THE FIRMAMENT.
Sec. 1. The task which we now enter upon, as explained in the close of the
preceding chapter, is the ascertaining as far as possible what the
proper effect of the natural beauty of different objects _ought_ to be
on the human mind, and the degree in which this nature of theirs, and
true influence, have been understood and transmitted by Turner.
I mean to begin with the mountains, for the sake of convenience in
illustration; but, in the proper order of thought, the clouds ought to
be considered first; and I think it will be well, in this intermediate
chapter, to bring to a close that line of reasoning by which we have
gradually, as I hope, strengthened the defences around the love of
mystery which distinguishes our modern art; and to show, on final and
conclusive authority, what noble things these clouds are, and with what
feeling it seems to be intended by their Creator that we should
contemplate them.
Sec. 2. The account given of the stages of Creation in the first chapter of
Genesis, is in every respect clear and intelligible to the simplest
reader, except in the statement of the work of the second day. I suppose
that this statement is passed over by careless readers without an
endeavor to understand it; and contemplated by simple and faithful
readers as a sublime mystery, which was not intended to be understood.
But there is no mystery in any other part of the chapter, and it seems
to me unjust to conclude that any was intended here.
And the passage ought to be peculiarly interesting to us, as being the
first in the Bible in which the _heavens_ are named, and the only one in
which the word "Heaven," all important as that word is to our
understanding of the most precious promises of Scripture, receives a
definite explanation.
Let us, therefore, see whether, by a little careful comparison of the
verse with other passages in which the word occurs, we may not be able
to arrive at as clear an understanding of this portion of the chapter as
of the rest.
Sec. 3. In the first place, the English word "Firmament" itself is obscure
and useless; because we never employ it but as a synonym of heaven; it
conveys no other distinct idea to us; and the verse, though from our
familiarity with it we imagine that it possesses meaning, has in reality
no more point or value than if it were written, "God said let there be a
something in the midst of the waters, and God called the something
Heaven."
But the marginal reading, "Expansion," has definite value; and the
statement that "God said, let there be an expansion in the midst of the
waters, and God called the expansion Heaven," has an apprehensible
meaning.
Sec. 4. Accepting this expression as the one intended, we have next to ask
what expansion there is, between two waters, describable by the term
Heaven. Milton adopts the term "expanse;"[37] but he understands it of
the whole volume of the air which surrounds the earth. Whereas, so far
as we can tell, there is no water beyond the air, in the fields of
space; and the whole expression of division of waters from waters is
thus rendered valueless.
Sec. 5. Now, with respect to this whole chapter, we must remember always
that it is intended for the instruction of all mankind, not for the
learned reader only; and that, therefore, the most simple and natural
interpretation is the likeliest in general to be the true one. An
unscientific reader knows little about the manner in which the volume of
the atmosphere surrounds the earth; but I imagine that he could hardly
glance at the sky when rain was falling in the distance, and see the
level line of the bases of the clouds from which the shower descended,
without being able to attach an instant and easy meaning to the words
"Expansion in the midst of the waters." And if, having once seized this
idea, he proceeded to examine it more accurately, he would perceive at
once, if he had ever noticed _anything_ of the nature of clouds, that
the level line of their bases did indeed most severely and stringently
divide "waters from waters," that is to say, divide water in its
collective and tangible state, from water in its divided and aerial
state; or the waters which _fall_ and _flow_, from those which _rise_
and _float_. Next, if we try this interpretation in the theological
sense of the word _Heaven_, and examine whether the clouds are spoken of
as God's dwelling place, we find God going before the Israelites in a
pillar of cloud; revealing Himself in a cloud on Sinai; appearing in a
cloud on the mercy seat, filling the Temple of Solomon with the cloud
when its dedication is accepted; appearing in a great cloud to Ezekiel;
ascending into a cloud before the eyes of the disciples on Mount Olivet;
and in like manner returning to Judgment. "Behold, he cometh with
clouds, and every eye shall see him." "Then shall they see the son of
man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory."[38]
While farther, the "clouds" and "heavens" are used as interchangeable
words in those Psalms which most distinctly set forth the power of God:
"He bowed the heavens also, and came down; he made darkness pavilions
round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies." And,
again: "Thy mercy, oh Lord, is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness
reacheth unto the clouds." And, again: "His excellency is over Israel,
and his strength is in the clouds." Again: "The clouds poured out water,
the skies sent out a sound, the voice of thy thunder was in the heaven."
Again: "Clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and
judgment are the habitation of his throne; the heavens declare his
righteousness, and all the people see his glory."
Sec. 6. In all these passages the meaning is unmistakable, if they possess
definite meaning at all. We are too apt to take them merely for sublime
and vague imagery, and therefore gradually to lose the apprehension of
their life and power. The expression, "He bowed the Heavens," for
instance, is, I suppose, received by most readers as a magnificent
hyperbole, having reference to some peculiar and fearful manifestation
of God's power to the writer of the Psalm in which the words occur. But
the expression either has plain meaning, or it has _no_ meaning.
Understand by the term "Heavens" the compass of infinite space around
the earth, and the expression, "bowed the Heavens," however sublime, is
wholly without meaning; infinite space cannot be bent or bowed. But
understand by the "Heavens" the veil of clouds above the earth, and the
expression is neither hyperbolical nor obscure; it is pure, plain, and
accurate truth, and it describes God, not as revealing Himself in any
peculiar way to David, but doing what he is still doing before our own
eyes day by day. By accepting the words in their simple sense, we are
thus led to apprehend the immediate presence of the Deity, and His
purpose of manifesting Himself as near us whenever the storm-cloud
stoops upon its course; while by our vague and inaccurate acceptance of
the words we remove the idea of His presence far from us, into a region
which we can neither see nor know; and gradually, from the close
realization of a living God who "maketh the clouds his chariot," we
refine and explain ourselves into dim and distant suspicion of an
inactive God, inhabiting inconceivable places, and fading into the
multitudinous formalisms of the laws of Nature.
Sec. 7. All errors of this kind--and in the present day we are in constant
and grievous danger of falling into them--arise from the originally
mistaken idea that man can, "by searching, find out God--find out the
Almighty to perfection;" that is to say by help of courses of reasoning
and accumulations of science, apprehend the nature of the Deity in a
more exalted and more accurate manner than in a state of comparative
ignorance; whereas it is clearly necessary, from the beginning to the
end of time, that God's way of revealing Himself to His creatures should
be a _simple_ way, which _all_ those creatures may understand. Whether
taught or untaught, whether of mean capacity or enlarged, it is
necessary that communion with their Creator should be possible to all;
and the admission to such communion must be rested, not on their having
a knowledge of astronomy, but on their having a human soul. In order to
render this communion possible, the Deity has stooped from His throne,
and has not only, in the person of the Son, taken upon Him the veil of
our human _flesh_, but, in the person of the Father, taken upon Him the
veil of our human _thoughts_, and permitted us, by His own spoken
authority, to conceive Him simply and clearly as a loving Father and
Friend;--a being to be walked with and reasoned with; to be moved by our
entreaties, angered by our rebellion, alienated by our coldness, pleased
by our love, and glorified by our labor; and, finally, to be beheld in
immediate and active presence in all the powers and changes of creation.
This conception of God, which is the child's, is evidently the only one
which can be universal, and therefore the only one which _for us_ can be
true. The moment that, in our pride of heart, we refuse to accept the
condescension of the Almighty, and desire Him, instead of stooping to
hold our hands, to rise up before us into His glory,--we hoping that by
standing on a grain of dust or two of human knowledge higher than our
fellows, we may behold the Creator as He rises,--God takes us at our
word; He rises, into His own invisible and inconceivable majesty; He
goes forth upon the ways which are not our ways, and retires into the
thoughts which are not our thoughts; and we are left alone. And
presently we say in our vain hearts, "There is no God."
Sec. 8. I would desire, therefore, to receive God's account of His own
creation as under the ordinary limits of human knowledge and imagination
it would be received by a simply minded man; and finding that the
"heavens and the earth" are spoken of always as having something like
equal relation to each other ("thus the heavens and the earth were
finished, and all the host of them"), I reject at once all idea of the
term "Heavens" being intended to signify the infinity of space inhabited
by countless worlds; for between those infinite heavens and the particle
of sand, which not the earth only, but the sun itself, with all the
solar system, is in relation to them, no relation of equality or
comparison could be inferred. But I suppose the heavens to mean that
part of creation which holds equal companionship with our globe; I
understand the "rolling of those heavens together as a scroll" to be an
equal and relative destruction with the "melting of the elements in
fervent heat;"[39] and I understand the making the firmament to signify
that, so far as man is concerned, most magnificent ordinance of the
clouds;--the ordinance, that as the great plain of waters was formed on
the face of the earth, so also a plain of waters should be stretched
along the height of air, and the face of the cloud answer the face of
the ocean; and that this upper and heavenly plain should be of waters,
as it were, glorified in their nature, no longer quenching the fire, but
now bearing fire in their own bosoms; no longer murmuring only when the
winds raise them or rocks divide, but answering each other with their
own voices from pole to pole; no longer restrained by established
shores, and guided through unchanging channels, but going forth at their
pleasure like the armies of the angels, and choosing their encampments
upon the heights of the hills; no longer hurried downwards forever,
moving but to fall, nor lost in the lightless accumulation of the abyss,
but covering the east and west with the waving of their wings, and
robing the gloom of the farther infinite with a vesture of divers
colors, of which the threads are purple and scarlet, and the
embroideries flame.
Sec. 9. This, I believe, is the ordinance of the firmament; and it seems to
me that in the midst of the material nearness of these heavens God means
us to acknowledge His own immediate presence as visiting, judging, and
blessing us. "The earth shook, the heavens also dropped, at the presence
of God." "He doth set His bow in the cloud," and thus renews, in the
sound of every drooping swathe of rain, his promises of everlasting
love. "In them hath he set a _tabernacle_ for the sun;" whose burning
ball, which without the firmament would be seen as an intolerable and
scorching circle in the blackness of vacuity, is by that firmament
surrounded with gorgeous service, and tempered by mediatorial
ministries; by the firmament of clouds the golden pavement is spread for
his chariot wheels at morning; by the firmament of clouds the temple is
built for his presence to fill with light at noon; by the firmament of
clouds the purple veil is closed at evening round the sanctuary of his
rest; by the mists of the firmament his implacable light is divided, and
its separated fierceness appeased into the soft blue that fills the
depth of distance with its bloom, and the flush with which the mountains
burn as they drink the overflowing of the dayspring. And in this
tabernacling of the unendurable sun with men, through the shadows of the
firmament, God would seem to set forth the stooping of His own majesty
to men, upon the _throne_ of the firmament. As the Creator of all the
worlds, and the Inhabiter of eternity, we cannot behold Him; but, as the
Judge of the earth and the Preserver of men, those heavens are indeed
His dwelling-place. "Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God's
throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool." And all those
passings to and fro of fruitful shower and grateful shade, and all those
visions of silver palaces built about the horizon, and voices of moaning
winds and threatening thunders, and glories of colored robe and cloven
ray, are but to deepen in our hearts the acceptance, and distinctness,
and dearness of the simple words, "Our Father which art in heaven."
FOOTNOTES
[37] "God made
The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent, elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round."
_Paradise Lost_, book vii.
[38] The reader may refer to the following texts, which it is
needless to quote: Exod. xiii. 21, xvi. 10, xix. 9, xxiv. 16, xxxiv.
5, Levit. xvi. 2, Num. x. 34, Judges v. 4, 1 Kings viii. 10, Ezek.
i. 4, Dan. vii. 13, Matt. xxiv. 30, 1 Thess. iv. 17, Rev. i. 7.
[39] Compare also Job, xxxvi. 29, "The spreading of the clouds, and
the noise of his _tabernacle_;" and xxxviii. 33, "Knowest thou the
ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the
earth? canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds?"
Observe that in the passage of Addison's well known hymn--
"The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim"--
the writer has clearly the true distinctions in his mind; he does
not use his words, as we too often accept them, in vain tautology.
By the _spacious_ firmament he means the clouds, using the word
spacious to mark the true meaning of the Hebrew term: the blue
_ethereal_ sky is the real air or ether, blue above the clouds; the
heavens are the starry space, for which he uses this word, less
accurately, indeed, than the others, but as the only one available
for this meaning.