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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

In the beginning. — A BEGINNING there was then, whatever Aristotle Aristotle’s Physic.; vide Sharpei Symphon., p. 11, Pliny, l. i., c. 1. 2 Jo. Picas Mirand. fancied of the world’s eternity. So true is that of a learned Italians - Philosophy seeks after truth; divinity only finds it; religion improves it. Jo. Picus Mirand. Veritatem quaerit philosophia, invenit theologia, … But the philosopher would be yet better satisfied. He had read (say some) D. Prid. Cathedra. this first of Genesis, and was heard to say thereupon, Well said, Sir Moses; how prove you what you have so said? Egregie dicis, domine Moses; sed quomodo probas? An ancient Augustine answereth, I believe it, I need not prove it. credo, non probo Another, Ambrose we believe the holy penmen before heathen wise men. piscatoribus credimus, non dialecticis A third, Rupet The mysteries of the Christian religion are better understood by believing, than believed by understanding Multo melius credendo intelliguntur, quam intelligendo creduntur fidei Christianae mysteria. Abbas Tuiciensis. Theologia non est argumentativa. Alsted. But, best of all, the apostle, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Hebrews 11:3 Divinity doth not use to prove her principles, whereof this is one. No, not Aristotle’s own divinity, (his Metaphysics , I mean) wherein he requires to be believed upon his bare word. Albeit, if Ramus may be judge, those fourteen books of his are the most idle and impious piece of sophistry that ever was set forth by any man. Aristotle’s Sοφια , seu Theologia, sophistica, est, omnium quae literis unquam mandata sunt, maxime stulta, maximeque impia. - Ramus in Theolog. Thus, "Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools." Romans 1:22 "Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?" Jeremiah 8:9

Plato had read Moses, whatever Aristotle had done; and held truly, that the world had a beginning. So did all the philosophers that were before Aristotle, except the Chaldeans, and Hossellus Lucanus, the Pythagorean, out of whom Aristotle took his arguments, which are to be read, Physic, viii. c. 8, and ii. and l. 1. De Coelo, c. 1, and l. xii.; Metaphysics, c. 7. But it is more than probable that he taught the world’s eternity in opposition to Plato and others, who rightly concluded the world must needs have had a beginning; otherwise we could not know whether the egg or the bird, the seed or the plant, the day or the night, the light or the darkness, were first; sure it is that he held that opinion rather out of an affectation of singularity, than for any soundness of the matter or strength of argument. Himself, in his first book of Topics , and ninth chapter, saith that it is no more than a topical problem: he should have said a plain paradox, yea, a mere falsity. For "In the beginning," the Jerusalem Targum hath "In wisdom," that is, in God the Son, saith Augustine, according to John 1:3 2 Chronicles 1:16; 2 Chronicles 1:162 Chronicles 1:16; 2 Chronicles 1:16 . And indeed God created all things by his Son Christ; not as by a concreating cause, but as by his own essential Wisdom. 1 Corinthians 1:24 ; Proverbs 1:20 ; Proverbs 8:1 And of this mystery and appellation some suppose the heathens had some traditional knowledge; for aa Christ, the Wisdom of the Father, was eternally and ineffably begotten in the divine essence, so they worshipped a goddess whom they called the goddess of wisdom, and feigned that she was begotten by Jupiter of his own brain; and they called her Aθηνη , which word is much like in sound with the Hebrew Adonai , as a reverend man Mr Manton upon Jude. hath well observed.

God created. — Heb. Dii creavit. Plural subject "Dii" (Gods) singular verb "creavit" . Editor. The Mystery of the blessed Trinity, called by Elihu, Job 35:10 Eloah Gnoscai , "God my Makers"; and by David, Psalms 149:1 "The Makers of Israel," and "Remember thy Creators," saith Solomon. Ecclesiastes 12:1 To the same sense, sweetly sounds the Haphtera, or portion of Scripture which is read by the Jews, Moses was read every Sabbath, Acts 15:11 with a lecture out of the prophets, Acts 13:15 together with this of Moses, viz., Isaiah 42:5 . And that of the psalmist, Psalms 33:6 "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath [or spirit] of his mouth": that is, God the Father, by the Son, through the Holy Ghost, created all. This Trismegist, ηκμασε δε προ του φαραω - Suidas. τρις μεγιστος , in Poemandro. Nam haec propria est Hebraei verbi significatio. Jun. an ancient Egyptian (for he flourished before Pharaoh), acknowledged, and thence had his name. The Hebrews also of old were no strangers to this mystery, though their posterity understood it not. Rabbi Solomon Jarchi, writing on that, Song of Solomon 1:11 "We will make," …, interprets it, "I and my judgment hall." Now a judgment hall in Israel consisted of three at least, which in their close manner of speech, they applied to God, who is Three in one, and One in three.

Rabbi Simeon, the son of Johai, brings a place out of Rabbi Ibba, on Deuteronomy 6:4 , "Jehovah Elohenu, Jehovah Echad, ‘The Lord our God is one Lord.’" Here the first Jehovah, saith he, is God the Father, Elohenu , the Son (who is fitly called our God , because he assumed our nature, as is well observed by Galatinus), the third Jehovah is God the Holy Ghost. Echad, one, showeth the unity of essence in this plurality of persons; wherefore, saith Luther, doth not Moses begin thus, "In the beginning, God said, Let there be a heaven, and earth," but because he would set forth the three persons in order; the Father, when he saith, God created; the Son, when he saith, God said; and the Holy Ghost, when he saith, God saw the light that it was good?

Created. — Made all things of nothing, in a most marvellous and magnificent manner, as the word signifieth. This Plato doubts of, Aristotle denies, Galen derides as a thing impossible, Irridet Galenus Mosen eo quod dicat Deum ex nulla praeexistente materia condidisse mundum. - Buch. because, with Nicodemus, he cannot conceive how these things can be. "The natural man," the mere animal, Qυχικος , 1 Corinthians 2:14 whose reason is not elevated by religion, "pereeiveth not these things of the Spirit of God: they are foolishness unto him." The cock on the dunghill meddles not with these matters. Well might St Paul tell the men of Athens, Acts 17:23-24 (and yet Athens was the Greece of Greece, Eλλας Eλλαδος Athenaeus. and had in it the most mercurial wits in the world), that God, "that made all things of nothing," was to them the "unknown God": and Lactantius fitly saith of Plato (who yet merited the style of Divine amongst them), that he dreamed of God, rather than had any true knowledge of him. Somniaverat Deum, non cognoverat. - Instit., l. v. c. l4. He nowhere called God the Creator, but Dημιουζγον , the workman; as one that had made the world of a preexistent matter, co-eternal to himself. Atheists of old scorned at the work of creation; and asked, "Quibus machinis," with what tools, engines, ladders, scaffolds, did the Lord set up this mighty frame? But, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed" (set in joint, ξατηζτισηαι , Hebrews 11:3 , the word signifieth, as all the members of the body are tied together by several ligaments), "by the word of God," without either tool or toil. Isaiah 40:28 He not only formed and made, but created all by the word of his power: see all these ascribed unto him in Isaiah 43:7 . There were four errors, saith a late learned man, Zanchi. about the creation: some affirmed that the world was eternal; some that it had a material beginning, and was made of something; some held two beginners of things: that one beginner made things incorruptible, and another made things corruptible. Lastly, some said God made the superior creatures himself, and the inferior by angels. This very first verse of the Bible confutes all four. In the beginning, shows the world not to be eternal. Created, notes that it was made of nothing. The heaven and the earth, shows that God was the only beginner of all creatures. God created all: this excludes the angels. In the government of the world, we grant they have a great stroke. Ezekiel 1:5-6 ; Daniel 10:1-21 ; Daniel 11:1-45 Not so in the making of the world, wherein God was alone, and by himself. Isaiah 44:24 And, lest any should imagine otherwise, the creation of angels is not so much as mentioned by Moses, unless it be tacitly intimated in these words - "The heavens and the earth"; Kοσμος μεν εστι συστημα εξ ουρανου και γης και των εν τουτοις περιεχομενων φυεων - Aristotle, De Mundo , c. 2. Yates’s Model of Divinity. "The world and all the things that are therein"; Acts 17:24 "Things visible and invisible"; Colossians 1:16 "whether they be thrones or dominions," …, called elsewhere "angels of heaven"; Matthew 24:26 ; Galatians 1:8 because, probably, created with, and in the highest heaven, as Christ’s soul was created with, and in his body, in the Virgin’s womb, the self-same moment. The highest heaven, and the angels were of necessity, say some, to be created the first instant, that they might have their perfection of matter and form together; otherwise they should be corruptible. For whatsoever is of a pre-existent matter is resolvable, and subject to corruption; but that which is immediately of nothing is perfectly composed, hath no other change, but by the same hand to return to nothing again.

Question: But if this were the heaven, what was the earth here mentioned?

Answer: Not that we now tread upon, for that was not made till the third day; but the matter of all that was afterwards to be created - being all things in power, nothing in act.

The Cabbalists observe that there are in this first verse of the Holy Bible six Alephs: and therehence they conclude, that the world shall last six thousand years. But they may be therein as far out as that wise man Bucholcer., Chronol. was who, A.D. 1533, affirmed that the world would be at an end that very year, in the month of October, and that he pretended to gather out of those words, Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum: and again those, Videbunt in quem transfixerunt. So some Alsted., Chronol. since that, but little wiser, have foretold as much concerning the year of grace 1657, from those words mundi conflagratio; and because the universal flood fell out in the year of the world 1657. According to these groundless conjectures, confuted already by time, some have argued, that because Solomon’s temple was finished in the year of the world three thousand, therefore the spiritual temple shall be consummated in three thousand more. This reckoning comes up to that of the Cabbalists above mentioned; and to that known prophecy of Elias (but not the Tishbite), that as there were two thousand years, plus minus, before the law, and two thousand under the law, so there are to be two thousand under the gospel.

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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 the earth was without form and void, — that is, as yet it had neither essential nor accidental perfection. The Lord afterward did form it into light, the firmament, the water, and the earth; so beginning above, and building downwards (in the new creature he doth otherwise); and in three days laying the parts of the world, and in other three days adorning them. The Rabbins tell us that Tohu and Bohu do properly import Materia prima and privatio; Ahlsted., Lexic. Theol ., p. 111. and others of Tohu , derive Chaos , whence the ancient Latins called the world Chobus , and borrowed their word Inchoo ( εγχυω ), …

And darkness was upon the face of the deep, — that is, not of hell, as Origen expounds it, but of the deep waters ( αβυσσος , see the like, Luke 8:31 ), which "as a garment covered the earth, and stood above the mountains." Psalms 104:6 This darkness God created not, for it was but the want of light. And to say that God dwelt in darkness till he had created light, was a devilish sarcasm of the Manichees, as if God were not light itself, 1 John 1:5 and "the Father of lights"; James 1:17 or, as if God had not ever been a heaven to Himself, "Ere ever he had formed the earth and the heavens." Psalms 90:2 What he did, or how he employed himself before the creation, is a sea over which no ship hath sailed, a mine into which no spade hath delved, an abyss into which no bucket hath dived. Our sight is too tender to behold this sun. A thousand years, saith a great divine, Dr. Preston, Of God’s Attributes , p. 34. [Rather, 2 Peter 3:8 - ED.] are to God but as one day, … And who knoweth what the Lord hath done? Indeed, he made but one world to our knowledge; but who knoweth what he did before, and what he will do after? Thus he. As for St Augustine:

“The bishop Lybicus was shaping the underworld according to these verses, he said these ideas which he helps to be examined by means of such a mind.” Praesul ad haec Lybicus, fabricabat Tartara, dixit, His, quos scrutari talia mente iuvat.

Excellently another, Cuff’s Differ. of Ages , p. 22. who wanted not wit: As in the element of fire, saith he, there is a faculty of heating and enlightening; whence proceedeth heat and light unto the external near bodies; and besides this faculty, there is also in it a natural power to go upward; which, when it cometh into act, is received into no other subject, but the fire itself: so that if fire could, by abstractive imagination, be conceived of as wanting those two transient operations, yet could we not justly say it had no action, forasmuch as it might move upward, which is an immanent and inward action. So, and much more so, though we grant that there was no external work of the Godhead, until the making of the world, yet can there be no necessary illation [inference — of idleness, seeing it might have (as indeed it had) actions immanent, included in the circle of the Trinity. This is an answer to such as ask, What God did before he made the world? God, saith Plotinus the Platonist, Ferebatur super aquas non pervagatione, sed potestate, non per spatium locorum, ut sol super terram, sed pepotentiam sublimitatis suae. - Eucherius not working at all, but resting in himself, doeth and performeth very great things.

And the Spirit of God moved, … — Or hovered over, Dei Dicere est Efficere , "of God, to say is to accomplish" and hatched out the creature, as the hen doth her chickens; or as the eagle fluttereth over her young, to provoke them to flight. Deuteronomy 32:11 Or as by a like operation, this same Holy Spirit formed the child Jesus in the Virgin’s womb, in that wonderful "overshadowing" Luke 1:35 . The Chaldee here hath it, "The Spirit breathed"; and David saith the same. Psalms 33:6 He became, to that rude dead mass, a quickening, comforting Spirit. He kept it together, which else would have shattered. And so he doth still, or else all would soon fall asunder, Hebrews 1:3 Psalms 104:29 were not his conserving mercy still over, or upon, all his works. Psalms 145:9

Sabin, Poet.

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And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saith, Let there, … — He commanded the "light to shine out of darkness." 2 Corinthians 4:6 "He spake the word, and it was done." Psalms 33:9 ; Psalms 148:5 Dei Dicere est Efficere. "of God to speak is to accomplish" Creation is no motion, but a simple and bare emanation; which is, when without any repugnancy of the patient, or labour of the agent, the work or effect doth voluntarily and freely arise from the action of the working cause, as the shadow from the body. So God’s irresistible power made this admirable work of the world, by his bare word, as the shadow and obscure representation of his unsearchable wisdom and omnipotency.

And there was light. — This first light was not the angels, as Augustine would have it; nor the element of fire, as Damascene; nor the sun, which was not yet created, nor a lightsome cloud, nor any such thing; but the "first day," which God could make without means, as Calvin well observeth. This light was the first ornament of the visible world, and so is still of the "hidden man of the heart," the new creature. Acts 26:18 The first thing in St Paul’s commission there, was to "open men’s eyes, to turn them from darkness to light," … To dart such a saving light into the soul, as might illighten both organ and object. In which great work also, Christ’s words are operative, together with his commands, in the mouths of his ministers. "Know the Lord; understand, O ye brutish among the people," … Psalms 94:8 There goes forth a power to heal, as it did in Luke 5:17 ; or as when he bade Lazarus arise, he made him to arise, so here the word and the Spirit go together; and then what wonder that the spirit of darkness falls from the heaven of men’s hearts, "as lightning". Luke 10:18 So as that they that erst "were darkness, are now light in the Lord," Ephesians 5:8 and do "preach forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light". εξαγγεληζε , 1 Peter 2:9

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And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God saw the light that it was good. — - Moveover he foresaw , so one renders it. praeviderat autem - Zaberellus He saw this long before, but he would have us to see it; he commends the goodness of this work of his to us. Good it is surely, and a goodly creature: "sweet," saith Solomon; Ecclesiastes 11:7 "comfortable," saith David. Psalms 97:11 Which when one made question of - "That’s a blind man’s question," said the philosopher. τυφλου το ερωτημα , Aristotle What is it then to enjoy him that is light essential? The Platonists (who were blind in divinis , and could not see afar off) could say that he was a blessed man, who enjoyed God, as the eye doth enjoy the light. Beatum esse moninem Deo fruentem, sicut occulus luce. Augustine, De Civitate Dei , l. 3.

And God divided the light, … — - Let not us confound them, 2 Corinthians 6:14 1 Thessalonians 5:5-7 and so alter God’s order by doing deeds of darkness, in a day of grace, in a land of light. What make owls at Athens? or such "spots," σπιλοι χαι μωμοι , among saints, as "count it pleasure to riot in the daytime?" 2 Peter 2:13 It was a shame that it should be said, There was never less wisdom in Greece, than in the time of the seven wise men of Greece. Lactant. It was a worse "shame," that it should be said to the Corinthians, that "some of them had not the knowledge of God"; 1 Corinthians 15:34 and that such fornication was found among them as was not heard of among the heathen. 1 Corinthians 5:1 For what fellowship hath light with darkness? 2 Corinthians 6:14 Surely none. Our morning shadows fall as far as they can toward the west, evening toward the east, noonday toward the north, … Alexander having a soldier of his name, that was a coward, he bade him either abandon the name of Alexander, or be a soldier. Plutarch

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And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God called the light day, … — He taught men to call them so; day éøí , from the noise and hurry; night ìéìä , from the yelling of wild beasts. Darkness he created not, but only by accident; and yet not that, without some notable use. Much less that darkness of affliction which he is said to "create". Isaiah 45:7 "Unto the upright there ariseth light in darkness," Psalms 112:4 yea, light by darkness, as to Paul, whose bodily blindness opened the eyes of his mind. Luther said that God’s works are effected usually by contraries. Laertius. Opera Dei sunt in mediis contrariis

And the evening and the morning, … — Thales, one of the seven sages, had learned this truth by going to school in Egypt. For being asked whether was first, the day or the night? he answered, that the night was sooner by one day: Dια των εαυτων ενανια οικονομειτια ινα και μαλλον δαυμαξηται - Nazianz . as who should say, afore God had created the light, it must needs be confessed that out of him there was nothing but darkness. Evening separates by darkness, morning by light; so the one disjoins day from night, the other night from day. Only this first evening separated not, because light was then uncreated. Yet it was of God appointed, even then, to stand between light and darkness. In the first evening was heaven and earth created, and in the first morning the light, both which make the civil day called νυχθημεζον by the apostle. 2 Corinthians 11:25 And this (which doubtless is the natural order of reckoning the day, from evening to evening), was in use among the Athenians, Pliny, l. 2. c. 7. and is to this day retained by the Jews, Italians, Bohemians, Silesians, and other nations. Our life likewise is such a day, and begins with the dark evening of misery here; but death is to saints the daybreak of eternal brightness. Mourning lasteth but till morning. Psalms 30:5 Nay, not so long; for, "Behold at eventide trouble, and before the morning he is not." Isaiah 17:14 It is but a "moment," yea, a very little moment, and the indignation will pertransire , be overpast, saith the prophet; Isaiah 26:20 so "little a while" as you can scarce imagine, saith the apostle. ετι γαζ μικζον οσον οσον , Hebrews 10:37 If it seem otherwise to any of us, consider:

1. That we have some lucida intervalla , some respires, interspiriates, breathing whiles. And it is a mercy that the man is not always sweating out a poor living, the woman ever in pangs of childbirth, … Genesis 3:16-19

2. That this is nothing to eternity of extremity, which is the just hire of the least sin. Romans 6:23

3. That much good accrues unto us hereby. Hebrews 12:10 Yea, this "light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out unto us that far more excellent and eternal weight of glory." 2 Corinthians 4:17 Oh, pray, pray "that the eyes of our understanding being enlightened by that Spirit of wisdom and revelation, we may know what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," … Ephesians 1:17-18

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And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Let there be a firmament. — Yet not so firm, but it shall be dissolved. 2 Peter 3:11 That it is not presently so; that those windows of heaven are not opened, as once in the deluge, having no better a bar than the liquid air, and we suddenly buried in one universal grave of waters; see a miracle of God’s mercy, and thank him for this powerful word of his, "Let there be a firmament." Bartholinus Barthol. l. 2. De Meteoris tells us, that in the year of Christ 1551, a very great multitude of men and cattle were drowned by a terrible tempest, the clouds suddenly dissolving, and the waters pouring down amain with such a strange stupendous violence, that the massy walls of many cities, various vineyards, and fair houses were utterly destroyed and ruined. Clouds, those bottles of rain, are vessels as thin as the liquor which is contained in them. There they hang and move, though weighty with their burdens. How they are upheld, saith a reverend divine, D. H. Contemp. and why they fall here and now, we know not, and wonder. Job 26:8 They water our lands, as we do our gardens, and are therefore called our heavens. Deuteronomy 33:28

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And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.

Waters which were above the firmament. — That is the clouds, and watery meteors above the lower region of the air, where God’s "pavilion round about him is dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies". Psalms 18:11 Jeremiah 10:13 These he "weighs by measure"; Job 28:25 not a drop falls in vain, or in a wrong place. And this is the first heaven: as the second is the starry sky, which is firm and fast, "as a molten looking-glass". Job 37:18 To this heaven, some that have calculated curiously, have found it five hundred years’ journey. Others say, that if a stone should fall from the eighth sphere, and should pass every hour a hundred miles, it would be sixty-five years or more, before it would come to ground. Burton. Of Melancholy Beyond this second heaven, Aristotle acknowledgeth none other. Beyond the movable heavens, saith he, there is neither body, nor time, nor place, nor vacuum. ουδε τοπος ουδε κενον ουδε χρονος εστιν εξω του ουπονου - Arist. De Caelo , c. ix. But "we have a more sure word of prophecy." God’s blessed book assures us of a "third heaven," 2 Corinthians 12:2 called elsewhere "the heaven of heavens," Deuteronomy 10:14 the "Paradise" of God, Luke 22:43 the "bosom of Abraham," Luke 16:22 the "Father’s house," John 14:2 the "city of the living God," Hebrews 12:22 the "country" of his pilgrims. Hebrews 12:14 A body it is, for bodies are in it; but a subtile, fine, spiritual body; next in purity to the substance of angels and men’s souls. It is also, say some, Yates’s Model solid as stone, but "clear as crystal" Revelation 21:11 Job 37:18 A true firmament, indeed, not penetrable by any, no, not by angels, spirits, and bodies of just men made perfect; but by a miracle, God making way by His power, where there is no natural passage. It opens to the very angels, John 1:51 Genesis 28:12 who yet are able to penetrate all under it. The other two heavens are to be passed through by the grossest bodies.

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And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And the evening, … — Here is no mention of God’s approbation of this second day’s work. Not for that hell was then created, or the reprobate angels then ejected, as the Jews give as the reason of it; but because this day’s work was left unperfected, till the next; to the which, therefore, the blessing was reserved, and is then redoubled. God delights to do his works, not all at once, but by degrees, that we may take time to contemplate them piecemeal, and see him in every one of them, as in an optic glass. "Consider the lilies of the field," saith our Saviour. Kαταμαηετε Matthew 6:28 "Go to the ant, thou sluggard," saith Solomon. Proverbs 6:6 Luther Proponit contemplandam pulcherrimam caeli concame rationem nullis pilis et columnis impositam, … - Scultet. Annal. 276 wished Pontanus, Chancellor of Saxony, to contemplate the star-chamber of heaven, that stupendous archwork borne up by no props or pillars, and yet not falling on our heads: the thick clouds also hanging often over us with great weight, and yet vanishing again, when they have greeted us but with their threatening looks. And cannot God as easily uphold his sinking saints, and blow over any storm that hangs over their heads? An artificer takes it ill, if when he hath finished some intricate piece of work, and sets it forth to be seen, as Apelles was wont to do, men slight it, and take no notice of his handiwork. And is there not a woe to such stupid persons as "regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands?." Isaiah 5:12 He was telling any tale from a bowl but that one stirred our ears , A sino quispiam narrabat fabulam, at ille movebat aures is a proverb among the Greeks. Christ was by at the creation, and rejoiced; Proverbs 8:30 angels also were by at the doing of a great deal, and were wrapped with admiration. Job 38:4-7 Shall they shout for joy, and we be silent? Oh, how should we vex at the vile dulness of our hearts, that are no more affected with these indelible ravishments!

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