But the testimony of the Bible, as to the origin of the world, is most explicit and decided. It declares that _in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and that the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear_. The obvious meaning of this latter passage is, that the material universe was created out of nothing. ([Greek: ta mê phainomena].) How much more satisfactory this simple and consistent statement, than a volume of abstract argument to prove the non-eternity of the world!
Now, if the testimony of the Scriptures on all other points has been found correct, why should we not receive with unhesitating credence, and even with joy, the sublime announcement with which that volume opens? True, we are not compelled to admit this statement, in order to save Theism from refutation, because geology shows us the commencement of several economies on the globe, which point us to a divine Author. But the doctrine of matter's creation out of nothing gives a desirable completeness to the system.
In looking back upon the subject, which has thus been discussed, too briefly for its merits, but too prolixly for your patience, several important inferences force themselves upon our attention.
And first, it furnishes a satisfactory reply to a well-known objection, otherwise unanswerable, against the argument from design in nature to prove the existence of a Deity. We present ten thousand examples of exquisite design and adaptation in nature to the atheist. He admits them all; but says, it was always so, and therefore requires no other Deity but the power eternally inherent in nature. At your metaphysical replies to his objections he laughs; but when you take him back on geological wings, and bid him gaze on man, just springing, with his lofty powers, from the plastic hands of his Creator, and then, still earlier, you point him to system after system of organic life starting up in glorious variety and beauty on the changing earth, and even still nearer the birth of time, you show him the globe, a glowing ocean of fire, swept of all organic life, he is forced to exclaim, "A God! a personal God! an infinitely wise and powerful God!" What though he still clings to the notion of matter's eternity? you have forced him to see the hand of Deity in its wonderful arrangements and metamorphoses; the hand of such a Deity as might have brought it into existence in a moment, by the word of his power.[13]
