Conjectura cabbalistica

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8 Now therefore this diaphanous transparent Canopy or firmly stretched Tent over the whole pavement of the earth, though I cannot say properly that God saw it was good, it being indeed of a nature invisible, yet the use of it shows it to be exceeding good and necessary. And God called the whole capacity of this hollow Firmament, Heaven. And the evening and the morning made up the second natural day.

9 And now so sure a Defence being made against the inundation of the upper waters, that they might not fall upon the earth, God betook himself the next day to order the lower waters, that as yet were spread over the whole face thereof; at his command therefore the waters fled into one place, and the dry land did appear.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called Sea: and I may now properly say, that God saw that it was good, for the Sea and the Land are things visible enough, and fit objects of our sight.

11 And forthwith before he made either Sun, Moon, or Stars, did God command the earth to bring forth grass, herbs and flowers, in their full beauty, and fruit-trees, yielding delicious fruit, though there had as yet been no vicissitude of Spring, Summer, or Autumn,

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nor any approach of the Sun to ripen and concoct to mature or ripen the fruit of those trees. Whence you may easily discern the foolishness of the idolatrous Nations, that dote so much on second causes, as that they forget the first, ascribing that to the Sun and Moon, that was caused at first by the immediate command of God.

12 For at his command it was, before there was either Sun or Moon in the Firmament, that the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind; so that the several sorts of plants might by this means be conserved upon the earth. And God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning made up the third natural day.

14 There have three days past without a Sun, as well as three nights without either Moon or Stars, as you yourselves may happily have observed some number of Moonless and Starless nights, as well as of Sunless days, to have succeeded one another: and so it might have been always, had not God said, Let there be Lights within the Firmament of heaven, to make a difference betwixt day and night, and to be peculiar garnishings of either. Let them be also for signs of weather, for seasons of the year, and also for periods of days, months, and years.