the Christian Chaos so much in fashion in the present and former age; a doctrine, which we may and must nevertheless pronounce to be, with relation to the logical principle implanted within us, of all the conceptions that ever obtained a shelter in the human mind, the most incongruous and irreconcilable, since we have seen that it is peremptorily and equally denied, both by reason and by authority, both by philosophy and by philology, in the very premises from which it is laboured to deduce it. To the preceding ancient testimonies produced against the modern fictitious interpretation of tohu-vabohu, I will yet further add the following reflective and unequivocal testimony of Ambrose, in the fourth century: "The earth was therefore invisible, because, being covered by the waters, "it could not have been visible to corporeal eyes; as, things lodged in the depth of waters,

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are beyond the reach of ocular sight and pene"tration. Not, that any thing is invisible to "God; but, a creature or creation of the world, is "here charactered with relation to a creature-sed "creatura mundi, creaturæ utique æstimatione cen

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setur.-The earth was also invisible; because, no light, no sun, as yet illumined the world'." Such was the ancient prescriptive signification of a term, which the moderns have gratuitously determined, shall "mean the same thing as the CHAOS of profane authors."

1 Hexaëmeron, lib. i. cap. 6.

2 See above, vol. i. p. 197.

CHAPTER IV.

THE historian proceeds to his Second Article, in which he relates the events that distinguished the Second diurnal revolution of this globe.

"And GOD said, Let there be a FIRMAMENT "in the midst of the waters: and let it divide the "waters from the waters.

"And GOD made the firmament, and divided "the waters which were under the firmament from "the waters which were above the firmament.

"And it was so: and GOD called the firmament

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And the evening and the morning were the SECOND DAY."

The word yp, which our version renders firmament, from the Latin firmamentum, is rendered by the Alexandrian interpreters oregeaua; which word denotes a firm and permanent support. That support was to sustain a part of the waters, which part was now to be separated from the waters beneath.

A recent learned, but adventurous writer, has emphatically pronounced his dissent from this interpretation: "the proper and literal import of "the word (he insists) is the expansion; and so "doubtless it ought to have been rendered; for,

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"the word firmament by no means exhibits the "real idea of the Hebrew substantive'." That great oriental authority Michaelis, however, pronounces just as emphatically against him : "According to what I have said of the signification of this word, as confirmed by the practice of the "Hebrew and Syriac tongues, the word yp will "not signify expanded, but confirmed, or, to use "the term employed in the Vulgate, the firma"ment. In Gen. i. 6, it can hardly signify any

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thing else than the atmosphere sustaining the "clouds. So in Ezek. i. 21, 22, where it expresses the basis or pavement of the chariot of God."

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This article, therefore, implies; that there were waters above the aqueous surface of the globe which were separable, though not yet actually separated, from it. It therefore relates; that the universal watery vapour, which had been in course of continual exhalation during the preceding day from the universal watery surface, was now separated from it and raised to a high elevation above it, by the creation of the aerial atmosphere; so that the vaporous body formed a canopy above the globe, instead of enveloping it like a cloak, in immediate contact with the water. Rosenmuller,

FABER, on the Three Dispensations, vol. i. p. 129.

2" Ex his, quæ de verbi significatu, usu linguæ Hebraicæ et Syriacæ "firmata diximus, nomen non erit expansum, sed — firmatum, seu, "ut vocabulo Vulgatæ utar, firmamentum.—Gen. i. 6, vix potest nisi at"mosphæra esse, nubes portans; sicque et Ezech. i. 21, 22, ubi basis"pavimentum est currus Dei tonantis." Suppl. ad Lex. Heb. no. 2386.

well applies to this place the remark of Pliny: "what can be more wonderful, than waters stationary "in the sky!-quid esse mirabilius potest aquis in "cælo stantibus!" which phenomenon, we know, is only produced by the" atmosphæra nubes por"tans," the y or firmamentum.

The globe was thus disengaged from its incumbent vapour, but still, the effect of light was alone apparent; for, congregated clouds had succeeded to terrestrial mist, and continued to render the cause of that effect non-apparent, and therefore, optically non-existent as we ourselves experience, during the prevalence of similar weather. It is this that the sacred historian describes, when he says; for many days neither sun nor stars ap“ peared—μητε ήλιου μητε αστρων επιφαινοντων επι πλείονας ἡμερας. Homer also describes, in a similar manner, the optical effect of a continued cloud enveloping two contending armies, during a day of obstinate conflict:

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ουδε κε φαίης

ούτε ποτ' ΗΕΛΙΟΝ σουν εμμεναι, ούτε ΣΕΛΗΝΗΝ

ηερι γαρ κατεχοντο.

Around so dense the murky clouds arise,

It seem'd nor Sun nor Moon possessed the skies.

The cause of the diversity of day and night continued therefore to be unapparent, relatively to the earth; but, that cause was now in course of perpetual operation, and it therefore now completed the Second Day.

1 PLIN. Hist. Nat. lib. xxxi. 2 Acts, xxvii. 20. 3 Iliad. XVII. 366.

CHAPTER V.

THE historian proceeds to his Third Article, which consists of two parts :

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"And GOD said; Let the WATERS UNDER

THE HEAVEN BE GATHERED TOGETHER UNTO

ONE PLACE, and let the DRY LAND APPEAR. "And it was so.

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"And GOD called the dry land EARTH, and the gathering together of the waters called He SEAS. "And GOD saw that it was good.

"And GOD said; Let the EARTH bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the FRUIT-TREE yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth. And it was so.

"And the earth brought forth grass; and herb yielding seed after its kind: and the TREE yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind : and GOD saw that it was good.

"And the evening and the morning were the THIRD DAY."

I. In the first part of this article, two vast and wonderful events of the most essential importance to true geology, because in them are laid the very first foundations of that historical science; but