Genesis 1:11-13 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind… In vegetation we have the productions of Divine chemistry! Out of the same elements we here behold the utmost diversity of results. Ten thousand species of herbs, plants, and trees, springing from the same soil, watered by the same showers, surrounded by the same atmosphere, and warmed by the same sun — yet how different in their qualities! Some are acid and some are tasteless, some offering the richest nourishment and others the rankest poison, some are exhilarating and some stupefying, a few are as sweet as honey, and many as bitter as the waters of Marsh, some secreting oil while others are exuding gum, some sending forth odours that delight and some that sicken and offend — yet all these are constituted of the same four or five primary elements, the diversity arising simply from the different proportions in which Infinite skill has combined them. And herein is chemistry which man, astonishing as his progress has been in this science, can neither imitate nor approach. Man, indeed, can take a plant and separate these its elements, and ascertain their exact proportions, but he can never recombine them so as to restore the plant. This is God's prerogative. "What a thought that was, when God thought of a tree!" exclaimed a philosopher. Yes, a tree, a single tree, originating in an atom seed, deriving its vitality from heaven, drawing its juices from the earth, feeding upon the air, eliciting its colouring from the sunbeam, and elaborating its several parts by the mysterious power of its own vitality — presents a concourse of contrivances and properties and functions such as would never have entered the mind of man, or perhaps of any other intelligence, had not God set it in living form before him. What conceptions, then, shall we form, and what sentiments entertain of that Mind, who, with unerring foresight, contrived a thousand, yea a hundred thousand differing trees and plants — differing in their size from the invisible lichen of the naked rock to the expanded banian tree of India, which proffers beneath its shade ample room for an army — differing in form from the creeping vine to the cedar of Libanus — differing in their age and duration from the ephemeral "flower of the grass" to the mighty adonsonia, hoary with the mosses of more than twenty centuries — differing in their juices from the nourishing grape to the pohon upas in their deadly valleys — differing in their aspect from the serpent cactus to the stately pine — differing in their habitations from the climbing lianas of the Guinea forests to the confervae of the silent pool — differing in the structure of their roots, in the form of their leaves, and in the texture of their stems — differing in their flowers, and seeds, and fruits — differing in the rapidity of their growth, and circulation, and decay — differing in their qualities for absorbing and reflecting the heat of the sun — and differing in a multitude of other particulars! In the vegetable kingdom we behold a diversity all but endless. In their creation, then, what countless ends to be secured. What an infinitude of influences, properties, and agencies to be determined. And what an infinitude, too, of weights, and measures, and proportions to be calculated. Yet in the Divine mind, as in a vast storehouse of glorious ideas and designs, the plans of all were perfect and complete ere ever the omnipotent word to clothe the earth with verdure had gone forth. In that plan nothing was forgotten, nothing overlooked. No unforeseen difficulty arose, no part of the Divine purpose failed, no tree or plant or blade of grass came short of its designed perfection. (H. W. Morris, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. |
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