In the latter part of the day, when this lower world was brought to perfection, and furnished with every thing necessary for his entertainment, man, for whose sake it was made, was created out of the dust of the ground; which will be more particularly considered in a following answer[24]. God having thus produced all things in this order and method, as we have an account thereof in scripture, he fixed, or established the course or laws of nature, whereby the various species of living creatures might be propagated, throughout all succeeding ages, without the interposure of his supernatural power, in a continued creation of them; and, after this, he rested from his work, when he had brought all things to perfection. Thus having considered the creation, as a work of six days, it may farther be enquired, whether it can be determined, with any degree of probability, in what time, or season[25] of the year all things were created. Some are of opinion, that it was in the spring, because, at that time, the face of the earth is renewed every year, and all things begin to grow and flourish[26]. And some of the fathers have assigned this, as a reason of it; because the Son of God, the second Adam, suffered, and rose from the dead, whereby the world was, as it were, renewed, at the same time of the year. But this argument is of no weight. Therefore the most probable opinion is, that the world was created at that season of the year, which generally brings all things to perfection; when the fruits of the earth are fully ripe, and the harvest ready to be gathered in, which is about autumn, the earth being then stored with plenty of all things, for the support of man and beast. It is not, indeed, very material, whether this can be determined or no, nevertheless this seems the more probable opinion, inasmuch as the beginning of the civil year was fixed at that time. Accordingly, the feast of ingathering, which was at this season of the year, is said, in Exod. xxiii. 16. to be _in the end of the year_; therefore, as one year ended, the other began, at this time, and so continued, till, by a special providence, the beginning of the year was altered, in commemoration of Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt. And, from that time, there was a known distinction among the Jews, between their beginning of the civil and the ecclesiastical year; the former of which was the same as it had been from the beginning of the world, and answers to our month September; from whence it is more than probable, that the world was created at that season of the year. We now proceed,