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-yet not a view in a glass; it brightens and elevates the human mind into a likeness of the Divine Mind. Man's duty, high and lifted up above the mists of human error, has the body of heaven in its clearness. Faith ascends to GodCreator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. Our will, if we are not unbelieving and rebellious, is becoming conformed to His Will; our thoughts are being fashioned by His Mind. When perfect in Christ, we shall be one with God, and He one with us (John xvii. 21-23).

"Oh, my friend,

That thy faith were as mine; that thou couldst see
Death still producing life! And evil still

Working its own destruction-couldst behold

The strifes and tumults of this troubled world,

With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn through this night of tempest; all things then
Would minister to joy; then should thine heart
Be healed and harmonised, and thou wouldst feel
God always, everywhere, and all in all!"

Southey.

STUDY XVI.

THE PRE-ADAMITE WORLD.

"Christian, try to solve the problems
Which life's mystery surround.

Why God made thee? Why He loves thee?

Where thou art, and whither bound?"

The Three Bibles (Unpublished).

Hæredi æternitatis Adam vixit heri.

THE account of creation, if a true account, is proved by that truthfulness to be Divinely inspired. Early unscientific thought could not, of itself, know or invent those deeply hidden facts of which accurate science has but lately obtained possession; however clear the mind's eye of ancient contemplative genius, it could not, without Divine aid, see how the world was framed. A revelation, therefore, of the fact that God did create the world is vastly important, and establishes the kingdom of God in the universe of matter; as the moral history and salvation of man establish it in the world of spirits.

It is not a picture of the Divine action drawn by an ancient geologist, though there is agreement with the discoveries of geological science, as regards the antiquity of the earth, and as to the process of its formation; nor was it depicted by man's imagination trying, in its own way, to account for Nature's origin and phenomena. Imagination was used, but only as the faculty through which God made a revelation of Himself. There was knowledge, but, so far as we can judge, not scientifically obtained as is our modern conception of the universe. It is the production of a writer who seems to possess an acquaintance with natural history, and might almost be suspected of knowing some facts of geology;"1 yet this acquaintance he could not possess. The simplicity of the

"Notes on the Earlier Hebrew Scriptures,” p. 14: Sir G. B. Airy, K.C.B.

words and deep accurate meaning agreeing with latest attainments of science; the painting of things which men could not have seen, and description of works which man could have no knowledge of; are from a human mind mysteriously acquainted with the deep things of God.

The heavens were undoubtedly in existence when our earth was formed. The heavens are not the firmament, which was created the second day; nor are they simply the sun, moon, and stars, spoken of in the fourth day. Heavens may mean all these and many more. The Apostolic word (Ephes. iii. 10) declares that the manifold wisdom of God is made known by the earthly Church to angelic powers of heaven; as if to show that God's eternal world-plan did not begin with the earth, even as it will not end with the earth. Science tells us that starformation is yet in progress; and Scripture states that the Lord is even now preparing mansions (John xiv. 2). It is not needful to inquire whether heaven may be a spiritual world which enters, encloses, extends far beyond, all material existence. The Scriptural doctrine is-" Long before the earth was fashioned for man, there were heavens, morning stars, angels, regions more glorious than the earth, heavens more ancient than the firmament, heavenly inhabitants who excel in strength." 1

Consequently, there have been wonderful and startling acts of which we possess but few incidents, whether as to physical creation, or the origin and fall of spirits (Job xxxviii. 12, 13; Isai. xiv. 12; Luke x. 18; John viii. 44; 2 Pet. ii. 4; Jude 6; I John iii. 8). The fall of angels, as connected with our own early history, may be thus briefly stated:-Man was placed in Paradise to dress and keep it. The secret meaning of this service becomes apparent in the fact that a tempter became the cause of ruin. There was evil for man to overcome: evil outside of him, not human-but angelic or spiritual.

How far demoniacal malignity introduced or magnified suffering in the early animal world, Scripture does not reveal; unless the "wasteness or emptiness," spoken of in the second verse of Gen. i. mean, as some think, a caused or wasting 1 "Mosaic Record of Creation : " A. M'Caul, D.D.

The Fall of Angels.

301

desolation. In Jer. iv. 23, the words are used of destruction wrought as punishment for sin. In Isai. xxxiv. 11, they mean an after-destruction of that which once had been beautiful. In Rom. viii. 20-22, we are told that the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but in hope. Nevertheless, we need not take the wasteness as having been caused maliciously, for the Scripture statement-" God did not make the earth to be waste"-is verified by the six days' process. The earth was wasteness and emptiness, or, as translated, "without form and void," because it had not yet been shaped, nor fitted for living creatures. in, "wasteness," is sometimes used as synonymous with N, "non-existence," and " for "nothingness." It is certain that all good operation, all healthful and orderly production, proceed from the Will of God; and that the Divine plan, working by a conditioning influence, renders even wasteness and desolateness receptive of Divine energy. The disorder, in its degrees of evil, though made a means of discipline, is attributed to the agency, direct or indirect, of the devil and his angels; who, having fallen from their allegiance to God, sought to mar His good work. Hence we know why wrath seems mingled with love; why there is pain, strife, death; why providence is that entangled maze which only a faithful, wise, loving heart can understand aright.

The fall of angels, and their evil influence on men, must not be put away as poetical and figurative; there is meaning, and that of a most awful character. What it is, as to the earth, we are painfully conscious of in the sin of our race, in the continual conflict of flesh and spirit, and in the dread of judgment to come. The record is a true history of real acts, not a mythological account of natural disturbances, nor a personifying of processes and laws by which God worked. There is certainly a magnetism of attraction and repulsion pervading all things. Subtle universal influences vibrate through all classes of organic and inorganic substance. It is not a shallow but deep philosophy that finds, in the bad passions and moral diseases of intelligent creatures, something that corrupts, or may corrupt, the whole course of Nature (Rom. viii. 20-22), even as a whole history of sorrow may be read in the accents of some peculiarly plaintive voice.

"Specially remarkable, miraculous it really seems to be, is that character of reserve which leaves open to reason all that reason may be able to attain. The meaning seems always to be ahead of science, not because it anticipates the results of science, but because it is independent of them, and runs, as it were, round the outer margin of all possible discovery." The numerous passages of Scripture which affirm or imply human responsibility, the existence and agency of extra-human and superhuman orders, are connected with a vast scheme. Accurate study will give consistency to this evidence, dissipate many difficulties, and expand our knowledge of those mysterious beings with whom our own destinies are so marvellously involved.

The pre-Adamite world, occupying innumerable ages, answers the request of geologists for vast duration; and allows, if need be, for pre-Adamite men. If such precursors existed of the Adam-man, as the Adam-man preceded the Christ-man, they were brute men, in whom was no breath of God; but, at best, only life yearning for more life. It is just possible, that as plant and animal had their order; the more primitive of each being more simple, and those following, for the most part, more highly organised; there may have been rudimentary men formed, as Scripture says, out of the ground. These may possibly have lived on for many generations until, in fulness of time, they were regenerated or recreated as the Adam, our forefather. There are thoughtful men who accept this as not unscriptural, and as explanatory of a scientific difficulty. They are quite prepared to admit that the psychic man may have come from some lower form of life; but they see in the pneumatic man something that the theory of evolution cannot account for. We will not say, as Delitzsch—“The man who, in the ape, greets his brother only a little left behind, must needs have first substantially brutalised himself, or he would rather shudder at this counterpart of his own degradation." 2 It is better to allow those who think that our structural resemblances to the nearest allied quadrumana are of a character indicating that both man and ape are derived from "Primeval Man," p. 367: Duke of Argyle. 2 "Biblical Psychology," part ii. sect. I.

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