John W, Burgon 
 
 The First Chapter 
 of Genesis 
 
 A Reply 
 
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 CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 
 
 A REPLY 
 AND A POSTSCRIPT. 
 
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 HEAVEN AND EARTH SHALL PASS AWAY 
 BUT MY WORDS SHALL NOT PASS AWAY, 
 
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 MILDMAY MISSION TO THE JEWS PRINTING OFFICE 
 49, NEWINGTON GREEN, LONDON, N 
 
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 NOTE. — What foUoivs is Dean Bukgon's " Eeply " to an Essaij 
 by the Eev. Pkofessob Pbitchard D.D., tohich ajjj^eared in the 
 ' Giiardian Netvspaper of Feb. 10th, 1886, (jp. 211), entitled, 
 ' The Creation Proem of Genesis.'' One who considers that the Deans 
 Beply — which appeared in the same Journal, Feb. 24th {p. 283),— is 
 likely to pirove generally icseful, has caused it to be rejn-inted for 
 private distribution; and, having persuaded the Author greatly to 
 enlarge his remarks on the Mosaic Becord of Creation, now sends it 
 forth, in the humble hope that it may bitild up some whose minds have 
 been unsettled by infidel doubts and {so-called) ' Scientific ' objections 
 against the first page of the Book of Life. The "Eeply" extends 
 from page 3 to the foot of page 16. 
 
 But the Author of that " Eeply " considered it incumbent on him 
 not to leave imnoticed what has lately appeared on the same subject 
 from the pen of Professor Huxley in the ' Nineteenth Century ' — 
 Dec. 1885 to Feb. 1886. Hence, the "Postscript," from piage 17 
 to the end. 
 
THE 
 
 FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS 
 
 IN EEPLY. 
 
 Had my friend, the Rev. Dr. Pritchard, Savilian Professor of 
 Astronomy in the University of Oxford, put forth the v^ildest of 
 hypotheses concerning any branch of his own special science, 
 I should never have ventured on a syllable of remonstrance. 
 But when he deliberately "proposes to lay before the Church 
 of God " the result of half a century of meditation on the 
 first chapter of Genesis, I trust I may, without presumption, 
 offer a few remarks thereon. The Professor's pious intention 
 in " offering to the consideration of the Church of God " the 
 essay on Genesis i. which appeai-ed in the Guardian of Feb. 
 10 (p. 211), is to set men's minds at rest, and especially to 
 build up those " whose faith is put to trial " by the contents of 
 that chapter. Hoio an utterly unsupported, grossly im- 
 probable, and perfectly gratuitous conjecture, which represents 
 the sacred narrative as a weak fabrication, destitute of one 
 particle of truth; — how this is to "build up" unbelievers, I 
 cannot imagine. An hypothesis which consigns Genesis i. to 
 the limbo of fable, can only, in my account, promote infidelity. 
 As for expecting that it will guide the feet of wanderers into 
 the way of peace, as soon should I expect that one who had lost 
 his way in the dark, and taken a " Will-o'-the-wisp" for his 
 guide, had a reasonable prospect of being piloted safely home. 
 It seems to me to concern the honour of the Church of England 
 
4 Genesis i. not the Tradition of a Dream. 
 
 that the speculation which has been so solemnly put forth 
 should meet with an immediate and uncompromising reply ; 
 and that the reply should come from one of her own sons, 
 however humble and unworthy. 
 
 The way out of the supposed difficulty, according to Professor 
 Pritchard, is to suppose that at some remote period — "remote 
 beyond our knowledge " — somebody " fell asleep, either in the 
 gloom of evening or in the light of noonday," and dreamed a 
 dream. On awaking, he " called his friends and his neighbours 
 together ; and sitting under his vine, or in the shade of his olive 
 or his fig tree '' — (are these circumstantial details supposed to 
 be of any manner of relevancy to the learned Professor's 
 contention ?) — " recounted his wonderful dream." The tale, 
 " after the manner of the East, sped its rapid way from city 
 to city, until at length the vision lost its name, and became a 
 tradition." " To me " (proceeds Dr. Pritchard) " this intei'pre- 
 tation wears the appearance of so much probability, that I 
 accept it as an approximate fact." 
 
 To me (I venture to reply) an improbable conjecture unsup- 
 ported by a particle of evidence can never emerge out of the 
 region of shadows. But indeed it so happens that the present 
 conjecture is contradicted by the known conditions of the problem . 
 The story of the dream (we are invited to suppose) "after 
 the manlier of the East, sped its rapid way from city to city, 
 until ar last it became a tradition." But (1st), This kind of 
 rapid locomotion is after the manner of the West — not at all 
 of the East. And next (2nd), There happens to be no such 
 tradition elsewhere in existence of a great creative Week. If 
 such a tradition did once generally prevail, some trace of it 
 ought surely to be discoverable m the ancient sacred books of 
 India. But it is in fact utterly unknown in that quarter ; is 
 absolutely confined to the author of the first page of the 
 Bible, and of the Fourth Commandment. This discovery, to 
 say the least, is inconvenient — if it be not fatal — to the 
 learned Professor's hypothesis. Let us, however, proceed hand 
 
Certain consistent Scientific facts. 5 
 
 in hand with him as far as we possibly can. Let the name 
 of the ''ancient seer" bo supposed to have been "Moses;" 
 let the "remote period" at which he lived have been 
 B.C. 1500. Aiid since the narrative in (jenesis i. "is not, and 
 cannot be, a mere tradition from antecedent generations," — 
 and since, happily, we are, both of us, " fully convinced of the 
 existence of a super-human element running through it from 
 its beginning to its end," — let it be assumed to have been a 
 communication made to Moses by God Himself; whether "in 
 the gloom of evening or in the light of noon-day," matters 
 nothing at all. And now, what are tlie facts of the case with 
 which we have to deal ? They are evidently threefold. 
 
 I. First, room has to be found for certain facts of Astrono- 
 mical Science ; as, that yonder sun is the centre of a system, of 
 which this earth of ours, round which revolves the moon, is 
 one of the lesser planets. Sustained it is by the sun ; and, but 
 for the sun, it could not perform a single diurnal or yearly 
 revolution ; could not indeed retain its place in the universe. 
 This first. 
 
 II. Next, we are encountered by certain facts of Geological 
 Science; as, that this globe must needs have been created 
 millions upon millions of years ago : and that, at vast intervals 
 of time, it has been the scene of successive cycles of Creation — 
 of wliich the actual order of things which we behold, is the last. 
 Man is never found in a fossil state — has never, that is, been 
 discovered in any of the earlier strata of the earth's surface. 
 Chipped flint is sometimes met with in formations which may 
 (or may not) be as many as 5,000 years old : but chijyped 
 flints are not Men. I am saying, that due provision must 
 be made for certain undeniable Geological /acis. 
 
 III. — Lastly, we have to find room for certain revealed facts 
 of Sacred Science. They are such as these : — That less than 
 6000 years ago, the Great Author of the Universe called into 
 being the earth's present furuiLure and actual occupants, Man 
 
6 The Fourth Commandment. 
 
 being His mysterious masterpiece ; for the sake of — or at least 
 with reference to — whom, it is further evident, the present order 
 of things was framed. God is found to have been pleased to 
 distribute His work over a week of ordinary days ; and to have 
 reserved the first page of His written Word for the august 
 record of that highly complex transaction. One other memorable 
 circumstance in connection with Genesis i. claims special notice 
 at the hands of a Divine — viz., that the rest of the Bible stands 
 pledged to its details as it stands pledged to no other single 
 chapter in the Old Testament. The distinct references to it, 
 amounting to express recognitions of its authority, are absolutely 
 (so to speak) without number. Grandest of all is the sublime 
 circmnstance that the Fourth Commandment, of which " the 
 writing was the writing of God," graven upon'tables which were 
 also " the work of God " (Exodus xxxii. 16), rehearses in outline 
 the facts of Genesis i., with manifest allusion and with a degree 
 of emphasis which admits of no evasion. Man is to work for 
 six days and to rest on the seventh day, because God wrought 
 for six days and rested from His work on the seventh day. No 
 sophistry of reasoning, no license of interpretation, no hardihood 
 of counter-assertion, will ever be able to set aside the solemn 
 fact that the Fourth Commandment establishes the meaning of 
 Genesis i. 
 
 I protest that, in these several statements, of which the first 
 set are capable of mathematical demonstration, (I refer to certain 
 elementary Astronomical facts) : — of which the second set are 
 matters of experience, (I refer to the fossil remains of the prae- 
 Adamic period) : — of which the third set are revealed truths 
 which rest on the sure Word of God : — between these three 
 several sets of facts, I say, I am able to discern no inconsistency 
 whatever, much less contradiction. On the contrary, I find 
 here nothing but exquisite harmony and perfect beauty. "Deep 
 answereth to deep." I am surprised to learn that, on the 
 other hand, to Professor Pritchard's apprehension. Genesis i. 
 " contains statements which are irreconcilable with what we 
 
Dr. Pritchard's first Objection. 7 
 
 at present know of the constitution of Nature ; and that there 
 is offered no appreciable hope of a reconcihation from future 
 discoveries." He and I have evidently read the two books — 
 the book of Nature and the Book of Life — with entirely different 
 success : seeing that we have arrived at diametrically opposite 
 results. But let us hear Dr. Pritchard explain himself. Let 
 him be allowed to ventilate his several difficulties, and to 
 express them in his own way. 
 
 The Professor begins : — "I cannot accept the proem of 
 Genesis as being, or even as intended to be, an exact and 
 scientific account of Creation." Impossible of course it is to 
 proceed an inch with one who so writes, until he has been so good 
 as to explain what he means by " exact," and what he 
 understands by " scientific.^^ If he means that Genesis i. is not 
 an Astronomical treatise but a Divine revelation, he means what 
 no sane person has ever denied or doubted. But he does not 
 mean this : — 
 
 " That it could not have been intended to give a scientific account of 
 Creation in its precise order, or method, or limitation of time, I am convinced 
 (he says) when (1)1 read of the existence of waters before the appearance 
 of the sun." 
 
 This, then, is the foremost of the three charges Dr. Pritchard 
 brings against the present chapter. 
 
 (I). Well but, — Are we then to understand that if in this first 
 chapter of Genesis we had read of " the apimarance of the sun " 
 BEFOKE " the existence of zvaters," the demands of Science would 
 have been satisfied ? Of which " Science " is the learned Professor 
 speaking ? — for really he is bound to explain hi:nself. Does he 
 then mean to tell us that Almighty God was not at liberty, if 
 He pleased, to bring to an end the old order of things and to 
 inaugurate the new (which was to culminate in the creation of 
 Man) by some awful catastrophe of which the result shall be the 
 only thing recorded ? — viz., that " the earth was without form 
 and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The sun 
 had shone down for millions of years upon this globe of ours 
 
8 Dr. Pritchards' second 
 
 (the fundamental truths of Astronomy prove it). The solar 
 heat had nurtured primaeval forests innumerable (the coal beds 
 eloquently attest it). But the end arrived at last; and it 
 pleased the great Creator to wrap our earth in aqueous vapour, 
 and to shroud it in darkness as with a mantle of sackcloth. 
 Hoio — by what natural mechanism, I mean, — the primaeval 
 universal gloom was effected, I am as unable to explain as I 
 am to account for the three days of Egyptian darkness (Exod. 
 X. 21-23), or for the three hours of darkness when the King of 
 Glory died (St. Matt, xxvii. 45. St. Mark xv. 33. St. Luke 
 xxiii. 44, 45), or for the universal gloom which will precede the 
 Day of Judgment (St. Matt. xxiv. 29. St. Mark. xiii. 24). 
 Neither is it any part of my function to explain how, as a 
 prelude to the work of the Great Six Days, this globe was so 
 effectually submerged by water, that primaeval " darkness was 
 upon the face of the deep." But I find no manner of difficulty 
 in accepting the historical statement so attested. I should as 
 soon think of disbelieving the submerging of the earth by 
 water at the Deluge. We can only be learners here. 
 
 The one thing which occasions Dr. Pritchard offence, as far 
 as I can make out, is that " we read of the existence of waters 
 before the appearance of the sun." But lohy, let me be allowed 
 respectfully to rejoin, — Why, was the sun bound to " ajopear" 
 BEFORE the waters "existed?" Until it has been formally 
 demonstrated that the contrary arrangement was a thing simply 
 impossible, I am at a loss to discover so much as the force of 
 this, his first objection. — And now, I claim the right to advance 
 a step. 
 
 (II.) We learn that the second circumstance which offends 
 our Astronomer is " the clothing of the earth with fruit-trees 
 and grass, each bearing its fruit, before the creation of the Sun." 
 But why invent a difficulty which does not exist ? Moses does 
 not certamly say what the learned Professor assumes and asserts.' 
 Nothing whatever is said about the Sun's creation. Moses does 
 but state that God caused the earth to bring forth the green 
 
Objection to Genesis i. 9 
 
 herb — created the vegetable kingdom, if you will — before He 
 appointed " the greater light " to shine by day, "the lesser 
 light " to shine b}'^ night. 
 
 I shall perhaps be asked, — But Moses seems to say — does he 
 not? — that the sun and tlie moon were both created on the 
 fourth day. I am not concerned, in the least degree, to deny 
 it. Let it be freely granted. What then? I claim that "to 
 scc7;i to say," is one thing : actually "to say" (i.e. to mean), 
 is quite another. Every day of his life the Savilian Professor 
 of Astronomy seems to say that the sun actually '' rises," and 
 actually "sets." But does he mean it ? Ask him, and he will 
 reply " Do you suppose I am mad ? " Why then, I ask, is not 
 the same indulgence to be extended to Moses which is freely 
 allowed to Dr. Pritchard ? The words of the Astronomer mis- 
 lead nobody. They claim to be interpreted — they must be, and 
 they are interpreted, — by the known facts of the case. Tliat 
 sudden (and sublime) interjection (in ver. 16), — "the stars 
 also," surely may not be strained into an announcement that 
 all those myriad orbs of light which sow the midnight heavens 
 were the creation of the fourth day. The Author of revelation, 
 in the first chapter of Genesis, is bent on something of a loftier 
 kind than teaching children the elements of Astronomy. Accord- 
 ingly, since no one capable of formulating an objection to 
 Scripture can possibly require to be told that, without the sun, 
 the earth could not so much as retain its place in the universe 
 for an instant. Almighty God evidently deemed it superfluous to 
 guard His meaning when (speaking phenomenally) He caused 
 the record of the fourth day of creation to contain the statement 
 that '' God made two great lights." Elsewhere, I read that our 
 Saviouk "made" (fTroa/irg) twelve Apostles, (8t. Mark iii. 14): 
 but I have never in my life heard it suggested that those words 
 mean that He there and then created them, in the sense of 
 making them out of nothing. " Let there be lights in the firmament 
 of the heavens to divide the day from the night," — is the record 
 in verse 14. What else can it be but a summoning into vieiu 
 of the two great luminaries ? " And let them be for signs 
 
10 Sim and Moon, lohen created. 
 
 and for seasons, and for days, and years," — proceeds the record. 
 And what else is this but the assigning to Sun and Moon of netv 
 functions ? 
 
 Yes, ecHpses,— which serve to mark the date of events, and 
 whereby the timepiece of History is corrected : — the periodical 
 phases of the Moon which regulate the months, and determined 
 for God's ancient people the commencement of their solemn 
 seasons : — sunrise and sunset which enable men to distinguish 
 day from day ; — and lastly the punctual return of our planet 
 to the self same point in space from which it started just a 
 year before, — whereby the largest division of time is everywhere 
 effectually reckoned off by the inhabitants of our globe : — all 
 these are functions of Sun and Moon which clearly can only be 
 proclaimed with reference to Man. Until Man was made upon 
 the earth, such things were not, nor in fact could be. So that, 
 in brief, we are as it were led by the hand to discern in the very 
 terms of Genesis i. 14-19, nothing more than the summoning into 
 view of the greater and the lesser light, and the assigning to 
 them a new office, with exclusive reference to Man. 
 
 For the last time then, — Sun and Moon had been — must have 
 been — where and what they now are, for an indefinitely long 
 period antecedent to the Great Six Days ; but they were with- 
 held from sight until the fourth day, for good and sufficient 
 reasons. On the fourth day they came to view and had a new 
 function and use assigned to them — both with exclusive 
 reference to Man, earth's new occupant. So plain a matter 
 ought not to require so many words. Philosophers should be 
 especially on their guard against inventing difficulties where 
 none exist. 
 
 It is high time that I should further remind Dr. Pritchard, 
 since happily he believes the Bible to be an inspired book, that 
 least of all from the foremost page of Genesis may the attri- 
 bute of Inspiration be supposed to be away. Now, what is 
 meant when the Bible is spoken of as " inspired " is, that its 
 true and proper Author is God. What else but blasphemous 
 
Dr. Pritchard's third Objection. 11 
 
 folly therefore were it to press the objection now before us, as 
 if any one really supposed it possible that the Author of 
 Creation was unacquainted with one of the most elementary 
 of astronomical facts — namely, the absolute dependence of the 
 earth upon the sun ? 
 
 (III.) The third and last head of indictment against Genesis i. 
 proves to be " the "successive orders or stages of Creation, occu- 
 pying each one single day." But does the philosopher who 
 urges this objection seriously mean to tell us that he is laying 
 his finger on " statements which, to his apprehension, are irre- 
 concilable with what we at present know of the constitution of 
 Nature ? " Where is the contrariety ? lohere the inconsistency ? 
 Had Moses anywhere deliberately stated in this, the first chapter 
 of Genesis, that the " Great Six Days " were each nineteen 
 and a half hours long : or that, in the beginning, the sun 
 revolved with prodigious velocity round the moon : or that the 
 moon at first neither waxed nor waned : or any other monstrous 
 impossibility ; — there would indeed have been some pretence 
 for saying that the opening chapter of Genesis contains state- 
 ments which to Dr. Pritchard's apprehension, — (yes, and to the 
 apprehension of others besides Dr. Pritchard,) — "are irrecon- 
 cilable with what we at present know of the constitution of 
 Nature." But concerning the statement that " the successive 
 stages of Creation occupied each one single day," — surely nothing 
 of the kind can be pretended. " Contrariety " and " Incon- 
 sistency " there is absolutely none. Has the esteemed writer 
 duly considered that Genesis i. purports to be a pure revelation? 
 and will he venture to deny that the Almighty may have seen 
 fit to distribute His creative work over six days ? I see more 
 than one excellent reason why He should have done so. But it 
 happens to be a revealed fact that He did. With what show 
 of reason, of decency rather, can it be pretended nowadays 
 that the thing is incredible ? 
 
 Believe only (and we are constrained to believe) that the 
 Sabbatical rest of every seventh day is, in the Creator's 
 
12 Reason of the Six days. — Notes of 
 
 account a supreme necessity for Man ; and there has been 
 discovered a fully sufficient reason zuJnj the present order of 
 things should be solemnly ushered in with such a narrative as 
 that found in Genesis i. Years, months, days may be safely 
 left to take care of themselves. The ^veekly account, not so ! — 
 It will be perceived that I insist on taking everything in this 
 chapter of Genesis quite lite^-ally. I cannot even suffer it to be 
 called a poem or a psalm. It is neither. The Book of Job 
 claims the former title, to be sure ; the 104th Psalm is "a 
 psalm of Creation " indeed. But Genesis i. is very severe, very 
 unadorned prose. It purports to be, and it undoubtedly is, 
 history in the strictest sense : revealed history, and, therefore, 
 true history. It claims to be, and it certainly is, the history 
 of six ordinary Days. 
 
 ■ Let me be permitted to declare — (exercising herein the same 
 freedom which Professor Pritchard claims for himself) — that 
 never, since I seriously gave myself up to these studies, have I 
 been able to see any special difficulty in this, the first chapter 
 of the Bible. As I read the record, it bears the impress of 
 God's finger in every part ; overflows with divinest teaching ; is 
 big to bursting with mysterious significance and beauty. It is 
 greatly in advance of the old world's knowledge, instead of 
 lagging behind it. Nay, as I read the record, it is as much ia 
 advance of the wisdom of the [new world as of the old : for, 
 what else but one perpetual rebuke to ' Darwinism ' is that 
 constantly recurring declaration of the Spirit, that God made 
 every creature " a/ter his kind'' '^ . . . Those two great 
 " lights " of which we have been speaking, are here called 
 " light - holders " rather, "luminaries" in short: a word 
 plainly teaching that Sun and Moon are " receptacles " only, not 
 original sources of Light. St. Paul actually designates saintly 
 persons by the same name {cpujarfipec , Philippians ii. 15), 
 because they shine with lustre derived wholly from Him who 
 is the fountain of Light. By causing the earth to bring forth 
 grass, herb, fruit-trees on the third day, and reserving for the 
 fourth the manifestation of " the greater light," a sublime and 
 
profound Teaching in Genesis i. 13 
 
 most concerning truth is inculcated in this first chapter of 
 Genesis : vi.~ , that the fecundity of ' Nature ' does not depend 
 on any generative power in the Sun, but is altogether the result 
 of the decree of the great Creator. On the other hand, " Light " 
 is doclai'ed to have been the work — or rather, the wonder, — of 
 '• the first day,'' for a reason which will be apparent to 
 any one who will recite to himself Genesis i. 3, 4, 5, and (in 
 close succession with these verses), St. John i. 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 : xii. 
 35, 36, 46. " That was tlie true light," says the beloved disciple 
 (speaking of our Saviouh) " which lighteth every man that 
 Cometh into the world.'' " Fer// " or " real" (aXjiBn'oc) is the 
 epithet he bestows upon Him. And what else, do men suppose, 
 is prophetically referred to, and mysteriously anticipated, 
 by Genesis i. 3, 4, 6, but the Eesurrection " on the first day of 
 the week " — (-(7 ^uu rwr o-«/3/3nrw)', note the idiom! ) — of Him who 
 habitually discoursed of Himself as " tJie Light of the World '' ? 
 Will it not be His awful prerogative, at the Last Day, " to divide 
 the light from the darkness " — as on the First Day of Creation ? 
 And is it not because the Incarnate Word (" the true Light," 
 as we have heard His Apostle call Him,) was very Goodness, that 
 " light " is singled out from all the other creatures for that solemn 
 sentence of approval, " And God saw the light that it was good"? 
 It was on the sixth day that the First Man was created, 
 — a prophetic anticipation that on that same day of the week 
 " the Second Man " would taste of death, and thereby become 
 " the beginning of the Creation of God" (Rev. lii. 14). — Then 
 further, What more significaiit than the threefold cadence of the 
 announcement (in ver. 27) of Man's Creation ? ("So God created 
 Man in His own image. In the image of God created He him. 
 Male and female created He them.'') Was it not a Divine antici- 
 pation of the threefold chime of the angelic hymn (St. Luke ii. 14) 
 on the night that Chkist was born ? . . . What, lastly, more 
 clearly prophetical than the Sabbatical rest from the work of 
 Creation on that very day in which our Saviour rested in the 
 grave from the wor . of Redemption ? And let it be carefully 
 noted how significantly from the record of that seventh day is 
 
14 More notes of Gospel Teaching in Genesis i. 
 
 withheld the statement with which every other of the six days is 
 dismissed (namely, that " the evening and the morning " made 
 tip the day,) in token that it is a faint adumbration of the " rest " 
 (the aafiftancrfxoc, as St. Paul phrases it, in Heb. iv. 9,) which 
 " remaineth for the people of God ; " seeing that (according to the 
 strong asseveration of St. John the Divine), " there shall be no 
 night there." (Eev. xxi. 25 ; xxii. 5). Nay, refer back to the 
 opening statement in verse 2, viz., that preliminary to the work 
 of Creation, " the Spirit of God moved " (brooded, that is, like 
 a dove), "on the face of the waters." How exquisite was the 
 fulfilment of that typical " brooding," when, at the Baptism of 
 Him who was to "make all things new" (Eev. xxi. 5), to 
 " create new Heavens and a new Earth " (Isa. Ixv. 17 ; 
 2 Pet. iii. 13; Eev. xxi. 1), "the Holy Ghost descended in a 
 bodily shape like a dove upon Him" (St. Luke iii. 22) as He 
 stood in Jordan ! And when " the old world " (2 Pet. ii. 5) had 
 been submerged by a " flood of waters," and a fresh beginning 
 had to be made, does not the dove again come to view ? Such 
 persistency of imagery is surely a striking note of fixedness in 
 the Divine purpose : and surely it was meant to be significant 
 also ! . . . Shall I be deemed wanting in intelligence if I 
 solemnly insist that the Mosaic record of Creation seems to me 
 full to overflowing of the sublimest Gospel teaching ? But (as 
 I have shown) it is full of the best philosophy, as well : aye, 
 and of sound moral guidance also. By withholding the 
 sentence of approval from the second day till the middle of 
 the third, what is so plainly inculcated as the lesson that, in 
 God's sight, no unfinished, no incomplete work, is " good "? 
 
 I repeat that it is, in my account, a mistake to parade the 
 difficulties of the first chapter of Genesis, as if they were greater 
 than are to be met with in other parts of the Bible. Eather, 
 to be candid, do the difficulties always seem to me to begin 
 when I read such an essay as that of Dr. Pritchard. For 
 what is it ? I find myself invited to suppose that this history 
 of Creation to which has been assigned the place of honour in 
 the Book of Life ; which has sustained the faith of believers 
 
Beverence and Humility. 15 
 
 for thousands of years, and enjoyed the solemn sanction of 
 Psalmists, Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists — yes, of the very 
 Incarnate Word Himself — contains statements so irrecon- 
 cilable with the ascertained constitution of Nature (in plain 
 terms, is so utterly untrue), that its very existence calls for 
 apology, and its contents can only be rationally explained by 
 assuming that they are the traditional recollection of the story 
 of a dream, dreamed by nobody knows whom — nobody knows 
 where ; but " in some remote stage of the world's history, 
 remote beyond our knowledge." And this vague suspicion is 
 deliberately " offered to the consideration of the Church of 
 God," as a specimen of that higher Biblical criticism " which 
 in all reverence strives for a reason of the hope that is in us ; 
 and in humility inquires whether the things alleged are true 
 and really meant." 
 
 I will but say — If this be a specimen of how " humility " 
 and "reverence" handle the first chapter of God's written 
 Word, the heart sickens at the anticipation of how they will 
 deal with the second chapter, and how with the third. The 
 esteemed author of the essay under review explains the in- 
 spired record by doing his best to explain it awaij. Instead of 
 vindicating the sublime truth and lofty divinity of Genesis i., 
 he is scarcely its apologist. He does but strive to account for 
 its pitiful inaccuracy and jialpable falsehood, by inviting " the 
 Church of God " to believe that, after all, it is probably nothing 
 else but the traditional memory of a forgotten dream — the 
 shadow of a shade — of which men are of course at liberty to 
 accept just as much, or just as little, as they please. 
 
 May it be suggested without offence that the "dreaming 
 mind " on the present occasion belongs not so much to any 
 unknown " ancient seer," as to a distinguished modern 
 Astronomer? This eminent person, notwithstanding his great 
 mathematical attainments, seems to have unaccountably lost 
 sight of such elementary facts of Sacred Science as tlie follow- 
 ing : — (1) That the author of Genesis {and therefore, of course, 
 
16 Imbecility of " Scientific doubt. ^' 
 
 of the first chapter of Genesis), is a perfectly well known 
 person — a famous writer named " Moses." (2) That the 
 authorship of the Pentateuch does not rest (like the authorship 
 of the first two Gospels) on tradition, but is vouched for by our 
 Savioub Himself (St. John v. 46, 47). (3) That it happens to 
 be a matter of express revelation that, although to His prophets 
 God did sometimes make Himself known in a vision, or spoke 
 to them in a dreana, " the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, 
 as a ma7i speaketh ivith his friend." " My servant Moses " 
 (saith He) " not so, With him nnll I speak mouth to mouth " 
 (Exod. xxxiii. 11, Numbers xii. 6, 7, 8). (4) That when the 
 ground is preoccupied in this way, it may not lawfully be 
 invaded as if it were unclaimed territory ; in other words, that 
 it is simply monstrous to [treat the authorship of Genesis as if 
 it were an open question. I submit, in short, that it is in- 
 admissible, in the face of facts august as those which go before, 
 that a Doctor of Divinity should spin out of his own inner 
 consciousness an account of the first chapter of Genesis, which 
 amounts to an entire rejection of the blessed narrative, — a mere 
 reductio ad absurdum of its contents. 
 
 Why need I withhold the frank avowal that what is some- 
 times dignified with the name of " scientific doubt" excites in 
 me nothing so much as astonishmeat and ridicule ? Astonish- 
 ment, at its pitiful imbecility ; ridicule, at its utterly un- 
 scientific character. The so-called philosophers who from time 
 to time favour the world with their silly cogitations on sacred 
 Science, — their weak objections, their impossible hypotheses, 
 their crude difficulties, — remind me of nothing so much as little 
 children, crying because they find themselves left out in the 
 dark. 
 
 .TOHN W. BUEGON. 
 
 Deanery, Chichester, February 13, 1886. 
 
THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS 
 A POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 As a Reply to the extraordinary hypothesis which Professor 
 Pritehard " laid before the Church of God " in " the Guardian" 
 of Feb. 10th at p. 211, it is hoped that what precedes will be 
 deemed satisfactory and complete. The field of discussion 
 between him and myself has been happily narrowed, inasmuch 
 as we are agreed that the " Six days" of Genesis i. mean six 
 days, and no other thing. 
 
 I. But then it is certain that not a few eminent persons 
 hold a widely differeiit opinion. They choose to assume that 
 in this place " Six Days " must mean six indefinitely long 
 periods of Time. Why they take so extravagant a liberty with 
 a statement which is perfectly intelligible as it stands, they 
 have never seen fit to explain. Their hypothesis certainly 
 meets no admitted necessities of the problem which Genesis i. 
 opens up. Thus, there is no reason for supposing that the first 
 indefinitely long period of the history of our globe was one of 
 aqueous vapour, irradiated by light (^) : — the second, a corre- 
 sponding long period throughout which our present atmosphere 
 was superimposed on a world of waters (") : — the third, a corre- 
 sponding long period during which the present configurations of 
 moist and dry were established, and the vegetable kingdom had 
 its beginning (") : — the fourth, a corresponding long period during 
 which Sun, Moon and Stars came to view (■*). But unless these 
 are ascertained facts , men are even without pretext for turning 
 " days " into millions of years. If it is done out of consideration 
 for the great Creator, — to speak plainly, if men have invented 
 the "long period" hypothesis in order to give Almighty 
 God more time for the creation of plants, fishes, birds, &c., — 
 they are respectfully assured that He requires no such indul- 
 gence at their hands. But in fact this assumption of theirs, — 
 
 ' Gen. i. 2-5. "^ Ibid.yGXBe?,Q-Q. " /6id. verses 9-13. ' 76;//. versos 14-19. 
 
18 The Days mentioned in Genesis i. 
 
 for an assumption it is, — is simply inadmissible ; being incon- 
 sistent with the plain language of the record which it professes 
 to explain or explode. 
 
 II. That the word " Day " is sometimes employed in 
 Scripture (as in the familiar speech of mankind) with 
 metaphorical license, is undeniable f ), — but wholly beside the 
 present contention. The question before us is but this,^ 
 Has the word " Day '* been so employed in Genesis i. ? It has 
 not, I answer ; or rather, it cannot have been : and for the 
 following considerations : — (1st) Immediately after what is told 
 us concerning " the lig-ht " in verses 3 and 4, and in the same 
 breath with the announcement that " the evening and the 
 morning were the first Day,'' the memorable revelation is made 
 that " God called the light — Day,'' and the darkness, "Night" ("). 
 So that, in this chapter the word " Day," cannot be intended 
 to signify a vast tract of time, embracing an indefinite number 
 of years ; but must indicate the period determined by a single 
 revolution of the earth on its axis. Note further, (Sndly) 
 That in this same chapter, six successive days are introduced to 
 our notice ; and in order that there may be no mistake about 
 the matter, each one of these " Days " comes before us furnished 
 with its own "evening" and "morning." We do not ever, 
 neither does the Bible ever, speak thus of long tracts of Time : 
 but we always do thus speak of ordinary days. We cannot in 
 fact more clearly express our meaning. — But above all, (3rdly) 
 As if to make doubt imj)ossihle, the Fourth Commandment estab- 
 lishes the writer's intention in a manner which does not admit 
 of evasion. To Man, God says — " Six days shalt thou labour 
 and do all thy work," but on " the seventh day .... thou 
 shalt not do any work,'' — "FOE m six days the Lord made 
 heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested 
 the seventh day " ('). Here, the transactions in Genesis i. are 
 not only declared to have been extended over an ordinary 
 
 8 Consider Gen. ii. 4. St. John iii. 56, S. Luke xix. 42. 2 Cor. vi. 2, etc, 
 <"■ Ibid, ver. 5. ' Exod. xx. 9, 10, 11. 
 
must needs be actual days. 19 
 
 week of days but the mysterious reason rohy they occupied a 
 week of days emerges into prominence also. There is no 
 ambiguity here. Neither is there room left for error or 
 accident; in other words, "the human element'' has been 
 jealously excluded: for "the tables" whereon these words 
 were written are declared to have been " the work of God, 
 and the writing loas the ^orltmg of God, graven npon the tables" C^). 
 Now, for God to impose on Man the duty, after labouring for 
 six days, of resting on the seventh day, because that He Him- 
 self on one memorable occasion did the like, were plainly 
 unreasonable, if God did nol do the thing which He is so declared 
 to have done .... Morever, in my reply to Dr. Pritchard, I 
 have already (at p. 11-12) produced a sufficient reason «'% the 
 present order of things should have been introduced to the notice 
 of mankind in this particular way ; namely, by the solemn 
 enactment of the Week, as a division of Time. 
 
 III. But if we are right in our contention that the great Six 
 Days spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis denote an 
 actual Week of Days which happened nearly 6000 years ago, — 
 then it follows inevitably that all those curious objections with 
 which the Professors of Geological Science habitually assail the 
 Mosaic record of Creation, fall to the ground. I am saying 
 that all speculations as whether " the nebular hypothesis," 
 and an "incandescent Earth," and a certain "order of 
 succession " in the prse-Adamic creatures, are reconcilable with 
 this and that verse of Genesis i., — become purely nugatory. 
 An accomplished gentleman of celebrity writing on this subject, 
 " supposes it to be admitted on all hands that no perfectly 
 comprehensive and complete cori'espondence can be established 
 between the terms of the Mosaic text and modern discovery. No 
 one, for instance " (he adds) " could conclude from it tJiat which 
 appears to be generally recognized, that a gi-eat reptile-age 
 would be revealed by the Mesozoic rocks" (''). No one indeed, 
 
 8 Exod. xxxii, 16. Compare xxxiv. 1 . 
 3 The Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone in the N. C, Jan. LSrtG, p. 9-10. 
 
20 God has revealed Himself 
 
 But then, — Is not the very expectation that any one could so 
 conclude, essentially unreasonable? Who, in his senses, looks 
 for Cyclopean masonry in a cottage built by his grandfather? 
 or speculates on the possibility of finding a crocodile of the 
 Pharaohs in the ditch at the back of his garden ? 
 
 IV. Let us be allowed briefly to explain what we conceive 
 to be the attitude of the majority of well-informed Divines 
 towards the department of knowledge indicated in the foregoing 
 paragraph. So far from receiving with incredulity, much less 
 treating with levity, the speculations of those naturalists who 
 make Geology and Palaeontology their profession, we listen to 
 their teaching with the profoundest interest, and receive their 
 lawful decrees with the most submissive deference. We regard 
 the Professor of this deparment of knowledge as Nature's High 
 Priest. It is his special function to enlighten mankind in a 
 department of human knowledge concerning which, but for 
 such help, men neither know, nor can expect to know, anything 
 at all. Scripture reveals nothing concerning the universe 
 during the prae-historic period, except the fact that God was its 
 Creator. The rest, the same God hath left, in His infinite 
 wisdom, for the exercise of human intelligence, and in order to 
 furnish His rational creatures with materials for observation 
 and study. Let me be further allowed, in briefest outline, to 
 indicate the relation which the cosmogony of Genesis i. bears to 
 the mysterious Past of this little globe which God hath given 
 us to inhabit It is a matter which seems to be marvellously 
 little understood by the generality of readers, — whether of the 
 Book of Nature or of the Book of Life. 
 
 v. God hath revealed Himself to His rational creatures 
 partly by His Works and partly by His Word. These two are 
 supplementary the one to the other. In order to acquaint 
 reasoning Man with the nature of His doings on this earth of 
 ours throughout the unnumbered ages of remote prae-historic 
 Time, He hath with prodigal liberality furnished him with the 
 testimony of the rocks : in which, laid up as orderly as in the 
 
hy His Works and by His Word. 21 
 
 shelves of a cabinet, are to be surveyed countless specimens of 
 His own creative skill. Those rocks, by their superposition and 
 structure, witness to a degree of antiquity for this globe of ours 
 which entirely defies arithmetic, as well as to a history which 
 almost baffles conjecture. But, from a diligent study of the 
 extinct forms of vegetable and animal life thus deposited and 
 preserved in the earth's crust, something has been confidently 
 predicated, — {but only loithin the last hundred years) — concerning 
 the order and sequence of those remote cycles of creation ; as 
 well as concerning the probable conditions of our globe during 
 the periods when those plants grew and those creatures lived 
 upon its surface. " Hundreds of thousands of animal species, 
 as distinct as those which now compose our water, land, and 
 air populations, have come into existence and died out again, 
 through the aeons of Geological time which separate us from the 
 lower Palaeozoic epoch."* — And thus much for the revelation 
 which God hath made to us Himself in His Works. These, be 
 it observed, are the special province of the Natural Philosopher. 
 He is the historian of praehistoric Time, the interpreter of its 
 obscure records. 
 
 VI. God's Word claims to be the articulate expression of 
 His mind and will, as well as the inspired record of His 
 providential dealings with His rational creatures from the day 
 in which He "made Man on the earth" until now. The Bible, 
 (for that is the name by which we designate the other great 
 instrument whereby God hath revealed Himself to mankind), 
 commencing with the briefest possible recognition of the 
 antecedent history of the Universe, — (it is effected in the 
 single oracular announcement, " In the beginning God 
 created the Heaven and the Earth"), — enters abruptly 
 on the history of a Week of Days ; on the sixth of which 
 Man was created, and on the seventh of which God desisted 
 from the work of Creation. As much as need be said has 
 been offered already (^°) concerning those days, and the 
 
 Professor Huxley in the N. C, Doc. 1885, p. 857. >« See above pp. 11-14. 
 
22. The Divine and the Philosopher 
 
 recorded work of each. A pure Eevelation — the narrative 
 contained in Genesis i. Hes altogether outside the province of 
 the Palaeontologist, for it purports to be the history of events 
 which took place less than 6000 years ago. To what extent the 
 the Author of Genesis, in describing the succession of the 
 creatures in this, the latest cycle of Creation, shall be found to 
 have described an order corresponding with that which 
 Philosophers conjecture was also the order observed by the 
 great Creator during the ages of the remote Past ("), — is a matter 
 of little importance to the Natural Philosopher, and of none to 
 the Divine. Such a coincidence, though it might reasonably 
 have been expected, cannot by any means be claimed as 
 necessary. But in one other far more important particular, the 
 Geologist is invited to note that the accuracy of his own 
 observations is strikingly confirmed by the record of Eevelation : 
 namely, with respect to the comparatively recent appearance 
 of Man upon the earth. Man is never found in a fossil state in 
 any of the earth's earlier strata. — In this way, be it remarked 
 in passing, God's Word and God's Works not only illustrate, 
 but sometimes even mutually supplement, one another. That 
 either should ever contradict the other, we hold to be a thing 
 incredible ; — seeing that they both alike proceed from Him Who 
 is the very Truth itself (^^). It remains to point out that as the 
 interpretation of God's Works is held to be the special province 
 of the Philosopher, so is God's Word, and the interpretation 
 thereof, held to be the special province of the Divine. 
 
 VII. Now, it can scarcely require to be formally stated, that 
 it is in a high degree desirable that the Divine and the 
 Philosopher should keep within their own respective provinces ; 
 that either of them (to speak plainly) should be supremely 
 careful to mind his own business. It is not for the Divine to 
 dispute with , the Palaeontologist about the records of the 
 
 11 This irrelevant discussion fills many pages in recent numbers of the N.C. 
 
 As in the Dec. number for 1885, and the Jan. number for 1886. 
 12 St. John xiv. 6. They are tlie words of the great Creator. St. John i. 1-3. 
 
each to mind his own business. 23 
 
 prae-historic ages, or to deny any of the well-ascertained facts of 
 Geological observation. He does but render himself ridiculous 
 if he pretends to dogmatize in a province w^here he is ijlauc 
 hospes, — a province which is wholly external to his own. And 
 what is to be said of the Philosopher who invades the 
 mysterious province of the Divine ? We venture to warn him 
 that he will inevitably talk nonsense, if he does. — Let us 
 proceed, however. 
 
 VIII. The use which Man has made of the liberal provision 
 thus devised by the great Creator for his edification and delight 
 is suggestive certainly. Whether it be calculated to furnish 
 " Homo sapiens " with any grounds for self-congratulation, let 
 " Homo sapiens " himself declare. Throughout upwards of 
 pfty-scven centuries, the book of Nature, though always lying 
 wide open before his eyes, had been by him surveyed to so little 
 purpose, that its contents, in more than one important depart- 
 ment, had been overlooked completely. Within the last 
 hundred years, as if awaking out of sleep, he has suddenly 
 become aware of his own incredible blindness, and of his own 
 consequent grievous loss. The Truth has at last dawned, 
 rather has flashed upon him, that in respect of that part of the 
 Book of Nature which relates to the Earth's crust, realms of 
 surprising interest and wonder have been freely submitted to 
 his ken, — of which, until yesterday, he did not so much as 
 suspect the existence. We are assured on competent authority, 
 that since the year 1832, " not only a new world, but new 
 worlds of ancient life have been discovered;"* discovered, 
 semewhat as poker and tongs are discovered before the fire. 
 Man learns that he has but to use his eyes, multiply his obser- 
 vations, accumulate the evidence which universal Nature fur- 
 nishes, — and he may acquaint himself with these by-gone 
 worlds ; may become as familiar with their strange furniture 
 and uncouth occupants as with the plants and reptiles in his 
 garden, — the fishes and birds on his table, — the animals in his 
 
 ♦ N. C, Dec. 1885, p. 850. 
 
24 Natural Science 
 
 .arm-yard. Now, that until yesterday this page of the wide- 
 open Book of Nature should have been to Man as a history 
 written in an unknown tongue, is quite strange enough : yet is 
 it as nothing compared with the strangeness of what has next 
 to be related. 
 
 IX. For surely it were obvious to go on to inquire concerning 
 Man, — Has he then been rendered humble by the discovery of 
 his own blindness through so many centuries of years ? Has any 
 public acknowledgment been made of a dulness of apprehension 
 which to himself may well be inexplicable ? And his words 
 concerning Human knowledge, — have they ever since been 
 "wary and few"? . . . On the contrary. The Natural 
 Philosopher so plumes himself on his recently acquired lore, 
 that he will scarce tolerate that Knowledge of some sort shall 
 exist in any other quarter. He arrogates to himself " Science " 
 as his own exclusive province ; and informs the world that 
 outside this province all is " imagination,— hope, — ignorance."* 
 To read his remarks about " Sciefice and Eeligion," " Science and 
 Faith, ''t and the like, one would really suppose that, — besides 
 sublimely ignoring that Mathematics, Astronomy, Geometry, 
 Chemistry, Music, Metaphysics, Language, are " Sciences " 
 likewise, — the Natural Philosopher had forgotten that there is 
 such a thing as " Sacred Science " as well ; a Science which, 
 inasmuch as it concerns itself chiefly with the written Eevelation 
 which God hath made to us concerning Himself, — must of 
 necessity be accounted the " Scientia scientiarum " ; must 
 perforce be recognized as the very Empress of all the Sciences. 
 As iov " Beligion," — Does he not know that it is but Divinity 
 viewed on its practical side ? The term may not be used to 
 cover the several branches of Sacred Science, — of which the 
 loftiest is " Theology." This however by the way. We had a 
 supremely strange thing to relate, and it follows. 
 
 X. The last impertinence of which the youngest of the 
 Sciences has been guilty is certainly the strangest of any. She 
 
 * Ibid. p. 859. t As, in the N. C, Dec. 1885, pp. 850, 859. 
 
assailing the Bible. 26 
 
 has taken it into her head that it is her function to invade the 
 province of Divinity, and to iissa.il— the Bible. Her pica is that 
 certain of its statements have reference to physical phenomena, 
 — of which (she assumes) its Authors can have known nothing. 
 Does she consider that the Ckeatok of universal Nature, — that 
 God Himself is held to be the true Author of Scripture ? That 
 the Bible claims to be a Revelation made to Man by God? 
 "The Bible " (she asserts) " was not meant to teach Physical 
 Science." Has then the Professor of that Science been at the 
 pains to acquaint himself with the marvellous structure, 
 history, contents, of the Book of which he speaks so confi- 
 dently ? How, I venture to ask, does he kvow what " the Bible 
 was meant to teach ? " Surely, whatever things the Bible 
 actually teaches, it is reasonable to assume that the same Bible 
 was meant to teach ! . . . I proceed to offer a few words 
 on this great subject which shall be explanatory, and (it is 
 hoped) will be found useful by those who sincerely desire to 
 learn. 
 
 XI. That it is not the primary object or special purpose of 
 the Bible to instruct mankind in Physical Science, — is, I 
 suppose, universally admitted. That is precisely the reason 
 why its language concerning natural objects is popular, general, 
 phenomenal. Such expressions as " the heavens and the earth," 
 " the herb yielding seed,'' " luminaries in the firmament of the 
 heavens," " every winged fowl after his kind," show plainly 
 enough that He who employs them is not aiming at what, by 
 Natural Philosophers (in the xixth century) is styled " scien- 
 tific " precision. In the meantime, this method of handling 
 things natural affords no pretext for disbelieving what is de- 
 livered concerning them. It does not follow that a physical 
 fact may be lawfully disputed because it is discoursed of in a 
 book of wliich the special purpose and primary intention is not 
 to teach " Physical Science." 
 
 XII. In all fairness let two admissions be loyally made with 
 reference to this subject. The first, (1) That the points at 
 
26 The manner of man's Creation 
 
 which the respective domains of Sacred and Physical Science 
 interfere with one another are few. The second, (2) That 
 wherever extraordinary Scriptural statements are made con- 
 cerning things natural, those statements are of the nature of 
 revelations : by which I mean that the wonders discoursed of 
 must have remained unknown to mankind for ever, but for 
 what is found related in the Word of God. The " Six days " of 
 Creation furnish an apt illustration of what is intended. It is 
 a marvel concerning which, of necessity, mankind must have 
 been ignorant for ever, but that it hath been categorically 
 revealed. 
 
 XIII. One other colossal and most concerning Physical 
 fact there is, about which, apart from Kevelation, the world 
 could not have known anything at all ; but concerning which, 
 in His Word, God hath seen fit to be singularly communicative, — 
 to be minute and particular in a high degree. I allude to the 
 Creation of Man ; and of Woman out of Man (Gen. ii. 21, 22). 
 The deliberation with which Man was created, of which a 
 solemn record is preserved in the first page of the inspired 
 Word (i. 26) : — the intention of the Creator therein, — namely, 
 to make Man in His oion image after His own likeness : — the 
 gift of dominion over all creatures at once solemnly conveyed 
 to Man: — the fact that the Protoplast was "formed of the 
 dust of the ground," and that, in order to his " becoming a 
 living soul,'' God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
 life " (ii. 7) : — nothing, I say, of all this was to have been so 
 much as suspected, apart from the particular record contained in 
 Scripture. Add, the prophetic oracle which Adam pronounced 
 at sight of his spouse (ii. 23, 24), — words which were solemnly 
 re-syllabled by the Author of Creation when He " was made 
 flesh and dwelt among us " (St. John i. 3 and 14), and by Him 
 were made the ground of the sanctity of the marriage tie 
 (St. Matthew xix. 5 : St. Mark x. 7, 8) ; — and we seem to have 
 reached the very height of wonder. But it is not so. This is 
 not nearly all. The Lord God having formed out of the ground 
 " every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, brought 
 
is a inire Revelation. 27 
 
 them unto Adam to sec ivlmt ho toouhl call them.'^ It follows, — 
 " And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was 
 the name thereof." The lecture therefore in Natural History 
 which the Protoplast then and there delivered was such an 
 one as the world hath never listened to since, — no, nor will ever 
 listen to again. That there may be no mistake about this 
 matter, the record is repeated: — "And Adam ijave names to 
 all cattle and to the fond of the air, and to every beast of the 
 field " (Gen. ii. 19, 20). Adam therefore came into the world 
 a Philosopher. Inspired was he at his creation with more than 
 human wisdom. He regonised the natures of the creatures 
 when he saw them ; and debcribed their natures in their names, — 
 as, when he " called his wife's name Cliavvah" (that is life- 
 giver), " because she was the mother of all living" (iii. 20). 
 Completely furnished Philosopher as well as divinely inspired 
 Prophet, — created in the image, and after the likeness, of God 
 (i. 26 : v. i.), — our first father Adam is in himself the gravest 
 rebuke imaginable to our modern Professor. In the words of a 
 witty Doctor of our Church, — •" An Aristotle was but the 
 rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of 
 Paradise." 
 
 XIV. Now, the Bible, — beginning as it does by describing 
 particularly the Creation, and immediately afterwards the Fall 
 of Man, — is only to be understood by one who will be at the 
 pains to bear steadily in mind that the two sets of writings of 
 which it is composed relate respectively to the ruin of our 
 Nature in the person of Adam, — and to its restoration in the 
 person of Chkist. St. Paul puts this briefly when he points out 
 that "as in Adam all die, even so in Chkist shall all be made 
 alive" (1 Cor. xv. 12). Hence, that saying of his, — " tJie First 
 Man is of the earth, earthy : the Second Man is the Lord from 
 Heaven" (ver. 27). In other words, " Adam and Christ are 
 the tivo roots of Mankind ; Adam, as in a state of Nature, and 
 Christ, as in a state of Grace." The earlier set of writings 
 presuppose the later : the later set exclusively recognise the 
 
28 The Prophetic texture of the Bible 
 
 earlier. They may not be severed. Their unity is complete. 
 Let it further be noted that Genesis itself may not be dismem- 
 bered or disintegrated. Every subsequent page of the Book 
 pledges itself to the authentic character of its earliest pages. 
 A first and a second decade of Patriarchs establish the world's 
 chronology from the creation of the Protoplast until the birth of 
 Abraham (Gen. v. and xi.) : after which, as curious a piece of 
 net-work as is anywhere to be found in History, carries our 
 exact knowledge of dates down fco the death of Joseph (Gen. 1. 26). 
 The narrative so coheres, that to establish a breach in it any- 
 where is impossible. The primaeval oracle (that One born of 
 Woman should bruise the Tempter's head) takes the span of all 
 the succeeding ages. Prophecy, — brightening as it advances, 
 until at last it actually names the place * and fixes the year of 
 the Eedeemer's birth f ; describes His person and narrates His 
 sufferings, Death and Eesurrection ; — Prophecy, I say, proves 
 to be nothing else but a preparation for Christ. And yet, the 
 Author of Scripture, perceiving that unbelief would cavil at 
 particular predictions and seek to resolve the Divine Fore- 
 knowledge into ordinary human " Forecast," hath caused that 
 the very texture of the Book shall be prophetical likewise : hath 
 procured that prophetic outlines of the Eedeemer's person, 
 work, and office shall everywhere be woven into the very warp 
 and woof of the narrative : hath so wonderfully mterfered, that, 
 as well in its Ordinances as in its Histories, the old Testament 
 shall adumbrate the coming Saviour in every part : in consequence 
 of which, — " beginning at Moses and all the proiohets," (i.e. ex- 
 plaining Joshua and Judges as well as Genesis and Isaiah) — 
 He was able, when He came into the world, " to expound" to 
 His Disciples, " in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
 Himself" (St. Luke xxiv. 27). — Now, this constitutes a kind 
 and a body of evidence which no hardihood of unbelief will ever 
 be able to explain away or evacuate. Particular types may be 
 denied or doubted : but the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, the 
 
 * Micah V, 2. Compare St. Matth. li. 4, 5, 6 t Daniel ix. 25, 26, 27. 
 
an irrefragable Argument. 29 
 
 crossing of the Eed Sea and the settlement in Canaan, make up 
 together an emblematic picture of Redemption, which no one 
 may presume to treat with unconcern. The Divine Harmony 
 and correspondence which in this way subsists between the Old 
 Testament and the New, — (two sets of writings written at 
 different dates, by different men, and sundered the one from the 
 other by half a thousand years), — is a marvel unapproached by 
 anything of which the world has elsewhere had experience. 
 Those several books must stand, or they must fall, together. 
 And all must stand of both Testaments, or none may stand of 
 either .... The Bible ends with a promise of " a new 
 Heaven and a new earth" (2 Pet. iii. 13: Rev. xxi. 1.); and 
 Christ is spoken of as the beginning of a new Creation 
 (Rev. iii. 15.), " Behold," (saith He) " I make all things new " 
 (Rev. xxi. 5). 
 
 XV. VVe have entered somewhat largely into this subject 
 not without a purpose. Some " reason of the hope that is in 
 us " (1 Pet. iii. 15.) has been incidentally assigned ; from which, 
 on the one hand, it will be clearly seen that no grotesque 
 uncertainty as to the " order of succession " of " flying 
 vertebrates '' in the abyss of prae-Adamic Time, occasions us 
 any degree of perplexity or distress. Such matters lie altogether 
 outside the province of Sacred Science. 
 
 On the other hand, when the Natural Philosopher claims 
 that Man shall be held to be the product of Evolution, — and 
 to be descended from an ape, — we trust that it has been made 
 plain why we are constrained to reject his hypothesis with 
 derision. It is plainly irreconcilable with the fundamental 
 revelations of Scripture. Whether the hypothesis be not in 
 itself unscientific, nor to say essentially absurd, — we forbear to 
 enquire. It may not, at all events, be pretended that " tlie 
 interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature " are here 
 in conflict ; as if this were a mere question of " Interpretation." 
 An appeal is made on the one side to a plain fact of sacred 
 Science ; so fundamental in its character that, by its removal. 
 
30 Professor Huxley recommended 
 
 the entire superstructure would crumble to its base. On the 
 other an hypothesis is gratuitously put forth utterly destitute 
 of scientific proof, and flouted by such a first-rate Naturalist as 
 as Sir Eichard Owen. 
 
 XVI. Professor Huxley, the most recent assailant of Genesis, 
 does not improve his position as a controversialist when he 
 remarks concerning the First Chapter, — 
 
 " My belief, on the contrary, is, and long has been, that the Penta- 
 " teuchal story of the Creation is symply a myth. I suppose it to be 
 " an hypothesis respecting the origin of the Universe which some 
 " ancient thinker found himself able to reconcile with his knowledge, 
 " or what he thought was knowledge, of the nature of things ; and 
 " therefore assumed to be true."— (2V. C. Feb. 1886, p. 198). 
 
 The same distinguished philosopher seems to hold that 
 
 " ' Creation ' — signifies a gradual Evolution of one species from 
 " another, extending through immeasurable time." — {Ibid. Dec. 1885, 
 p. 857.) 
 
 Elsewhere, he virtually denies that the Universe had any 
 Creator at all. He says : — 
 
 " Omnipotence itself can surely no more make something ' out of ' 
 " nothing than it can make a triangular circle." — (Ibid p. 201.) 
 
 More recently still, the same writer has used expressions 
 with regard to Almighty God which are little short of blas- 
 phemous. We forbear to quote them. Christianity he seems 
 to regard as " Hellenized Judaism : " and the God of Christian 
 men as (to say the least) a very imperfect character indeed 
 {Ibid. p. 860). We read such things with sincere commi- 
 seration, but with even more surprise. We have ever supposed 
 that the true Man of Science is supremely careful not to dog- 
 matize in any department of Learning which he has never 
 studied, and which he clearly does not understand. But the 
 arrogance of Professor Huxley knows no bounds. " The 
 assured results of modern Biblical Criticism " he informs us 
 [Ibid. p. 193), are fatal to the "Mosaic" authorship of the 
 Pentateuch. Is he aware that the Incarnate Wokd meets 
 
to keep tvithin his proper province. 31 
 
 him with a clear counterstatement, — " Moses wrote of Me " 
 (St. John V. 46, 47) ?— His remarks on Micah vi. 8 (" And 
 what doth the Loud require of thee, but to do justly, to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"), are quite a 
 curiosity : — 
 
 " If any so-called Religion takes away from this great saying of 
 " Micah, I think it wantonly mutilates, while, if its adds thereto, I 
 " think it obscures, the perfect ideal of religion." — (Ibid. p. 8G0). 
 
 XVII. There is a tiino for all things, — a time for bandying 
 compliments, and a time for speaking plainly. We must be 
 allowed to designate all that proceeds by its proper name — 
 ivipertinence. We recommend the concluding clause of what 
 Professor Huxley I'egards as the Cyclopaedia of Divinity to his 
 own special consideration. Let him learn to " walk humbly " 
 with his Maker. And since the Philosopher is so fond of 
 straying out of his own province into that of Divinity, he is 
 respectfully informed that it is one of the fundamental truths 
 of Sacred Science that " the fear of the Lord is the beginning 
 of wisdom.'' He is also reminded that it was " the Fool" 
 who " said in his heart, there is no God." 
 
 JOHN W. BURGON. 
 
 Deanery, Chichester, 
 May nth, 1886. 
 
StocUon, Calif. 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 PHINTeo IN U » A 
 
BS651 .B95 
 
 The first chapter of Genesis : a reply 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00056 1011 
 
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