ed the first day? God has of set purpose placed
stumbling-blocks for scoffers at the entrance and the exit of the Bible,
as a rebuke to pride and vain curiosity.[224]

The duration of the seventh day is also hidden from man. It is God's
Sabbath, on which he entered when he ceased from the work of creation, a
rest which still continues, and which he invites us to enter into
(Hebrews iv. 1-5) as a preparation for the eternal rest. God's rest day
has already lasted six thousand years, and no man can tell how much
longer it may last. Perhaps his working days were each as long.

But if our objector had read the Bible attentively, he would have seen
that it _does not say that God created the heavens and the earth in six
days_. Before it begins to give any account of the six days' work, it
tells us of a previous state of disorder; and going back beyond that
again, it says: "_In the beginning_, God created the heavens and the
earth." It is as self-evident that this _beginning_ was before the six
days' work, as that the world must have existed before it could be
adjusted to its present form. How long before, the Bible does not say,
nor does the objector pretend to know. It may have been as many millions
of years as he assigns to the stars, or twice as many, for anything he
knows to the contrary. He must have overlooked the first two verses of
the Bible, else he had never made this objection; which is simply a
blunder, arising from incapacity to read a few verses of Scripture
correctly.

But it is replied, "Does not the Bible say, in the fourth commandment,
'In six days the Lord made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that
in them is,'" etc.? True. But we are speaking just now of a very
different work--the work of _creation_. If any one does not know the
difference between _create_ and _make_, let him turn to his dictionary,
and Webster will inform him that the primary literal meaning of _create_
is, "To produce; to bring into being from nothing; to cause to exist."
The example he gives to illustrate his definition is this verse, "In the
beginning God _created_ the heavens and the earth." But the primary
meaning of _make_ is, "To compel; to constrain;" thence, "to form of
materials;" and he illustrates the generic difference between these two
words by a quotation from Dwight: "God not only _made_, but _created_;
he not only made the work, but the materials." Both words are as good
translations of the Hebrew originals, _bra