1856.] Science and the Bible. 99
"parturitive powers " (p. 206), plants and animals, and even man, as far as his physical nature goes.
3. Admitting that matter is not eternal, but neglecting the obvious meaning of the phrase " In the beginning."
4. Admitting that the higher forms of vegetation were not created before the sun.
5. Regarding the creation of the sun and moon as " phenomenal."
6. Taking the days of Genesis to be indefinite periods.
7.
Admitting the expression " evening and morning " to be metaphorical,
and implying progress from the beginning to the full completion of a
work, which, on the first day, was literally from darkness to light.
With regard to the last four points, geology can make little exception to Prof. Lewis's conclusions.
On
the first three, the author and the " Vestiges of Creation " are
pretty well agreed, except that Professor Lewis is less consistent in
his use of Nature ; and besides, he admits the occasional need of the
supernatural to wake Nature from her slumbers, arrest decay, and give
new momentum to her activity.
But
is this Scriptural cosmology ? We fail to find it in Genesis or
elsewhere in the Bible. Successive days of evening and morning are
announced ; but does this imply that God or Nature needed rest ? We
have been led, from God's word as well as works, to conceive of Nature
not only as God's initial work, but his constant work, ever sustained,
and never left to go alone ; and therefore no more requiring rest than
God himself; no more capable of self-acting obedience than as God's own
acts are obedient to himself. The world, in This sense, is full of God,
though still not God; for these are only physical manifestations, which
he ever continues, through the system he has established; while above
all is a Moral Governor, a personal will supreme, which, by this
system, which we call Nature, is working out physical, moral, and
spiritual ends.
lhe successive phases or conditions in Nature may have, on such a ground, the character throughout of an evolution,
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