The fact of creation is a miracle; it is the origination of the laws of nature, and therefore above and beyond these laws themselves. It is the first link from which all these laws proceed. The two first necessary conditions of our thought and sensation, space and time, are, as regards this material universe, the two first and the two greatest of God's works.
I. All those ranks of vegetable and animal being which we now behold, originated by the Divine will, were by the same Divine will placed under certain definite laws, by which their continuance in being and reproduction were to be regulated, and were endowed with faculties whereby they were able to follow those laws. Herein is the wonder, the marvel of love: that God, who needeth not creation, should by a free act, or rather an infinity of free acts, of condescension, create, uphold, provide for, bear in His fatherly care, all the great family of the universe.
II. In the order of the history of creation the various ranks of being, beginning from the lowest, proceed onwards to the highest; but we must not therefore for a moment dream, as some have done, of a gradual progression upwards of being, through the lower to the higher. The higher ranks in God's creation have ever been that which we find them in their laws and character, and have not evolved themselves out of the lower.
III. To say that beauty, and order, and adaptation reign through all these ranks of being is no more than to repeat an often-told tale. (1) Observe, first, the consummate beauty of God's arrangements in regard to mute, unorganised matter, from the grand but simple law which retains the planets in their orbits to that which forms the hidden crystals in the depths of the mine, or the frostwork on the window-pane, which melts with the first sunbeam. All is full of subjects for wonder and admiration. (2) Let us rise one step, and from unorganised matter come to organic life. Life, the special gift of God, is not the result of any combination of matter. Every portion of the frame in which it resides might be reproduced by art, but the beautiful model must wait for vitality till it is breathed down from the Creator Himself. There is no part of the earth but is full of animal life, no animal that is not a study inexhaustible in its proofs of creative wisdom and providing love. It has often struck me that the more we think of the utter incapability of the lower tribes of creation for increase of knowledge and skill, and compare it with their perfect knowledge and skill in that which is given them to do, the more do we see the present and acting power and love of God. They are so helpless, yet so full of needful resources; so unconscious of wisdom, yet so wise; so reckless of the future, yet so provident; so incapable of high motives, yet so self-devoted in their affections, that it appears to me that between these extremes in the same beings, so wonderful, so inexplicable, there must come in, living, and moving, and present day by day, the will of that gracious Father, the love of that Divine Son, the working of that blessed Spirit of wisdom, whose strength is made perfect in weakness, who hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, whose tender mercies are over all His works.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iv., p. 18.
References: Psalms 145:9. E. Johnson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 250. Psalms 145:10. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxx., No. 1796; J. A. Sellar, Church Doctrine and Practice,p. 318.