens. This is described, and two days have passed. The fourth movement was the separation of the water and dry land, and the production of the vegetable kingdom, and the third day is passed. The sun, moon, and stars, are the work of the fourth day. Of the fifth, the inhabitants of the air, and the water. And the land-animals and man, of the sixth. It is the obvious and particular purpose of the historian to date every work to the very day, and to give the day, not at the beginning, but at the close of the works of that day, so that all which is related before the mention of that day, and after the preceding day, belongs to it; all, therefore, which precedes the morning of the first day, as no other time is mentioned, belongs to the work of that day. This interpretation is confirmed not only by the obvious design of the author, but from universal

usage in such cases. When a historian gives us the annals of a nation, we understand him to say that all the events connected with a particular year occurred during that year, unless he explicitly informs us otherwise. And we should consider it as the greatest negligence and unfaithfulness, to record among the events of the first year of the people's history what had occurred a thousand years before. All the character of Moses as a competent and faithful historian, and what is more, the authority of the Holy Spirit who taught him, assures us that the date of the production of the chaos was the first of the six days. As an illustration and proof of this, I refer to Josephus, the Jewish historian, who places in the period of 3833 years, from the creation to the death of Isaac, this very account of the production of the chaos. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But when the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should be light; and when that was made he considered the whole mass, and separated the light and the darkness, and the name he gave to the one was night, and the other he called day. And he named the beginning of light, and the time of rest the evening and the morning, and this was indeed the first day." Josephus, Antiquities, vol. i., p. 8o.

Besides the impropriety of charging upon Moses an anachronism so monstrous as to date on the first

day of our present system what occurred millions of years before, it is further manifest that the interpretation of the church is the true one, because the light was created in the latter half of the first day, and something must have been done in the part called the evening, or our system begins half a day later than the account of Moses. Creation began with the first act of creating power; before that act it was not, but it began in the evening, before there was any light, and no act is mentioned before the creation of light, but the creation of the heavens and the earth in the state described; therefore that act belongs inevitably to the first half of the first day.

2. This view is confirmed by every passage of sacred Scripture in which the creation is referred to. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the [successive productions or] generations of the heavens, and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."-Gen. ii., 1-4. In direct reference to the previous account it is declared to embrace all God's works, created and made, in heaven and earth, in their successive order, and at the one period occupied in the work, the first six days of time. It is