So also of prophecy. It asks for _time_. On the supposition that the fulfillment is to appear in the Scriptures, an interval of some duration must come between the utterance and the fulfillment. It was also wise that prophecy should subserve the superadded purpose of spiritual comfort to God’s people during the ages between comparative darkness and forth-breaking light. In fact it gave to God’s people the first single beams of morning twilight, bearing the grateful assurance that the Sun of Righteousness would surely rise on the nations in the fullness of gospel times. (4.) Still again; by this method of making up inspired history it is placed side by side with profane history and the most ancient monuments of the race, and thus invites investigation on the point of its truthfulness. Is this progressive history of God’s ways toward men confirmed by whatever reliable history of the same period has come down to us through other sources? This point well deserves and richly rewards a careful examination. (5.) Moreover, it is to be presumed that God would commence his revelation of himself to our race in the very infancy of their existence. The Bible shows us that he did. Assuming that at this point they had every thing to learn, we ought to expect that their first Bible lessons would turn their thought to the great truths of _natural religion_――the manifestations of God in his _works of creation and providence_. In harmony with this reasonable expectation, we read――“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In that opening chapter of revelation, God said, “Let there be light,” and it was; also “a firmament” above, and it was; “Let the dry land appear,” and it appeared; “let there be light-bearers in the heavens,” and they shine forth; let grass and herbs grow; let creatures live in the waters, in the air, and on the dry land, and it was so; and finally, “let us make _man_,” far unlike all the rest――“in our own image and likeness”――and god-like man sprang into being. So onward the narrative witnesses to the ever-present hand of God in the mists, the rains, and the teeming vegetation of the new-made world. God, the great Author of nature; God in nature and evermore over all nature, was the first lesson recorded in God’s revelation of himself to men.