Note 126 — PRELIMINARY REMARKS (continued 2)

"The difficulty," he says, (alluding to Gen. i. 1,) "lies in this, that the heaven is distinctly said to have been formed ... on the second day." (p. 226.) But this is the language of a man determined that there shall be a difficulty. "The Heavens and the Earth" clearly denote, (in the simple phraseology of a primitive age,) the sum of all created things; the great transaction which Nehemiah has so strikingly expounded:—"Heaven, the Heaven of Heavens, with all their host,—the Earth and all things that are therein;" including "the sea, with all that is therein." (Neh. ix. 6.) Whereas "the firmament" of ver. 6, (which God called "Heaven" in ver. 8,) can only indicate the blue vault immediately overhead, wherein fowls fly. (ver. 20.) If this be not the meaning of Gen. i. 1, one half of the phrase is "proleptical,"—the other half not: for the creation of Earth is nowhere recorded, if not in ver. 1.... But surely it is a waste of words to discuss such "difficulties" as these.