7th. Those among theistic thinkers who have been tempted to regard matter as eternal and self-existent, have been influenced by the vain hope of explaining thereby the existence of moral evil in consistency with the holiness of God. They would refer all the phenomena of sin to an essentially evil principle inherent in matter, and would justify God by maintaining that he has done all that in him lay to limit that evil. Now, besides the inconsis- tency of this theory's attempt to vindicate the holiness of God at the expense of his independence, it proceeds upon absurd princi- ples, as appears from the following considerations : (1.) Moral evil is in its essence an attribute of spirit. To refer it to a ma- terial origin must logically lead to the grossest materialism. (2.) The entire Christian system of religion, and the example of Christ is in opposition to that asceticism and " neglecting of the body/' (Col. ii., 23) which necessarily springs from the view that matter is the ground of sin. (3.) When God created the material uni- verse he pronounced his works " very good." (4.) The second Person of the holy trinity assumed a real material body into per- sonal union with himself. (5.) The material creation, now "made subject to vanity" through man's sin, is to be renovated and made the temple in which the Godrnan shall dwell forever. — See below, Chap. XXXVI., question 17. (6.) The work of Christ in delivering his people from their sin does not contemplate the re- nunciation of the material part of our natures, but our bodies, which are now " the members of Christ," and the " temples of the Holy Ghost," are at the resurrection to be transformed into the likeness of his glorified body. Yet nothing could be more absurd than to argue that the o&fm nvevfiaTL/cov is not as litterally ma- terial as the present oQ>\ia tfvxticbv. (7.) If the cause of evil is essentially inherent in matter, and if its past developments have occurred in spite of God's efforts to limit it, what certain ground of confidence can any of us have for the future.
5. Prove that the work of creation is in Scripture attributed to God absolutely, i. <?., to each of the three persons of the Trinity coordinately, and not to either as his special personal function ?
1st. To the Godhead absolutely, Gen. i., 1, 26. 2d. To the Father, 1 Cor. viii., 6. 3d. To the Son, Johni., 3 ; Col. i., 16, 17. 4th. To the Holy Spirit, Gen. i., 2 ; Job xxvi., 13 ; Ps. civ., 30.
GEOLOGY. 191
6. Hoiv can it be proved that no creature can create ?
1st. From the nature of the work. It appears to us that the work of absolute creation ex nihilo is an infinite exercise of power. It is to us inconceivable because infinite; and it can belong, there- fore, only to that Being who, for the same reason, is incomprehen- sible. 2d. The Scriptures distinguish Jehovah from all creatures, and from false gods, and establish his sovereignty and rights as the true God by the fact that he is the Creator, Is. xxxvii., 16 ; xl., 12, 13 ; liv., 5 ; Ps. xcvi., 5 ; Jer. x., 11, 12. 3d. If it were admitted that a creature could create, then the works of creation would never avail to lead the creature to an infallible knowledge that his creator was the eternal and self-existent God.
7. What opinion do modern geologists entertain as to the an- tiquity of our globe, and upon ivhat does that opinion rest ?
The universal opinion of all geologists, Christians and infidels, theists and atheists, is that the material composing our globe has been in existence for incalculable ages ; that it has passed through many successive stages in its transition probably from a gaseous, certainly from a molten condition, to its present constitution ; and that it has successively been inhabited by many different or- ders of organized beings, each in turn adapted to the physical conditions of the globe in its successive stages, and generally marked in each stage by an advancing scale of organization, from the more elementary to the more complex and more perfect forms, until the advent of man, the last and most perfect of all, about six thousand years ago. The facts upon which this opinion is founded are barely indicated in the following summary condensed from the 2d chapter of Pres. Hitchcock's able work on " Ke- ligion of Geology."
1st. The rocks are in their present form evidently the result of the operation of second causes. " Some of them have been melted and reconsolidated, and crowded in between others, or spread over them. Others have been worn down into mud, sand, and gravel,- by water and other agents, and again cemented to- gether, after having enveloped multitudes of animals and plants, which are now embedded as organic remains." They bear upon them as indubitable marks of change and wear as any of the an- cient works of man. To infer that they were created in their
192 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD.
present form would violate every principle of analogical reasoning upon which all science proceeds.