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THE EPOCH OF THE EARTH’S CREATION UNREVEALED.

The Mosaic account of the creation of the universe has always been celebrated for its sublime simplicity. Though the subject be one of unparalleled grandeur, the writer makes not the slightest effort at rhetorical embellishment, but employs language which a mere child cannot misapprehend. How different, in this respect, is this inspired record from all uninspired efforts that have been made to describe the origin of the world!

But notwithstanding the great simplicity and clearness of this description, its precise meaning has occasioned as much discussion as almost any passage of Scripture. This results chiefly from its great brevity. Men with different views of inspiration, cosmogony, and philosophy, engage in its examination, not so much to ascertain its meaning, as to find out whether it teaches their favorite speculative views; and because it says nothing about them, they attempt to fasten those views upon it, and thus make it teach a great deal more than the mind of the Spirit. My simple object, at this time, is to ascertain whether the Bible fixes the time when the universe was created out of nothing.

The prevalent opinion, until recently, has been, that we are there taught that the world began to exist on the first of the six days of creation, or about six thousand years ago. Geologists, however, with one voice, declare that their science indicates the earth to have been of far higher antiquity. The question becomes, therefore, of deep interest, whether the common interpretation of the Mosaic record is correct.

Let us, in the first place, examine carefully the terms of that record; without reference to any of the conclusions of science.

A preliminary inquiry, however, will here demand attention, to which I have already given some thoughts in the first lecture. The inquiry relates to the mode in which the sacred writers describe natural phenomena.

Do they adapt their descriptions to the views and feelings of philosophers, or even the common people, in the nineteenth century, or to the state of knowledge and the prevalent opinions of a people but slightly removed from barbarism?

Do they write as if they meant to correct the notions of men on natural subjects, when they knew them to be wrong; or as if they did not mean to decide whether the popular opinion were true or false? These points have been examined with great skill and candor by a venerable clergyman of England, whose praise is in all the American churches, and whose skill in sacred philology, and profound acquaintance with the Bible, none will question, any more than they will his deep-toned piety and enlarged and liberal views of men and things. I refer to Dr. J. Pye Smith, lately at the head of the Homerton Divinity College, near London.[6]

He first examines the style in which the Old Testament describes the character and operations of Jehovah, and shows that it is done “in language borrowed from the bodily and mental constitution of man, and from those opinions concerning the works of God in the natural world, which were generally received by the people to whom the blessings of revelation were granted.” Constant reference is made to material images, and to human feelings and conduct, as if the people addressed were almost incapable of spiritual and abstract ideas. This, of course, gives a notion of God infinitely beneath the glories of his character; but to uncultivated minds it was the only representation of his character that would give them any idea of it. Nay, even in this enlightened age, such descriptions are far more impressive than any other upon the mass of mankind; while those, whose minds are more enlightened, find no difficulty in inculcating the pure truth respecting God from these comparatively gross descriptions.

Now, if, upon a point of such vast importance as the divine character, revelation, thus condescends to human weakness and ignorance, much more might we expect it, in regard to the less important subject of natural phenomena. We find, accordingly, that they are described as they appear to the common eye, and not in their real nature; or, in the language of Rosenmuller, the Scriptures speak “according to optical, and not physical truth.” They make no effort to correct even the grossest errors, on these subjects, that then prevailed.

The earth, as we have seen on a former occasion, is described as immovable, in the centre of the universe, and the heavenly bodies as revolving round it diurnally. The firmament over us is represented as a solid, extended substance, sustaining an ocean above it, with openings, or windows, through which the waters may descend. In respect to the human system, the Scriptures refer intellectual operations to the reins, or the region of the kidneys, and pain to the bones. In short, the descriptions of natural things are adapted to the very erroneous notions which prevailed in the earliest ages of society and among the common people. But it is as easy to interpret such descriptions in conformity to the present state of physical science, as it is to divest the scriptural representations of the Deity of their material dress, and make them conform to the spiritual views that now prevail. No one regards it as any objection to the Old Testament, that it gives a description of the divine character so much less spiritual than the views adopted by the theologians of the nineteenth century; why then should they regard it as derogatory to inspiration to adopt the same method as to natural objects?

These considerations will afford us some assistance in rightly interpreting the description of the creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, to which we will now turn our attention.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness, and the light he called day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

The first question that arises, on reading this passage, is, whether the creation here described was a creation out of nothing, or out of preëxisting materials. The latter opinion has been maintained by some able, and generally judicious commentators and theologians, such as Doederlin and Dathe in Germany, Milton in England, and Bush and Schmucker in this country. They do not deny that the Bible, in other places, teaches distinctly the creation of the universe out of nothing. But they contend that the word translated to create, in the first verse of Genesis, teaches only a renovation, or remodelling, of the universe from matter already in existence.

That there is a degree of ambiguity in all languages, in the words that signify to create, to make, to form, and the like, cannot be doubted; that is, these words may be properly used to describe the production of a substance out of matter already in existence, as well as out of nothing; and, therefore, we must resort to the context, or the nature of the subject, to ascertain in which of those senses such words are used. The same word, for instance, (bawraw,) that is used in the first verse of Genesis, to describe the creation of the universe, is employed in the 27th verse of the same chapter, to describe the formation of man out of the dust of the earth. There was, however, no peculiar ambiguity in the use of the Hebrew words bawraw and awsaw, which correspond to our words create and make; and, therefore, it is not necessary to be an adept in Hebrew literature to judge of the question under consideration. We have only to determine whether the translation of the Mosaic account of the creation most reasonably teaches a production of the matter of the universe from nothing, or only its renovation, and we have decided what is taught in the original.

Now, there can hardly be a doubt but Moses intended to teach, in this passage, that the universe owed its origin to Jehovah, and not to the idols of the heathen; and since all acknowledge that other parts of Scripture teach, that, when the world was made, it was produced out of nothing, why should we not conclude that the same truth is taught in this passage? The language certainly will bear that meaning; indeed, it is almost as strong as language can be to express such a meaning; and does not the passage look like a distinct avowal of this great truth, at the very commencement of the inspired record, in order to refute the opinion, so prevalent in early times, that the world is eternal?

The next inquiry concerning the passage relates to the phrase the heavens and the earth. Does it comprehend the universe? So it must have been understood by the Jews; for their language could not furnish a more comprehensive phrase to designate the universe. True, these words, like those already considered, are used sometimes in a limited sense. But in this place their broadest signification is in perfect accordance with the scope of the passage and with the whole tenor of the Scripture. We may, therefore, conclude with much certainty, that God intended in this place to declare the great truth, that there was a time in past eternity when the whole material universe came into existence at his irresistible fiat:—a truth eminently proper to stand at the head of a divine revelation.

But when did this stupendous event occur? Does the phrase in the beginning show us when? Surely not; for no language can be more indefinite as to time. Whenever it is used in the Bible, it merely designates the commencement of the series of events, or the periods of time, that are described. In the beginning was the word; that is, at the commencement of things the word was in existence; consequently was from eternity. But in Genesis the act of creation is represented by this phrase simply as the commencement of the material universe, at a certain point of time in past eternity, which is not chronologically fixed. The first verse merely informs us, that the first act of the Deity in relation to the universe was the creation of the heavens and the earth out of nothing.

It is contended, however, that the first verse is so connected with the six days’ work of creation, related in the subsequent verse, that we must understand the phrase in the beginning as the commencement of the first day. This is the main point to be examined in relation to the passage, and therefore deserves a careful consideration.

If the first verse must be understood as a summary account of the six days’ work which follows in detail, then the beginning was the commencement of the first day, and of course only about six thousand years ago. But if it may be understood as an announcement of the act of creation at some indefinite point in past duration, then a period may have intervened between that first creative act and the subsequent six days’ work. I contend that the passage admits of either interpretation, without any violence to the language or the narration.

The first of these interpretations is the one usually received, and, therefore, it will be hardly necessary to attempt to show that it is admissible. The second has had fewer advocates, and will, therefore, need to be examined.

The particle and, which is used in our translation of this passage to connect the successive sentences, furnishes an argument to the English reader against this second mode of interpretation, which has far less force with one acquainted with the original Hebrew. The particle thus translated is the general connecting particle of the Hebrew language, and “may be copulative, or disjunctive, or adversative; or it may express a mere annexation to a former topic of discourse,—the connection being only that of the subject matter, or the continuation of the composition. This continuative use forms one of the most marked peculiarities of the Hebrew idiom, and it comprehends every variety of mode in which one train of sentiment may be appended to another.”—J. Pye Smith, Scrip. and Geol. p. 195, 4th edit.

In the English Bible this particle is usually rendered by the copulative conjunction and; in the Septuagint, and in Josephus, however, it sometimes has the sense of but. And some able commentators are of opinion that it admits of a similar translation in the passage under consideration. The elder Rosenmuller says we might read it thus: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Afterwards the earth was desolate,” &c. Or the particle afterwards may be placed at the beginning of any of the succeeding verses. Thus, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was desolate, and darkness was upon the face of the waters. Afterwards the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Dr. Dathe, who has been styled, by good authority, (Dr. Smith,) “a cautious and judicious critic,” renders the first two verses in this manner: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; but afterwards the earth became waste and desolate.” If such translations as these be admissible, the passage not only allows, but expressly teaches, that a period intervened between the first act of creation and the six days’ work. And if such an interval be allowed, it is all that geology requires to reconcile its facts to revelation. For during that time, all the changes of mineral constitution and organic life, which that science teaches to have taken place on the globe, previous to the existence of man, may have occurred.

It is a presumption in favor of such an interpretation that the second verse describes the state of the globe after its creation and before the creation of light. For if there were no interval between the fiat that called matter into existence, and that which said, Let there be light, why should such a description of the earth’s waste and desolate condition be given?

But if there had been such an intervening period, it is perfectly natural that such a description should precede the history of successive creative acts, by which the world was adorned with light and beauty, and filled with inhabitants.

But, after all, would such an interpretation have ever been thought of, had not the discoveries of geology seemed to demand it?

This can be answered by inquiring whether any of the writers on the Bible, who lived before geology existed, or had laid claims for a longer period previous to man’s creation, whether any of these adopted such an interpretation. We have abundant evidence that they did. Many of the early fathers of the church were very explicit on this subject. Augustin, Theodoret, and others, supposed that the first verse of Genesis describes the creation of matter distinct from, and prior to, the work of six days. Justin Martyr and Gregory Nazianzen believed in an indefinite period between the creation of matter and the subsequent arrangement of all things. Still more explicit are Basil, Cæsarius, and Origen. It would be easy to quote similar opinions from more modern writers, who lived previous to the developments of geology. But I will give a paragraph from Bishop Patrick only, who wrote one hundred and fifty years ago.

“How long,” says he, “all things continued in mere confusion after the chaos was created, before light was extracted from it, we are not told. It might have been, for any thing that is here revealed, a great while; and all that time the mighty Spirit was making such motions in it, as prepared, disposed, and ripened every part of it for such productions as were to appear successively in such spaces of time as are here afterwards mentioned by Moses, who informs us, that after things were digested and made ready (by long fermentation perhaps) to be wrought into form, God produced every day, for six days together, some creature or other, till all was finished, of which light was the very first.”—Commentary, in loco.

Such evidence as this is very satisfactory. For at the present day one cannot but fear that the discoveries of geology may too much influence him insensibly to put a meaning upon Scripture which would never have been thought of, if not suggested by those discoveries, and which the language cannot bear. But those fathers of the church cannot be supposed under the influence of any such bias; and, therefore, we may suppose the passage in itself to admit of the existence of a long period between the beginning and the first demiurgic day.

Against these views philologists have urged several objections not to be despised. One is, that light did not exist till the first day, and the sun and other luminaries not till the fourth day; whereas the animals and plants dug from the rocks could not have existed without light. They could not, therefore, have lived in the supposed long period previous to the six days.

If it be indeed true, that light was not called into existence till the first day, nor the sun till the fourth, this objection is probably insuperable. But it would be easy to cite the opinions of many distinguished and most judicious expounders of the Bible, showing that the words of the Hebrew original do not signify a literal creation of the sun, moon, and stars, on the fourth day, but only constituting or appointing them, at that time, to be luminaries, and to furnish standards for the division of time and other purposes.

The word used is not the same as that employed in the first verse to describe the creation of the world; and the passage, rightly understood, implies the previous existence of the heavenly bodies. “The words מְאֹדת דְח֚ד are not to be separated from the rest,” says Rosenmuller, “or to be rendered fiant luminaria, let there be light; i. e., let light be made; but rather, let lights be; that is, serve, in the expanse of heaven, for distinguishing between day and night; and let them be, or serve, for signs,” &c. “The historian speaks (v. 16, end) of the determination of the stars to certain uses, which they were to render to the earth, and not of their first formation.” In like manner we may suppose that the production of light was only rendering it visible to the earth, over which darkness hitherto brooded; not because no light was in existence, but because it did not shine upon the earth.

Another objection to this interpretation is, that the fourth commandment of the decalogue expressly declares, that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, &c., and thus cuts off the idea of a long period intervening between the beginning and the six days. I acknowledge that this argument carries upon the face of it a good deal of strength; but there are some considerations that seem to me to show it to be not entirely demonstrative.

In the first place, it is a correct principle of interpreting language, that when a writer describes an event in more than one place, the briefer statement is to be explained by the more extended one. Thus, in the second chapter of Genesis, we have this brief account of the creation: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Now, if this were the only description of the work of creation on record, the inference would be very fair that it was all completed in a single day.

Yet when we turn to the first chapter, we find the work prolonged through six days. The two statements are not contradictory; but the briefer one would not be understood without the more detailed. In like manner, if we should find it distinctly stated in the particular account of the creation of the universe, in the first chapter of Genesis, that a long period actually intervened between the beginning and the six days, who would suppose the statement a contradiction to the fourth commandment? It is true, we do not find such a fact distinctly announced in the Mosaic account of the creation. But suppose we first learn that it did exist from geology; why should we not be as ready to admit it as if stated in Genesis, provided it does not contradict any thing therein recorded? For illustration: let us refer to the account given in Exodus of the parents of Moses and their family. And there went a man of the name of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bare a son, (that is, Moses,) and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. (Ex. ii. 12.) Suppose, now, that no other account existed in the Bible of the family of this Levite; we could not surely have suspected that Moses had an elder brother and sister. But imagine the Bible silent on the subject, and that the fact was first brought to light in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics in the nineteenth century; who could hesitate to admit its truth because omitted in the Pentateuch? or who would regard it in opposition to the sacred record? With equal propriety may we admit, on proper geological evidence, the intercalation of a long period between the beginning and the six days, if satisfied that it does not contradict the Mosaic account. Hence all that is necessary, in this connection, for me to show, is, that such contradictions would not be made out by such a discovery.

Once more: if this long period had existed, we should hardly have expected an allusion to it in the fourth commandment, if the views we have taken are correct as to the manner in which the Old Testament treats of natural events. It is literally true, that all which the Jews understood by the heavens and the earth, was made, (awsaw,) that is, renovated, arranged, and constituted,—for so the word often means,—in six literal days. Had the sacred writer alluded to the earth while without form and void, or to the heavenly bodies as any thing more than shining points in the firmament, placed there on the fourth day, he could not have been understood by the Hebrews, without going into a detailed description, and thus violating what seems to have been settled principles in writing the Bible, viz., not to treat of natural phenomena with scientific accuracy, nor to anticipate any scientific discovery.

I wish it to be distinctly understood, that I am endeavoring to show, only, that the language of Scripture will admit of an indefinite interval between the first creation of matter and the six demiurgic days. I am willing to admit, at least for the sake of argument, that the common interpretation, which makes matter only six thousand years old, is the most natural. But I contend that no violence is done to the language by admitting the other interpretation. And in further proof of this position, I appeal to the testimony of distinguished modern theologians and philologists, as I have to several of the ancients. This point cannot, indeed, be settled by the authority of names. But I cannot believe that any will suppose such men as I shall mention were led to adopt this view simply because geologists asked for it, while their judgments told them that the language of the Bible would not bear such a meaning. When such men, therefore, avow their acquiescence in such an interpretation, it cannot but strengthen our confidence in its correctness.

“The interval,” says Bishop Horsley, “between the production of the matter of the chaos and the formation of light, is undescribed and unknown.”

“Were we to concede to naturalists,” says Baumgarten Crusius, “all the reasonings which they advance in favor of the earth’s early existence, the conclusion would only be, that the earth itself has existed much more than six thousand years, and that it had then already suffered many great and important revolutions. But if this were so, would the relation of Moses thereby become false and untenable? I cannot think so.”

“By the phrase in the beginning,” says Doederlin, “the time is declared when something began to be. But when God produced this remarkable work, Moses does not precisely define.”

“We do not know,” says Sharon Turner, “and we have no means of knowing, at what point of the ever-flowing eternity of that which is alone eternal,—the divine subsistence,—the creation of our earth, or any part of the universe, began.” “All that we can learn explicitly from revelation is, that nearly six thousand years have passed since our first parents began to be.”

“The words in the text,” says Dr. Wiseman, “do not merely express a momentary pause between the first fiat of creation and the production of light; for the participial form of the verb, whereby the Spirit of God, the creative energy, is represented as brooding over the abyss, and communicating to it the productive virtue, naturally expresses a continuous, and not a passing action.”

“I am strongly inclined to believe,” says Bishop Gleig, “that the matter of the corporeal universe was all created at once; though different portions of it may have been reduced to form at very different periods. When the universe was created, or how long the solar system remained in a chaotic state, are vain inquiries, to which no answer can be given.”

“The detailed history of creation in the first chapter of Genesis,” says Dr. Chalmers, “begins at the middle of the second verse; and what precedes might be understood as an introductory sentence, by which we are most appositely told, both that God created all things at the first, and that afterwards—by what interval of time it is not specified—the earth lapsed into a chaos, from the darkness and disorder of which the present system or economy of things was made to arise. Between the initial act and the details of Genesis, the world, for aught we know, might have been the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of which geology may still investigate,” &c.

“A philological survey of the initial sections of the Bible, (Gen. i. 1 to ii. 3,)” says Dr. Pye Smith, “brings out the result;”

1. “That the first sentence is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom, to this effect,—that matter, elementary or combined, aggregated only or organized, and dependent, sentient, and intellectual beings have not existed from eternity, either in self-continuity or succession, but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of one Being; the self-existent, independent and infinite in all perfection; and that the date of that beginning is not made known.”

2. “That at a recent epoch, our planet was brought into a state of disorganization, detritus, or ruin, (perhaps we have no perfectly appropriate term,) from a former condition.”

3. “That it pleased the Almighty, wise and benevolent Supreme, out of that state of ruin to adjust the surface of the earth to its now existing condition,—the whole extending through the period of six natural days.”

“I am forming,” continues Dr. Smith, “no hypotheses in geology; I only plead that the ground is clear, and that the dictates of the Scripture interpose no bar to observation and reasoning upon the mineralogical constitution of the earth, and the remains of organized creatures which its strata disclose. If those investigations should lead us to attribute to the earth and to the other planets and astral spheres an antiquity which millions or ten thousand millions of years might fail to represent, the divine records forbid not their deduction.”—Script. and Geol. p. 502.

Says Dr. Bedford, “We ought to understand Moses as saying, indefinitely far back, and concealed from us in the mystery of eternal ages, prior to the first moment of mundane time, God created the heavens and the earth.”—Smith, Script. and Geol. 4th edit.

“My firm persuasion is,” says Dr. Harris, “that the first verse of Genesis was designed, by the divine Spirit, to announce the absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and that it is so understood in the other parts of holy writ; that, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation, and, that the third verse begins the account of the six days’ work.”

“If I am reminded, in a tone of animadversion, that I am making science, in this instance, the interpreter of Scripture, my reply is, that I am simply making the works of God illustrate his word in a department in which they speak with a distinct and authoritative voice; that “it is all the same whether our geological or theological investigations have been prior, if we have not forced the one into accordance with the other.”—(Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutics.) “And that it might be deserving consideration, whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just animadversion, who first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of a passage of Scripture, irrespective of all the appropriate evidence, and who then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist on their a priori interpretation as the only true one.”—Pre-Adamite Earth, p. 280.

“Our best expositors of Scripture,” says Dr. Daniel King, of Glasgow, “seem to be now pretty generally agreed, that the opening verse in Genesis has no necessary connection with the verses which follow. They think it may be understood as making a separate and independent statement regarding the creation proper, and that the phrase ‘in the beginning’ may be expressive of an indefinitely remote antiquity. On this principle the Bible recognizes, in the first instance, the great age of the earth, and then tells us of the changes it underwent at a period long subsequent, in order to render it a fit abode for the family of man. The work of the six days was not, according to this view, a creation in the strict sense of the term, but a renovation, a remodelling of preëxisting materials.”—Principles of Geology explained, &c. p. 40, 1st edit.

“Whether the Mosaic creation,” says Dr. Schmucker, of the Lutheran church in this country, “refers to the present organization of matter, or to the formation of its primary elements, it is not easy to decide. The question is certainly not determined by the usage of the original words, צׇשׇה ,בַרָא which are frequently employed to designate mediate formation. Should the future investigations of physical science bring to light any facts, indisputably proving the anterior existence of the matter of this earth, such facts would not militate against the Christian Scriptures.”

“That a very long period,” says Dr. Pond,—“how long no being but God can tell,—intervened between the creation of the world and the commencement of the six days’ work recorded in the following verses of the first chapter of Genesis, there can, I think, be no reasonable doubt.”

But I need not adduce any more advocates of the interpretation of Genesis, for which I contend. Men more respected and confided in by the Christian world I could not quote, though I might enlarge the number; but I trust it is unnecessary. I trust that all who hear me are satisfied that the Mosaic history of the creation of the world does fairly admit of an interpretation which leaves an undefined interval between the creation of matter and the six days’ work. Let it be recollected that I do not maintain that this is the most natural interpretation, but only that the passage will fairly admit it by the strict rules of exegesis. The question still remains to be considered, whether there is sufficient reason to adopt it as the true interpretation. To show that there is, I now make my appeal to geology. This is a case, it seems to me, in which we may call in the aid of science to ascertain the true meaning of Scripture. The question is, Does geology teach, distinctly and uncontrovertibly, that the world must have existed during a long period prior to the existence of the races of organized beings that now occupy its surface?

To give a popular view of the evidence sustaining the affirmative of this question is no easy task. It needs a full and accurate acquaintance with the multiplied facts of geology, and, what is still more rare, a familiarity with geological reasoning, in order to feel the full force of the arguments that prove the high antiquity of the globe. Yet I know that I have a right to presume upon a high degree of scientific knowledge, and an accurate acquaintance with geology, among those whom I address.

In the first place, I must recur to a principle already briefly stated in a former lecture, viz., that a careful examination of the rocks presents irresistible evidence, that, in their present condition, they are all the result of second causes; in other words, they are not now in the condition in which they were originally created. Some of them have been melted and reconsolidated, and crowded in between others, or spread over them. Others have been worn down into mud, sand, and gravel, by water and other agents, and again cemented together, after having enveloped multitudes of animals and plants, which are now imbedded as organic remains. In short, all known rocks appear to have been brought into their present state by chemical or mechanical agencies. It is indeed easy to say that these appearances are deceptive, and that these rocks may, with perfect ease, have been created just as we now find them. But it is not easy to retain this opinion, after having carefully examined them. For the evidence that they are of secondary origin is nearly as strong, and of the same kind too, as it is that the remains of edifices lately discovered in Central America are the work of man, and were not created in their present condition.

In the second place, processes are going on by which rocks are formed on a small scale, of the same character as those which constitute the great mass of the earth. Hence it is fair to infer, that all the rocks were formed in a similar manner. Beds of gravel, for instance, are sometimes cemented together by heat, or iron, or lime, so as to resemble exactly the conglomerates found in mountain masses among the ancient rocks. Clay is sometimes converted into slate by heat, as is soft marl into limestone, by the same cause. In fact, we find causes now in operation that produce all the varieties of known rocks, except some of the oldest, which seem to need only a greater intensity in some of the causes now at work to produce them. By ascertaining the rate at which rocks are now forming, therefore, we can form some opinion as to the time requisite to produce those constituting the crust of the globe. If, for instance, we can determine how fast ponds, lakes, and oceans are filling up with mud, sand, and gravel, conveyed to their bottoms, we can judge of the period necessary to produce those rocks which appear to have been formed in a similar manner; and if there is any evidence that the process was more rapid in early times, we can make due allowance.

In the third place, all the stratified rocks appear to have been formed out of the fragments of other rocks, worn down by the action of water and atmospheric agencies. This is particularly true of that large proportion of these rocks which contain the remains of animals and plants. The mud, sand, and gravel of which these are mostly composed, must have been worn from rocks previously existing, and have been transported into lakes, and the ocean, as the same process is now going on. There the animals and plants, which died in the waters, and were transported thither by rivers, must have been buried; next, the rocks must have been hardened into stone, by admixture with lime, or iron, or by internal heat; and, finally, have been raised above the waters, so as to become dry land. Beds of limestone are interstratified with those of shale, sandstone, and conglomerate; but these form only a small proportion of the whole, and, besides, were mostly formed in an analogous manner, though by agencies more decidedly chemical.

Now, for the most part, this process of forming rocks by the accumulation of mud, sand, and gravel is very slow. In general, such accumulations, at the bottom of lakes and the ocean, do not increase more than a few inches in a century. During violent floods, indeed, and in a few limited spots, the accumulation is much more rapid; as in the Lake of Geneva, through which the Rhone, loaded with detritus from the Alps, passes, where a delta has been formed two miles long and nine hundred feet thick, within eight hundred years.[7] And occasionally such rapid depositions probably took place while the older rocks were in the course of formation. But in general, the work seems to have gone on as slowly as it usually does at present.

Yet, in the fourth place, there must have been time enough since the creation to deposit at least ten miles of rocks in perpendicular thickness, in the manner that has been described. For the stratified rocks are at least of that thickness in Europe, and in this country much thicker; or, if we regard only the fossiliferous strata as thus deposited, (since some geologists might hesitate to admit that the non-fossiliferous rocks were thus produced,) these are six and a half miles thick in Europe, and still thicker in this country. How immense a period was requisite for such a work! Some do, indeed, contend that the work, in all cases, as we have allowed it in a few, may have been vastly more rapid than at the present day. But the manner in which the materials are arranged, and especially the preservation of the most delicate parts of the organic remains, often in the very position in which the animals died, show the quiet and slow manner in which the process went on.

In the fifth place, it is certain that, since man existed on the globe, materials for the production of rocks have not accumulated to the average thickness of more than one hundred or two hundred feet; although in particular places, as already mentioned, the accumulations are thicker. The evidence of this position is, that neither the works nor the remains of man have been found any deeper in the earth than in the upper part of that superficial deposit called alluvium. But had man existed while the other deposits were going on, no possible reason can be given why his bones and the fruits of his labors should not be found mixed with those of other animals, so abundant in the rocks, to the depth of six or seven miles. In the last six thousand years, then, only one five hundredth part of the stratified rocks has been accumulated. I mention this fact, not as by any means an exact, but only an approximate, measure of the time in which the older rocks were deposited; for the precise age of the world is probably a problem which science never can solve. All the means of comparison within our reach enable us to say, only, that its duration must have been immense.

In the sixth place, during the deposition of the stratified rocks, a great number of changes must have occurred in the matter of which they are composed. Hundreds of such changes can be easily counted, and they often imply great changes in the waters holding the materials in solution or suspension; such changes, indeed, as must have required different oceans over the same spot. Such events could not have taken place without extensive elevations and subsidences of the earth’s crust; nor could such vertical movements have happened without much intervening time, as many facts, too technical to be here detailed, show. Here, then, we have another evidence of vast periods of time occupied in the secondary production and arrangements of the earth’s crust.

In the seventh place, numerous races of animals and plants must have occupied the globe previous to those which now inhabit it, and have successively passed away, as catastrophes occurred, or the climate became unfit for their residence. Not less than thirty thousand species have already been dug out of the rocks; and excepting a few hundred species, mostly of sea shells, occurring in the uppermost rocks, none of them correspond to those now living on the globe. In Europe, they are found to the depth of about six and a half miles; and in this country, deeper; and no living species is found more than one twelfth of this depth. All the rest are specifically and often generically unlike living species; and the conclusion seems irresistible, that they must have lived and died before the creation of the present species. Indeed, so different was the climate in those early times,—it having been much warmer than at present in most parts of the world,—that but few of the present races could have lived then. Still further: it appears that, during the whole period since organized beings first appeared on the globe, not less than four, or five, and probably more—some think as many as ten or twelve—entire races have passed away, and been succeeded by recent ones; so that the globe has actually changed all its inhabitants half a dozen times. Yet each of the successive groups occupied it long enough to leave immense quantities of their remains, which sometimes constitute almost entire mountains. And in general, these groups became extinct in consequence of a change of climate; which, if imputed to any known cause, must have been an extremely slow process.

Now, these results are no longer to be regarded as the dreams of fancy, but the legitimate deductions from long and careful observation of facts. And can any reasonable man conceive how such changes can have taken place since the six days of creation, or within the last six thousand years? In order to reconcile them with such a supposition, we must admit of hypotheses and absurdities more wild and extravagant than have ever been charged upon geology. But admit of a long period between the first creative act and the six days, and all difficulties vanish.

In the eighth place, the denudations and erosions that have taken place on the earth’s surface indicate a far higher antiquity to the globe, even since it assumed essentially its present condition, than the common interpretation of Genesis admits. The geologist can prove that in many cases the rocks have been worn away, by the slow action of the ocean, more than two miles in depth in some regions, and those very wide; as in South Wales, in England. As the continents rose from the ocean, the slow drainage by the rivers has excavated numerous long and deep gorges, requiring periods incalculably extended.

I do not wonder that, when the sceptic stands upon the banks of Niagara River, and sees how obviously the splendid cataract has worn out the deep gorge extending to Lake Ontario, he should feel that there is a standing proof that the common opinion, as to the age of the world, cannot be true; and hence be led to discard the Bible, if he supposes that to be a true interpretation.

But the Niagara gorge is only one among a multitude of examples of erosion that might be quoted; and some of them far more striking to a geologist. On Oak Orchard Creek, and the Genesee River, between Rochester and Lake Ontario, are similar erosions, seven miles long. On the latter river, south of Rochester, we find a cut from Mount Morris to Portage, sometimes four hundred feet deep. On many of our south-western rivers we have what are called canons, or gorges, often two hundred and fifty feet deep, and several miles long. Near the source of Missouri River are what are called the Gates of the Rocky Mountains, where there is a gorge six miles long and twelve hundred feet deep. Similar cuts occur on the Columbia River, hundreds of feet deep, through the hard trap rock, for hundreds of miles, between the American Falls and the Dalles. At St. Anthony’s Falls, on the Mississippi, that river has worn a passage in limestone seven miles long, which distance the cataract has receded. On the Potomac, ten miles west of Washington, the Great Falls have worn back a passage sixty to sixty-five feet deep, four miles, continuously—a greater work, considering the nature of the rock, than has been done by the Niagara. The passage for the Hudson, through the highlands, is probably an example of river erosion; as is also that of the Connecticut at Brattleboro’ and Bellows Falls. In these places, it can be proved that the river was once at least seven hundred feet above its present bed. On the Deerfield River, a tributary of the Connecticut, we have a gulf called the Ghor, eight miles long and several hundred feet deep, cut crosswise through the mica slate and gneiss by the stream.

On the eastern continent I might quote a multitude of analogous cases. There is, for instance, the Wady el Jeib, in soft limestone, within the Wady Arabah, south of the Dead Sea. The defile is one hundred and fifty feet deep, half a mile wide, and forty miles long. In Mount Lebanon, several remarkable chasms in limestone have been described by American missionaries, as that on Dog River, (Lycus of the ancients,) six miles long, seventy or eighty feet deep, and from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty feet wide; also, Wady Barida, whose walls are six hundred to eight hundred feet high. On the River Ravendoor, in Kurdistan, is a gorge, described in a letter from Dr. Perkins, one thousand feet deep. Another on the Euphrates, near Diadeen, is seventy feet deep, and is spanned by a natural bridge one hundred feet long. On the River Terek, in the Dariel Caucasus, is a pass one hundred and twenty miles long, whose walls rise from one thousand to three thousand feet high. In Africa, the River Zaire has cut a passage, forty miles long, through mica slate, quartz, and syenite; and in New South Wales, Cox River passes through a gorge twenty-two hundred yards wide and eight hundred feet high.

Ninthly. Since the geological period now passing commenced, called the alluvial, or pleistocene period, certain changes have been going on, which indicate a very great antiquity to the drift period, which was the commencement of the alluvial period, and has been considered among the most recent of geological events. I refer to the formation of deltas and of terraces.

Of the deltas I will mention but a single example, to which, however, many others correspond. The Mississippi carries down to its mouth 28,188,803,892 cubic feet of sediment yearly, which it deposits; or one cubic mile in five years and eighty-one days. Now, as the whole delta contains twenty-seven hundred and twenty cubic miles, it must have required fourteen thousand two hundred and four years to form it in this manner.

Terraces occur along some of the rivers of our country from four hundred to five hundred feet above their present beds, and around our lakes to the height of nearly one thousand feet. They are composed of gravel, sand, clay, and loam, that have been comminuted, and sorted, and deposited, by water chiefly. At a height two or three times greater, on the same rivers and lakes, we find what seem to be ancient sea beaches, of the same materials, deposited earlier, and less comminuted. The same facts also occur in Europe, and probably in Asia.

Now, it seems quite certain, that these beaches and terraces were formed as the continents were being drained of the waters of the ocean, and the rivers were cutting down their beds; which last process has been going on in many places to the present day. Yet scarcely nowhere, since the memory of man, have even the lowest of these terraces and beaches been formed, save on a very limited scale, and of a few feet in height. The lowest of them have been the sites of towns and cities, ever since the settlement of our country, and on the eastern continent much longer. Yet we see the processes by which they have been formed now in operation; but they have scarcely made any progress during the period of human history. How vast the period, then, since the work was first commenced! Yet even its commencement seems to have been no farther back than the drift epoch, since that deposit lies beneath the terraces. But the drift period was comparatively a very recent one on the geological scale. How do such facts impress us with the vast duration of the globe since the first series of changes commenced!

Finally. There is no little reason to believe that, previous to the formation of the stratified rocks, the earth passed through changes that required vast periods of time, by which it was gradually brought into a habitable state. It is even believed that one of its earliest conditions was that of vapor; that, gradually condensing, it became a melted globe of fire, and then, as it gradually cooled, a crust formed over its surface; and so at last it became habitable. All this is indeed hypothesis; and, therefore, I do not place it in the same rank as the other proofs of the earth’s antiquity, already adduced. Still this hypothesis has so much evidence in its favor, that not a few of the ablest and most cautious philosophers of the present day have adopted it. And if it be indeed true, it throws back the creation of the universe to a period remote beyond calculation or conception.

Now, let this imperfect summary of evidence in favor of the earth’s high antiquity be candidly weighed, and can any one think it strange that every man, who has carefully and extensively examined the rocks in their native beds, is entirely convinced of its validity? Men of all professions, and of diverse opinions concerning the Bible, have been geologists; but on this point they are unanimous, however they may differ as to other points in the science. Must we not, then, regard this fact as one of the settled principles of science? If so, who will hesitate to say that it ought to settle the interpretation of the first verse of Genesis, in favor of that meaning which allows an intervening period between the creation of matter and the creation of light? This is the grand point which I have aimed to establish; and, in conclusion, I beg leave to make a few remarks by way of inference.

First. This interpretation of Genesis is entirely sufficient to remove all apparent collision between geology and revelation. It gives the geologist full scope for his largest speculations concerning the age of the world. It permits him to maintain that its first condition was as unlike to the present as possible, and allows him time enough for all the changes of mineral constitution and organic life which its strata reveal. It supposes that all these are passed over in silence by the sacred writers, because irrelevant to the object of revelation, but full of interest and instruction to the men of science, who should afterwards take pleasure in exploring the works of God.

It supposes the six days’ work of creation to have been confined entirely to the fitting up the world in its present condition, and furnishing it with its present inhabitants. Thus, while it gives the widest scope to the geologist, it does not encroach upon the literalities of the Bible; and hence it is not strange that it should be almost universally adopted by geologists as well as by many eminent divines.

I would not forget to notice in this connection, however, a recent proposed extension of this interpretation by Dr. John Pye Smith, founded on the principle already illustrated, that the sacred writers adapted their language to the state of knowledge among the Jews. By the term earth, in Genesis, he supposes, was designed not the whole terraqueous globe, but “the part of our world which God was adapting for the dwelling-place of man and animals connected with him.” And the narrative of the six days’ work is a description adapted to the ideas and capacities of mankind in the earliest ages, of a series of operations, by which the Being of omnipotent wisdom and goodness adjusted and furnished, not the earth generally, but, as the particular subject under consideration here, a PORTION of its surface for most glorious purposes. This portion of the earth he conceives to have been a large part of Asia, lying between the Caucasian ridge, the Caspian Sea and Tartary on the north, the Persian and Indian Seas on the south, and the high mountain ridges which run at considerable distance on their eastern and western flanks. This region was first, by atmospheric and geological causes of previous operation, under the will of the Almighty, brought into a condition of superficial ruin, or some kind of general disorder, probably by volcanic agency; it was submerged, covered with fogs and clouds, and subsequently elevated, and the atmosphere, by the fourth day, rendered pellucid.—Script. and Geol. p. 275, 2d edit.

Without professing to adopt fully this view of my learned and venerable friend, I cannot but remark, that it explains one or two difficulties on this subject, which I shall more fully explain farther on. One is, the difficulty of conceiving how the inferior animals could have been distributed to their present places of residence from a single centre of creation without a miracle. Certain it is, that, as the climate and position of land and water now are, they could not thus migrate without certain destruction to many of them. But by this theory they might have been created within the districts which they now occupy.

Another difficulty solved by this theory is, that several hundred species of animals, that were created long before man, as their remains found in the tertiary strata show, still survive, and there is no evidence that they ever became extinct; nor need they have been destroyed and recreated, if Dr. Smith’s theory be true. Nevertheless, it does not appear to me essential to a satisfactory reconciliation of geology and revelation, that we should adopt it. But coming from such high authority, and sustained as it is by powerful arguments, it commends itself to our candid examination.

Secondly. I remark, that it is not necessary that we should be perfectly sure that the method which has been described, or any other, of bringing geology into harmony with the Bible, is infallibly true. It is only necessary that it should be sustained by probable evidence; that it should fairly meet the geological difficulty on the one hand, and do no violence to the language or spirit of the Bible on the other. This is sufficient, surely, to satisfy every philosophical mind, that there is no collision between geology and revelation. But should it appear hereafter, either from the discoveries of the geologist or the philologist, that our views must be somewhat modified, it would not show that the previous views had been insufficient to harmonize the two subjects; but only that here, as in every other department of human knowledge, perfection is not attained, except by long-continued efforts.

I make these remarks, because it is well known that other modes, besides that which I have defended, have been proposed to accomplish the same object; and it is probable that, even to this day, one or two of these modes may be defended, although the general opinion of geologists is in favor of that which I have exhibited.

Some, for instance, have supposed that the fossiliferous strata may all have been deposited in the sixteen hundred years between the creation and the deluge, and by that catastrophe have been lifted out of the ocean. Others have imagined them all produced by that event. But the most plausible theory regards the six days of creation as periods of great, though indefinite length, during which all the changes exhibited by the strata of rocks took place. The arguments in defence of this view are the following: 1. The word day is often used in Scripture to express a period of indefinite length. (Luke xvii. 24. John viii. 56. Job xiv. 6.) 2. The sun, moon, and stars were not created till the fourth day; so that the revolution of the earth on its axis, in twenty-four hours, may not have existed previously, and the light and darkness that alternated may have had reference to some other standard. 3. The Sabbath, or seventh day, in which God rested from his work, has not yet terminated; and there is reason to suppose the demiurgic days may have been at least of equal length. 4. This interpretation corresponds remarkably with the traditional cosmogonies of some heathen nations, as the ancient Etruscans and modern Hindoos; and it was also adopted by Philo and other Jewish writers. 5. The order of creation, as described in Genesis, corresponds to that developed by geology. This order, according to Cuvier and Professor Jameson, is as follows: 1. The earth was covered with the sea without inhabitants. 2. Plants were created on the third day, and are found abundantly in the coal measures. 3. On the fifth day, the inhabitants of the waters, then flying things, then great reptiles, and then mammiferous animals, were created. 4. On the sixth day, man was created.