The Neptunian or Water Theory of Creation
The Neptunian or Water Theory of Creation.
By
Rev. J. M. Woodman,
Professor in Natural Science, Chico Academy, Cal.
Author of “God in Nature and Revelation,” “The Song of Cosmology,”
“Star Dates of Human History,” “The Song of the Morning
Stars in Creation’s Grand March.”
“_If they speak not according to thy word it is because
there is no truth in them._”
San Francisco:
Bacon & Company, Book and Job Printers,
Corner of Clay and Sansome Streets.
1888.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year A. D. 1888,
BY J. M. WOODMAN,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THREE THEORIES OF CREATION REVIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF ADMITTED FACTS 9
SECTION 1.
The Plutonic or fire theory stated 15
Centro-centrifugal theory 16
Heated Nebulous theory 17
The increase of heat in mining shafts no evidence of a hot center 19
The admitted sedimentary nature of primitive granite destroys the
Plutonic theory 22
The theories of metamorphic rock not sustained 23
Mining shafts increase in heat according to chemical action 25
Causes of volcanoes and geysers explained 26
Geologists dissatisfied with the fire theory. Submarine volcanoes 28
Diatoms found in the earliest stratified rock 31
SECTION 2.
The Neptunian theory stated 32
All matter created at once in cold gas. God’s power needed to move
matter. The first cosmological division 33
Probable length of it. The first condition of our globe in form 35
SECTION 3.
The facts of science support the Neptunian theory. In quantity, order
and constituent elements of rock 36
The three ways that gases combine into rock 36
How rock can swim in water 38
Explorations made of the Atlantic 39
We once had a hemisphere of land, and one of water 40
The climate was tropical, as attested by shells, coral, coal, and
saurians 41
Also by tropical animals, flowers, and tropical vegetation 42
Water raised the mountains 45
Sea bottom seen there 46
Rise and depressions of earth. Cause of glacial epoch 48
SECTION 4.
Such a world physically adapted to man 50
The accumulating evidence that our earth is essentially a ball of water
53
The reasons the Antediluvians had no rainbow 54
CHAPTER II.
THE NEPTUNIAN THEORY WAS FIRST BROUGHT TO LIGHT IN THE BOOK OF JOB,
DATED IN THE STARS. EPIDRAMATIC ORATORIO 55
Orient the place for such a poem 57
First question established 58
The indictment against piety amended 59
The prologue ended with Satan confounded 59
These persons all representative characters 60
Starting the drama of history. Piety endures the trials of all ages 61
Job rewarded on the field. Flood passed 64
Surrounded by universal idolatry 65
Certain chapters Messianic 66
Resurrection reached 68
The enemies boast of the secular arm of law 69
The Reformation reached 70
The voice of space 72
Dead organic matter, as fossils, speaking 73
An explanation of the story of Joshua’s miracle. The three friends
silenced. Secular education personified 75
True loyal prayer, against unsupported illegal faith, and prayer without
faith 77
The Copernican system seen by Job, with the sedimentary nature of
granite 79
The rotundity of Earth with the inside water 81
The birth-place of ancient icebergs 83
The telegraph seen and dated 84
Description of certain fossils 85
The grand future of the church of the living God 86
CHAPTER III.
ALL THE SCRIPTURE REFERENCES TO COSMOLOGY ARE IN HARMONY WITH THE BOOK
OF JOB. EARTH STANDING IN WATER. FLOOD CAUSED BY OVERFLOW OF THE SEA.
ONCE IN A RING OF GASES. ABOVE THE WATERS 87
Moses gained his first ideas of Creation here 88
Power born in the hand of God 88
Gravitation accounts only for centripetal power 89
A steam world born but not yet swaddled 92
It is swaddled in gathering and condensing 93
Tracing gases into rock 95
To what days the Mosaic time is unadapted 96
What the Mosaic days of creation do mean 96
General and Special Providence 99
CHAPTER IV.
THE SIX DAYS OF MOSES FULL OF SCIENTIFIC SUGGESTIONS SHOWING THE WORK OF
GOD TO THE END OF TIME 100
SECTION 1.
The work of the first day 101
Meaning of deep 102
Figures of speech. A ring of waters in fluid gases first called
firmament 103
These days are not literal 104
SECTION 2.
The work of the second day 105
Meaning of create. Must be read in the light of scientific facts 107
Moses’ point of observation. First firmament tangible 107
Moses, in vision, confined to the history of our globe. The history of
other planets not given 109
SECTION 3.
The work of the third day. The steam world commences to liquify 110
The scientific problem of a probable pole-changing solved 112
One end only in sunshine 112
Why it did not rain on the earth 113
The cause of the first chilled climate. When it turned to torrid 115
SECTION 4.
The account of the fourth day in figure of metonymy 116
Recent coal periods 119
SECTION 5.
The work of the fifth day. Contrasts are found in the sea, diatoms begin
in the Gneiss rock 121
The whale of the Miocene is the contrasting animal, as morning 122
The order of the existence of animals by Moses agrees with facts 123
Science and the Bible claim substantially the same thing in reference to
Special Providence 125
SECTION 6.
The work of the sixth day. Beasts are the evening. Man is the morning
127
Our race sprang from Adam 128
The cleansing of the air was essential to the introduction of man 129
Recent volcanoes argue the correctness of the Mosaic account 130
We have not even yet reached the climax of good breathing 132
INTRODUCTION.
The question as to what kind of reading shall yield us the most
exquisite enjoyment, largely depends upon our ability for
self-development. Taste in reading, as in eating, is often an educated
faculty. The relish that we now have for many kinds of food, we had to
acquire. We all have faculties for intellectual, moral and spiritual
enjoyment, in lines of thought corresponding. These must be developed by
use. Reader, you have the ability, if you will allow it to be developed,
of enjoying a perusal of this sublime subject. Mere sensational reading
like emotional religion has its field of enjoyment, its rills of
happiness; but it is changeable and uncertain. Songs of praise and
devotional reading have a higher place in the human soul, lasting in
their nature.
Observation and historical research open another field of enjoyment.
Language and location of places may become a passion in the mind. The
study of causes in nature, at best but secondary, may hold the mind in a
sweet revery of delight; but these are mere rills of comfort compared to
an open sea, to the ability of reading and comprehending first causes,
in the light of prophetic declarations.
We are thrilled in the presence of relics of ancient history. The sight
of a mummy, known to be an ancient person of historic note thrills us
with admiration and agreeable wonder, as in the case of Rameses II.
Three thousand years seems a long time; yet it is easy to obtain almost
any where a fossil, fish or shell, representing as many million of
years. No where else are the “Footprints” of God so plain, measuring the
long ages of time, as seen in the Bible.
The fact that you have not been accustomed to read on this subject is no
reason why you should not begin at once, and experience the increased
reverence for God, the captivating engagement of thought, and the
exquisite enjoyment of soul, as a result. Do you still ask what
practical benefit will this knowledge be to you? Let us rather ask what
harm will come from a general impression that the cosmological
utterances of the Bible are so tangled up in a network of scientific
suppositions, as to cause even good men to drop them, as parts of God’s
inspiration to man. Such results are already produced all over the land.
The Bible has been assailed on its cosmological sayings. Shall it be
defended? If you are so fortunate as to be entrenched in the belief of
the inspiration of the Scriptures, while you are unable to give a reason
for the hope within, your friends may not be so fortunate. Your
children, it may be, will return from school, intent upon showing you
the discrepancies with the established teachings of science. If these
things are, as they purport to be, given by inspiration of God, they can
never be made to harmonize with an illogical and untruthful cosmology.
How important, then, that we should have the right theory.
The disciples of Jesus were asked, “Have any of the rulers of the Jews
believed on him?” Perhaps before you purchase you ask, Have any men of
scientific notoriety endorsed these views? Of the many scores of good
words given by editors, lawyers, doctors, ministers, teachers, and
professors in colleges, I have room only for a few. Prof. David Swing of
Chicago said: “The Neptunian theory of creation, as presented in Dr.
Woodman’s book, is the most logical presentation of cosmology that I
ever read. He writes in a calm and truthful style.” The late Prof.
Norton of the Cal. State Normal said: “You have chosen an opportune time
for the presentation of your book, for the theories of cosmology are on
the eve of a mighty revolution, in which the water theory is likely to
come to the front.” Prof. Reid, President of the State University, said:
“The subject, as you present it, is wonderfully in accordance with what
we see in Nature; and it is still more wonderful that you should find it
so beautifully set forth in the Bible.” Prof. LeConte, of the same
University, said: “Your theory is a wide departure from everything
hitherto written upon the subject. I will say this of it; it accounts
for more unexplained phenomena than any theory before presented. I will
give you this item, which I know to be correct. The Magnolia tree in the
Tertiary period, grew and blossomed as far as 80 degrees north.”
Numerous bodies of clergymen have endorsed the theory as a just and
beautiful presentation of Scripture; many as the “only theory with which
Moses’ Genesis of Creation can be reconciled.” The say-so of others may
satisfy the indolent and careless, but to enjoy the subject you must
read and digest these grand truths for yourself.
CHAPTER I.
Three Theories Reviewed in the Light Of Scientific Facts.
In the study of Nature, aided only by natural phenomena, effect,
suggesting cause, is everywhere apparent. These effects variously
compounded point with accuracy only to secondary causes. First causes
are hidden far behind all existing appearances.
Unaided nature leaves man to seek first causes only by hypotheses. As
might be expected, on the same subject scientists widely differ in
theory. Such reasoning must ever leave a large margin for opinion.
Notwithstanding the uncertainty of all such modes of reasoning, still
that hypothesis must ever possess the greatest weight, that best accords
with the largest number of existing facts. Reasoning _a priori_, from
the providing care of nature’s God, as seen in stores of coal, oil,
iron, copper, and various kinds of precious metals, we might reasonably
conclude that he who created the intellectual as well as the religious
nature in man would carefully provide for the full gratification of
both. Knowing God’s nature, reason would suggest that what is wanting in
nature must somewhere be supplied by special revelation of God.
The book of nature coupled with the Bible would be a necessity; not only
for a complete worship, but for a full cosmology. We should expect the
two volumes, when rightly rendered, to correspond. A noted atheistical
lecturer upon cosmical changes stated in a series of lectures in Chico,
Cal., that the “Bible theory of creation is decidedly watery. By the
statements of this book, we should conclude that the center itself is
one vast body of water, holding upon its bosom a crust of earth.” As a
believer in the Plutonic theory, and having no reverence for the Bible,
he added, “What fool does not know better?” What he gave as a “Bible
Theory,” we will assume as a scientific hypothesis; and rest the proof
of the same upon the facts in nature which scientists, in advocating the
Plutonic theory, have given us.
It will be the object of this chapter to show that the more recently
developed facts in geology point unmistakably to the Neptunian theory of
Creation. This will be done by comparing the three theories, and each
with lines of facts which have been well established. It will be
necessary
Section 1
To State the Plutonic Theory of the Schools.
1. That all matter existed, or was created in a primeval state of heat.
One hypothesis is, that all matter of our system was concentrated in one
heated ball as a central sun.
2. That planets are portions of this matter, thrown off by a rapid
rotary motion of the sun. Properly named, this theory was the
centro-centrifugal theory, now quite out of date. That this theory might
be true, the sun must have turned upon its axis with a velocity
sufficient not only to destroy gravitation at its surface, now
twenty-seven times that of the Earth, but with a force capable of
throwing Jupiter, fourteen hundred times the size of the Earth, out into
space four hundred and seventy-five million of miles, and Neptune over
two billion of miles. When we consider that our sun now turns on its
axis only once in twenty-seven days, we conclude that a vivid
imagination must have supplied the machinery necessary for such
astounding results in the very face of forbidding facts. This theory
made no provision for the encircling waters, sufficient to wrap the
entire surface of the globe three miles deep, nor for the enveloping
atmosphere. Gradually this ancient theory has been modulated into the
Nebulous Theory.
3. The more popular teaching of today is, that matter existed in a
highly heated state in the form of a diffused cloud. Steel, in his
“Fourteen Weeks in Geology,” suggests that “From unknown causes, this
cloud-matter began to revolve about a center or sun. This nucleus drew
matter direct to itself from all parts of our system. Other portions
revolving were thrown off, and formed new centers for planetary
gathering, as they respectively took up their orbicular march about the
sun. This fiery mist is supposed to have come together in a heated
state. The planets, at least, have since been cooling, though as yet
having but a thin crust.” To this theory of primeval heat, in some form,
all our text books conform. A theory so long and so universally accepted
might be supposed to have some solid facts upon which to rest. But
really it has less to sustain it than had the Ptolemaic theory of
Astronomy: that, at least, had observation in its favor, but this fails
even here. It is a curious circumstance in this guess work of results,
that whether heat is made to increase on an average one degree in fifty
feet, as given by many geologists, or one degree in one hundred feet, as
given by others, precisely the same results are reached, viz., fifty
miles crust, and intensely heated matter beyond. This assumption is
based upon the supposed fact that the internal heat traverses the rock
by conduction. If this were true, then the degree of heat gained in any
one hundred feet of rock, as you descend into the Earth’s crust, would
be the approximate measurement of any other hundred feet in the same
shaft; but the reverse of this is true. No two measurements seem to be
alike. The miner, as a practical geologist, in this regard knows that
this heat is generally caused by chemical action of the rock upon which
you have let in air or water, or both. This heat is found to vary
according to nature of the rock which you expose. If the rock is rich in
pyrites of iron or lime, in any of its numerous forms, then
disintegration is abundant and much heat is generated; but, on the other
hand, where all disintegrating elements are wanting, there is no
perceptible increase of heat.
4. The theory of the continued increase of heat, according to the ratio
noticed as you sink a shaft a few hundred feet into the Earth’s crust,
if it proves anything proves too much, and is therefore false.
Experiments extensively made in the Virginia mines of Nevada, and
particularly in the Foreman Shaft, show the increase to be very uneven;
differing from one degree in twelve feet to one in two hundred feet. It
even grows colder as you descend some kind of rock, a degree in one
hundred feet. The degree of heat is always regulated and gauged by the
rock you pass. If the rock will disintegrate readily, it gives out more
heat; but if the rock may lie exposed in the sun and rain without
disintegration, it throws out no heat in the shaft. Yet from experiments
made in the Foreman Shaft, notwithstanding these varieties of rock, yet
at the 2,100 foot level it is found that the average increase is one
degree in twelve feet. At this rate, at twenty-five miles towards the
center you would encounter heat above 4,300 deg. Fahr. Chemists will
admit that, after due allowance for pressure at such a depth, yet the
granite with all known substances would fuse at this heat. The Plutonic
hypothesis makes the crust in Nevada less than twenty-five miles,
perhaps the weakest on the continent.
Experiments in Mexico, upon this line of reasoning, would make the crust
twice as thick. Now from a well established law in philosophy, a
pressure upon liquid on the inside of a cylinder imparts its pressure to
every part of the cylinder at the same time. A pressure capable of
breaking the crust in any place should, at least, cause all the openings
to emit lava at the same time. But this is not the historic action of
volcanoes; one emits while another sleeps.
It is a historic fact observed within the present century, that a
volcanic mountain rose up from a comparatively level plane in Mexico, in
one night, to the height of 1,695 feet. On the assumption that lava
comes from the center of the earth, why should not the above pressure
have found the weaker crust, and Nevada have been the place of eruption
instead of Mexico? and why should not the three hundred open vents of
Earth have emitted lava at the same time? The theory will not bear
philosophic tests.
The Russian report of the increase of heat is only one-fourth that given
in Nevada. Who believes, therefore, that the crust there is four times
as thick as in Nevada? The whole subject shows that the increase of heat
in the shaft proves nothing as to the interior of Earth, and nothing as
to the thickness of its crust.
5. To establish the Plutonic theory, it is at least necessary to
demonstrate that the granite, which all hold to be the under rock, is
the unstratified Plutonic foundation of all stratified rock. Recent
facts have demonstrated that the granite is a sedimentary rock, or rock
deposited in water. This being admitted, although contradicting the
teachings of all the older text books, some writers, among them is
Steel, in order to harmonize the Plutonic theory with these stubborn
facts, have assumed that the primitive granite, which by the theory must
have been trap or lava, has all been worn away by disintegration of
water and ice, or both; and again, by water deposited as we now find it.
But what was a white-hot globe of lava doing, while water and ice were
tearing and grinding its lower crust to powdered sand? We have secondary
granite, but its structure is very different from primitive granite.
Besides containing hard pebbles and boulders of other stone, it is
friable, and easily disintegrated under exposure. It is a bad theory
that is driven to such unheard-of suppositions for its support. Nothing
is more evident, if the granite is the under rock, and sedimentary, as
represented and known to be, than that the Plutonic theory is completely
without foundation.
6. The modern theory of metamorphic rock, occasioned by internal heat,
is also false. This theory maintains that the granite, slates, and
marble existed so near to the great body of internal heat that they must
have been metamorphosed. Facts demonstrate that these rocks, as a rule,
were never in heat equal to 700 deg. Fahr. Such a heat will readily
disintegrate any of these formations. Any one can demonstrate this by
melting a little lead upon a piece of slate, marble, or granite. The
furnace is found to be the best general test of the origin of rock.
Lava, having been in a melted state, will not disintegrate up to the
melting point, but, as a rule, will readily melt at the white heat.
Granite, the slates, marble, and rock in general, of a sedimentary
formation, will disintegrate at a comparatively low heat, but they will
not melt, except with alkaloids, or flux, and then only at a very high
degree of heat. This test shows all the primitive rock, including
injected seams, to have been formed in the sea, with no heat to change
their structure since. There are a few exceptions to the rule of
disintegration, as clay rock.
7. If the granite were not sedimentary, we could not account for the
great quantity of sedimentary rock this side. Among the authors of our
text books there seems to be a general vagueness concerning the origin
of stratified rock, except in regard to coal, which all admit came out
of the air. If we should assume that the granite was lava, but all the
stratified rock since, until you reach the region of conglomerate, came
from the air, how shall we account for the close similarity in
appearance and structure of the gneiss and granite? Theory has piled
thirty or forty miles of this sedimentary, stratified rock above the
granite; whence did it come? Any openings in the granite would let up
only lava. Whence the material for sediment? We shall, farther on, show
that all primitive rock, like the coal, came from the gases of the
atmosphere once enveloping this globe.
8. Our best scientists now readily unite with the keen sighted miner in
accounting for this increase of heat as you pass down the shaft, on
entirely different principles from those stated in the text books. Prof.
Joseph Le Conte says that “Chemical action of air and water upon the
rock, as you descend into the Earth’s crust, is undoubtedly the cause of
the increase of heat.” Again he says, “This heat is regulated and gauged
by the constituents of the rock that you pass.” Now admitting that the
rock, as a rule, would show an average increase of heat down to the
Carboniferous system, or even to the Devonian, yet there is rock enough
beyond that contains so much less carbon, as to show such a decrease of
heat that must more than counteract all the increase above. Whether we
follow up the old hypothesis, with the laws regulating heat by
conduction or chemical action, the theory is utterly without foundation.
The late Prof. Norton, of the California State Normal, said in a lecture
at Pacific Grove, in 1883, “Every living geologist that I know of in the
world will admit, for he _knows_, that the granite was a sedimentary
rock.” This sentiment of his speech being reported to Le Conte, he
replied, “In this position Prof. Norton is undoubtedly right.” It is
thus seen that the Plutonic theory in our text books is at variance with
modern experiments, and is proved to be utterly false.
9. Volcanoes and geysers were formerly supposed to settle the question
in favor of the old theory. The phenomena of both are such as to
strongly argue against it. Most geysers are known to be caused by
chemical action of rock. We instance those in Hot Spring Valley, Cal.,
near Lassen Buttes. No one, having noticed the various colored mud-pots
and mounds of pulpy rock thrown up by these boiling cauldrons, can come
to any other conclusion. A few geysers may be exceptions, having been
caused by water trickling over heated rock in proximity to volcanoes.
These prove nothing as to the center of the earth, until it can be
established that this body of lava is in the center of the earth. A
multitude of facts in connection with volcanic action demonstrate that
lava does not proceed from a common center.
A few we will here give. (1.) Lava varies in color according to the
color of the stratified rock found in the vicinity. Thus, between Reno
and Wadsworth, Nevada, may be seen a red ledge of sedimentary rock.
Close by are found quantities of red lava, being the same shade of red
found in the sedimentary. Pieces of rock may be seen, one side showing
the sedimentary strata, and the other partially melted. Lava everywhere,
probably, is only sedimentary rock melted. (2.) Volcanic disturbances
are local, which they could not be if they proceeded from a common
center. (3.) The existence of great quantities of ashes, so light as to
float on the surface of water, argues the consumption of some burning
material, as of coal. Nothing of this would exist in matter that had
primarily been collected in liquid, and had ever been in a fused state.
Something must have been burning to produce the ashes. (4.) The fact of
all the great upheavals of plateaus and mountains having been this side
the Carboniferous system of deposit, where the burning material,
sufficient to produce volcanic effect, was extracted from the air and
laid down as rock, argues in favor of a power much nearer than force,
generated from a primeval sea of lava. Burning coal as a source of heat,
and steam as a power, are ample to account for every volcanic
disturbance, however it may have been modified by electric forces.
10. Most geologists are dissatisfied with the fire theory, and are
looking about for a revolution in the teaching of the science. Professor
Norton said, “We are upon the eve of a perfect revolution in the science
of geology.” Agassiz said, “The Plutonic theory loses ground as soon as
brought to scientific tests.” Again he uttered with decided emphasis,
“If the center of our earth were molten lava, as hot as represented, a
crust of rock fifty miles thick would melt, and, in the space of a few
hours, fall into the great sea.”
A teacher of geology in one of our large colleges, who had just finished
a lecture upon the Plutonic theory, said, “I have given that theory
because it is the teaching of all our text-books; but I do not believe
it. Many facts now coming to light show that the Water theory is
destined to come to the front.”
11. The fact that submarine volcanoes happen, without letting the ocean
into the great sea of lava, shows that no such sea is there. But for the
money and reputation invested in school books upon this defunct theory,
it would have been, before this, consigned to the Plutonic hell of the
Greeks, from whence, it is more than probable, it originated.
12. Many admitted facts are utterly inconsistent with this theory. We
will stop to notice but two.
(1.) It is a generally admitted fact, that the entire land portions of
the explored earth, including Greenland to the 80th parallel, were
either in a tropical or semi-tropical climate, from the beginning of
sedimentary rock, up to and far into the so-called Alluvium deposit, and
even to the historic age. “The climate of England was warmer than any
now known on the earth.” Sir Chas. Lyell stated, that the only
exceptions breaking in upon this uniformly warm climate were temporary
changes during the great glacial epochs. This uniform heat could not
result from the present auxiliary motion of the earth, nor with any good
reason can we assert that the internal fires ever modulated the surface
climate so much as one degree. Scientists are a unit in affirming that,
for the last four thousand years, there has been no perceptible
influence from this cause, upon our climate. A rupture of the earth’s
crust, and a change of pole three thousand miles, and a complete change
of pole-pointing, resulting in our present alternating seasons, has
probably happened within the “historic age,” and probably within five
thousand years. This could not be upon the Plutonic basis. Our earth
could not part, and swim off upon a globe of melted lava.
(2.) Diatoms are now known to have existed, coequal with the deposit of
all stratified rock. This is a well verified fact, but utterly
inconsistent with the Plutonic theory. Upon this theory, the early crust
of Earth must have remained at a white heat. Water could not lie upon it
at all. Hence, both deposits in water and animal life would be out of
the question. The fact of both, to say nothing of the well established
fact of the sedimentary nature of granite, must ever brand the theory as
contradicting the plain facts of nature. These facts equally refute the
more modern notion of metamorphism of rock. The very waves of the sea
unite in a chorus with the rocks, “The Plutonic foundations of the
earth’s crust exist only in the imagination of man.”
Section 2.
We will State the Neptunian Theory as a Hypothesis.
1. All matter was created at once, and is correlative.
2. In its primary condition it was in cold gas; diffused in equilibrium
in that portion of space now occupied with systems: it follows that
gravitation, heat, form, motion and power would in this state be
wanting.
3. A power, outside of created matter, must transform this substance
from the inertia of rest to that of motion. No sooner was a center of
matter gathered, than gravitation acted upon all parts of the universe.
The centers of all systems must commence at the same time, or one system
would tend to blend with another, and nature would be thrown out of
equilibrium. The entire period of gathering must have been with relative
exactness. It follows that, at the beginning of motion, all matter must
be put in motion. Such gases as were destined to constitute the sun
would move directly for it; and such gases as were destined for globes
would move in a circle around the center. Such order must have formed
the poetic choir of suns, “When the morning stars sang together.”
4. The shaping of systems, sending forth light, heat, gravitation and
power, may well be called the first cosmological division of matter.
This included the heavens, and prospective planets, as yet without form,
and floating in a ring of chaotic gases.
5. At the close of this division, our sun had been gathered out of a
field of space, extending each way more than twenty trillion of miles.
If these light gases had moved in a straight line at the rate of thirty
miles per hour, it would take ninety million of our years to reach the
center. Poetically speaking, there existed a condition of matter when
force, light, gravitation, motion and form were sleeping in the inertia
of rest. This was followed by a period of motion to and about a central
sun. Geologically speaking, the earth, as yet, had no form. The matter
that would form planets was all floating in a revolving ring about the
sun.
The objective view of this ring, with reference to the gathered center,
would be a solar firmament. The fluids above had not yet been separated
from fluids below, hence the firmament was continuous. Earth, without
form, was yet sleeping in chaos. It awoke in form when a second division
of matter, with no measured duration as yet, had been accomplished.
6. A vast field of hydrogen united with its equivalent of oxygen; and,
in super-heated steam, evolved out into space, and took shape as a
globe. These divisions antedate geologic time. Geology must begin with
sedimentary rock. The globe of steam must liquify and pass back to the
ring, and through it toward the sun. In doing so, it took an atmosphere
with it that shows the source of all our rock. When taking its true
orbit about the sun, it was a vast globe of cold water, holding, by
gravitation, a dense atmosphere in its embrace, rich in material for
submarine rock. For a while the deposits were very rapid, and a great
quantity of pulp of rock was formed, before any hardening took place.
This accounts for the unstratified condition of granite. All the first
rocks would be submarine, hidden deep in the sea. Nearly eighty miles
depth of deposits took place before dry land could appear.
7. Contrasts marked the beginning and close of the first two divisions.
If we follow this order in this third division, we must wait until the
Devonian forests showed the renewed touch of the creative hand, giving
life in contrast to inorganic matter, with which the globe started into
form, and took its position as a planet of our system. Such is the
Neptunian theory in part, touching first causes in cosmology.
Section 3.
The well established Fact of Science look toward, and defend this
Theory.
1. In the relative quantities of sedimentary and lava rock. By far the
greater portion of rock of all lands is sedimentary. Lava is the
exception. If the source of supply is an internal sea, 7,880 miles in
diameter, the reverse of this would most likely be true.
2. In the relative order of the two kinds of rock. Except in very
restricted locations, sedimentary rock is at the bottom, in the middle,
and at the top of the earth’s crust. Lava has never been found as an
integral part of the supposed bottom rock.
3. The constituents of all rock indicate the water theory. All rock is
known to be a combination of gases. The coal is admitted to have been
gathered from the air, through the agency of vegetation. There are three
ways gases may be combined into rock:
(1.) Through the agency of water alone. Such was the primitive granite;
and such are the modern stalactites.
(2.) Through the agency of diatoms living in the water. These creatures
are absorbents. They absorb the minerals of the water, and form stone.
Such are lime, chalk and coral.
(3.) They may be absorbed into vegetation, and then hidden away in the
waters, until changed into coal.
(4.) Sandstone and conglomerate are formed from eroded material of other
rocks.
(5.) The melting of sedimentary rock in proximity to burning beds of
coal has formed the lava.
(6.) Chimneys of rock crossing the lower strata, as of quartz and
granite, are now known to be of water deposit. The word dyke is
improperly applied to them. These circumstances all point to a center of
water.
4. The question with many will arise, How can rock rest upon water? The
answer is, Upon the principle of the compressibility of liquids. Water
compresses a twentieth part in a thousand atmospheres. Thirty-three feet
of water is equal to one atmosphere. Thirty-three thousand feet would
compress one-twentieth part. We have a geometrical series, with a ratio
of 1.05. In 79-1/2 miles we have twelve and three-fourths terms. The sum
of the series will equal 19.127, calling 33,000 feet _one_, without
compressibility. Now as the average rock, under salt water, weighs only
one and a half times as much as water, we have to multiply twelve and
three-fourths by one and a half to get its relative weight. This we find
to be 19.125. At 79-1/2 miles in salt water, the weight of water equals
rock of the same thickness. As rock displaces only its bulk of water, it
will swim like an egg in strong lye at this depth.
5. The explorations which have been made of the Atlantic ocean go to
sustain the Neptunian theory.
(1.) They think that they have established the fact that we had a
connected land hemisphere, and a hemisphere of water. Lieutenant Maury
made such extensive explorations of its contour and bed, as to well nigh
demonstrate the above position. His report is, that the trough-like
appearance of its bed, the corresponding walls on either side, being
nearly perpendicular, showed that the continents were once together. On
either side of the Atlantic the sounding line showed a gradual deepening
of water for about two hundred miles from shore, when suddenly the depth
became too great for measurement. This only confirms what Guizot wrote
upon the same subject over fifty years ago.
In a small treatise he endeavored to prove that the continent showed a
rent hemisphere of land, once altogether. That it had been rent asunder
by some great convulsion of nature, and by water carried away from
Africa and Europe, with which North and South America were formerly
connected. His theory was, that continents and islands are but floating
remnants of a once connected hemisphere.
(2.) Such a rupture could only be maintained on the hypothesis of a
center of water. Should the earth open its crust, letting the ocean into
its interior of melted lava, it would resemble a bomb.
6. We shall, therefore, assume that we had a land hemisphere, and that
the north pole was in the center, and pointed directly to the sun
throughout its entire orbit. This would involve the fact that the south
half of the globe was in darkness, and locked in ice, as a great
Antarctic sea.
(1.) We argue this from the widely extended remains of the
polyp-builders. This animalcule inhabits only warm waters. His remains
are found widely distributed in every zone from the Lower Silurian up.
Iowa and Minnesota show as nice coral in their strata as is now found in
the torrid seas.
(2.) From the widely scattered remains of tropical shells. They
conclusively show that a warm ocean once covered the continents. Sir
Chas. Lyell mentions the tropical nature of the shells about England and
Labrador, and that “They indicate a very warm climate, more uniformly
warm than any now existing on the Earth.”
(3.) From the remains of saurians; such as the icthyosaurus, which, like
the crocodile of the Ganges, is found only in warm waters. Darwin saw
one in the bank of the La Plata. No land is without their remains.
(4.) From the widely spread coal beds of Earth. Nothing in geology is
better established, than that this is the product of tropical forests.
All countries boast of their coal veins. Anthracite coal is often found
in the frozen rocks of Greenland. A vein of the best coal, ten feet
thick, was found in Nova Zembla, now covered with ice. Good coal is also
found in the northern part of Alaska. A genial climate once covered
these places.
(5.) From the remains of tropical animals. The evidence is conclusive,
that gigantic elephants in countless herds once roamed the arctic
regions of Siberia. His remains have been found in all lands, except the
Scandinavian peninsula. The mastodon was his near neighbor, and his
bones are generally found in the same regions. These animals depended on
grass for subsistence. They could not endure a cold winter, nor live
where snow lies on the ground for even a short time. We now find their
remains where snow now lies from four to eight months in a year, and
from two to twenty feet deep. From the region of Russian Siberia alone,
more than eighty thousand pounds of their ivory have been sold in a
single year. Whence, then, this warm climate, so uniform and general? It
cannot be accounted for on internal heat. Heat, sufficient to warm an
arctic atmosphere, if coming from the ground, would destroy all animal
life, either of water or land. Geologists agree that it has not been
affected so much as one degree for the last four thousand years. But we
have positive proof that these animals existed down to the period of
human existence. They probably have not been exterminated five thousand
years. Internal heat cuts no figure in their existence. Only one
hypothesis accounts for these tropical phenomena, viz., a land
hemisphere, with pole in the center, pointing directly to the sun.
(6.) The sudden change of climate in some past time argues a rapid
change in the axillary motion of the earth, preceded by a general
rupture of the earth’s crust. It was so sudden, that animals were locked
up in arctic ice, and have been preserved to our day, with flesh entire.
(See the word Mammoth, W. Dictionary.) The change of pole must have been
very sudden, or animals, slain by the convulsion, would have decayed at
once.
(7.) The widely spread tropical flowers and fruits sustain this theory.
The palm tree flourished in Europe and Central Asia; also in the
northern part of North America. The magnolia blossomed at least 80
degrees north. Sir Charles Lyell claims that the earlier vegetation was
generally tropical. Grass evidently flourished in all lands, the year
round.
7. The nature and condition of the early rock attest the water theory.
Had the crust begun upon a ball of lava, at a white heat, the ocean,
readily boiling, would be thrown into the air, where it would be
condensed, and by gravitation thrown back upon the thin crust. This
would often give way, and the whole volume would enter the interior and
explode the entire crust into atoms. In such case we should expect to
find the under rock a broken mass of displaced lava. But we find the
granite to have been so calmly deposited in water, and it retains its
place so well, that we split it with the rift of sugar pine. Geologists
estimate the earth’s crust from fifty to one hundred miles thick. Upon
the Neptunian theory we at least have seventy-five miles without a
particle of lava, or so much as the scratch of an iceberg. The early
geologies spoke of dykes of lava, injected into granite. The furnace
shows these to be water seams. No well attested lava has ever been found
there.
8. The period of the great upheavals supports this theory. No grand
mountains reared their lofty heads to the clouds, until this side the
Carboniferous system of deposits. It is more probable that burning coal
must have been the cause of the heat, and the expansion of steam the
power, that rent the Earth’s crust; and the eighty miles pressure of
waters suddenly liberated would bring up the granite, with all under
rock, to the surface. Lava then proceeds from local deposits of melted
rock, that had been stratified. If it came from a common center of a
primary melted mass, there would be no occasion for ashes. The abundance
of these ashes shows the consumption of some burning material, as of
coal. The very witnesses which the Plutonic believers have placed upon
the stand prove quite the reverse of their theory.
9. Facts show that the substance of all mountain chains was once
deposited in the sea. Baron Von Humboldt remarked, “Upon the tallest
mountains yet reached by the footsteps of man you may witness the
ancient sea bottom.” Conglomerate shells with sand, hardened into rock
in the ancient seas, are now found in all lands thousands of feet above
the sea.
10. The rise and depressions of the Earth’s crust are proofs of the
water theory. Lands having large rivers, carrying more debris or silt
into the ocean than the weight of her vegetation, decaying, are rising;
as has been demonstrated in North and South America, Europe, Asia and
Africa. The terraces left attest the truth of this position.
Lands having more vegetation or ice than the weight of the debris
carried into the sea are sinking. Witness Greenland and the Pacific
Isles. But these islands could not well sink into a sea of burning lava,
without letting in the surrounding ocean; in which case the entire crust
would be destroyed.
11. The crowning reason for believing in the Neptunian theory is found
in the great glacial drift period. The Neptunian hypothesis of the poles
of the Earth is sufficient to account for the ice that constituted the
drift. The ancient equator would mark the bound between darkness and
light; and would be situated so as to manufacture icebergs the whole
length of this largest circle.
The depressions of the lowlands beneath the sea are accounted for in the
great upheavals. On an average, rock weighed out of water is one and
two-thirds times as much as when weighed under water. All the strata of
mountains and plateaus lifted from beneath the waters weigh one and
two-thirds times what they did before being disturbed.
Geologists tell us that the Earth’s crust was depressed six to seven
thousand feet. This would enable the ice to flow over the surface, the
bergs being of enormous depth. The lowlands of every continent have been
thus plowed. The evidence exists in every valley and far up the sides of
all mountains. This evidence is by no means confined to scratches on the
rock, but the water-washed gravel and polished pebbles equally attest
its action. You can hardly sink a shaft in valley or hill without
encountering them. With the present inclination of the Earth’s pole to
the elliptic no such quantity of ice can possibly occur. No iceberg has
ever yet been seen in tropical waters. There never yet has been enough
at one time within historic note, to counteract the influence of the
Gulf Stream about Norway and Iceland.
How different the ancient drift! Then the ice penetrated all open seas,
caused by submergence. It plowed alike the Brazilian mountains, the
Sierra Nevada, and the Appalachian. It chilled the seas to the very
center of the submerged hemisphere; and England witnessed the dwelling
of the reindeer in her borders, while it lasted. According to Sir Chas.
Lyell, the temperature sank from the uniformity of our intensely warm
climate to the chilliness of melting ice. The cold was now as uniform as
the heat had before been constant. The north pole, pointing directly to
the sun, would bring the whole land hemisphere within perpetual
sunshine; and consequently, when above the sea, would be in a tropical
or semi-tropical zone to the very edge. This climate would continue as
long as the land could hold back the ice, which had been accumulated at
the equator. But no sooner did the lowlands become submerged, than the
ice would change the climate, wherever it could in large quantities
accumulate. As it plowed every river, plain, and gulch, the fauna,
adapted to the former climate, would naturally lose their existence.
Such is the history of the drift. Ninety-seven per cent. of all land
animals died. By the slow process of disintegration of the mountains,
the hemisphere was again raised, and its former beautiful climate
restored.
Section 4.
How was such a World adapted to Man or strictly speaking,
Man to such a World?
1. The even climate of such a world would tend to his longevity, and be
most genial to his feelings.
Man’s nature calls for an even climate. Now by art he tries to even up
the climate of the year.
(1.) Less than two-thirds of the lighted hemisphere could have been
covered with dry land. Many bodies of water are known to have been
included within the areas of land. The pole, pointing directly toward
the sun, must have been near Gibraltar. Allowing that land extended in
every direction, four thousand miles or more, we should then have an
open sea of from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles, intervening
between the edge of the hemisphere of land, or perhaps more properly,
the quartosphere of land, and the region of perpetual ice.
(2.) On the sunny side of such a globe, being at first entirely water, a
rapid evaporation must have taken place; and most, nearest the north
pole. This would give rise to currents, both of air and water, to flow
toward it, as a source of supply. Counter currents of both would follow.
Currents of either starting near the equator would be cold and possess a
motion greater than the earth, a few degrees toward the pole. This would
send both towards the northeast, until meeting the return currents of
wind, which would cause variable winds; but a most genial climate must
have surrounded the earth, at least forty degrees wide.
(3.) Such a climate, with such facilities for evaporation, would provide
the way for perpetual harvest. The open sea to the edge must have been
constantly filled with floating ice. Cold breezes, often laden with
thick fog, would float in over the edge of the land. This may account
for the long hair which covered the mammoth elephant of Siberia and
California. No winds are more penetrating than those coming from large
bodies of melting ice; yet under a perpetual sunshine the vegetation
must have been abundant.
2. We add by way of recapitulation:
(1.) That everywhere, and with each new discovery in science, the
evidence is accumulating that our globe is essentially an immense ball
of cold water, with a crust of earth covering the under waters as with a
stone; while a portion of water above is held in the earth’s lap.
(2.) Until recently, the continents and islands were together in one
vast body, with the axillary center pointing to the sun.
(3.) That fragments of the broken hemisphere have been spread out upon
the seas, often standing with just their tops out of water as islands.
(4.) Inasmuch as this Earth is a magnet, the deposit about the pole was
of the nature of a load-stone. This existed as a mountain, which by the
force of the waters was bodily removed to the present north, nearly
three thousand miles. It was thus we had a change of times and seasons.
(5.) That the alternation of day and night, heat and cold, summer and
winter, seed-time and harvest, are results following this great change
in the Earth’s polarity.
(6.) That the existence of the rainbow, caused by the declination of the
sun toward the horizon in the Earth’s present motion, is a reminder of
what is, and will remain to be, in contrast to what was, and would have
been, until the end of time, had no cause occurred making it necessary
for this radical change.
Earth’s climate was changed,
(_a_) By changing the magnetic currents of Earth, in removing the pole
locally three thousand miles away.
(_b_) By withdrawing the attraction the former pole had for the sun, and
pointing it to an empty place in the north, now one degree and a half
from Polaris.
(_c_) By inclining the Earth’s pole twenty-three and a half degrees to
the ecliptic. “He changeth times and seasons.”
CHAPTER II.
The Neptunian Theory of Creation was first brought to Light
in the Book of Job.
1. Like Homer, who dated his poem in the rising of the star Sirius, so
Job dated his book in the Pleiades, while the sun was gaining his vernal
equinox in the star Alcyone of this constellation. The Septuagint speaks
of Job’s age at the commencement of his trial as being one hundred
years. By the closing statement appended to his book, we learn that he
lived after his restoration one hundred and forty years. This makes his
age two hundred and forty at his death. Alcyone marks by precession of
the equinoxes 2100 years B. C. The great period of his longevity
indicates a time antedating Abraham’s day by more than two hundred
years.
2. This book is an epi-dramatic Oratorio of human history. It is epic,
in that it gives the history of a real life; dramatic, in that it
dramatizes human history, by the inspirations of these actors, with the
religious intuitions of all ages. The poem as a whole shows the
contending forces that develop character; the struggle of man’s redeemed
nature against the tendencies of a series of degenerate ages, as far
down as the full triumph of Christ’s reign; followed by the long
prosperity that awaits the Church. It also sets forth the longings of
the human intellect for a knowledge of first causes; and its crowning
success when Nature is studied in connection with the revelations of
God’s Word. The Book of Job was evidently the only Scripture that the
world had for at least eight hundred years. The introduction shows Job
to have been a person adapted to great reverses of fortune, rich, pious,
prosperous, happy, and respected. Two spirits, either of which may take
form, but neither being dependent on form or locality, are present in
their religious gatherings as they have ever been in ours. That
objective figures come before our imaginations in reading this part of
the poem, only shows the high character of the production.
3. The first question between God and Satan is that hackneyed one of all
history, viz: Is piety a selfish ebullition of the human heart or a
divinely planted principle? Satan takes the first statement, God the
latter. Satan affirms that a sudden reverse of fortune will change the
aspect of Job’s piety, and he will then curse God to his face. Great
principles are best tested by suffering. Nor is it necessary that every
one should suffer in the same direction to show forth the same. The
world is full of delegated suffering; the few for the many, and
sometimes one for all. Job is the right man in wealth, station,
influence, and habits of mind to personify piety in its relation to the
world’s progress.
4. The Orient is the place, and that period of the world the time, for
the rich figures of speech found in the two scenes of this unparalleled
production. Of the two forces meeting us in life, inviting our attention
and co-operation, one must and but one can, at the same time, receive
our homage. The one inclines you to and gives you credit for all good;
the other inclines you from and gives you no credit for any good. The
princely man of the Orient is suddenly confronted with absolute
bankruptcy and bereavement of all his children, without the chance of
speaking the parting good-bye. Satan expected the question settled in
his favor, by a sudden outburst of passion, in vindictive hate to God.
But listen! “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb (earth), and naked
shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.” The first scene is ended with Satan
completely foiled. But, some one might say, the question only covered
Job’s outward prosperity. True, his wife is left to him, but she is a
part of himself.
5. Again the sons of God are together in worship. Satan begs leave to
amend his indictment against piety. “Touch his bone and his flesh and he
will curse thee.” Job is smitten in a manner calculated to break down
his patience. The patience of his wife having become exhausted, she is
influenced to give her vindictive advice in the line of Satan’s desires,
“Curse God, and die.” “Thou speakest as a foolish woman. What! shall we
receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”
6. The prologue of scene second ends with Satan confounded. The incoming
circumstances show God’s present proposition to be that true piety will
not only endure, without tarnish, what Satan in his ill will has
proposed, but it will survive and develop in strength in the ages to
come, until it shall triumph over every foe. To refute all satanic
charges to which history will give rise, God proposes to try it in this
person, under the leading intuitions governing the masses of all ages,
past and to come. Three supposed but mistaken friends hear of Job’s
calamity, and resolve to condole his misery. These are ranked within the
family of God’s sons. These men are kings in their time, and are
supposed to be entitled to a hearing. Their mistakes will make them
really Job’s enemies. Such are the coadjutors that Satan is about to
have brought to his aid. They find Job in keen anguish of body,
incapable of recognizing his friends.
7. These persons are all representative characters, whose intuitions
will partake of the nature of the epochs of human history, through which
the prophet Job is about to be taken. Job personifies piety; Eliphaz,
reverence in tradition; Bildad, special Providence as a rule of action;
Zophar, ignorance, the mother of devotion. Beginning with the fall of
man, each epoch of human history is to stamp the prevailing religious
intuitions of the masses upon these men.
8. Piety must be tried under all. Until the enlightened age of the world
is reached, piety will have little to cling to but faith in God, and
that in the face of appearances. Such is the drama about to be enacted.
Six grand epochs of historic time must be passed to reach even the
present time. (1.) Deism of the antediluvian world. (2.) Special
Providence as a rule of action following the flood, and out of which
grew the building of the Tower of Babel. (3.) He was left alone through
materialistic worship in idolatry, as in Abraham’s time. (4.) He was
confronted by a superstitious looking-behind, as in Persia’s time. (5.)
Tempted with an abnormal ambition, as in Alexander’s time. (6.) He must
be surrounded by the ruling necessities of commercial selfishness
inaugurated by Rome, and transmitted by circumstantial links in the
progress of civilization to our own time.
9. Human history in the drama starts in with a wail. Job, with the
intuitions of a deist, bewails his very existence. As he looks to the
future there is not one ray of hope. “Thou (God) shalt search for me in
the morning but I shall not be. He that goeth down to the grave shall
come up no more.”
Where now is that oft repeated declaration of Satan, that piety, at
best, is only a selfish looking forward to rewards in the future? The
piety of Job survives this terrible ordeal. The blinding intellectual
fog of deism could not lose his point of compass.
Creeds may be good as sign-boards directing the traveler, but they go
but a little ways in determining the action of the truly pious. As he
approaches the flood he beholds the “numbering of man’s days on the
earth.” And, as the reality bursts upon his vision, he experiences a
perfect revolution of intuition. All is special Providence now.
10. The flood is passed in chapter eight, and “man’s days become as a
shadow.” The law of God’s natural Providence, in cause and effect, is by
Job and his friends completely ignored. His own condition will look him
in the face with terrible effect, asking an explanation. To such an
ordeal, with Bildad framing an enthusiastic argument upon the evidences
of special Providence in the affliction, was Job brought. He can
logically prove Job to be one of the worst of men. “Doth God pervert
judgment?” To Job he saith, “If thou wast pure and upright, surely now
he would awake for thee.” Job with his intuitions cannot see why the
argument is not sound. “I know it is so of a truth.” To work thus upon
the nerves of a sick man, who has been shut off from comprehensive views
of God’s general Providence in law, is well calculated to break him down
in impatience toward God. But Job replies, “If I say I am perfect it
shall also prove me perverse. Though I were perfect, yet would I not
know my soul; neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that he should
lay his hand upon us both.” Zophar replied, “Know therefore that God
exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.” Job replied, “I
could speak as you do if I were in your stead.” “Though he slay me, yet
will I trust in him.” Job claims an honest integrity of purpose, though
denying perfection in attainment.
10. For this noble stand he is rewarded on the spot with a prophetic
view of what forms the first chapter in the “Little Book” of star-dates.
Tracing time back by the precession of the equinoxes to where the sun
crossed its spring equinox in Orion’s belt, he saw the commencement of
man. Tracing the same line forward to the end of our race, where indeed
time ends, he saw that it rested in Ash or the Great Bear (margin)
incorrectly translated Arcturus; new version, Great Bear.
Looking to the same kind of date of his own time, he saw the sun
crossing the Pleiades. Looking at the full inauguration of Christ’s
Kingdom on earth, represented by the termination of Job’s own
sufferings, he saw the time measured in the Summer Solstitial colure
going from under the Altar. “Thou madest Ash, Orion and the Pleiades,
and the chambers of the south.” Here commences the “Little Book,”
alluded to so often in prophecy, with four of the most important dates
of history, but sealed upon the back part until the opening of the same
by the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” to his servant John. Here, perhaps
all unconscious of their bearings on future history, he is picturing in
the heavens, and dating by means of the precession of the equinoxes, the
long periods, revolutions, changes and triumphs his sufferings were to
take him, followed by the long prosperity of the Church of Christ in the
latter day.
11. Representing the reign of universal idolatry, and consequent
ignorance of the masses, and preceding the anxious inquiries concerning
immortality by Confucius, Socrates and Plato, Zophar is prepared to fill
in his part of the drama.
The question of the resurrection is discussed in the light of nature, in
Chap. 14. He is compelled to leave it as an open question, only wishing
that it might be true. “Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that
thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me.” He nears the time
of the general expectation of Messiah’s appearance on earth.
He closes to allow Zophar, the representative of those Scribes and
Pharisees in their tradition, to speak again. This is found in the
fifteenth chapter.
12. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth, inclusive, Job personifies
Christ. Hence these chapters are Messianic. “They have gaped upon me
with their mouth, they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully. My
days are extinct, the graves are ready for me. God hath delivered me to
the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. Are there
not mockers with me? For thou hast hid their heart from understanding.”
Many of these sentences are quoted into the twenty-second psalm,
recognized by all commentators to be Messianic. This Special Providence,
as a rule to depend upon, watched Christ on the cross; it triumphed over
the fact that God did not deliver him.
Here it is in prophecy: “The snare is laid for him in the ground. It
shall devour the strength of his skin, even the firstborn of death, it
shall devour his strength. His confidence shall be rooted out of his
tabernacle. His remembrance shall perish from the earth. He shall be
driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. He shall
neither have son or nephew among his people.” Isaiah, quoting the
sentiment, asks, “Who shall declare his generation, for his life was
taken from the earth?”
The Messianic voice is personified from the grave. The grave speaks the
facts of history. “He hath put my brethren far from me, and my
acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolks have failed, and
my familiar friends have forgotten me. They whom I loved are turned
against me. Why do you persecute me as God?” In the nineteenth chapter
Job has reached the resurrection. How changed the voice! “Oh, that my
words were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a book! That they
were graven with an iron pen, and lead in the rock forever.”
13. “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this
body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Ignorance is not satisfied with
the report “that he is risen from the dead.” “The triumph of the wicked
is short. Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, yet he shall
perish forever. He shall fly away as a dream.” The days of apostolic
teaching and suffering passed, Christianity debauched by a state
religion, ignorance again put forth as a dying gasp, a few platitudes in
defense of God and against piety. Chap. 20. Job answered by referring
man’s conduct in life to a future judgment. Chap. 21. Reverence in
tradition exhorted Piety to speedy repentance. Chaps. 23 and 24. Piety
is searching directly for the true God.
14. Special Providence, ignoring law, boasteth of his secular strength.
“Is there any numbers of his armies?” Here in the poem civilization
reached the dawn of the Reformation. Chap. 26. It begins in the line of
science. The rocks begin to speak. “Dead things are formed from under
the waters.” The orbicular motion and the present pole-pointing of the
Earth, according to the Copernican system, is seen. “He stretcheth out
the north over the empty place, and hangeth the Earth upon nothing.” How
exactly in accordance with the history of scientific reform, that this
knowledge should begin in small fragments of truth. A glimpse of the
ancient pole-pointing is seen. “He hath compassed the waters with
bounds, until the day and night come to an end”; or until the end of
light begins with darkness. He saw the great “change of times and
seasons” caused by the Noachian flood. “He divideth the sea with his
power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. Lo these
are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him! but the
thunder of his power who can understand?”
15. Job enters upon the Reformation in science with a prophet’s view of
the desperate efforts put forth, by scientists of our own period, to
reach first causes by analytical deduction and hypothetical reasoning;
and this unaided by any light claiming to come by inspiration of God.
His harp seemed attuned in the most exquisite niceness of poetic finish,
to that class of modern pretenders who talk of the fullness of nature’s
laws, while they disbelieve in the existence of nature’s God. He opens
the twenty-eighth chapter with certain admissions, as to points of
knowledge obtainable from phenomena of nature, followed by questions
suggestive of the paucity of all things seen to unfold a true and full
cosmology. “Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold
where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten
out of the stone.” Now beholding the futile efforts of Naturalists to
reach first causes he exclaims, “There is a path which no fowl knoweth,
and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen. The lion’s whelps have not
trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. He putteth forth his hand
upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. He cutteth out
rivers among the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing.” This and
more is freely conceded as yielding a grand field for geological
thought. “But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of
understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in
the land of the living.” Right here, beholding the observations through
heaven-pointed lenses, that man may read first causes in the stars, he
gives the poetic reply of space. “The depth saith it is not in me.” Now
beholding the kindled expectations in the student of the seas, as he
traces her currents, measures her waves and tides, and reaches her
deepest deposits, the sea is made to report, “It is not with me.” But
may not wealth and position gain it from the schools? He answers: “It
cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price
thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious
onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it; and the
exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be
made of coral or of pearls; for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The
topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with
pure gold.”
Disappointed in reading first causes in all these resources man still
inquires: “Whence then cometh wisdom, and where is the place of
understanding? Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept
close from the fowls of the air.” Let now the dead fossil speak. May not
the entombed life of forty millions of years open up this subject to
man?
16. Destruction and death say, “We have heard the fame thereof with our
ears. God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place
thereof; for he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the
whole heavens, to make the weight of the winds, and he weigheth the
waters by measure. When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the
lightning of the thunder; then did he see it and declare it.” But how
shall man gain this true wisdom of causes? “He that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek him.” It is the voice of the Saviour, he who “walked in the
garden.” Men must be drawn toward God before they can see him in his
word. “And unto man he said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is
wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” It cannot be doubted
that more reverence for God, and less egotistical trust in self, would
greatly aid the wisest thinker of the present day. We have had
altogether too much of that feigned or real pity for the Bible, as
unfortunate in its allusions to science, deserving to be ranked with the
superstitions of the untutored masses of the unlettered ages. It is true
that prophetic allusions to scientific subjects are usually poetic, but
none the less specific and definite for this. These allusions embody a
true objective view, leaving to science the task to subjectively work
out the true condition of things presenting such phenomena. Thus
prophecy poetized upon the “Place for light, and the home and house for
darkness; and the path leading to the bounds between them.”
Scientifically explained, one pole of the Earth must have pointed
steadily to the sun, leaving half the globe in perpetual darkness.
17. Joshua is said to have commanded the sun and the moon to stand
still, and they obeyed him. Subjectively rendered the sun went not down,
during one night, which could have been objectively accomplished by a
mirage. As this would answer the purpose for which the phenomena is
reported, it is highly probable that this is all that is meant. Again,
God made a firmament. But firmaments called heaven are not things made.
Subjectively rendered, he made a globe, from which the visible expanse
is seen. These figures of speech, and especially the one called
metonymy, run all through prophetic sayings. The heart’s willingness to
accept the truth is often necessary to the intellect’s perceiving it.
18. The Reformation has made some considerable progress, and Job’s three
mistaken friends begin to see their errors, and acknowledge themselves
silenced. Job’s renewed ability to speak, and the readiness with which
he handles the subject of each passing event, shows that the darkness is
passing away, and the teachings of these dismal ages are being
counteracted.
19. A far more formidable enemy, in the person of Elihu, is about to
arise. He represents Secular Education, in unbelief of the inspiration
of God, or the existence of true piety. He reasons that all men are
essentially alike, imperfect; that heredity, inclination, education and
surrounding circumstances account for all the difference in men. That
Job, having claimed upright intentions before God, has committed a grave
offence. His God is one of cause. “I will fetch my knowledge from afar:
he that is perfect in knowledge is with thee. My lips shall utter
knowledge clearly. All flesh shall perish together.” What is this but
infidel Deism? How different the expression of the wise man! “Who
knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast
that goeth downward to the earth?” The one is mortal, the other
immortal. For some cause Job is silent, though again and again
challenged to the combat. Let us apply a little history to the prophetic
drama. French Atheists, in a convention in 1808, put forth eighty-three
counts, any one of which was claimed sufficient to prove the Bible to be
uninspired. Sir Charles Lyell, himself a Deist, wrote, “Of these counts,
not one of them remains today. Science has laid them aside as
untenable.”
20. We have three distinct views of prayer, represented in Bildad, Elihu
and Job. Bildad’s view is, “If deserving, you can have all you ask for,
without reference to law. All that you need is faith to perpetuate the
line of miracles.” Elihu’s view was essentially expressed by the
Professor who threw down the challenge, called the prayer gauge. Its
substance was, “Prayer changes no effect following cause. It cannot
mitigate the death rate in a hospital.” Job’s position is that prayer
may be beneficial when in harmony with God’s laws. There are three
realms, viz, physics, mind and spirit. Mind is higher than physics, and,
within bounds, rules it; spirit is higher than either, and within bounds
rules both: that prayer to God, ever subject to “Thy will be done, not
mine,” may increase the power of the spirit in man over the lower realms
of law, thus securing wonderful help from God, according to his
expressed will in law. This does not necessarily involve miracle in the
answer God gives. It is in harmony with the law of the spirit, that God
within the spirit greatly increases its power over mind and matter. This
was the secret of Job’s power over his contestants. This power Elihu
denied. Secular Education will readily admit that God, by his direct
power (which is Special Providence), created matter, again set it in
motion, again gave life to portions of it, etc., and then deny that God
would listen to the cry of his children for spiritual or material help.
This modern Elihu has completely ignored the efforts of God to help the
would-be scientists to phenomena and principles, which would link his
knowledge of nature in happy relation with first causes. Hence in the
end, like Elihu, he is destined to be completely confounded.
21. Two thousand years ago, science established the Ptolemaic theory of
Astronomy. It taught it for eighteen hundred years, when the Copernican
theory forced its way to the front. And now, it is evident, the true
theory was clearly taught in God’s first book of Inspiration, called
Scripture. A few years since, Elihu, as a learned professor, would take
a piece of granite in his hand, and learnedly talk of the crystals
formed, as it slowly cooled, as the first crust formed upon the sea of
lava.
22. Now, the same professor talks to his class of the sedimentary nature
of the rock, and the crystals formed under great pressure in the deep
sea. Four thousand years ago, the Bible gave this knowledge to the
world. For some cause, Job is reticent while Elihu speaks. He speaks as
a “beast of power, rising up out of the earth.” But God has something to
say as to who shall stand in the coming ages. Piety will stand up, and
God will answer as by the power of the whirlwind. Chap. 38. “Gird up now
thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if
thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou
knowest, or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the
foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the cornerstone thereof?”
Marginal reading “made the cornerstone to sink.” Balancing order, in
exact equipose, is proclaimed in science. “Not one star could be
spared,” say the Solons of Philosophy, “without throwing all into the
greatest confusion.” The balancing of the primary gases, as each sun
gathered in the beginning, was seen by Job. “When the morning stars sang
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”
23. The great under-waters were once imprisoned as though shut behind
doors. “Or who shut up the sea with doors when it brake forth as if it
had issued out of the womb?” Rotundity of the Earth is here given with
the inside water. He saw the young Earth first “clothed in a garment of
clouds,” and “thick darkness a swaddling band about it.” He saw the
“foundations of the earth breaking up,” as the flood in Noah’s day
poured in over the earth. “And brake up the decreed place for it,” and
set new “bars and doors.” A change of polarity, and when it took place,
is seen. “Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days, and caused the
day-spring to know his place, that it might take hold of the ends of the
earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?” When have the wicked
been shaken out of it, but when “all the fountains of the great deep
were broken up?” The finishing touch is added to the Copernican system.
“It is turned as clay to the seal.” Allusion is made to the clay on the
potter’s wheel rotating to a fixed seal shaping the same. In contrast to
its present motion, he saw a former condition with pole pointing to the
sun. This was a motion that never exchanged the darkness for light, nor
light for darkness, but both remained stationary. “Where is the way
where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
that thou shouldst take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldst
know the paths to the house thereof?” He saw the contrasted appearance
of the former earth to her present contour. “The waters are hid as with
a stone.” Altogether, the land hemisphere covered the under-waters; “and
the face of the deep is frozen.” The face of the deep in the southern
hemisphere of the ancient earth was locked in darkness and perpetual
ice. He had asked the question, “Out of whose womb came the ice?” Where
was it born? This is one of the most perplexing questions in science.
24. Where was the ice born that once plowed such deep furrows over hill
and dale, that climbed the rugged mountain, and filled ancient river
beds with three thousand feet of drift? In vain do you ask where the ice
came from that scooped out the Yosemite Valley, or laid the deep beds of
water-washed pebbles along the Sierra Nevada mountains. God has answered
it in giving the ancient polarity, by which the mighty deep of one half
the globe was covered with ice. Again, “Who hath divided a watercourse
for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of the
thunder?” Our earth is a magnet. The way of the lightning produces
spiral effects on plants and cyclones from the equator to each pole. The
earth being divided, forming the Atlantic Ocean, and the pole being
locally changed on the globe, a new way for the lightning is formed.
This poem is wonderful for its flights of prophetic views. The vision,
from comprehending the phenomena attending the globe in its antediluvian
state, now changes to a mode of communication by telegraph of our own
time. To identify the century in which it would appear, he resorted to
the third clock of the heavens, measured by precession. He noticed that
beautiful cluster of stars called the Pleiades at the usual time of
Zenith measurement, in the evening, standing over the January thaw,
followed in a few days with Orion’s belt in the same place. At the time
of Job’s captivity the Pleiades rose to the Zenith on the 10th day of
November. By the slow action of precession they have moved eastward,
until now they come to the Zenith on the second day of January. Only
eighteen days elapse before Orion’s belt stands in the Zenith to look
down on sealed rivers, as the thaw is over.
25. “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the
bands of Orion?” The time in this poetic allusion is our present
century. The phenomena seen is employing lightning as a messenger.
“Canst thou send lightnings that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we
are?” Proceeding to give the habits and instincts of a few
representative animals in natural history, Job proposed to sit down and
say no more.
26. But God proposed to gird him for the description of two
representative fossil animals of the Middle and Tertiary ages. For the
ruling king of saurians, he described Ichthyosaurus under the title of
Leviathan. For the king of the Myocene period he described the
Megathareum under the title of Behemoth. God opens the understanding of
Job’s three mistaken friends, and makes demands for repentance and
reparation. Job becomes their intercessor. The captivity of Piety ends
here. The “times of the gentiles are fulfilled.” “The sanctuary is
cleansed.” “Babylon is fallen.” “The white horse appears, and Jesus
reigns King of kings and Lord of lords.”
27. Now commences the grandest era of Job’s life. It is double in
prosperity to all going before. The time for its continuance is very
long. The universal respect that will be shown the church, the voluntary
contributions in liberal free-will offerings, the abundance of peace and
prosperity, are well diagrammed and set forth in the closing events of
Job’s life.
Elihu will still talk of the “Twilight of Christianity,” but faith is
looking for the dawn of Christ’s triumph, when the dragon, “like
lightning,” must “fall from the heavens,” and nations will hail with joy
the reign of righteousness.
“Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up ye everlasting
doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
“Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty
in battle. The Lord of hosts; he is the King of glory.”
CHAPTER III.
All the Scripture References to Cosmology are in Harmony
with the Book of Job.
1. Peter must have understood the import of this divine poem, when he
wrote, “For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God
the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in
the water.” So also “The earth, that then was, being overflowed.”
2. So Solomon understood the poem. Personifying the eternity of wisdom,
under things timely, he wrote, “Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills were brought forth.” Notice the sedimentary character
of the mountains! “While as yet he had not made the earth (in form).
When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass
(circle) upon the face of the depth (space).”
3. The spirit of this poem must have inspired the Psalmist, when he
ascribed thanks unto “Him who stretcheth out the earth above the
waters.” And again, “He hath founded it upon the seas, and established
it upon the floods.”
4. Moses must have possessed this sublime poem in the wilderness. By an
easy succession of steps, he could find his way back to where suns, in
gathering, kept time to the marching forces of Jehovah, as a well
trained choir. “When the morning stars sang together.” Not content here,
he sought farther aid of God, and swung out into the voids of space,
where heat, light, force, and gravitation slept in the embrace of chaos;
yea, still farther back to when and where matter was not. He heard God
speak matter into existence. It was from this vision he wrote, “In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” As it came from the
hand of God, “It was without form, and darkness was upon the face of the
deep.”
Matter without form is in gas; and to be in equilibrium, it must be
equally diffused in all that portion of space now containing matter.
Inertia would incapacitate its moving. Without motion, light was
impossible; without centers, gravitation had not commenced. Such was
matter in the darkness of chaos without form, called night. A force from
without must overcome inertia, and give birth to form, light, heat,
gravitation, and power at the same time. This power is brought to our
view in the following sublime sentence: “And the Spirit of the Lord
moved upon the face of the waters” (fluids). Gravitation acts
instantaneously throughout space. Therefore the gathering of any one
center as a sun, would necessitate the gathering of every central sun in
relative accord.
5. Gravitating centers account for centripetal motion only. Acted upon
by gravitation alone, all matter within each system would start for the
center direct. Hence, centrifugal force also must have been imparted to
all that portion of gaseous chaos, destined to become planets. With
these two forces acting upon them, they would naturally assume the shape
of an immense ring about the sun. Those gases destined to make our sun,
must have traversed a space of not less than twenty trillion of miles;
possibly, in some directions thirty trillion of miles. The center would
be small at first; and should these gases float thirty miles per hour,
it would take ninety million of our years to gather the sun complete. In
such condition, from the voids of space Moses beheld our system, and
noticed that the “waters above the firmament were not separated from the
waters beneath.” If from a tall mountain we behold a rainbow, when the
sun is quite low we shall see a complete circle of prismatic colors. If
one should report that the colors above the firmament were not separate
from the colors beneath the firmament, we should readily understand that
the bow was continuous as a circle. Now imagine these colors tangible
gases, and a sun placed in the center, and you have some faint
conception of the grand objective view of the prophet, as he beheld the
first morning of creation. The condition in darkness, unmeasured by
time, he had called night. The condition in light, unmeasured by flight
of years, he called morning. “And the evening and the morning were day
first.” The vision, from contemplating matter as divided into systems,
now changes to prospective Earth, as yet without form. If the lack of
form constituted its evening, then, when it gains a form, it will be its
morning. The gases that were to form earth, then lay diffused in the
firmament ring.
6. A spark would unite a field of Hydrogen and Oxygen, and cause a
division in the ring, as a new element much lighter, formed in space in
the condition of superheated steam. Its lightness would cause it to
evolve outside the ring, and take the form of a globe. “And God made the
firmament,” and he called it “heaven,” which is the visible expanse of a
half circle or sphere above our heads; “and he divided the waters which
were under the firmament, (the first, which was a tangible circle) from
the waters which were above the firmament.” The Earth is in form, but
has, as yet, but two gases; and these unite in steam. The second day of
creation ends without a “footprint” for the unassisted geologists to
trace. Well may Job refer man to the voice of the Lord for the wisdom of
first cause and the early changes of matter. This newly formed
firmament, or visible expanse, which, by figure of metonymy means a
newly formed globe, differs materially from the ring substance of the
sun, which gave rise to the term firmament. This second firmament is not
made of tangible gases, nor is its appearance to dwellers on the earth
continuous. Hence, the making of this firmament is the objective
description of the formation of our Earth as a globe. With a world of
steam in globe form, the second age or day of creation ended. The
matter, that gathered would constitute Earth, while floating in chaos
was called evening. When the globe took its form, though only a world of
steam, it was called morning. “And the evening and the morning were the
second day.” No measurement of twenty-four hour days had commenced yet.
Having followed our globe out into space, the prophet now confines his
observations to this single planet. He beholds the outside liquifying,
and he follows it into its present orbit. He made no mention of the
“swaddling band,” it took out of the ring as it passed back toward the
sun. This had been well noticed by Job, as well as the manner of the
first deposits. But he noticed the appearance of dry land; and the
introduction of terrestrial vegetation, and described them as cryptogam
“having the seed in itself.” He had followed the gathering together of
the waters as a grand sea, and the inorganic deposits as a long evening;
and now, to bring out a grand contrast, as morning, he waited until the
forests sung the praises of God’s creative hand in bestowing life. “And
the evening and the morning were the third day.” But this vegetation
grows in the veiled light, much as the gray of twilight. This twilight
is the evening of the fourth day. Contrasting with it is pure sunlight.
The Carboniferous age of the world cleared the air of these deadly
gases, and let in the sunshine upon the earth. This was morning. In
noticing this, he is reminded that this globe is occupying his entire
attention; and yet God made all the planets and suns of the heavens. So
the source of light is again noticed and its proper name given to it,
and the relation it sustains to our own time noticed and recorded, “The
sun to give light by day.” In a similar manner the moon and the stars
were all noticed. As vegetation had now arrived at its climax, Moses
closed this age, making the cryptogram in the gray twilight the evening,
and its contrast the gay flower basking in clear sunlight the morning.
“And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
7. Gases are combined into rock through the agency of air and water.
There are three methods of conveying or changing gas into rock. The
first is by gases mingling directly with the water. This gave us the
larger portion of sedimentary rock. For aught that science has yet
discovered, the entire bed of primary granite was made in this manner.
The second is by combining the gases by means of diatoms and polyps of
the seas. These animals do not depend upon vegetation, but draw their
nourishment directly from the waters. Their remains constitute large
portions of sedimentary rock. The marble and chalk are formed almost
entirely of their remains, while all sedimentary rock this side the
granite contains more or less of their remains. A third way is by gases
combining in vegetation. Anthracite coal is ninety-six per cent. carbon,
combined through vegetation.
8. It is evident that the days of creation were not given to mark an
order of time. (1.) Creation commenced before time. (2.) Without motion
there could be no measure of duration. (3.) The fifth day includes all
the fourth and part of the third; and could therefore be no order of
time.
9. They were not designed to mark an order in the deposit of rock. All
stratified rock, from the Gneiss to the Myocene deposit, is included in
the fifth day. They do not, therefore, give a progressive order of
deposit.
10. They were designed to give two mornings of inorganic changes of
matter, with two contrasting evenings; two organic changes, as mornings
of vegetation, with contrasting evenings; two organic changes, as
mornings of animals, with contrasting evenings. These days are all
spoken of as noting a beginning, a middle, and a close. The beginning
and close are contrasts. This mode of measurement may have been derived
from Job 9:9—“Which maketh the Bear, Orion, and Pleiades.” Here is
Orion, marking the colure line of the Spring equinox at the creation of
man; the Bear, marking the same Spring equinox at the end of time; and
Pleiades, marking the date at which these visions came to the prophet.
Thus we have the beginning and ending of the human race in contrast, and
a middle date of passing events. Thus, with Moses the vision of creation
opens with the creation of all matter, and the first day ends with the
morning of light. The inertia of rest in chaos intervened. The Earth,
without form, and the Earth, in form, is contrasted, the second day,
with a separated firmament of the sun intervening. In the third day, we
have evening commencing with two gases in the form of a steam globe,
contrasted with the waving forests of the Devonian age of geology, with
the millions of years of deposits of inorganic substance intervening.
The language explaining the fourth day seems to be about the sun, moon,
and stars. But that these might shine in on the Earth, there was
involved the idea of removing the Earth’s “swaddling band,” alluded to
by Job. Hence the language involves an evening of twilight in which
Cryptogams, as the beginning of Earth’s vegetation, would contrast with
the flowers basking in clear sun light, while the slow process of how
God caused the sun to shine in on the Earth, by working this dark band
of gases into its crust, intervened. Nowhere is this rule seen so
clearly as in the language pertaining to the fifth day. Here, the
infusoria of the sea is made to contrast with the whale; while birds
intervene. These diatoms began in the deposit of the Gneiss rock. The
whale is found in the Myocene and since. The solitary reign of beasts is
noted as evening, contrasting with the reign of God’s people as “priests
and kings unto God,” at the close of time. Intervening are the events of
human history. Thus, every day of the six is shown by contrasts.
11. A general providence runs in law, evolving progress as far as
Nature’s law is adapted; but when Nature fails to meet any new want,
special providence steps in, with additional forces to supply the
deficiency. Space was an empty nakedness, and God created matter
therein. Matter was without form and void, and God started it in motion.
Matter was without life, and God created the life. The beasts of the
field were without a moral spirit. And God made man in his own image,
blessed with immortality, and capable of attaining to eternal life. For
farther particulars, see Sec. 4.
CHAPTER IV.
The Phenomena to which allusions are so freely made in the “Six
Days of Moses,” suggest certain scientific necessities, replete
with geological information, which demonstrate the progressive
work of God, for matter, in matter, by and through matter,
and above matter, to the end of time.
Two books give a revelation of God, Nature and the Bible. Except for
purposes of intelligent connection, as a rule, the revelations of one
are not repeated in the other. Revelation on the subject of cosmos is
evidently intended to supply parts, which nature is not adapted to
unfold. Each stands as a part of a great whole; that the true student of
nature may be thoroughly furnished with proper text books, which, when
rightly understood, are conjointly harmonious, connected, and
exhaustive. If man would attain even the faintest ability to measure the
“footprints of God” in nature, or fathom the relation of first causes in
creation, he can ill afford unacquaintance with either book. The Bible
is given as a supplement to God’s voice in nature. Creation, shown in
harmony with the testimony of the rocks, confirms the testimony of
Moses. The unsupported hypotheses of men have led some to deplore the
“mistakes of Moses.” A better acquaintance with both books will lead
them, it is thought, at least to respect his great prophetic knowledge,
in outlining creation’s origin and forces.
Section 1.
The Work of the First Day.
1. The account, given in Genesis, of creation is in the form of an Epic
Poem. As a treatise on any subject, it would be incomplete. Its design
seems to be to give, in the form of poetic suggestions, the connecting
links to unite creation with creation’s God. For such a purpose, it is
the grandest and most complete of all productions of the pen. Six of
these days are marked by contrasts, “called evening and morning” but the
seventh is peculiar, having neither. The sixth is said to close God’s
labor with matter. Unmeasured duration is, doubtless, the seventh.
2. The “deep,” when used in reference to the heavens, means immensity of
space; as: “darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Darkness is the
normal state of space. Not dependent on matter, it is eternal. Moses saw
all matter created at once. God’s work, as revealed here for matter, is
in harmony with correlation of matter in science.
3. By a beautiful figure of metonymy, poets speak of a part implying the
whole. Such is the word “Earth,” as first introduced in this production.
“And the earth (all matter) was without form.” Inertia holds all in
rest. An act, fiat, or work of God, above matter, is requisite, to set
it in motion. “And the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the
deep.” A system formed with a center of light is noted. All systems are
members of this choir.
4. Science would suggest, that, if a ponderous globe, as our sun, should
gather in a field of gases, though trillions of miles in diameter, all
gases, within its drawing sphere, must either go toward the sun, or be
thrown around it in a circle. Such was the ring of waters, or fluids,
first called a firmament. A most minute directing of Providence is here
suggested. It extended to each molecule of gas, and its appropriate
place was determined. Before that grand movement of the Spirit of God,
there was nothing with which to measure duration, and time had not
commenced. No centers—no gravitation. No motion—no light or force. All
this is suggested in matter “without form.” Suns only had form at the
close of the first day. As systems revolved, measured duration might
have commenced at the revolutions of suns about a grand center. One day
at the sun would be twenty-seven of ours; one year, eighteen thousand of
ours. This first day of creation may have been one hundred million of
years. It included the length of these contrasts to a climax,
darkness—light. The one reigning over all matter, the other forming from
matter, under the direction of God.
5. If the first is a literal day, so are the seven. If the first is
poetic, so are the seven. That the first was not literal, is evident in
that the “Earth was without form” as yet. Hence there was no twenty-four
hour measurement. Day is also used to signify a nation’s history. It is
not that. It is also used to signify the life of an individual. It could
not be that. “A day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” It is evident
that Peter was merely hinting at the indefiniteness, as to time, of the
Mosaic days. It remains, then, that it is a cosmological day, without
exact measurement of time. It certainly includes all that period of
chaotic darkness before time commenced. Should these gases move across
the radii of our system with the speed of light, it would take
thirty-five days; but should the gases move like an atmosphere in space,
it would take more than ninety million of years to gather the sun. The
greater probability is that these contrasted conditions of the first
day, poetically described without any exact measurement, if measured,
would extend through more than one hundred million of our years.