I. The operations of God in the seven epochs of creation are a figure of His spiritual operations in the human race. The chaos of the first day and its darkness represent the state of mankind before the giving of the Jewish dispensation. There was no religious organization, and depravity was universal. The first dim light of that day is the law of nature, called by David the light of God’s countenance (Ps. iv. 7). The creation of the firmament and separation of the waters is the segregation of the people of Israel from the Gentiles; for waters signify people (Apoc. xvii. 15). The rising of the dry land and its covering with vegetation are the rise of the Jewish nation into prominence, and its adornment with the holy lives of its heroes. The sun is Our Lord Jesus Christ; the moon and planets which reflect Him are the Blessed Virgin, the Church, and the Saints. The production of life from the waters is a figure of the new birth from the waters of Baptism. The different creatures of the fifth and sixth days are the souls which soar aloft to heaven like the birds, those which remain of the earth earthly, those which grovel in the slime like the reptiles, and the wild beasts are Antichrist and other persecutors. All of these are subdued by the Man made in the image of God, Jesus Christ His Son. The Sabbath is our final rest in heaven. Praise God for all the wonderful works of this mystical creation.
II. The days of creation also represent the operations of God in the Blessed Virgin, by which He prepared her for the advent of the first-born of mankind, her divine Son. The heaven and earth covered with darkness are Saints Joachim and Anne enduring the shame of sterility before the birth of their blessed daughter. Her birth is the foregleam and promise of the perfect light of the Redemption. The firmament raised above the earth is the high grace accorded to her, which raised her above all creatures in sanctity. The waters of the earth gathered into one place and forming the seas (Maria) represent the accumulation in her of all the graces of the saints; and the foliage and flowers are her abundant virtues. The sun and moon are emblems of her burning love of God, and of the faith which shone bright during all the darkness of the Passion; the stars are the celestial emotions of her heart. The beauty of the animals and birds that peopled the earth represents the harmony and sweetness of her life and words. The creation of Adam is the figure of Our Lord’s Incarnation, and the Sabbath is His repose and joy in the only creature worthy to receive Him. “He that made me rested in my tabernacle” (Eccli. xxiv. 12). Glorify God for this wonderful series of His great works.
III. The works of the seven days further prefigure the sanctification of individual souls. Our first state is an abyss of darkness and disorder, but the Spirit of the Lord hovers over us, and sheds upon us the first rays of light and grace. The firmament of the second day is the firm assurance of pardon, rising from the chaos of sin. The gathering apart of land and water is the removal of our sins from us by repentance; the plants are the fruits of virtue which we bring forth. The sun, moon and stars are the light of the knowledge of holy truths, which only come home to us after we have abandoned our sins. The birds are our souls rising swiftly from the waters of devotion towards God; the beasts and serpents are our evil passions subdued to the yoke of reason and grace. We then become perfect men, formed in the image of Christ; and the repose of the Sabbath is that tranquillity and peace with which God rewards those who welcome and promote His spiritual operations in their souls. God is now carrying on this spiritual creation within you. His graces are progressive and each one leads on to others. Take care to accept each degree of light and grace, and act upon it, and thus you will come at last to perfect peace.
I. “On the seventh day God ended the work which He had made” (Gen. ii. 2). He ended it in the sense that He had now completely equipped the earth for the purpose that it was intended for; and thenceforth it was to work out its destiny under the guidance of man. In another sense that work is not ended; i.e. it has not yet fulfilled the aim and object of its being; and it will not have done so till the end of time, when all the results are summed up and the elect are gathered into eternal happiness. Then the Almighty will pass the final verdict on His work and declare that it is good. The end of the material development of this earth has come; there will be no further days of creation, no superior race of beings to succeed man. Evolution indeed goes on, but it is of a kind now that depends on man’s will aided by grace, and not on God alone. It should be an evolution of truth and justice, of the knowledge of God and the perfecting of His likeness in the soul. As this depends on the good-will of man, the result is various: in one line there goes on a development towards eternal life, but there is also an alternative line of deterioration. Each man chooses for himself which he will. It depends on you now to carry on the work of God in your own soul and in others. Go on constantly till you have finished your portion of the task. Imitate the regularity and thoroughness of God, so that He may be able to declare that you and your work are very good.
II. “God rested on the seventh day from all the work which He had done” (Gen. ii. 2). This does not mean that there was any change in God from activity to non-activity, nor that He retired from His creation and left it thenceforward to itself. God is immutable, and there is not in Him, as in us, a change from striving after something deficient, to the fruition that follows attainment. God is always in a state of peace, repose, attainment: at the same time He is always perfect activity; according to the word of Our Lord, “My Father worketh until now, and I work” (John v. 17). The beginning and the ceasing, the change from work to repose, were in the temporal operation of God upon His creatures, and not in Himself. The repose, as spoken of God, was symbolical. Learn to unite in yourself activity and repose. Work unceasingly for God, but work peacefully without excitement or anxiety. Employ all your energies, but do not trouble yourself about success or failure. Leave the results to Him “who giveth the increase.” Be content to have done your allotted task; and then, whatever happens, you have done God’s will, and your work cannot be called a failure.
III. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” (Gen. ii. 3). The divine action is the rule of ours. We require alternations of activity and rest. The history of creation has been so arranged in Holy Scripture as to point out the due proportions of the two states, and to give a new sanction to the custom and to the division of time already existing. Our physical need of rest coincides with our spiritual need for a season which we may devote to worship and religious meditation. These needs are consecrated and secured to mankind by the symbolical rest of the Creator on the seventh day. Thus God, having supreme repose in Himself, becomes the source of repose for men. Labour is necessary that we may enjoy repose. Repose is necessary that we may be able to labour. God must be the rule of both. Without God, the turmoil of life is so absorbing that it exhausts our energies and destroys us before our time. Without God, repose becomes depravity, and recreation a fierce excitement. The world requires more restfulness, of mind, of heart, and of body. A dominant sense of religion is the only agent that can impart the repose so necessary for wholesome living. God will give you this at present, and a Sabbath of eternal rest in Him hereafter.
I. After the age of the reptiles, there was a long interval not marked by features sufficient to make of it an additional day of creation. The cretaceous beds average one thousand feet in thickness; they consist of the shells and skeletons of myriads of generations of minute animalculæ deposited on the bed of the ocean. After being formed and consolidated during long ages, they slowly rose, till now they form great plains, or hills and cliffs. Then followed the Tertiary epoch, when new species of animals began to appear, the forerunners of existing races, marsupials and mammals. Some of these have flourished, extended widely and become extinct. Such were the Megatherium, eighteen feet in length, the Palæotherium, a compound of rhinoceros, horse and tapir, and the Mammoth. Other species have lasted, more or less modified, into our times. The length of these periods is beyond our computation: we only know that it was enormous. Thus did God carefully, slowly, with enormous power and wisdom, prepare this world during millions of years to be your habitation. You have now to prepare your soul through countless thoughts and actions to be His dwelling.
II. Wonderful is the provision made by God in preparation for man! In every clime there are animals to help us in our work—the horse, the ass, the elephant, the camel, llama, yak. Others provide us with food and clothing—the ox, buffalo, sheep, goat. Some are domesticated to be our companions and guardians. Others are wild and fierce, like the lion, tiger, bear and wolf. Even these have important uses; they keep down the excessive multiplication of the lower animals, or maintain their standard by weeding out the inferior specimens; they exercise the strength and address of man, and furnish him with materials for science and for occupation. Other creatures adorn the earth by their beauty or their song; and others again exhibit to us a marvellous perfection of instinct, and of adaptation to various circumstances, like the beaver and migratory birds. Even down to ants and wasps, every creature, even the most insignificant, has a part to play, and often a most important one, in carrying on the great economy of the world. Though we may at times be unable to see it, everything reflects in some way the perfections of its Maker. Be grateful to God for the extraordinary multiplicity of His benefits. Recognize His hand in all things, and employ them all in His service.
III. The final work of the sixth day was the creation of man. Traces of him are found only in the newest strata, after everything else had been completed. Man is the most perfect, most capable, most beautiful of God’s creatures. He is the image and likeness of the Creator, and His representative towards the lower creation, holding full dominion over the earth, to fill it, and subdue it, and rule over the birds and beasts and fishes. Man touches both terms of being; in his body he is like to the animals, in his intelligence and freedom he resembles the Infinite God. He is the corner-stone which makes both into one; and in him the universe returns to the Lord who made it. The material world is summed up in man and completed in him; thenceforth evolution has passed to a higher plane, it becomes social, moral and spiritual. “So the heavens and the earth were finished and all the furniture of them” (Gen. ii. 1). What a marvellous ladder of progress to perfection from first to last! All the stages are connected, passing into one another by transitional forms, and gradually rising towards man and God. It is your duty to sum up the offices of all creatures by rendering praise and glory for them all to their Creator, and by recognizing the perfections that He manifests in them, His immensity, omnipotence, wisdom, beauty and love.
I. The fifth day of Moses introduces us into new and almost unexplored realms of wonder. Animal life is here mentioned for the first time. This however was not its first commencement. Scripture indicates the infusion of the primitive germs of life on the first day; and in accordance with this, we find fossil evidence of marine life from a very early date. It would appear that the sea was amply peopled as far back as the Devonian era, many hundred thousand years before the fifth day. This is not mentioned by Moses. He speaks only of the more striking and distinct features of creation, such as would have come under the notice of a contemporary observer, such as he felt himself to be during the series of his visions. Notwithstanding the shoals of fish hidden beneath the ocean surface, and a few insects and air-breathing reptiles, this globe was still, to the eye, an unpeopled waste. Now the bright sunshine and limpid atmosphere made the earth rejoice; there was a great outburst of life, and strange new species of creatures suited to the changed conditions sprang into existence. Until a few years ago the passage in Genesis was the only record existing of a most wonderful and quite hidden episode of creation. Geology has now brought to light the skeletons of the animals that Moses saw in vision, and has corroborated every detail of his narrative. Men change, and their ideas, and their science; but the word of the Lord abides for ever. Events always justify those who walk by faith in that word. Have patience, and in due course God will give you light.
II. Our translations do not give the full force of the description of the fifth day. In the Hebrew it runs thus: “God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of the reptile that hath the breath of life, and the fowl, etc. . . . And God created the great sea-monsters and every soul of the creature that creepeth, which the waters swarmed out after their kind, and all flying of wing after its kind” (Gen. i. 20, 21). Here, for the only time in describing so many wonders, Moses seems to express astonishment at the enormous abundance and enormous size of the day’s productions. They must be of some very unusual kinds. It used to be supposed that they were the fish and birds of our present geological epoch. But the words, taken precisely, imply something more than that; and further, it is unlikely that birds and fishes should be placed apart in the scriptural classification from the animals belonging to the same creative epoch. It is more reasonable to suppose that the works of the fifth day are widely separated in character and in their date from those of the sixth day. There are more mysteries in God’s words and works than you can fathom. You see only the surface. Pray God for full intelligence. You cannot attain to it by your natural powers.
III. The modern revelation made by God in science has developed for us the brief revelation in Genesis. After the appearance of the sun, the Permian era began, followed by the Trias and Oolite. This was emphatically a period of great amphibious monsters and creeping things, of gigantic birds and strange flying creatures. The Megalosaurus was a carnivorous land animal, fifty feet long. There was a giant frog, the Labyrinthodon, tortoises twenty feet across, lizards or crocodiles with a length of sixty and seventy feet. There were birds that stood ten feet in height, and flying serpents and lizards, the pterosaurus and pterodactyl. This is the era, naturally unknown in his time, which Moses describes on his fifth day. It is totally different from ours. No species of that creation survive now; none of the mammals of our epoch existed then. That era fell at the end of the Primary and the beginning of the Secondary system. Our present fauna began in later Tertiary times and continue in the Quaternary. How wonderful is the harmony of revelation and nature, of God’s words and His works! Let there be a similar harmony between your words and works, between your faith and your life.
I. On the fourth day, Moses, viewing creation in vision as if from the surface of the earth, according to probability, saw a new revelation of divine greatness, when the expanse of the heavens was opened to him, illumined by sun, and moon, and planets, and the millions of more distant stars. His description is that of an eye-witness, and not of an investigator who goes behind the visible fact. It does not mean that the celestial world was created from nothing at this epoch, nor that it was formed from pre-existing matter at this epoch, but that it appeared in existence for the first time to the visionary spectator. The heavenly bodies were not actually made on this day, for the outer planets of our system were cast off from the revolving nebular mass before our earth; and the glowing matter was probably far advanced in the process of condensation into the sun, even if it had not already formed it, at the epoch when Moses takes up the story of the earth on the first day. The glimmering light of the first three days was probably that of the sun, which could only penetrate dimly through the heavy curtain of vapour round the earth. The actual event of the fourth day, the day that succeeded the Carboniferous period of the great vegetation, was the clearing away of the thick layer of gas and aqueous vapour which had for so many years obscured the heavens, the visible appearance of the sun, and the commencement of the order of days and seasons. Geology witnesses to this. The closer texture of plants, their greater variety, and the appearance of season rings in trees, show that sunshine, as we know it, began only at this advanced period of the earth’s development. God is hidden from many men by the voluntary clouds of prejudice and worldliness. Because they cannot see Him they profess disbelief. But He is there all the same.
II. How glorious this earth must have seemed when the full light of the sun streamed upon it for the first time; and there was none to look upon it till Moses saw it in vision millions of years later. How wonderful is the sun! It is the source, not only of light and heat, but of all mechanical force and motion on our earth. Its attraction keeps the great bulk of our globe moving in its orbit. It raises millions of tons of water daily from the sea in the form of clouds. It puts the wind in motion to convey these North and South, and distribute them in rain and snow. This supplies the glaciers and rivers, which by their motion wear down mountains and continents, and transport their débris to form new strata beneath the ocean. The sun supplies substance to plants, which then nourish men and animals for their labours. It has stored in coal all the heat which we now draw forth for the production of power in our machinery. Yet all this is only one part in five hundred millions of the energy radiated by the sun. And what is this to the total energy of the whole universe? And what is that to the infinite power of God? Wonder at it and worship God.
III. The heavens also manifest the immensity of God. Our distance from the sun is ninety-three millions of miles. Suppose this to be represented on a reduced scale as two hundred feet; then the distance of the nearest fixed star in the same proportion would be fifteen thousand miles. Light moves at the rate of one hundred and ninety-five thousand miles in a second. From the sun it reaches us in about eight minutes; from one of the nearest fixed stars (61 Cygni) it takes ten years; from the Polar Star, fifty years; from the nebulae perhaps five million years. Our telescopes cannot penetrate to the ends of the starry world; yet perhaps this is only one corner of the whole of creation; and all creation is no more than the ante-chamber of the divine infinity. God is greater and far beyond all this. How wonderful will be the sight of Him face to face as He is! We can never adore Him and humble ourselves enough before Him. How can creatures dare to disobey, despise, insult, deny such a God! How much will they lose by that folly and sin!
I. The third day is characterized by two operations: the waters that were under heaven were gathered together so that the dry land appeared, and the earth brought forth the green herb (Gen. i. 9–12). The peculiarities noted by Moses on this day are distinctly marked in the records of geology. In the period preceding this, known as the Silurian epoch, there are no traces of land vegetation or land animals; it is evident also that there was but little light, as the specimens of marine life have no organs of vision. The Devonian system, which corresponds to this day, was conspicuous for great volcanic disturbances and the wholesale upheaval of mountain ranges above the surface of the world-wide sea. The water was still at a very high temperature, as appears from the structure of the fish of that period. They were ganoid, or protected from the heat by a sort of coat of armour of bony material. As the waters gradually cooled these species disappeared and were replaced by others. How marvellous are the records of God’s creative action written in the bowels of the mountains or on the bed of the ocean, and now brought to light with so much ingenuity and patient labour! So God tells us now in another form the same history that He conveyed to earlier men in the simple words of the Hebrew Lawgiver.
II. The second operation of this day was the development of vegetable life from the germs infused into the earth by the spirit of the Lord on the first day. This was supere minently the age of vegetation. The earth was covered with a luxurious abundance of verdure, far surpassing that of the tropical forests of the present epoch. The trees and plants were not those that we are acquainted with; they were chiefly one great family of plants, eight hundred species of which have been identified, while the flora of our times number perhaps a hundred thousand species. Under the conditions of great heat and moisture, subdued light, and an excess of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, thousands of generations of trees shot up rapidly, decayed, and gave place to others. The Carboniferous strata, which contain the compressed and solidified remains of that vegetation, are about ten thousand feet in thickness. The character of these plants as found by us now in coal shows that they did not live in sunlight such as we now enjoy. There are no season rings in them, and their texture shows that the light which fell upon them abounded in actinic rays, but was deficient in the bright ones. Thus did God make provision for the wants of man millions of years before his existence, by the laws which He laid down for the course of nature.
III. This same epoch was marked by the laying down of thick beds of carboniferous limestone; these consist, to the extent of one half, of pure carbonic acid, which was absorbed from the atmosphere. The enormous vegetation that covered the earth had decomposed vast quantities of the same gas and released pure oxygen into the air. By these two means the poisonous heavy atmosphere of the earth was gradually changed into its present condition; at the same time the excess of heat was radiated into space; and thus the earth became a suitable abode for air-breathing animals, the harbingers of man. How wonderful is this gradual progress from stage to stage, during the slow lapse of millions of years, without effort, without error, without the need of interferences and rectifications of the plan and of the laws laid down at first by the great Creator! All was foreseen, all was decreed, and all came about in due course through the action of the irresistible will of God. Do not dare to oppose that calm, eternal, universal, overwhelming force.
I. On the second day “God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven” (Gen. i. 7, 8). By the “firmament” the Jews understood what we call the atmosphere. Here Moses accurately describes a most important operation that took place early in the earth’s history. At that epoch there was a seething indescribable mass of matter, shrouded in thick poisonous vapours of carbonic-acid gas, which made life impossible for breathing creatures. The forms of life belonging to this geological period include no air-breathing animals. In order to prepare the earth to be the abode of higher creatures, the next step was to dispose of this poisonous gas, and to combine the proper gases into air and water. The formation of the atmosphere extended through this and the following day, but the two stages in which it was accomplished were so different that they may well be considered as different epochs, according to the arrangement of the Mosaic narrative. The work of this second day was the condensation of oxygen and hydrogen into water, and the formation of dense clouds by the evaporation of the water under the influence of the still intense heat. Admire the wonderful and gigantic contrivances of nature, i.e., of the Author of nature, by which He brings about His purposes. Equally wonderful, though more hidden, are the spiritual contrivances by which He leads you to salvation.
II. As the dry land had not yet appeared, the aspect of the earth now presented to the eye would have been as Holy Scripture describes it. There was a great expanse of newly formed waters covering the earth in one universal ocean. From this arose a second great body of water in the form of steam and clouds, suspended high above the surface of the ocean, floating on a thick stratum of the heavier air still intermingled with carbonic-acid gas, which did not disappear till the end of the next period. This was the expanse of the firmament which separated the waters from the waters, the upper ones from the lower ones, or the watery vapours from the actual water. Under the changed conditions, air-breathing animals begin to appear in the strata laid down at this period. Thus did God work a great revolution, changing what was noxious into bright wholesome air, and multiplying higher forms of life accordingly. So in the spiritual order God dissipates the clouds of error and prejudice and sin, and brings you into a new atmosphere of faith and holiness.
III. The atmosphere is a wonderful and beneficent work of God. It extends round the whole earth to a height of perhaps fifty miles, or even as some think to two hundred miles in a very rarefied condition. It moderates the burning heat of the sun by day, and keeps the surface warmth from entirely evaporating by night; thus it prevents extremes of heat and cold which would make life impossible. It is also a shield to protect us from being bombarded by the millions of shooting stars which fall to the earth every day; it reduces them by its friction to gas, which, on cooling, falls gently in a very fine dust. The movements of the atmosphere in the form of winds convey the evaporations of the ocean from the tropics towards the poles, depositing snow and rain, filling the rivers, irrigating the fields, cooling one district and warming another. The air also provides men and beasts with oxygen, which enters the lungs and supplies the fuel that maintains life and energy. Glorify God for all these wonders by adoring His greatness, beneficence and providence. In the words of the Scriptures call on the winds and rains, the heat and cold, to bless the name of the Lord by carrying out His will and manifesting His perfections.
