SACRED PHILOSOPHY.

IN commencing this work, I am not attempting to make an apology for the Bible, because it needs none; therefore I shall begin where the word of God begins.

At the first chapter of Genesis, first verse, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." But who is God? asks the atheist. Is not nature God, and God nature? has not nature always existed, and will it not always exist? Oh, what fools are atheists! What would be thought of a person producing a watch before a number of individuals, and, because no one could tell who made it, declare that it always had existed in that form; and if one should reply, it could not have been in existence unless some watchmaker had manufactured it, the other should make answer, why, is not the watch the maker, and the maker the watch? Would not such a person be instantly condemned as a fool and a madman? Yet such fools are atheists; who, because they cannot comprehend God, deny his existence, and jeeringly scoff at the idea of spiritual power, by vainly attempting to reduce every thing to materialism; whereas the word of God, and all nature, declares, that spirit alone is the

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only thing containing intelligence and power. But the grand mystery how spiritual agency is carried on, or what the abstract principle of intelligence is, we know not, as all that we can know about the subject is only as it is manifested by its operations in matter; of which I shall treat at large as I go on.

THE AGITATION OF THE WATERS.

I would here remark, that God, the universal, omnipresent, omnipotent, Almighty Spirit, is alone the only true fountain of all spiritual lifeand spirit alone is life; and the world without spirit would be nothing but an inanimate chacs, enveloped in total darkness. Such the Bible declares was the state of our earth, when God by his Spirit began to operate upon it.

Verse 2. "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." The passage, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," seems to have reference to the component parts of the confused chaos, namely, the earth and the waters. Now, the natural condition of water, if divested of that power of expansion which it acquired by virtue of the perfect fluid, (light,) the principle of heat or fire, would be ice, as the condition of the earth at the poles fully testifies; consequently, the dark chaos must have been covered or incrusted therewith, and the waters being in an icy or congealed condition, were in a state of inanimation; and, as the waters were the matter, part of which were destined to compose the substance of the forthcoming atmosphere, the Spirit

of God commenced operating upon them first: and as the text declares that darkness was upon the face of the deep, the first act of setting the confused chaos in order was the dispersing of that darkness; therefore it says, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." So that the very first symptom of natural life is ascribed to spirit, not to matter.

(יהי אור)

THE CREATION OF LIGHT.

The next operation was the creation of light. Verse 3. "And God said, let there be light, and there was light;" or, according to the Hebrew, (8) "be light, and there was light" for the verb let is not in the original. Now the question arises, What is light? To which I answer, it is the most subtle and perfect fluid in nature it is the universal principle of life, and is used in the scriptures as the symbol of lifeas likewise darkness is the emblem of death. Now death implies a cessation of motion, a perfect paralization of matter. And such was the condition the confused chaos was in, when it was enveloped in darkness; which darkness is as really matter as is the crust of the earth; for it is nothing else than the humid densities or particles of the atmosphere gravitating to their centre, through the rays of the solar orb being intercepted by the disk of the earth, or any other phenomenon which the Creator chooseth to use; and it is said concerning the darkness that was over all the land of Egypt, that it was darkness which might be felt. But light, as I have observed, implies life or motion, and there can be neither life or light without motion; therefore,

when the Almighty Creator said, Be light, it was actually the infusing of life into nature-it was nothing less than the spirit taking possession of the waters, preparatory to their conjointly taking possession of the earth, the body, as I shall shew more at large further on. I would now request the reader's attention to the terms night and day, as they are placed, namely, the night first; because, when God by his Spirit commenced operating upon the confused chaos, it was covered with darkness-a true emblem of mankind in their present natural fallen state, for until the Holy Spirit illuminates the mind of man, it is nothing (in a spiritual sense) but a dark chaos; therefore the church of Christ may well say, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, &C.

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'And God said, let there be light." Now it does not follow that light was not in existence prior to that, as there never was a time when light did not exist; for God himself being the fountain of light and life, it consequently is eternal, as respects its generation. Therefore, when atheists ignorantly ask how there could be day and night without the sun, they only manifest their insane folly, as did the notorious Thomas Paine, when he asked the same question; which question I shall fairly answer in the proper place. But now to the text.

LIGHT DIVIDED FROM DARKNESS.

"And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. (v. 5.) And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.'

Now the word D youm, day, implies tumultuousness, agitation, &c. ; thus denoting the action of the subtle fluid or spirit light upon the confused chaos, which was covered with water or ice. Therefore it is probable, that the division of the light from the darkness alludes to the fact of the light being called day, and the darkness nightterms significant of their condition, the day denoting the atmosphere in motion, and the night the densities of the atmosphere gravitating to the earth, as I shall have occasion to shew more at large.

Thus was the first day performed, on the principle of life communicated to the natural creation; or, in other words, it was the quickening of nature—which brings me to the next operation,

THE EXPANSION OF THE WATERS.

Verse 6. "And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, to divide the waters from the waters. 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. translated firmament, signifies to expand, to stretch forth; it is called in the 150th Psalm the

רקע The word

praise him in הללוהו ברקיע עזו .power of God

the firmament, his power. The particle of in the English translation is not in the original Hebrew.

It is most evident to the commonest observer, that it is by the action of light that the darkness or gross particles of the atmosphere are scattered ; therefore God by his Spirit infused light into the darkness, or waters, (for the atmosphere is no