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[27]
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But when the
earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and
a wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should be light:
and when that was made, he considered the whole mass, and separated the
light and the darkness; and the name he gave to one was Night, and
the other he called Day: and he named the beginning of light, and
the time of rest, The Evening and The Morning, and this
was indeed the first day. But Moses said it was one day; the cause of which
I am able to give even now; but because I have promised to give such reasons
for all things in a treatise by itself, I shall put off its exposition
till that time. After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over
the whole world, and separated it from the other parts, and he determined
it should stand by itself. He also placed a crystalline [firmament] round
it, and put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth, and fitted
it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews.
On the third day he appointed the dry land to appear, with the sea itself
round about it; and on the very same day he made the plants and the seeds
to spring out of the earth. On the fourth day he adorned the heaven with
the sun, the moon, and the other stars, and appointed them their
motions and courses, that the vicissitudes of the seasons might
be clearly signified. And on the fifth day he produced the living creatures,
both those that swim, and those that fly; the former in the sea, the latter
in the air: he also sorted them as to society and mixture, for procreation,
and that their kinds might increase and multiply. On the sixth day he created
the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female: on the same day
he also formed man. Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world,
and all that is therein, was made. And that the seventh day was a rest,
and a release from the labor of such operations; whence it is that we Celebrate
a rest from our labors on that day, and call it the Sabbath, which word
denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.
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