increasing brightness, while in the intervening spaces it is scarcely, if at all, to be discerned. Where all was previously luminous, one part becomes brighter as another becomes dark, as may be inferred from the appearances which nebulosities and nebulæ in general present. The rudest form in which matter is to be seen is that of a diffused shining nebulosity; and the first varied appearance is that of the luminous matter assuming a more condensed form, and occupying a space partly brighter and partly dark. And God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day; or, literally, and there was evening, and there was morning the first day (or one day), v. 4, 5.

In judging of the scriptural record of creation, we cannot rightly apply any other measure to the days-literally, as the term is thus defined, days―of creation, than that which alone is given in the record itself. According to this express definition, the light was called day. However long or however short was the duration of the light, so long or so short was the day; no other measure is given of its duration, which was determined as it was defined by that of the light alone. Till that ceased the evening did not come, nor was the day at an end. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. Then, as now, the duration of the light constituted the day. We are not told that the continuance of the light, so soon as it was called into existence, was dependant on any measure of time, or that the light disappeared again from the face of the deep, according to the measurement of the time by which a yet unformed globe would finally revolve round its axis: but the Scriptural definition expressly bears that the light itself was called day; and neither the first day nor any other did end till the light gave place to darkness and the evening came. For not only was the light called day, and the darkness called night, but, as repeated in respect to each succession of them both, there was evening and there was morning the first day (or one day). Time, as known by any other measure, had, we may say, no existence then. The days of creation, as defined, owned no relation but to the succession of light and darkness, to which they owed their being and their name. And the duration of the light (whether long or short) determined, as it defined, that of the day.* The term, in the original, sometimes signifies "time

* Neither adding to the word of God nor taking from it, we have to regard solely that which is written. Doubts and difficulties have without cause been started on this subject, by unconsciously adding to the word, or including a presumed measure of time in the definition of the days of creation, instead of limiting it, as in the scripture record, to the light alone, by the uninterrupted continuance of which, totally irrespective and exclusive