vate is unquestionable, and if this acceptation be departed from in the first verse of Genesis, we feel constrained to demand upon what authority it is done. It is not sufficient to say that in the nature of the case it must here mean to create out of nothing, since otherwise we are driven to admit that the world has existed from eternity, the rock upon which the old philosophers split. But this consequence is by no means conceded. No man can prove that the world has existed from eternity; and we have, moreover, positive inspired testimony that there was a time when the material fabric of the creation did not exist. Ps. 90. 2, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' Prov. 8. 26, 'While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest parts of the dust of the world; i. e. had not made the very first elements. But while we have these infallible declarations, assuring us that the matter of the heavens and the earth had a beginning, we know of no part of revelation that acquaints us with the date of that beginning, nor do we see any necessity, a priori, that we should be made acquainted with it, any more than that the precise period of its destruction, if it is to be destroyed, should be made known to us. Our conclusion, therefore, is, as both philosophy and theology are bound to bend to philology, that the materials, the primordial elements of the heavens and the earth, were in existence at the commencement of the six days' work, and that the word 'create' expresses the action of the Almighty Agent upon the rude chaotic mass, in moulding and arranging it into its present comely forms and beautiful order. In this view of the subject the objections sometimes urged against the Mosaic history on the ground of geological discoveries and deductions, are done away; for we may allow an indefinitely long period for the production of physical phenomena, anterior to the commencement of the work here announced; and it is certainly de

sirable, as far as it can be done consistently with a fair and unforced interpretation, to harmonize the truths of Divine revelation with those of natural science.

What was the primitive condition and aspect of the earth? v. 2.

That which is here affirmed we suppose, as before intimated, to be descriptive of the state and appearance of the globe antecedently to the commencement of the six days' work; so that this 2d verse, in the order of sense, is in reality prior to the first. As there is no distinction of past, preterite and pluperfect tenses in the Heb. we are to be governed solely by the exigency of the place in rendering any particular word in the one of these tenses or the other. Was therefore, in this instance, we hold to be more correctly translated by had been ;' i. e. had been' prior to the time of which the historian is now speaking. It has, indeed, been generally supposed that v. 2 describes the state into which the unorganized matter of the earth passed immediately upon its first creation, as related, v. 1. But this opinion is contradicted, we think, by the express words of Jehovah himself, Isa. 45. 18, For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself, that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain.' (Heb. ' he created it not without form,'-Tohu) i. e. the action denoted by the word Bârâ,' created, did not terminate in the state denoted by the word Tohu,' without form; but the reverse. It was in this formless state when the process of creation began. The earth,' i. e. that portion of the globe which was afterward, when reclaimed from the water, called earth,' in contradistinction from 'seas,' v. 10. Seldom or never are we to affix to the term earth' in the Scriptures the idea of a planetary sphere, a component part of the solar system; a sense of it which is the result of astronomical discoveries that for the most part are not recognised in the inspired volume. There, earth' signifies an

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extended portion of the surface of the earth, except when it is used tropically for its inhabitants. See note on Gen. 6. 11.- Without form and void.' Heb. Tohu vâ Bohu;' deformity and desolation. Chal. 'Desert and empty.' Gr.Invisible,' (either from want of light or from being covered with water,) and incomposed, or chaotic.' The original words, which though rendered adjectively in several versions are real substantives, occur one or both of them several times in the O. T., where the object of the writer is to express in the most significant terms the idea of dreariness and desolation, particularly as the effect of Divine judgments in laying waste a country or city. See to this purpose Is. 34. 11; Jer. 4. 23; Ps. 107. 40; Deut. 32. 10. In Is. 34. 11, they are translated confusion' and 'emptiness.' They refer wholly to the surface of the earth, and imply a desolate, dreary, hideous waste, without order or beauty, inhabitant or furniture. Gusset, an eminent Hebrew Lexicographer, remarks of these words, in this connection, that they are not to be considered strictly as epithets of the earth' as such, but as descriptive of that chaotic state which preceded the earth,' and which ceased simultaneously with the developement of the earth' out of it. 'Thus,' says he, we may say of a statue, 'This statue was the trunk of a tree," but it could never be said, 'This statue is the trunk of a tree,' for the two distinct states of the material are opposite to each other, and the one ceases when the other begins. The state of the globe therefore designated by Tohu' and ' Bohu' continued till the second day, and to that moment of the third, in which the dry land, liberated from the dominion of the water, obtained the name of earth;' v. 9, 10.-' Darkness;' the mere privation of light, and therefore not an object of creation.

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What is the genuine import of the original word here rendered 'the deep ?'

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Deep.' Heb. Tehom.' Gr. Abussos,' abyss. The word here doubtless signifies the immense mass of waters circumfused around the body of the globe with which it was at first covered as with a garment,' Ps. 104. 6, and which were not yet laid up in storehouses;' Ps. 33. 7. This however is not the usual signification of the word in the singular number, which differs by a very marked shade of import from the plural. In the former, it is used to denote, not as defined in most Lexicons, a vast and unfathomable mass of waters, but the profound abysses or huge gulfs which constitute a reservoir for the watery fluid. It is applied also to deep, subterranean recesses, caverns, and vaults of any kind, particularly such as were used as depositories for the dead. Thus, the corresponding Gr. word Abussos,' Rom. 10. 7, Or who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead;)' by which is meant the sepulchral vaults in which the dead were entombed. It may be observed moreover as to the Gr. Abussos,' that in Rev. 9. 1, 2, the phrase rendered bottomless pit,' is literally the pit of the abyss;' i. e. the pit, well, or shaft communicating with the subterranean abyss, in which we perceive no allusion to water. In Rev. 9. 11, and 20. 3, also rendered bottomless pit,' the original is simply abyss.' The same original word Luke 8. 31, is rendered as here the deep.' In neither of the above passages is there any necessary implication of the presence of water. In the plural, on the other hand, the almost invariable signification of Tehom' is a vast collection of water itself, and not the receptacle in which it is contained. See Ex. 15. 5,8; Deut. 8. 7; Ps. 33. 7; Prov. 3. 23. The primary import of the word is doubtless deep and unexplored recesses in the bowels of the earth; and flowing from this, the signification of unfathomed depths in seas and oceans. If the N. T. phrase, bottomless pit,' be ever really applied to the place of torment, which is somewhat questionable, its use in that sense is entirely

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figurative, and probably arose from its suggesting ideas kindred to those of Tartarus, infernal regions, &c. But in truth the genuine scriptural usage of all the words relating to the state of departed spirits has been as yet, but imperfectly determined; the subject deserves a far more thorough investigation than it has heretofore received. Spirit of God;' i. e. Divine energy or efficiency. This expression affords perhaps a very considerable argument against the opinion before cited, that the word 'Elohim' implies the three persons of the Trinity. For it may be asked, how the Holy Ghost can be said to be the Spirit of the Elohimi. e. the Spirit of the three Persons, if he is himself one of those persons? As the original word 'Ruah,' signifies wind, spirit, breath, some have supposed that Spirit of God' in this place meant wind of God,' a supernatural commotion in the air. But it does not appear that the atmosphere was created before the second day. The Jerus. Targ, renders it. The spirit of mercies from before the Lord.-' Moved,' Heb. Was moving,' or rather was hovering; a continued act. The original implies a gentle waving or fluttering motion, like that of a bird over her young; it occurs Deut. 32. 11, rendered fluttereth.' During the indefinitely long period in which the earth remained in its chaotic state, and a cheerless gloom brooded over its surface, the overshadowing Spirit of God was silently but efficaciously at work, sustaining and cherishing the formless mass, and comnicating to it a prolific or vivifying power, in consequence of which the germs and seeds of future life and vegetation were every where produced. Analogous to this, the same Divine Agent is represented as having overshadowed' the Virgin Mary preparatory to the mysterious production of the human nature of Jesus, the head of the new creation, the first born of every creature.' Striking allusions to the same significant emblem of a hovering bird are elsewhere found, pointing in all probability directly to this por

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