1 This material agency is called "the Spirit of God," OF THE ALEIM, because He created it, and now assigned to it its proper office. It acted, and still acts, as his instrument. As his power alone could have called it into existence, so that power alone could cause such a motion in the reasoning, and judge for himself.-I see not how the grammar can be made to mean that the רוח אלהים מרחפת of the words eternal omnipotent person, THE SPIRIT of GOD in the highest sense of the phrase, moved on the face of the waters. For if , as prefixed to participles and nouns, denotes the instrument or mean or place of action, how can it be so understood in the word лn, if the Divine Spirit be spoken of? His agency must be absolute, independent of any cause beyond his own will and power. The feminine termination of the participle affords another argument for interpreting the word spirit in a subordinate sense. For I am not aware that an instance can be produced in which any adjective or participle in the feminine gender, is made to agree with this or any other appellative of Deity. The conjugation also of the participle is favourable to this view; for the participle huphal, which denotes a causing the action of the verb, can hardly be considered to be proper in speaking of Divine agency. "In all cases, the literal meaning of a word must be the first object of our inquiry, because its figurative meaning is only an applied meaning; and to judge of the propriety of the application, we must understand the nature of the thing applied. If a word has one sense, that sense is of course considered as its literal sense. But if it has various senses, it then becomes a matter of inquiry, and sometimes of difficult inquiry, in what manner these various senses shall be arranged." Bp. Marsh's Lectures. Lecture xvi. p. 73. The literal sense of every Hebrew root is derived from material objects, and ought to be adopted unless the passage in which the root occurs requires a figurative one. stagnant mass, as was requisite to the production of those effects, whether temporary or permanent, for which this mighty agent had been created.* By calling it "the spirit of God," the sacred * "The Element of air, says Hippocrates,* has dominion over the human body, and is the principal source of all things that happen to it, whether good or bad. Its power and influence deserve well to be examined; for wind is no other than a current of air rolling along in impetuous waves, which are so violent as to tear up trees by the roots, raise the waters of the ocean into a storm, and overwhelm and sink the largest vessels to the bottom of the deep. Such, and so great is the power it exercises, though at the same time it is not an object of our senses, but manifest only to our reason. What are the effects to which air is not necessary, or in what place is it not present? all the space between the heaven and the earth is filled with it. It is the cause both of summer and winter: in the winter it is condensed and cold, in the summer it is mild and serene. The sun, moon, and stars are directed by it in their courses; for air is the aliment of fire, and fire that is deprived of it becomes extinct; so that the sun itself has a perpetual motion, by means of a pure and perennial air. The sea itself is impregnated with this element, because the inhabitants of the water cannot subsist without it in a word, it sustains the moon in its orbit, serves as a vehicle to the earth, and no place is void thereof." Lectures. Vol. i. p. 197. Adams's "Plato, the greatest and most amiable of the Greek Philosophers, accounts for the animal functions from an intertexture of air and fire, acting throughout the whole frame of the body to fire he ascribes the office of expanding within, and acting throughout the body outwards; while the element of air compresses from without, and counteracts the force of the internal fire." Ibid. * A celebrated Greek Physician, of the Isle of Cos, who is styled the father of Physic. He died 361 years before Christ.-Fabricius Bibl. Græc historian, moreover, showed the folly of that idolatry which ascribed to the agency of THE HEAVENS, the honour which belongs to HIM who created and employed them to subserve the purposes of his own will. The effect attributed to "the spirit of God," is motion on the confused terraqueous mass. This motion produced pressure on both surfaces of the fluid materials. The verb here employed is used (Deut. xxxii. 11.) to describe the fluttering of an eagle over her nest. And it should seem, that from a corrupt tradition of the fluttering or tremulous motion of the spirit on the primitive chaos, arose the tradition of several heathen nations, concerning the world's being formed from an egg, hence called "the mundane egg."* By means then of this agency, aided by the concurrence of another specified in the following verse, the chaotic mass gradually assumed its shape and beauty, till it became fit for the habitation of the highly favoured tenant, who was destined to occupy it. And by the same agency it has been preserved to the present hour. Before we proceed to the third verse, I shall * "The first motion was nothing more than an undulation excited upon the surface of the Chaos by the Spirit of God:and it is highly probable, that this impression on the surface gave both the spherical figure, and the rotation on the axis.”— Horsley's BIBLICAL CRITICISM. Vol. i. p. 2. call your attention to a corresponding agency, (of which the material spirit is the undoubted type and representative)* which is employed in the formation and support of the spiritual fabric, to which the natural is subservient and preparatory. The former is the prototype of the latter, and the several particulars recorded of that, were designed to be illustrative of this more glorious work of Divine wisdom, goodness, and power. "Known unto God were all his works * 66 Having said that wind is sometimes called veμa' Aristotle adds, that the same word πvevμɑ is used also in another sense; namely, for that substance which in plants and animals is the principle of life` and fecundity, and pervades all things.' The principle of life and fecundity, which not only is in plants and animals, but pervades all things, is clearly a description of the Spirit of God, according to the corrupt notions which the Heathen Philosophers entertained of that Divine Person, making him the soul of the world. For that Divine Person the word Tveʊμa, according to Aristotle, is a name in Greek. "Aristotle's observations may be extended perhaps to all languages. In all at least that we recollect, the principle of intelligence, life, and fecundity, in created things, and the analogous principle in the Divine Nature itself, the Lord and Giver of Life, is expressed by words, which literally render wind, breath, air. The reason is obvious. The air being imperceptible, or nearly so, by the sight, touch, or any of the senses, is an apt image of the invisible, intangible, immaterial principle. Besides this, the air dia a diŋke It insinuates itself between the smallest sensible parts of all bodies, and is active every where by its pressure, or by its elasticity. Hence it is an apt image of that which is every where present, though not corporeally, and every where active." BIBLICAL CRITICISM. Vol. i. p. 64, 65. from the beginning of the world." Creation and Redemption are equally his works. And I think there is evidence for believing that he planned the former with a view to the latter;* since He * This seems to derive confirmation from the manner in which St. Paul has spoken of the holy place of the Tabernacle or Temple, as distinguished from the most holy. The latter confessedly symbolized Heaven, the residence of Jehovah. The former the present material world. The Apostle therefore calls it " a worldly sanctuary," ayo KOKO Accordingly, the blue covering and veils seem to have represented the azure firmament ;—the seven-fold Candlestick, the planetary system ;-the four pillars, overlaid with gold, surmounted by "lily work," or flowers resembling the solar rays, may have been representations of the etherial supporters of the earth, the solar efflux and reflux. (1 Sam. ii. 8.) &c. &c. That there was an intended analogy between the outer Tabernacle and the Mundane system, seems to have been a prevailing opinion among the ancient Jews, if we may judge from the assertion of their learned historian; for Josephus, after he has described the Tabernacle, asks, “what is all this but an image of the whole world? as," he adds, " will appear to any man that does but soberly and impartially consider the matter." See also Mucknight's note on Heb. ix. 1. How magnificent is the view of Divine power, which is so often suggested by the spirit of inspiration, when the prophets claim for JEHOVAH their ALEIM the attribute of " spreading out the Heavens," or the etherial fluid in its three conditions. See Is. xlii. 5. xlv. 12. li. 13. Jer. x. 12. li. 15. This act of Omnipotence is sometimes compared to the act of man, in spreading out the curtains of a tent, intimating the facility with which the vast expansion was spread out by its Almighty Creator. See Psalm civ. 2. Is. xl. 22. "He that sitteth on the circle," or above the orbit, "of the earth, (Comp. Job xxii. 14.) and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent, to dwell in." If we may suppose that the allusion is not to a common tent, but to the azure covering of the sacred tabernacle; and |