As it is beautifully expressed in Job xxxviii., "When I
made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band
for it" (verse 8).
Then commences the serial order of Divine acts with reference to the
_Earth_:--
(1) "AND GOD SAID; LET THERE BE LIGHT: AND THERE WAS LIGHT."
This verse is commonly taken as indicating a creation of light for the
first time in the entire cosmos or universe. And if it be so, there is
no objection, on any scientific ground, to the assertion that there was
once a time when as yet the vibrations and waves which we connect with
the idea of Light, had not yet begun. It is true that nebular matter, as
now observed, is believed to be, partially at any rate, self-luminous.
But this fact, supposing it to be such, is not inconsistent with a still
earlier time when light had not yet begun. From the "wave-theory" of
light, which is one of those working hypotheses which are indispensable,
and which, in a sense, may be said to be demonstrated by their
indispensability, it can clearly be seen that if light is caused by
rapid vibrational movement, there must have been--or at any rate there
is nothing against an authoritative declaration that there was--a moment
of time when the first vibrational impulse was given, when, in fact, God
said "Let there be light, and there was light," _before_ which also
there was "darkness upon the face of the deep.
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