If it be indeed true, that light was not called into existence till the first day, nor the sun till the fourth, this objection is probably insuperable. But it would be easy to cite the opinions of many distinguished and most judicious expounders of the Bible, showing that the words of the Hebrew original do not signify a literal creation of the sun, moon, and stars, on the fourth day, but only constituting or appointing them, at that time, to be luminaries, and to furnish standards for the division of time and other purposes. The word used is not the same as that employed in the first verse to describe the creation of the world; and the passage, rightly understood, implies the previous existence of the heavenly bodies. "The words [Hebrew] are not to be separated from the rest," says Rosenmuller, "or to be rendered _fiant luminaria_, let there be light; i. e., _let light be made_; but rather, _let lights be_; that is, serve, in the expanse of heaven, for distinguishing between day and night; and let them be, or serve, for signs," &c. "The historian speaks (v. 16, end) of the determination of the stars to certain uses, which they were to render to the earth, and not of their first formation." In like manner we may suppose that the production of light was only rendering it visible to the earth, over which darkness hitherto brooded; not because no light was in existence, but because it did not shine upon the earth. Another objection to this interpretation is, that the fourth commandment of the decalogue expressly declares, that _in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is_, &c., and thus cuts off the idea of a long period intervening between the _beginning_ and the six days. I acknowledge that this argument carries upon the face of it a good deal of strength; but there are some considerations that seem to me to show it to be not entirely demonstrative. In the first place, it is a correct principle of interpreting language, that when a writer describes an event in more than one place, the briefer statement is to be explained by the more extended one. Thus, in the second chapter of Genesis, we have this brief account of the creation: _These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens._ Now, if this were the only description of the work of creation on record, the inference would be very fair that it was all completed in a single day.