"God said, Let there be light: and there was light." How simple! And yet how Godlike! "He spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast." Infidelity may ask, "How? where? when?" The answer is, "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Heb. xi. 3.) This satisfies the teachable spirit. Philosophy may smile contemptuously at this, and pronounce it rude ignorance, or blind credulity, suitable enough for an age of semi-barbarism, but quite unworthy of men living in an enlightened age of the world's history, when the museum and the telescope have put us in possession of facts of which the inspired penman knew nothing. What wisdom! What learning! Yea, rather, what folly! What nonsense! What total inability to grasp the scope and design of sacred scripture! It, assuredly, is not God's object to make us astronomers or geologists; or to occupy us with details which the microscope or the telescope lays before every school-boy. His object is to lead us into his presence, as worshippers, with hearts and understandings taught and duly governed by his Holy Word. But this would never do for the so-called philosopher, who, despising what he terms the vulgar and narrow-minded prejudices of the devout disciple of the Word, boldly seizes his telescope, and therewith scans the distant heavens, or travels into the deep recesses of earth in search of strata, formations and fossils,--all of which, according to his account, greatly improve, if they do not flatly contradict, the inspired narrative.
With such "oppositions of science falsely so called," we have nothing to do. We believe that all true discoveries, whether "in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth," will harmonize with that which is written in the word of God; and if they do not thus harmonize, they are perfectly contemptible in the judgment of every true lover of scripture. This gives great rest to the heart in a day like the present, so productive of learned speculations and high-sounding theories, which, alas! in too many instances, savor of rationalism and positive infidelity. It is most needful to have the heart thoroughly established as to the fulness, the authority, the completeness, the majesty, the plenary inspiration of the sacred volume. This will be found to be the only effectual safeguard against the rationalism of Germany and the superstition of Rome. Accurate acquaintance with, and profound subjection to, the Word, are the great _desiderata_ of the present moment. May the Lord, in his great grace, abundantly increase in our midst both the one and the other.
"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." Here we have the two great symbols so largely employed throughout the Word. The presence of light makes the day; the absence thereof makes the night. Thus it is in the history of souls. There are "the sons of light" and "the sons of darkness." This is a most marked and solemn distinction. All upon whom the light of Life has shone,--all who have been effectually visited by the Day-spring from on high,--all who have received the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,--all such, whoever and wherever they may be, belong to the first class, are "the sons of light, and the sons of the day."
On the other hand, all who are still in nature's darkness, nature's blindness, nature's unbelief,--all who have not yet received into their hearts, by faith, the cheering beams of the Sun of righteousness, all such are still wrapped in the shades of spiritual night, are "the sons of darkness," "the sons of the night."