and Rome held that God and matter are eternal.

Ex

nihilo nihil fit was their mode of reasoning on the subject; and with respect to no other theory might they have felt more secure. I wish the reader, however, to understand that I am not pleading for the eternity of matter; I am using my humble endeavours to disabuse the minds of others of a mischievous error in supposing that the matter of which all things were made was created all at once or within the space of six days. If, as these people believe, without one jot or tittle of evidence, matter had had its origin in the creative week, we may regard it as certain that an act of creative power, so stupendous, would have held a prominent place in the Mosaic Record. The silence of Moses, and indeed of the Bible in general, affords clear proof (though we had possessed no other), that matter was not created when the world was prepared for man. We are not called upon in Scripture to believe that matter was made out of nothing: our faith is never once put to so severe a test. The first state of matter mentioned in the Bible is earth-solid earth, and the term earth, applied to our globe in its ultimate solid condition, runs through the whole Scriptures. There is, however, one passage in the New Testament which tells us that worlds were not made of solid matterbut of matter in a state non-apparent to beings constituted as we are-and that doctrine is part and pertinent of the faith required of a Christian:

Heb. xi. 3. "Through 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."

Now, whether this alludes to the creation of worlds out of nothing, or out of matter in a form non-apparent to our organs of sense, it puts it beyond all doubt that the framing of our world did not take place in the creative week, for its formation either in the one way

or the other is never once hinted at in the account of the six days' work. During these days many things are said to have been done by the "Let" or fiat of the Creator, but the creation of matter, or of our globe, is not among the number. But this passage from the Hebrews, though it tells us nothing about the time when our globe, or the matter of our globe, was brought into existence, is exceedingly valuable for the nature of the information which it gives (rare in the Scriptures) respecting the condition in which matter exists before worlds are framed out of it. Matter in that stage of its existence is non-apparent-invisible to sense-we could not detect its presence by the usual exercise of our external organs. I am aware the common interpretation is that St Paul here teaches that matter, or the things seen, were made at once or directly out of nothing. And when we take into account that, till within these few years, it was the universal belief, not merely of the vulgar, but among philosophers, that all matter was formed in a solid state in the creative week, no other interpretation of the words of the inspired apostle could be looked for. But, from a thorough examination and comparison of the language of the apostle, it is my settled conviction that his words will neither bear nor justify such a crude, though popular, explanation. Its popularity has as little weight with me as the common view of the Mosaic Record on the same point. Ta BAETOμeva-lit. the things seen-denotes, not only things that exist, but things which are objects of sight -things which we see with our bodily eyes, and which we can present pictures of to our mental vision; Ta un pavoμeva*-lit. the things not apparent-does not

*"Things which do not appear" are here spoken of in contradistinction to things which do appear or are

signify things which have no existence (which is a contradiction in terms) but things whose existence is not indicated to us by our external senses, particularly our sight, and of which, if they never have been apparent, we can form no ideas or images in our minds. The contrast between τα βλεπομενα and τα μη φαινομενα is between things apparent to sight and things non-apparent to sight, or between things visible and things invisible; existence and non-existence are not in the words, and, by consequence, were not in the apostle's mind. Ta ovra and тa μŋ ovтa occur, 1 Cor. i. 28. Ta Ovтa literally signifies things that exist, but in the place referred to it denotes things that rank high in human estimation, and ra un ovτa-not things which have no existence, but things which, in the opinion of mankind, are of little worth or estimation. To affirm that ra un paioμeva means things which have no existence a plurality of nothings-is not only to destroy the obvious distinction between that phrase and Ta μη οντα, but to reduce τα μη φαινομενα to the strictest literal signification of ra un ovra (things which have no existence), a signification which the latter phrase has not in the Greek Testament. Further: the two common Greek words corresponding to our word nothing (oudev, undev), occur frequently in the writings of St Paul, and had he intended to convey the idea that all things were made, not as he has said out of matter non-apparent to our senses, but out of nothing, he certainly would have employed one or other of these words; for his usual mode of writing is to convey his

apparent to our organs of sense, just as things "visible" are contrasted with things "invisible" in the following passage:- -"By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible." (Col. i. 16.)

thoughts in the most simple, obvious, and direct terms which the nature of the subject admits of. Indeed, the inspired authors of the New Testament are as remarkable as those of the Old for expressing their meaning in a simple and direct manner, and in common and well understood words.

The learned Beza, though he renders un ex paivoμever by non ex apparentibus, interprets the clause as signifying that all visible things are here stated to have been made at once out of nothing: Id est, ita ut mundus iste quem cernimus non sit ex aliqua apparente ac jam existente materia, sed ex nihilo conditus, contra philosophorum omnium axioma-Ex nihilo nihil. None but one previously imbued, and that very strongly, with the notion that worlds were created at once out of nothing, could ever have given such an interpretation as Beza has here done. The words of St Paul, as has just been shown, will bear no such exposition as Beza has made of them, and we shall presently see that he himself is not quite satisfied with his own interpretation. The Vulgate thus renders the clause; Ut ex invisibilibus fierent visibilia. Upon this Beza remarks: Perperam ac falsò etiam, nisi quis illud commoda interpretatione leniat. Beza does not in these words' reject the interpretation of the Vulgate absolutely, but thinks it unwarrantable, unless rendered probable by some appropriate and convincing illustration. Now the advancement of the sciences-particularly astronomy, chemistry, and geology, since Beza's time, supplies the illustration he requires: to furnish that we now proceed.

"Though an unscientific inquirer," says Dr Mantell, may find it difficult to comprehend, that our planet once existed in a gaseous state, this difficulty will vanish upon considering the nature of the changes that all natural things of which the earth is composed must undergo. Water offers a familiar example

of a substance existing on the surface of the globe as rock† (that is-ice), fluid, and vapour.

"Upon an increase of temperature, the glaciers of the Alps, and the icy pinnacles of the Arctic circles, disappear; and, by a degree of heat still higher, would be resolved into vapour; and, by other agencies, might be resolved into invisible gases; and in the laboratory of the chemist all kinds of matter easily pass through every grade of transmutation from the most dense and compact, to an aeriform state," (Mantell, Wond. Geol. 1, 29.) Common air is made up of three invisible gases-oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid; it is, in ordinary circumstances, charged with watery particles -sometimes visible, sometimes invisible. Water is composed of two invisible gases-oxygen and hydrogen; vegetable substances consist of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon; a few contain also nitrogen. Oxygen forms a great portion of solid rocks; the diamond, a mineral so remarkable for its hardness, is pure carbon. All these various substances are formed from invisible elements; and they are introduced here merely as simple instances of things seen made of things that do not appear; for all the objects in nature are in like manner composed of elements invisible in their primitive states. The formation of things seen out of viewless principles is a species of creation that does not cease with the overt acts by which worlds become visible objects. The creation of things visible out of invisible materials, and the dissolution of things visible into

† A geological rock may be thus defined: An earthy substance permanently solid, which changes into its own matter other substances embedded in it. Ice is not an earthy substance, nor permanently solid, nor does it change the substances embedded in it to ice, but preserves them from decay unaltered.