INTRODUCTION

Summary

That the glorious universe we see around us is the work of an Almighty Creator, the true and living God, is taught in the first sentence of the Bible, and affirmed throughout all the later books of Scripture. It holds the foremost place in the two main creeds of the Christian Church, and is there taught in the words, “I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” The Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, abound in testimonies to this great truth. It is declared strongly and plainly in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, and is proclaimed anew in the song of the heavenly elders, and in the oath of the mighty Angel, in that great prophecy which crowns and completes the written messages of God.

This truth is not set before us in the Bible with nice definitions or metaphysical subtleties, which might only obscure its simple grandeur. But it plainly includes two main ideas, that there is a Self-existent Being, the Supreme and All-wise Creator; and that all other beings are creatures which receive their being as the gift of His bounty, and depend from the first on His good pleasure alone. Hence those weighty sentences of the Bible, “I AM THAT I AM… I AM hath sent me unto you.” “Be sure that the Lord, He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.”