Speculum mundi· Or A glasse representing the face of the world shewing both that it did begin, and must also end: the manner how, and time when, being largely examined. Whereunto is joyned an hexameron, or a serious discourse of the causes, continuance, and qualities of things in nature; occasioned as matter pertinent to the work done in the six dayes of the worlds creation.

Sect. 1. Of the Expansum, or stretching out of the Heavens.

COncerning this dayes work what it was, we finde it thus expressed, And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament; and divided the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven: and the evening and the morning were the second day. Gen. 1. 6, 7, 8.

This is the narration of what was done. And here let us consider, first of the Firmament: then of the waters which it separateth: and lastly of the severall Heavens, together with the regions of the aire, and of such appea∣rances as we use to see there: unto which if any thing else be met withall pertinent to this dayes work, it shall be added.

The word a 1.1 Rakiah translated Firmament, signifieth Expansum, or expansionem, which is a stretching out; not onely from the earth, but about the earth: so that the world being mans house, the Firmament is as the vaulted roof of it: Or ( as b 1.2 Hyperius observeth) it is tanquam the∣ca

quaedam, omnia quae Deo ipso inferiora sunt, inclusa con∣tinens; as a certain husk, shell, or box, inclusively con∣taining all things without the Heaven of heavens, or which are below that place where God doth manifest his glorie. Which also is further to be seen in the hun∣dred and fourth Psalme, at the second verse, where it is said that God hath stretched out the heavens as a canopie: or, extendisse incurvando coelos tanquam conopeum, as some reade it: by which comparison it seemeth that the Fir∣mament is not so much expansum ratione extensionis à cen∣tro, quàm circa centrum; not so much a thing stretched out by reason of its distance from the centre, as about the centre.

And again, we call it the Firmament, because in the stretching out it was not weakened, but made strong: In which regard expositours do well observe the difference which is between Rakiah and Karah. For, the word which is here used, they reade it Rakiah, and c 1.3 say that it doth properly signifie a thing made strong by stretching out; being therefore contrary to the word Karah, which is to break in stretching.

And the Greeks likewise, that they may give a full ex∣pression according to the proprietie of the word, do translate it and call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, from the verb 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, signifying to make strong or firm: and thus also the anci∣ent Greek Philosophers observed, calling the whole compasse of the heavens d 1.4 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, meaning the very ut∣most bound of them, which is not so weak that it should be broken in the stretching; but strong, and farre more free from a fluid nature then is that aire which the con∣cave of it keepeth and holdeth.

The Latines also call it Firmamentum; and we, in our speech, the Firmament: which in respect of its extension is the whole compasse of heaven on all sides; being as it were the case of the visible world and all things in it, as hath been shewed.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Janius, Gibbens, and others.
• b 1.2

  Meth. The•…•…l. lib. 2. pag. 333.
• c 1.3

  See Gibbens on Gen. chap. 1. quest. 5.
• d 1.4

  See Lydiats disquisitio Phys. cap. 10. pag. 196.