09. GENESIS—CHAPTER II

1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, they existed in the human mind only* potentially. It is as distinguished from this at first potential existence, that it is now said the heavens and earth were finished. It was only on the second day that, by means of light, the one came to be eliminated from the other, and each was perceived to have a distinct existence. "I assert,"† says an eminent writer, "that the primary law of our being is not confusion, but distinction; that difference must precede resemblance, harmony be formed out of discord, plurality exist before unity;"—before that time the heavens and earth were in the chaotic state, confounded and commingled with each other. In the chaotic state, the perceptions of the mind, whether sensuous, rational, or moral, are obscure, confused, and indis-

* Glaze's Philologia Sacra, p. 2138.

† Christian Morals, by the Rev. W. Sewell, M.A., Fellow and Tutor Exeter College, and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University Oxford; p. 104, 106.

B tinct. With regard to the senses, it is only by practice that the infant learns to perceive more and more distinctly the differences between objects. At first even the difference between the material heavens and earth is unperceived; the perception of forms and colors is but faint and obscure, and the idea of distance, hence of height and of depth, has yet to be created. The infant mind, therefore, is at first in a state of chaos even as to the senses. Hence Professor Butler* speaks of that "primitive chaos of the mind" in which, uninformed of distance or figure, the eye conveys to the conscious being only a vague impression of color.

The want of perception therefore of the difference and distinction between objects, is the Chaos of the sensuous mind. After these objects, however, are perceived to be different and distinct, they must be ordinated or classified. If not, they exist, in relation to the mind, only in a state of disorder; and this disorderly state is the Chaos of reason, for it is reason only which classifies. Now this classification is the office of the Sciences.

"Reason," it is well said,† "is the knowledge of differences—the perception of relation between objects which, however similar, are not the same. It is a work of classification, in which an infinite variety of separate facts are not confounded together, but held distinctly, and yet conjointly, under one head, by an act of the mind. Let them cease to be separate facts, and the whole work of reason is superseded. And so with moral feelings and affections, as well as moral actions."

* Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, vol. i., p. 122.

† Sewell's Christian Morals, p. 106.

Botany, geometry, mathematics, astronomy, zoology, and so forth, relate to the material universe. In* each of these departments, Nature has thrown before the eye of man a vast seeming Chaos of separate facts. All the variety of the animal world before the zoologist—the infinite multitude of plants before the botanist—the confused stratification of rocks, with their innumerable fossils, before the geologist—the complicated motions of the planets, and seeming Chaos of the starry heavens, before the astronomer. Now, what is the work of the intellect when placed before this multitudinous assemblage of facts? It is to do that which the Spirit of God did for the Chaos recorded in Genesis, and which the same Spirit in the Word of God, the Logos, does for the wild, turbulent, distracted Chaos of human ideas—reduce them into order.

"A Geologist† travels over England. He sees chalk and gravel, clay and granite, limestone and coal formations, huddled as it were together. He examines them, discovers that they occur in groups, in one regular uniform order; in other words, traces out the form or figure of their arrangements; and Geology becomes a science. So to the ignorant boy language is a chaos of words. The scholar discerns the forms of it, the laws by which it is inflected, the rules to be observed in the arrangement of letters and syllables, words and sentences; and grammar becomes a science. It is, to use the language of Plato, the whole business of man's intellect to discover the forms or ibid, or, as we usually say, the general laws of things."

Thus far we have described the origin of the Mun-

* Ibid., p. 310.

† Ibid., p. 311.

B 2 dus Sensibilis, and partly the Mundus Intelligibilis, as existing in the mind of man. But as both the senses and the natural sciences relate to outward Nature, so they relate to material, mundane, or earthly things; and therefore constitute, as we shall see, the "earth" of the human mind, i. e., the ground or basis out of which a still higher knowledge is to spring.

But if we have spoken of a sensuous Chaos, and an intellectual Chaos, what shall we say of a moral Chaos? Are there not those who, by reason of confounding immutable distinctions, call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter? This is the Chaos of the moral senses: it may be the chaos of ignorance, hence of the mind in its infantine or uneducated state.

... "If* we find the perfection of productive art all around us consists in the reduction into unity of various antagonistic, discordant elements—in politics bringing differing wills under one law, in morals uniting independent affections in one bond of love, in art constructing one plan out of different materials; if the human mind seems placed by nature before a multitude of objects thrown together as in a Chaos, and is commanded by nature, is even forced by it for self-preservation to arrange, systematize, regulate, conciliate, adjust, proportion them, that is, to reduce them into unity, and with their reduction into unity its work is completed, its perfection attained, its craving satisfied, its peace and satisfaction ensured,—may it not be that the whole of this progressive scheme of Creation, in the midst of which we find ourselves

* Christian Vestiges of Creation, by W. Sewell, D.D., late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Oxford; p. 47.

working, may be a process of the same kind; a slow, gradual, successive reduction into unity of opposing and contradictory elements; an evolution of peace out of war, of order out of Chaos, of goodness out of a conflict of evil, of one perfect harmony out of collision and discord? May not the existence of discord, of collisions, of contradictions, of disorder, of evil, of plurality, in one word (and the profoundest philosophy has always identified plurality with evil and unity with good), may not the existence of this plurality be an essential condition for the final triumph of good, that is, of the good, the beautiful, the true, the great? Can we be surprised to hear of a Creation groaning and travailing together, as a woman in travail, looking with an earnest expectation for the development of a new heaven and a new earth, of a kingdom of peace and righteousness, in which all things shall be brought together in one, with one Spirit pervading one vast body composed of many members, and that body one with God, and God with it, one yet not the same?"

What this new heaven and new earth are, as eliminated out of an antecedent Chaos, we shall soon explain. In the meantime we observe, that there is a still more disorderly Chaos, arising out of an evil or perverted state of society. Thus Gregory the Great:*—

"The enemy palliates himself with such arts, that he feigns our faults to be virtues, so that a man expects eternal rewards where he is worthy only of eternal punishment. Thus cruelty, in being avenged upon vice, is thought justice; the immoderate anger of just zeal, merit; extravagance is bountifulness; parsimony is frugality; obstinacy is constancy. And, as Maximus hath it, swearing is counted a grace to one's speech; the angry are called courageous; darkness light, and

* See Mayer on Isaiah, chap. v. 20.

sour sweet; i. e., the darkness of error is the light of wisdom; and sour heresies are sweet truths," etc.

So also flattery is regarded as sincere friendship; the rebuke of vice as personal hostility; poverty of spirit as incapacity and cowardice; meekness as meanness; not to speak of endless other confusions.

A proper distinction between good and evil, between light and darkness, is therefore essential to the formation of a heaven within the mind; and thus heaven and earth, as comprehending the heavenly and the earthly, the spiritual and the natural, comprehend the whole mind of man; and the quality of his spiritual and natural principles constitutes the quality of his heaven and earth.—"Man is a little world," says a Commentary,* "consisting of heaven and earth, soul and body: now here (Gen. ii. 7) we have an account of the original of both, and the putting of both together." So another Commentary†—"Man was to be a creature different from all that had been hitherto made. Flesh and spirit, heaven and earth must be put together in him, and he must be allied to both worlds."—It is in the same sense, as we shall see, that the expression heaven and earth is used by the prophets all through the Bible. Many heathen philosophers contemplated the mind according to this distinction; and therefore what the Scriptures called the kingdom of heaven in man, these philosophers called the Mundus Intelligibilis, and what the Scriptures called the earth, they called the Mundus Sensibilis.

* Commentary of Matthew Henry, Gen. i. 27; 2, 7.

† Commentary of the Tract Society, in loc.

Now the natural, moral, and spiritual qualities of the mind are not the same in one age as in those of another; hence the heaven and earth of one age are not the same with those of another. There have been consequently various heavens and earths proper to various Dispensations. There was one heaven and earth of the Adamic Dispensation; another of the Noachic; another of the Mosaic; another of the Christian; and another is expected which is to be final. Thus as one heaven and earth passes away, it is succeeded by another. This is especially evident in Isaiah and the Apocalypse: "Behold I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." That the meaning of this passage is such as we have assigned to it, there is no doubt in the Church. Thus one Commentator* observes:—"This creation of new heavens and earth began at the time when the Gospel of Christ began its progress; and is to be completed at that other time when it shall please God the Creator to render it perfect, in the consummation of all things." Another† observes—"In the grace and comfort believers have in and from Christ, we are to look for this new heaven and new earth. The Divine Power is inexhaustible; the same God that created one heaven and earth, can create another. The circumstances of the Church, and the character of men, shall be so altered, that it will appear entirely as a new world. Former confusions, iniquities, and miseries of the human race, shall

* Family Bible, Isaiah lxv. 17.

† Tract Society on Isaiah lxv. 17.

be no more remembered or renewed."—Another Commentator* observes:—"At the birth of the Saviour and the preaching of the Apostles, were beheld a new heaven and a new earth, in the happy change which came upon the whole universe. The Gentiles, who for so long a time had been in the profound darkness of corruption, ignorance, and death, began to open their eyes to the light of the Gospel. The earth, plunged into disorder, idolatry, delivered over to the power of hell and the empire of sin, not only barren of good works, but miserably fertile in all sorts of crimes: this earth, at the preaching of the Gospel, changed its face, and became bright, emancipated, purified, and fruitful."

There are yet other passages in the prophet Isaiah: Thou "forgettest Jehovah thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and layeth the foundations of the earth." . . . "I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee with the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundation of the earth." . . . That heaven and earth are here predicated of man is generally admitted: signifying, as A Lapide† observes,—"That thou mayest create and establish a new spiritual world, viz., the Church and kingdom of God, in which the faithful may lead a celestial life, and be firmly consolidated, and established as the earth, in faith, hope and charity. So Jerome, Haymo, Forerius, Dionysius, and others." Moreover Mayer‡ upon this passage, following Augustine, observes—"The Evangelical Church is often

* Calmet on Isaiah, lxv. 17.

† Isaiah li. 16.

‡ Mayer on Isaiah li. 15.

called the kingdom of heaven; and in respect of this that we have souls from heaven and bodies from the earth, we may be called both heaven and earth. Therefore purge out the earth, that is, earthly affections, from thy heart, and thou shalt be heaven; thou bearest flesh indeed and so art earth, but in thy heart thou art heaven." Again: "God dwells in heaven, and He dwells in all the righteous and holy. Therefore the Apostles, though they were in the earth, were heaven: and God sitting in them walked all over the world."

The creation of new heavens and earths, therefore, indicates a new state of the human mind, hence a new state of religion, and consequently of the Church. Thus, when man is created anew, the heavens and earth are created anew; and when the heavens and the earth are created anew, so is man. Hence Isaiah and Paul were both referring to the same things when the one said,*—"Behold I create new heavens and a new earth;" and the other,† "Put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."‡—"Ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." That the Apostle is here referring to the first and second chapters of Genesis is generally admitted; the creation of man, and the creation of heaven and earth being identical with each other. Hence the Apostle alludes to the prophecy of Haggai§ concerning heaven and earth,

* Isaiah lxv. 17. † Ephesians iv. 24. ‡ Col. iii. 9, 10.

§ Haggai ii. 6; Heb. xii. 26.

B 3 as signifying a change in the civil and ecclesiastical state of the Jews, and again another change which awaits the present Christian Church. "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven;" denoting, as Bishop Horsley* on Isaiah observes, "those great changes for the better in ecclesiastical and civil politics, in religion and morals, which are to take place in the very last period of the Church upon earth." This last period is thus referred to in the Apocalypse:†—"I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;" and, accordingly, both in Genesis and the Apocalypse, the creation of the heaven and the earth is followed by a description of Paradise.

Now if the heaven and earth be thus of a spiritual nature and have relation to the human mind, so must the Garden of Eden; and if the Garden, then all its plants, rivers, trees, and animals. And if, as modern Science has shewn, the whole visible creation has reference to MAN, so likewise, as we have already shewn, has the invisible creation. Consequently, if even in a natural sense gardens, plants, rivers, trees and animals have a relation to MAN, so also have they in a spiritual sense; the one having a correspondence with the body, the other with the mind.

The earth, or the external form of the religion of the Jews, consisted generally in the observance of outward rites and ceremonies, and, when these were changed, their external or civil state was changed. In the present day the external of the human mind is not formed in this manner. The Jews knew no-

* Biblical Criticism, vol. i., p. 145. † Chap. xxi. 1.