“In fact, if the manner of assertion in our text be strictly scanned, it will be found to be more exact and philosophical than the Latin, ex nihilo Deus mundum fecit, or the English, God made the world out of nothing. Each of these phrases presents the seeming incongruity of asserting that nothing was the material out of which the world was made. But our author is more strictly conformed to philosophical propriety, when he says, ‘Things visible were not out of things that are visible,’ i. e., the visible creation was brought into existence by the word or command of God simply, and was not formed or fitted up out of any pre-existing materials. Exactly so do we find the assertion in 2 Macc. vii, 28: ‘God did not make them [heaven and earth] out of things existing’; i. e., he strictly created them.”—Stuart’s Com. on Hebrews, p. 453. These words seem very much to the point. To grasp and appreciate the great fact of actual creation is placed by Paul among the mighty acts of faith.