(Septuagesima Sunday.)

GENESIS i. I. In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.

We have begun this Sunday to read the book of Genesis. I trust that
you will listen to it as you ought--with peculiar respect and awe,
as the oldest part of the Bible, and therefore the oldest of all
known works--the earliest human thought which has been handed down
to us.

And what is the first written thought which has been handed down to
us by the Providence of Almighty God?

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

How many other things, how many hundred other things, men might have
thought fit to write down for those who should come after; and say--
This is the first knowledge which a man should have; this is the
root of all wisdom, all power, all wealth.

But God inspired Moses and the Prophets to write as they have
written. They were not to tell men that the first thing to be
learnt was how to be rich; nor how to be strong; nor even how to be
happy: but that the first thing to be learnt was that God created
the heaven and the earth.

And why first?