a reference to which, probably, repetitions or contradictions might have been avoided. It is now committed to a distant press, without the possibility of the author's corrections or superintendence, which he trusts will plead his excuse for any mistakes or errors that may appear. He has only further to express his heartfelt desire, that it may please God to make this little work abundantly useful, especially in those* parishes in which the author has been permitted to labour, from which ill health alone has separated him, and which will ever possess his most grateful recollections, and his most fervent prayers.

P. S. Should any of the Expositions be considered too long for family worship, they are usually so arranged, as to divide easily into two portions, unconnected with each other.

Rome, March 2, 1841.

* The parish of Upper Chelsea and of Streatham.

NOTICE.

Previously to the removal of the lamented author, it was suggested to him, that many of the Expositions in this volume would be found more convenient for family reading if divided. In compliance with this suggestion, he arranged the chapters as they are now given to the public.

FAMILY EXPOSITION

OF

THE PENTATEUCH.

THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, CALLED GENESIS. Year, before the common year of Christ, 4004.

EXPOSITION I.

GENESIS i. 1-8.

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

"In the beginning;" all things, therefore, had a beginning: God alone could say, "From everlasting to everlasting, I am God." We learn from the opening of this remarkable book, that the heaven and the earth, and all that it contains, are the work of God's hands, not the creatures of accident and chance, but the productions of infinite wisdom and infinite love.

We are not,

B

indeed, told when they were created; it is sufficient for us to know that they were created, and that "God is the Maker of them all."

2. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The historian, writing under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, here tells us the state of the earth which we inhabit, at the period when the history of our world commences. 66 was without form and void." All was con

It

fusion, and disorder, and darkness; all waiting for the word of the mighty Architect to call it into order, and beauty, and light. While the Spirit of God (a notice at once of the plurality of persons in the Godhead, which is also implied by the word that signifies God being plural in the original language)—the Spirit of God sat brooding above this chaotic mass, as if nursing into birth the great and wonderful change that was approaching.

3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

The Almighty word was now given, and, for the first time, light broke in upon this disordered

mass.

A single word was word was spoken by God.

sufficient, when that And thus is it even

now; a word from the mouth of God, from his blessed book, from his Holy Spirit, and the darkness of the human mind, the thicker darkness of the sinner's heart, is dispersed, and all is light.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

The evening and the morning, not the morning and the evening, because the darkness had preceded the light; and, therefore, if we may so say, Time began his flight at eventide, and shall never tire, and never stop, until the morning of the resurrection. Here was the close of the first day on earth, and yet how little of God's great work was done! He who might have created all things without time, as he did without materials, chose thus to divide his wondrous labours, perhaps to leave an everlasting lesson of industry and activity to his people; and to teach them, that no day should pass, no daylight shine upon them, without beholding them do what their hand findeth to do, with their might, remembering that there is no device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither they are going.