first verse of the first chapter of Genesis is perfectly detached from the chapter, and refers to a period we know not how remote. That it refers to a very remote period there can be no doubt, but it is in no way detached from what follows; the first five verses are a record of the first day's work, and if the first day was a period of long duration, then all the days were periods of long duration, and this harmonises revelation with geology. The word day is thus variably used throughout Scripture, as in the ii. 4, the six days of creation are termed "the day." And so, again, this dispensation of redemption is called a day, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee" (Ps. ii 7). "This is the day which JEHOVAH hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Ps. cxviii. 24). And when God said to Adam, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. ii. 17), He included mankind throughout this dispensation of our fallen economy.

What I wish to show is, that there was a dispensation day of creation, that the record agrees with the strata of the earth, and that the name JEHOVAH, the covenant name of God stands at the head of this dispensation of redemption that succeeded it. The Omniscient God foresaw the fall; He did not interpose to prevent it, but He did what was more, He interposed to eradicate the blot, and to crown the ruin with immortal glory, and this was what the ineffable name meant, even before sin had place in his fair creation. Let us look at the record.

"The JEHOVAH GOD had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground" (ii. 5). What a scene of desolation, no rain,

and no creature; but what material, what a field for the future!

"And the JEHOVAH GOD formed man of the dust of the ground." I have never had but one opinion upon these two chapters, and that is, that they are two perfectly different records; that there was a Preadamite human race; that death had closed upon that dispensation; and that a long period of rest for the earth intervened before the economy recorded in the second chapter was brought into being. But it will be said, if death transpired, sin must have existed; and doubtless it did; but that remote race had the gospel equally with ourselves, for the plural name of God in creation evidenced the presence of the Holy Trinity; those who lived up to the light they had were saved, even as faithful Abraham (1 Gal. iii. 8). The covenant to save was from a remote eternity, long before creation had name or place. Let my reader read carefully the two records, the first to the end of the 3rd verse in the 2nd chapter, and the second to the end of the chapter. In the second record, from the fifth verse, the word created does not once occur; "formed" and "made" are henceforth employed; whereas there was the distinction in the mind of the Spirit,"created, and made" (ii. 3). down the first chapter, we shall see tinction was. "In the beginning heaven and earth" (vi. 1). This was a part of the first day's work; afterwards on the fourth day, when God would make lights in the firmament of the heaven, He had not to create them, but probably put the heavenly bodies into motion, or perhaps created the law of gravitation, so as to cause the day and the night, or as

And if we glance wherein the disGod created the

He said, "Let them be for seasons, and for days, and years."

And so again in the eleventh verse we read, "Let the earth bring forth grass," the expression is the same as in the fourteenth, "Let there be light," when the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters, He created the seed that was afterwards to bring forth grass, herb, and fruit. Afterwards when the waters had been gathered together into seas, "God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth in the waters." And again, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (i. 27).

In the second record there is no such expression, "The JEHOVAH GOD formed man of the dust of the ground. And the rib, which the JEHOVAH GOD had taken from man, made he a woman." I would be most cautious in what I say about this second origin of man, since such a blasphemous error as that of Darwin may be received as truth; but I may say that this formation from matter seems to me a very different fact from the former, which tells us God created. To create is to produce out of nothing. The most that we can say is, that we are ignorant, our minds finite, contracted to a moment in comparison of the Infinite; we know nothing but by revelation, all else must be wild conjecture. St. Paul tells us, "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be .. But God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body" (1 Cor. xv. 37, 38—42). Christ upon the subject of his own resurrection rea

And

soned upon the same principle, "Verily, verily, I say

unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John xii. 24). All that I am maintaining is, that we know nothing of "The Almighty's everlasting circles," how within his works, in his hands there is an ever-restoring energy, or reproducing power capable of immortality. So, when we read of a distinction between the creation of man and the formation of man from the dust of the ground, we do not know what was the mind of the Spirit, we must leave it among the infinite works of the Almighty, to whom a thousand years are but as yesterday. But it enables us to distinguish between the two dispensations, that of creation and of redemption; or of that in which the "God Almighty" worked; and the Jehovistic dispensation in which we live. But while we are tracking these countless ages, let us keep in mind what that diabolical power must have been, that cost the Almighty a plan so profound, such myriads of ages to complete.

"And the JEHOVAH GOD planted a garden eastward in Eden . . .

"And out of the ground made the JEHOVAH GOD to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight. . . "And the JEHOVAH GOD took the man, and put him into the garden

"And the JEHOVAH GOD commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely

eat:

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Here was the evil prin

ciple, the deep mystery that we cannot fathom, before woman was made. We have read before, " Male and female created he them" (i. 27), but under our present economy, evil existed before the woman.

"And the JEHOVAH GOD said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him.

"And out of the ground the JEHOVAH GOD formed every beast of the field ..

"And the JEHOVAH GOD caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

"And the rib, which the JEHOVAH GOD had taken from man, made he a woman.

“And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man." This was a type of the mystical, spiritual union of Christ, and His church ; if we have his Spirit that proceeds from the Father, and from Himself, we are of his Church, and of his body; and if we have not the Spirit-no matter what else we have we are not of His Church, not his. And thus it was He said, we are one with the Father, and with Himself. And let us not forget, that it was God in Christ who planned all this, and typified it, before the human pair fell. The name JEHOVAH heads the prehistoric page; and governs the historic page. Therefore let us not think that we can do anything towards our own salvation; salvation is of God in Christ, He has done all, and yet this does not take away one jot or one tittle from Christian responsibility, on the contrary it increases it a thousandfold. Was