THE FIRST BOOK 203 



and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man and 

 may be observed with sobriety ; wherein we may not seek 

 it by the name of learning ; for all learning is knowledge 

 acquired, and all knowledge in God is original: and there- 

 fore we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom 

 or sapience, as the Scriptures call it. 



It is so then, that in the work of the creation we see a 

 double emanation of virtue from God ; the one referring 

 more properly to power, the other to wisdom ; the one 

 expressed in making the subsistence of the matter, and the 

 other in disposing the beauty of the form. This being 

 supposed, it is to be observed, that for any thing which 

 appeareth in the history of the creation, the confused mass 

 and matter of heaven and earth was made in a moment, 

 and the order and disposition of that chaos or mass was 

 the work of six days ; such a note of difference it pleased 

 God to put upon the works of power and the works of 

 wisdom ; wherewith concurreth, that in the former it is not 

 set down that God said, c Let there be heaven and earth/ 

 as it is set down of the works following ; but actually, 

 that God made heaven and earth : the one carrying the 

 style of a manufacture, and the other of a law, decree, or 

 counsel. 



To proceed to that which is next in order, from God to 

 spirits; we find, as far as credit is to be given to the 

 celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius the senator 

 of Athens, the first place or degree is given to the angels 

 of love, which are termed Seraphim ; the second to the 

 angels of light, which are termed Cherubim ; and the 

 third and so following places to thrones, principalities, and 

 the rest, which are all angels of power and ministry ; so 

 as the angels of knowledge and illumination are placed 

 before the angels of office and domination. 



To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sen- 

 sible and material forms ; we read the first form that was 

 created was light, which hath a relation and correspondence 

 in nature and corporal things, to knowledge in spirits and 

 incorporal things. 



So in the distribution of days, we see the day wherein 



