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PART II

PREFACE

THE BEGINNING AND END OF THE WORLD

Before entering upon the interpretation of the prophecies of the Old and New Testament Scriptures which relate to the things which are yet to be manifested in the latter days, we propose first to show and refute some of the erroneous and unscriptural views touching the creation and the end of the world, as they are commonly held and taught in the sectarian churches by their teachers, and as they are set forth in their religious books by their commentators and writers. While there is a little diversity of opinion among them upon some of the minor points yet upon the main questions they are generally pretty well agreed; and as their views and theories are in opposition to, and destructive of a large portion of the Old and New Testament Scriptures touching the creation and prophecies concerning those great and wonderful things which are yet to come to pass in the latter days, we therefore consider it necessary before treating of the hidden age and the things which are to arise hereafter to correct those errors and to remove them out of the way, so that persons of honest and inquiring minds may avoid the errors of the wicked.

THE CREATION OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH

Matthew Henry in his treatise upon the creation of the natural heavens and earth, and the creed of the Presbyterian church, says that in the beginning God created all things out of nothing. This statement is an error, a false doctrine, and very injurious and misleading, and moreover it is a flat denial of the Scriptures which declares emphatically that the earth and the waters. upon it existed and were there present when the creative work of God first began, which is proved as follows. The first verse in the Book of Genesis, which says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" does not refer to anything that God did before the first day, nor does it refer solely to what he did on the first day, but it is a general statement of what God did in the six days. This any person may see by what the Lord himself said after the six days' work was done, even as it is written in the first verse of the second chapter, saying, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." Therefore the first verse is a general statement of what the Lord did during the six days of creation. A definite and specific amount of work was done in each day of the six days of creation, and the amount of work that was done in each day is carefully noted and enumerated, for all God's creative work was done in the six days.

Therefore we inquire, What condition of things existed at the beginning when the very first act in the drama of creation was performed? The answer to this question is found in the first passage of the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis, saying, "And the earth was without form, and void, and

darkness was upon the face of the deep." Now let it be distinctly noted that this condition of the earth as stated above was its condition before and at the time that the work of creation began; that is, the earth was there, but completely submerged under water, and darkness covered the face of the deep. That the earth was completely submerged is evident from what is said in the ninth verse, as it is written, "And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters, called he Seas." Not only therefore was the earth entirely submerged under the waters, but the waters also around the earth were enshrouded in darkness.

THE FIRST ACT OF CREATION

The first act of creation is couched in the following words, saying, "And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Thus the waters were there, and the earth was there when the work of creation first began, and it is added concerning the first day's work, "And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night, and the evening and the morning were the first day." Thus the light was produced by the spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters, so that whatever elements or masses of clouds and mists lay upon the surface of the waters surrounding the earth, so thick and dense as to be impenetrable by the light of the heavenly bodies, were so wrought upon by the spirit of God as to admit light, as we see it in a dark and cloudy day, and yet not so as to reveal the heavenly luminaries themselves, which furnish the light. And it was not until the fourth day that the elements were so wrought upon and clarified as to permit the light of the sun, moon, and stars to shine through upon the earth as we now see it in a clear day. If therefore on the first day, when God commanded the light to shine out of darkness, that light came from the sun, then it is clearly to be seen that then one revolution of the earth would produce the day and night, even as it does now, and as it always has done since the first day of creation. An erring and an unreasonable person may say that in the beginning God created all things out of nothing, because to create a thing implies that it had no former existence, or it could not be properly called a creation. Now suppose that we test this rule and see if it will stand trial or not. It is written that God said, "Let us make man in our image and after our likeness." Again it is said in carrying out that purpose, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female, created he them." Therefore Adam and Eve were both of them new creations, and judged in the light, or rather darkness, of the above rule, they were each of them created ex nihil — out of nothing, and if that were so, then they sustained no relation whatever to each other. Consequently the basis upon which the Lord founded the law of marriage is annihilated by this rule of interpretation, and Paul erred greatly when he said at Athens that God had made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.

But Adam was not created out of nothing, but was created out of the

out of

dust of the earth, and Eve was created from a portion of Adam's own body. So also with the earth, it was not created as the clergy say ex nihil nothing, but it was there at the beginning, even in the condition that Moses says it was. And God by his spirit arranged and fashioned it as it now is. How long the earth had continued in the form in which it was when the creative work of God began, the Creator has not been pleased to tell us; but, as we have elsewhere shown, the earth itself at the present day, by the formation of its rocks and mountains, and by what man himself has exhumed from beneath its surface, furnishes indisputable evidence that the very earth that we now inhabit has long before the days of the present race of men been the abode of human beings, made, no doubt, in the image of God like ourselves.

And the condition in which the earth was at the beginning- that is, without form and void, when darkness covered the face of the deep indicates very clearly how that former world came to an end, that is by a flood. And it also indicates with a good deal of certainty how the present world will terminate after the works of God are finished in the earth, that is by a flood, and by reducing the earth again to the condition in which it was at the beginning. Of this, the human family have already had a most forcible intimation in the waters of Noah when the highest mountains were buried to the depth of over fifteen cubits by the mighty waters which were precipitated upon the earth, when the windows of heaven were opened and the fountains of the great deep were broken up.

CREATION OF THE FIRMAMENT

The work of the second day consisted in creating a firmament in the midst of the waters, and dividing the waters from the waters, "So 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." The firmament is therefore that open space above us which is situated between the clouds and the earth, for if there were no firmament, the clouds would float along upon the face of the earth and the waters; but God has so weighted the atmosphere that the base of the ocean of waters above us remains at that elevation where the clouds float, and from whence they shed their rains upon the earth.

LIGHTS IN THE FIRMAMENT

The work of the fourth day is contained in these words, "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also, and God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the fourth day."

Now in this account of the creation of the sun, moon and stars, we must

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