The Creation

“ Thus does regeneration become a work of orderly progress and successive growth. Guided by the Lord, it is brought forward under his never ceasing energies. It is begun in chaos and ends in the glorious likeness of Divinity. This, and manifold more, the parable of the Creation sets forth, in its beautiful symbols, concerning the beginnings of the soul, its progress through the stages of its advancing career, the nature of each successive state, and the quality of its celestial outcomes. ”

“ But there was a time before creation, before this beautiful fabric of the world was made, before even chaos itself, or the production of the rude matter, of which the world was made. And this time must be affirmed, not only as to material creation, but to that of angels and spiritual beings. Reckon we never so many ages, or myriads of ages, for the commencement of creation, yet it certainly began, and there was a time before that beginning. For, by the definition, creation is bringing that into being which was not before. ”

“ What the difference between the part in creation of the Father and the part of the Son may be, who can understand?—but perhaps we may one day come to see into it a little; for I dare hope that, through our willed sonship, we shall come far nearer ourselves to creating. The word creation applied to the loftiest success of human genius, seems to me a mockery of humanity, itself in process of creation. ”

“ Offer to it the lightest suggestion, and there springs forth from that abyss a figure corresponding, or a dozen figures, or a whole procession! The mere delight of creation calls them forth. Could anything be more wonderful? What a strange glimpse it gives us of the possibilities of Creation. ”

“ She at once assented to there being a Creator, and though probably had never heard of one before, asked for His name. How happy I feel when coming to one such I tell of the God of creation, and unfold the wondrous story of redemption. ”

“ But those older revelations, imparted to the first man and the second progenitor of mankind, are expressly laid down as the groundwork of that evangel of the creation, which forms the introduction to the whole volume of Scripture, and furnishes us thereby with a key to understand the history and religion of the primitive world—or, to speak absolutely, the true Genesis of the existing world, its history and its science. ”

“ Looking only at nature, or looking at it only with the lights of experience and reason, I see not how it is possible to avoid one of these two theories, the development of all organic existence out of gaseous elements, or the eternity of matter in its present forms.
Creation, however, solves the dilemma. I have, in my postulates, begged the fact of creation, and I shall not, therefore, attempt to prove it. Creation, the sovereign fiat of Almighty Power, gives us the commencing point, which we in vain seek in nature. But what is creation? ”

“ And here we have (as I think will be seen one day) the whole rationale of Creation—we have the conception which brings into line the phenomena of the visible and material world and their genesis, with the genesis of thoughts in our own minds, and their passage into visibility and expression; we have the conception which unites the mental and material, and which makes the whole Creation luminous with meaning. ”

“ He thought how its history, long as it seems, is only an instant in the history of Creation. In the numberless worlds which are forever forming and perishing, what an insignificant rôle is played by this poor sun, which is the prime actor for us! ”

“ A pious expositor very justly observes, By faith assenting to Divine revelation, and not by reason we understand the truth and wonders, the reasons and causes, the manner and end, of the creation of the world. Reason indeed tells us that there was a creation, consequently a Creator; but reason without Divine revelation could never have discovered the circumstances and manner of the creation, which wholly depended upon the will of God. ”

“ In the two accounts imperfectly fused together in Genesis, and also in the account of which we have indications in the book of Job and in the Proverbs, there, is presented, often with the greatest sublimity, the same early conception of the Creator and of the creation—the conception, so natural in the childhood of civilization, of a Creator who is an enlarged human being working literally with his own hands, and of a creation which is "the work of his fingers." ”

“ This is but a central illustration of what would determine the Fathers’ conception of the truth of physical events. Again: the Creation was a great miracle; its cause, the will of God. The Cause of the Creation was spiritual, and spiritual was its purpose, to wit, the edification and salvation of God’s people ”

“ And what is the spiritual world, but an outbirth or derivation from the Divine Mind? Creation is, properly speaking, production,—a sending forth, as it were, by the Infinite God, of indefinitely various forms and existences from Himself. ”

“ Creation precedes Providence, not merely in the order of sequence, but what is usually called intellectual and physical grandeur. So in genius and taste, Poetry transcends prose. In the work of Creation the Almighty broke the awful stillness of Eternity, by His first creative fiat, and angels were the first-born of God. They took their thrones in the galleries of the universe, and in silent contemplation sat. ”

“ Thus we see that the terms "creation," and "to create," have, in Scripture phraseology, a spiritual meaning. This renewal of the heart, this cleansing of the spirit, this becoming a new man, was termed by our Lord, the rebirth or what is the same, regeneration. We have been created or born naturally; we are to be created or born spiritually. Until this second or spiritual birth takes place no man has fulfilled his destiny. We have been created natural beings to live on the earth, we are to be created spiritual beings to live there unto the Lord. ”

“ And, under these names heaven and earth, the whole creation is signified, either as divided into spiritual and material, which seems the more likely, or into the two great parts of the world in which all created things are contained, so that, first of all, the creation is presented in sum, and then its parts are enumerated according to the mystic number of the days. ”

“ The Creation is, as it were, a Poem in the Sublime: Every Species of created Beings is a Stanza, and every individual Creature, a Verse in it, as a certain learned Divine expresses it. Creation here is not stiled εργον, which is a Work of manual Labor, but ποιημα [333] , a Work of Skill; not so much the Operation of the Hand, as of the Head and Heart: No Creature so small and mean, but glitters with a Beam of divine Skill. ”

“ The creation was the common effect of their joint acting: nor is it ever said, nor so much as hinted or implied, that the distinct Persons in the Godhead had different provinces, nor that one creature was made by one, and another creature was the workmanship of another. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are never represented as acting separately, but always in conjunction. ”

“ The term regeneration, as used by our Lord, (it is a Latin word signifying rebirth) expresses the whole idea. This means that from being worldly minded we are to become spiritually minded; that from being lovers of self and the world we are to become lovers of God and the neighbor. Of the particulars of this change we will learn more further on. We here only note the truth that the history of the creation as given in the book of Genesis is, in its true intent and meaning, a parable of regenertion. Natural creation symbolizes spiritual creation. ”

“ We speak of creation, then, either as of the Father, of the Son, or of the Holy Ghost, because it is of the Trinity—one act of the Godhead. But we attribute creation properly to the Father, because He is the Infinite Personal Cause. We attribute it to the Son, because He is the Infinite Personal Life. ”

“ I do not here speak of the Biblical account of the creation, but I speak of that belief in a Creator which is to be deduced from the phenomena of nature. While there are naturalists, scientists, [Pg ix] and philosophers at the present day, whose speculations do not exclude the idea of a Supreme Being, there are others whose theories are entirely inconsistent with a belief in a personal God, the Creator and Governor of the universe. ”

“ The one essential thing in the doctrine of Creation is that the origin of our world and of the things upon it came about at some period of time in the past by a direct and unusual manifestation of Divine power; and that since this original Creation other and different forces and powers have prevailed to sustain and perpetuate the forms of life and indeed the entire world as then called into existence. ”

“ We have seen, thus far, how there came into the thinking of mankind upon the visible universe and its inhabitants the idea of a creation virtually instantaneous and complete, and of a Creator in human form with human attributes, who spoke matter into existence literally by the exercise of his throat and lips, or shaped and placed it with his hands and fingers. ”

“ This Logos, the Word of God, says he, is superior to all the world, and more ancient; being the productor of all that was produced. The eternal Word of the everlasting God is the sure and fixed foundation upon which all things depend.”
Creation is moreover ascribed to the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit has a personality distinct from that of the Father, and also that of the Son, and a real and proper Divinity, is a doctrine of Divine revelation. In his personal capacity, he is not the Father, nor the Son. ”

“ Thus, though there undoubtedly was in Creation a progressive development from the earliest and simplest to the latest and highest forms, yet this progression was from within outwards, and not from without inwards; that is, from internal to external, and not from external to internal. All things are created and continually controlled by the Love and Wisdom of God, according to a Divinely perfect plan and fixed laws, and for a Divine end, this end being the creation of man, and the formation of the human race into an angelic heaven. ”

“ The New Church gives us a doctrine of the creation which is not open to any of the objections which have been urged against the opinions and theories of the materialist or theologian, which accepts all the facts discovered by scientists, and still declares in the most positive manner that all creation is a gradual work, due to a personal, intelligent, and constantly acting Divine Being, who is the source of all power, life, and existence. ”

“ For all the members of creation form, as it were, the links of one great chain, and were but one removed, though it might perchance be only some poor weed or lowly moss, yet might it cause the whole to be annihilated ”

“ So are we integral parts of the scheme of Creation, and each act, either in accordance with the Divine purpose or the reverse, is helping forward or retarding the completion of that Thought, though like the cells we are ignorant of the end which Creation has in view. ”

“ Creation implies an abrupt appearance, transformation a gradual change.
In this manner is presented to our contemplation the great theory of Evolution. Every organic being has a place in a chain of events. ”

“ And so it has been with the whole Course of Creation—the succession of strata, of animal and vegetable tribes, and with man and the adaptive provision for his higher destiny. This is a doctrine of development and of progression, widely different from that of the “Vestiges,” more in unison with the Creator’s wisdom and the Creator’s care:—a speculation worthy of a separate treatise, namely, the progress and development of man’s intelligent, moral, and spiritual being as indicated in the course of revelation. ”

“ Miracle discredits the ordered scheme of creation; and quite as much does it do so if you believe creation to be the work of a personal Deity. Creation (science shows us more and more) was from its inception a process of absolutely related causes and effects—a whole system reared up through millions and millions of years upon a structure involving infinite millions of lives and deaths—and the whole a perfect sequence of causal happenings. ”

“ And when it shineth forth from the Horizon of the universe with infinite Divine Names and Attributes upon the contingent and placeless worlds, this constituteth the emergence of a new and wondrous creation which correspondeth to the stage of "Thus I called creation into being". ”

“ The infinite hath no beginning, and this word “beginning” is employed to signify the first, because the eternal fact of creation, when Spirit is the creator. The creative Principle is God, Life, Truth, and Love. There is but one Creator and one creation. The unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, forever embraced in the infinite Mind, and being reflected through time and eternity, is creation. These ideas range from a blade of grass upward to the Elohim, or sons and daughters of God, Spirit. ”

“ The Creation story originated in a stock of primitive myths common to the Semitic races, and passed through a long period of development before it was incorporated in the book of Genesis. If, then, it is the fact, as Christian scholars assert, that this story of the Creation originated in a pagan myth, and was shaped and altered by unknown hands for nearly a thousand years, it is nothing more nor less than superstition to hold that it is divinely true. ”