The earth after it was created was for some time a confused and indigested mass of matter, a dark and unformed chaos; but God in six days reduced it into a world, in the following manner:

First, The Spirit of GoD moved upon the fluid matter, and separated the parts of which it consisted from from one another; some of them shined like the light of the day, others were opake like the darkness of the night; GoD separated them one from the other; and this was the first step taken in the formation of the world.

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Secondly, GOD thought it proper to have an expansion between the earth and heaven, capable of supporting clouds of water: the appointing this expansion, and suspending the waters in it, was the work of the second day.

Thirdly, After this, GoD caused the waters of the earth to be drawn off, so as to

'p rachiang, properly signifies an expansion, and not what is implied by the Greek word reperia Or our English word firmament.

drain the ground, and thus were the seas gathered together, and the dry land appeared; and then GoD produced from the earth all manner of trees, and grass, and herbs, and fruits.

On the fourth day, GoD made the lights of heaven capable of being serviceable to the world in several respects, fitted to distribute light and heat, to divide day and night, and to mark out times, seasons, and years; two of them were more especially remarkable, the sun and the moon: the sun he made to shine in the day, the moon by night; and he gave the stars their proper places.

Fifthly, Out of the waters God created all the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air.

On the sixth day, out of the earth God made all the other living creatures, beasts, cattle, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth. Last of all, he made man, a more noble creature than any of the rest: he made his body of the dust of the earth, and afterwards animated him with a living soul. And out of the man he made the

woman. This is the substance of the account given by Moses of the creation of the world. Moses did not write until above two thousand three hundred years after the creation; but we have nothing extant so ancient as this account.

II. We have several heathen fragments, which express many of the sentiments of Moses about the creation. The scene of learning in the first ages, lay in India, in the countries near to Babylon, in Egypt, and in time it spread into Greece.

The Indians have been much famed for their ancient learning. Magasthenes is cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, representing the Indians and the Jews as the great masters of the learning, for which afterwards the Greeks were famous; but the antiquities of these nations have either been little known, or their ancient learning is by some accident lost, for our best late enquirers can now meet no remains of it. Strabo and Clemens Alexandrinus give hints of several

*Strom. lib. 1, p. 360. Edit. Oxon.

notions amongst them, which would argue that they have been a very learned people; but the only considerable specimen we now have of their literature, is the writings of Confucius. Their present notions of philosophy are mean and vulgar, and whatever their ancient learning was, it was either destroyed by their emperor Zio, who, they say, burnt all their ancient books, or by some other accident it is lost.

The works of the most ancient Phoenician, Egyptian, and many of the Greek writers, are also perished; but succeeding generations have accidentally preserved many of their notions, and we have considerable fragments of their writings transmitted to us. The Egyptians, Diodorus Siculus informs us, affirmed, that in the beginning the heavens and the earth were in one lump, mixed and blended together in the same mass. This assertion may at first sight seem to differ from Moses, who makes the heavens and the earth distinct at their first creation;

y Diocor, Sic. lib. 1.

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but it is obvious to observe, that the Egyptians did not take the word heaven in the large and extended sense, but only signified by it the air and planetary regions belonging to our world; for the first Greeks, who had their learning from Egypt, agree very fully with Moses in this point. "In the beginning," says Orpheus," "the heavens were made by GoD, and in the heavens there was a chaos, and a terrible darkness was on all the parts of this chaos, and covered all things under the heaven." This is very agreeable to that of Moses: In the beginning GoD created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void, i. e. was a chaos, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Orpheus did not conceive that the heavens and the earth had ever been in one mass: for as Syrian observes, the heavens and the chaos were,

a

* Suid. voc. Op: Creden. ex Timol. p. 57. Procl. in Tim. 6.6. C. p. 117.