by Providence after the rest of Beings were completed But as what Moses has said of the Creation by most Christian Writers is understood of the whole System of Beings as well coelestial as terrestrial so we find when the antient Gentils speak of the Rise of things from a Chaos they mean the same Hesiod and Ovid and others that write of the Chaos are plain that the Heavens rose from it as well as the Earth And we know the Hermetick Philosophers who are lookt upon by some to be much more antient than Moses but certainly of great Antiquity tell us of a Cohabitation there was of Superiors and Inferiors in the Chaos and that upon the Separation of it the Superiors retir'd to their coelestial Abode Aristophanes also whom the Author admires above the rest plainly says in his Cosmogonia that the Chaos was before the Earth the Air and the Heavens Moreover when the Author says the Theogonia of the Antients was the same with their Cosmogonia and their Cosmogonia the same with their Geogonia it would be absurd to understand those Genealogies of the terrestrial Bodies exclusively to the coelestial For those Gentils being infected with Polytheism and making the chief Parts and Portions of the World Gods it 's manifest that they did not only make the chief parts of the Earth so they being known to have ador'd the whole Host of Heaven So again as to the Dissolution of the World by Fire we find the Antients generally understood it of the Heavens as well as of the Earth Hierom in his Comment on the 15th of Isaiah says Quae quidem Philosophorum mundi opinio est omnia quae cernimus igni peritura Seneca delivering the Opinion of the Stoicks says Sydera syderibus incurrent omni flagrante materiâ uno igne quicquid nunc ex disposito lucet ardebit Lucan says Communis mundo superest rogus ossibus astra Misturus and he expresses himself to the same purpose elsewhere Ovid from the Oracles of the Sibyls says Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus Quo mare quo tellus correptáque regia coeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laboret The Sybils Verses are as follows Tunc ardens fluvius coelo manabit ab alto Igneus atque locos consumet funditus omnes Terrámque oceanúmque ingentem caerula ponti Stagnáque tum fluvios fontes Ditémque severum Caelestémque Polum caeli quoque lumina in unum Fluxa ruent formâ deletâ prorsus eorum Then from high Heaven vast streams of Fire shall flow Those Flames consuming all things here below The Earth the mighty Ocean the blue Main Lakes Rivers Fountains and what Dis does claim And Heaven it self whose Lights shall flow in one And Stars shall fall their Form destroy'd and gone So again it 's a common Opinion amongst Christian Divines that the Heavens will be destroy'd by Fire as well as the Earth Dr. Hakewill in his Apology says it seems to him the most likely opinion and most agreeable to Scripture and Reason that the whole World with all the parts thereof only Men Angels and Devils and the third Heavens the Mansion House of the Saints and Angels and the Place and Instruments appointed for the tormenting of the Damn'd excepted shall be totally and finally dissolv'd and annihilated which he proves by many forcible Arguments refuting the contrary Opinion and mentioning many learned Men of his thinking he has so far evinc'd it that it is not solidly answerable to whose Book for brevity sake I must remit the Reader So Salmeron on that passage of S. Peter 2.3 says Loquitur ergo hoc in loco de veris coelis de quibus David dixit Initio tu Domine terram fundasti Opera manuum tuarum sunt coeli ipsi peribunt nimirum per ignem ubi ostendit veros coelos veram terram verè peritura And beneath Quòd autem quidam ex patribus interpretabantur non de supremis veris coelis sed de aereis aqueis esse intelligendum ratione ipsius Textus revincuntur nam imprimis ostendimus nunquam coelorum nomine in plurali numero aereos elementares coelos accipi deinde post coelos nominatos subdit elementa verò calore solventur infra elementa ignis ardore tabescent quod aerem aquam sphaeram ignis spectare videtur Non possunt ergo per coelos accipi illa tria elementa cum bis coelos ab elementis contra distinguat Again Esay 34.4 it 's said All the Host of Heaven shall be dissolv'd and the Heavens shall be roul'd together as a scrole and all their Host shall fall down as the Leaf falls from the Vine and as a falling Fig from a Fig-tree Which words S. John Apoc. 6.13 seems to have borrowed from the Prophet And so I look upon the following Verses of Juvencus to be writ according to a Prophetick Truth Immortale nihil mundi compage tenetur Non orbis non regna hominum non aurea Roma Non mare non tellus non ignea sydera Coeli Nam statuit Genitor rerum irrevocabile tempus Quo cunctum torrens rapiet flamma ultima mundum I shall only add that those who by their insight in Symbolical Learning reach the mystical sense of the Prophets well know that what is symboliz'd by the Heavens will pass away in the day of the mystical Conflagration as well as what is symboliz'd by the Earth whence unless the whole shall be symbolically evacuated so that the Conflagration shall not concern external nature I shall ever believe that the one will be concern'd in it as well as the other homo cum dormierit non resurget dum non erunt Coeli And not to rest in mystery where I may be plain the mystical Conflagration is known to be the Baptism by Fire and the Spirit whence I conceive some Sects of Christians almost from the first times of Christianity as the Jacobites Aethiopians Copts Isini c. instead of baptizing with Water were wont to have their Children burnt by their Priests in the Cheeks or Foreheads with an Iron according to that Matth. 3. He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and Fire Now when God is pleas'd to send that Baptism not only Sense symboliz'd by the Earth but Reason also symboliz'd by the Heavens passes away and is absorp'd in the Spirit and carryed above itself the Spirit being as much exalted above Reason as Reason is above Sense and this is a truth own'd by all Divines though none I conceive can apprehend how the thing is transacted but those to whom God has vouchsafed that Baptism they being brought into that State of mind which made S. Paul say Omnia mihi in Aenigmate facta sunt Nothing being able to perceive the ways of the Spirit but the Spirit and hence we find after the Apostles receiv'd it they were censur'd by the People of being intoxicated with
Spring-Tides the whole will be overflown He farther tells us that as Fires and Waters bear sway o'er earthly things their rise and ruine being from and by them it was the Opinion of Berosus that Deluges and Conflagrations will happen thro the Courses of the Planets and that a Conflagration shall happen when all the Planets which now keep different courses shall meet in Cancer being so plac'd that it shall pass in a direct line through them all and that a Deluge shall happen when the said Planets shall so meet in Capricorn the one making the Summer Solstice and the other the Winter Signs of great Power being the Points for the Changes of the Year And Seneca receives these Causes also one Cause being too little for so great a Ruin He adds whether the World be an Animal or a Body Nature governing it as Trees and standing Corn From its beginning there was included in it whatsoever it ought to act and to undergo to its end as in the Seed is comprehended the whole state of the future Man so that the Child yet unborn has the Law of a Beard and grey Hairs the Lineaments of the whole Body and of the succeding Age being there in little and conceal'd So he says the Origine of the World contain'd as well the Sun and Moon and Courses of the Planets and the Rise of Animals as those things with which earthly things are chang'd In these was an Inundation which happens by the Law of the World no otherwise than Summer and Winter And he says all things will help Nature for the performance of her Constitutions but the Earth it self will afford it the greatest cause to drown it which will be resolv'd into Moisture and flow by a continued consumption the tainted parts as in Bodies ulcerated by degrees bringing the rest to a general Colliquation Here we plainly see what the grounds of the Stoicks and others were for admitting Deluges and Conflagrations They having observed that particular Bodies on the Earth had a beginning and decay and were again renewed by their Seeds thence by Analogy concluded that the same Order must pass as to the whole World and again having consider'd that Fires and Waters bore the sway o'er earthly things and that the one prevail'd in the Summer the other in the Winter they thence imagin'd that besides ordinary Summers and Winters whereby the ordinary Changes are wrought on the Earth there would happen some great periodical Revolutions in the Heavens causing so great a Predominancy of Fires and Waters here below that they would cause general Changes over the whole face of the Earth at once Bede speaking of these Changes says it was the opinion of all the Philosophers that earthly things received their Periods sometimes by a Deluge and sometimes by a Conflagration because the Waters being plac'd under the Fountain of Heat it happens that the Moisture encreases by degrees and overpowers the Heat till being detain'd by no bounds it diffuses it self over the Earth and drowns it which Moisture at length being dry'd by the Heat of the Sun and Drought of the Earth the Heat encreases in its turn and over-powers the Moisture till being diffus'd over the Earth it burns it He adds there are some that say these things happen through the general Elevation and Depression of the Planets for if all the Planets are elevated together being remov'd from the Earth more than they ought they consume less of the Moisture whence the Moisture encreasing it diffuses it self o'er the Earth and causes a Deluge If but one two or three of them are elevated without the others the Moisture thereby does not abound for what increases by their remoteness is dry'd by the nearness of the others but if all are depress'd together they burn the Earth and cause a Conflagration doing too much by their nearness as by their remoteness they did too little Many others who write of these Mundane Changes word themselves much after the same manner Whence we find the Antients did not barely rely on Tradition for these Changes but had such grounds as they conceiv'd rational for admitting them Now if it shall be said that the Causes they have assign'd are not competent for such Changes possibly it may be because they sought for Causes which were not in Nature to be found For those Antients either supposing the Deluge of the antient Ogyges to have been general or having heard that some other Deluge had been affirmed so to have been and finding by marine Bodies dug in Mountains that the Waters of the Sea had been there they attempted to assign Causes for an universal Change at one effort whereas those Causes upon examination were found either to have been assign'd gratis without any solid ground or to answer only partial Changes Hence Aristotle and the soundest Reasoners well seeing the slight Presumptions on which this Opinion was grounded derided the Stoicks Epicureans and others who maintain'd it For first Aristotle knew they had no sound Records for making out that any such Change had happen'd in Nature And secondly he having well weighed the Rotation of the Elements and what past in particular Bodies found that what flow'd from the later receded from them which must cause a decay but whatever flowing there were in the Elements it still return'd into them so that nothing was lost or decay'd as to the whole nor so much to any chief part as to cause a total Dissolution And since no Man that I know of has hitherto assign'd a Cause able to work a general Change in the Earth at once I should be inclin'd according to natural Principles to follow his Opinion a general Change being to be ascribed to Miracle for ought I know till some Prophet shall come to help us out As for what has been said by the Sibylls and antient Magi among the Gentiles concerning these Changes I speak not of what has been prophetically deliver'd of them in Sacred Writ which I judg refers to a miraculous hand we know they were Persons chiefly concern'd in the Politick Government of their times and being greatly skill'd in Adept Philosophy as some of our Prophets also transcendently were they knew how to adapt the great Phaenomena of the Earth to the Microcosm and moral World and there is a Mystery in what they intimate as to these Changes which I think not fit here to explain but may note that those who are seen in the Promethean Arcanum Astrologicum and have heard the seven-Reed Pipe of Pan know on what grounds the above-mention'd Astrological Causes for Deluges and Conflagrations were originally introduc'd and whither they tend The antient Druids of our Nation who were the most famous for Adept Philosophy of any Men of these parts of the World nay and as Pliny says the Persian Magi may seem to have had their rise from them and who govern'd all here in their Sacrifices which they thought most acceptable to their Gods were wont to make
and to have been educated by Oceanus and Tethys or by the Oceanine Nymphs the Air being chiefly fed by the Sea-Waters rarify'd And indeed it seems much more natural to me that the great Magazine of waters for supplying all the parts of the Earth should in good measure be plac't on that part of it where the strongest Action of the Sun is than to make it near the Poles where its Rays have little or no Effect or in places remote from the said part It 's true the Author may say the Waters are brought round again from the Poles to the Parts near the torrid Zone by the Rivers and that the Rivers terminating there these parts were all plashy and moorish whence the Sun might as well raise Waters to supply the Earth as from the Sea But still I say it 's unnatural not to place Waters where the strongest Action of the Sun is and again I cannot think those other Waters would serve the turn they being all fresh whereby notwithstanding their flowing a general Corruption must have follow'd in them as also in regard they were not refresht by Rains and frequent Fountains passing into them at certain distances as now Neither do I conceive they could have aptly maintain'd a Vegetation and Propagation of Species in Plants and Animals And I make no doubt but if the Uses of the Sea were duly inspected and stated its Waters as now qualifi'd with an highly fermented Brackishness would be found of as necessary use in carrying on the Oeconomy of the Macrocosm as the bilous pancreatick splenetick and other Juyces are for performing the like Office in the Body of Man or indeed as the learned Palaeopolitanus says to take the Sea from the Earth were the same as to drein an Animal of his Heart Blood To this we may add that if the concurrent Vote of all the Men of Sense of Antiquity signifies any thing they are unanimous in the Assertion of a Sea from the beginning so as a Commentator on Aristotle has truly observ'd that all those who have held the World Eternal held the Sea so too and all those that held the World to have had a beginning held the Sea to have existed together with it And we know that Neptune was always held an Antediluvian God and so we know the famous Division of the World betwixt the three Brothers Jupiter commanding the Air Neptune the Sea and Dis or Pluto the inward Regions of the Earth And indeed we find the Ancients so fond of a Sea that scarce any of them describe a terrestrial Paradise but mention the Sea with it CHAP. XI THIS Chapter treats concerning the Mountains of the Earth their greatness and irregular Form their Situation Causes and Origine First then the Author here gives us an Eloge on Mountains expressing himself thus The greatest objects of Nature are methinks the most pleasing to behold and next to the great Concave of the Heav'ns and those boundless Regions where the Stars inhabit there is nothing that I look upon with more pleasure than the wide Sea and the Mountains of the Earth There is something august and stately in the air of these things that inspires the Mind with great Thoughts and Passions We do naturally upon such occasions think of God and his Greatness and whatsoever has but the shadow and appearance of Infinite as all things have that are too big for our Comprehension they fill and overbear the Mind with their excess and cast it into a pleasing kind of stupor and admiration But at last he concludes that these Mountains so specious as they seem are nought but great Ruins and then expatiates much in setting forth their Greatness irregular Form and Situation and lastly assigns their Causes and Origine Now as to the Causes and Origine of Mountains and the accidents belonging to them since I have already shewn that the Account which the Author has rendred of them upon the breaking of the Earth at the Deluge is erroneous I shall not here say more to them especially having intimated already in the fifth Chapter how I conceive Mountains a Sea c. may be accounted for more rationally another way but shall offer some things concerning the necessity and use of Mountains from the beginning of the World as I have already shewn the necessity of a Sea When a man considers the fair Encomium the Author has made on Mountains tho at last concluding them to be but a Ruin and excluding them his Antediluvian Earth he would be apt to say it 's pity that Earth suppos'd far to exceed the present should be without such noble Ruins and ev'n Paradise it self and indeed as the Ancients according to what I have intimated before scarce ever describ'd a Paradise without mentioning a Sea so they seldom did it without naming Mountains I know not how all Mankind may stand affected but I know a great part will agree with me that a level Country can never be so pleasant as a Country diversified in Site and Ornament with Mountains Valleys Chases Plains Woods cataractical Falls and Serpentine Courses of Rivers with a Prospect of the Sea c. What is a dull Level to this Where the sight is terminated at the next Hedge and if you raise Towers to overlook it it can never equal or come near the Charming variety of the other Nor does the Authors Instance in his Answer to Mr. Warren c. 7. seem to me to clear the Point where he says we are pleas'd with the looking upon the Ruins of a Roman Amphitheater or a Triumphal Arch tho time has defac'd its beauty For the question will still lie whether a Roman Amphitheater or Triumphal Arch in its Glory were not more beautiful and pleasing to behold than the Ruins of them and I shall still be of Opinion that the present Earth on the accounts before exprest has a more delightful and Charming prospect than its Antediluvian state as by the Author represented could have afforded but let us consider the use of Mountains We find the Ancients call'd the Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Mother Earth for as Plato says the Earth does not imitate a Woman but a Woman the Earth and they compar'd the Mountains on the Earth to the breasts of a Woman and indeed if the thing be duly consider'd we shall find that the Mountains are no less ornamental and of necessary use to the Earth for affording continual streams of fresh Waters to suckle all her Productions than the protuberant Breasts of a Woman are both for beautifying her Person and yielding sweet streams of Milk for the nourishment of her Children Hence also they call'd Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multimamma and ador'd it by that name under the figure of an Hermaphrodite this Hermaphroditical Figure of Nature was to denote its double Power because the Ancients and among others of them Orpheus Trismegistus and Soranus said Nature was both male and female and hence with the Greeks
it 's said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Orpheus stil'd Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deum Naturam and the ancient Latins us'd Naturus as well as Natura they gave it therefore an Hermaphroditical Figure but still with many Breasts the Types of Mountains Secondly The very learned Joannes Reuchlin tells us that the whole Ornament of Nature is from the admirable variety of things found in it And D. Hakewill tells us he ever conceiv'd that Variety and Disparity in that Variety serving for Ornament Use and Delight might thereby serve to set forth the Wisdom Power and Goodness of the Creator no less than his greatest and most glorious Works We shall therefore consider of what use Mountains are for promoting that Variety of which we are sufficiently put in mind by the learned D. Brown in his judicious Account of his Travels p. 89. where he says thus Tho Austria be more Northern than Stiria or Carinthia the Heats are there much greater for there may be as much difference as to the temperature of air and as to heat and cold in one Mile as in ten degrees of Latititude and he that would cool and refresh himself in the Summer had better go up to the top of the next Hill than remove into a far more Northern Country And beneath In the hot Country of Arabia Travellers complain much of the Cold they suffer in passing the Hills The Mountains of Italy and Spain are cover'd with Snow and Ice all the Summer so is Mount Atlas when in Great Britain there is no such thing Hence it 's easie to find of what Importance the Elevations of Mountains are for diversifying Effects on the Earth for it 's manifest that the Sun that Father of Generation joining with the central or seminal Mover in the Earth does not only diversifie Effects here by his gradual Approaches according to the Rectitude of his Rayes on either side the Aequator But does it rather in a greater measure according to the various Reflexions of his Rayes through the various Sites and Elevations of the Earth whence the Atmosphere must be greatly varied in deep Valleys on the tops of Mountains and in their various Acctivities according as they regard several Faces of the Heavens Earth and Seas And since in respect of Elevations as I have quoted from Dr. Brown there may be as much difference as to the Temperature of the Air in one Mile of height as in ten Degrees of Latitude I wonder the Antediluvian Earth is suppos'd without this Advantage the Beauty of Nature consisting in diversify'd Effects and it being evident that nothing can diversifie so much as such Varieties of Elevations Is it that the suppos'd Richness of the Antediluvian Soil could have supply'd all this We answer that such a rich and fertile Soil is no way proper for many of Nature's Productions which delight rather in such Soils as are generally most barren The learned Poet knew this when he said Nec verò terrae serre omnes omnia possunt Fluminibus salices crassisque paludibus alni Nascuntur steriles saxosis montibus orni Littora myrthetis laetissima denique apertos Bacchus amat colles aquilonem frigora taxi c. All Soils produce not all things here below Willows delight in Rivers Alders grow In muddy Marshes and the Wild Ash stands On rocky Mountains Myrtles on the Sands Beside the Sea the Vine loves open Hills The Yew the cold North-Wind and Winter chills We know that many Herbs set in a fat and moist Soil lose their Nature and Vertue because they love Drought And Hippocrates tells us that Mountain Plants are of a more smart and vehement operation than others And here a learned Botanist has a large Field to expatiate in setting forth the variety of Plants according to the various Sites and Elevations of the Earth The like may be said of Animals how many Species of them are there which seem to be made for Mountains and Mountains for them Of which a Man might say as Virgil does of his Goats Pascuntur verò sylvas summa Lycaei Horrentes rubos amantes ardua dumos Goats and such other Animals delighting in such course Food which unless eaten by them would fall to nothing And as Dr. Hakewill tells us It 's observ'd that the Inhabitants of Mountains by reason of the Clearness of the Air the Dryness of the Soil and a more temperate Dyet thereby occasion'd are for the most part stronger of Limb healthier of Body quicker of Sense longer of Life stouter of Courage and of Wit sharper than the Inhabitants of the Valley And Mountains seem appointed by Providence to guard the lower Countries from the violence of blasting and fierce Winds to bridle the Fury of the enrag'd Sea to mark out the Bounds and Borders of Nations to stop the sudden Invasions of Enemies and to preserve Hay Corn Cattel Houses and Men from the danger of Land Floods which overflow the Plains by the rising of Rivers And hence as Alexander ab Alexandro acquaints us many of the Antients paid a Veneration to Mountains extended on the Sea-Coast as to a Deity the Sea being thereby kept from over-flowing the Land Again the Author having excluded Mountains from his Antediluvian Earth he excludes Metals and Minerals of course for no Mountains no Mines nor Minerals And it will be hard to give an Instance in natural History of any Mines in level Countries unless some Fragments of Metalline Ores are carry'd thither by a Torrent from some adjacent Mountain For Metalline-Ores lie not in Horizontal Beds as they are all in level Countries but in Beds either standing perpendicular to or some degree rais'd above the Horizon the Reasons of which I may set forth in some other Tract The Author speaking of these Mineral Productions in the Sixth Chapter of his Second Book says thus As for subterraneous things Metals and Minerals I believe the Antediluvians had none and the happier they no Gold nor Silver nor courser Mettals the Use of these is either imaginary or in such Works as by the Constitution of their World they had little occasion for And Minerals are either for Medicine which they had no need of farther than Herbs or for Materials to certain Arts which were not then in use or were supply'd by other ways These subterraneous things Metals and metalick Minerals are factitious not original Bodies coaeval with the Earth but are made in process of time after long Operations and Concoctions by the Action of the Sun within the Bowels of the Earth And if the Stamina or Principles of them rose from the lower Regions that lye under the Abysse as I am apt to think they do it does not seem probable that they could be drawn through such a Masse of Waters or that the Heat of the Sun could on a sudden penetrate so deep and be able to loosen and raise them into the exterior Earth I have intimated before
aptly enough exprest himself to his Friend Mersennus in reference to those who take upon them to correct the Order observ'd in Nature saying Why think you are there Men that fancy Plants in Mountains and the Stars in Heav'n might have been set in a far better order than they are but because they judge no order apt but that which the mind of Man so discerns These are Men who if humane sagacity has excogitated certain artificial Contextures which seem pleasing presently by a narrowness of mind strive to transfer them to the nature of things and think Natures works must then aptly consist when they are according to an Imitation of Art as tho besides the mind of Man there were not another mind to whom other harmoniacal Laws may be more pleasing And beneath he adds If Hypotheses are propos'd as learned Inventions which may exercise the Wit of Man by their subtlety and by a certain shadowy Analogy to things themselves seem not ungrateful I freely allow them as so but for Men to urge them as tho the nature of things must consist as they have fancy'd I see no reason we have so to receive them CONSIDERATIONS ON The Theory of the Earth The Second BOOK Concerning the Primaeval Earth and concerning Paradise CHAP. I. and II. THE first Chapter is an Introduction setting forth the Contents of the second Book The general state of the Primaeval Earth and of Paradise And it s thus In the first Book he says He shew'd the Primaeval Earth to have been without a Sea Mountains Rocks or broken Caves and that it was one continued and regular Masse smooth simple and complete as the first works of Nature use to be but here he must shew the other Properties of it how the Heavens were how the Elements what accommodation for humane Life why more proper to be the Seat of Paradise than the present Earth Concerning Paradise he notes first two Opinions to be avoided as two extreams One placing Paradise in the Extra-mundane Regions as in the Air or in the Moon the other confining it to a little spot of ground in Mesopotamia or some other Country of Asia the Earth being now as it was then For he says It is not any single Region of the Earth that can be Paradisiacal unless all Nature conspire and a certain order of things proper and peculiar to that State so that both must be found out viz. the peculiar order of things and the particular Seat of Paradise As to the peculiar Order of things he says It 's certain there were some Qualities and Conditions of Paradise that were not meerly Topical but common to all the rest of the Earth at that time and that the things that have been taken notice of as extraordinary and peculiar to the first Ages of the World and to Paradise and which neither do nor can obtain on the present Earth were first a perpetual Spring and Equinox Secondly The Longaevity of Animals Thirdly Their Production out of the Earth and the great Fertility of the Soil in all other things The Ancients he says have taken notice of all these in the first Ages of the World or in their golden Age and what they have ascrib'd to to this Age was more remarkably true of Paradise tho not so peculiar to it but that it did in a good measure extend to other parts of the Earth at that time And he says 'T is manifest their Golden Age was contemporary with our Paradise they making it to begin immediately after the Production and Inhabitation of the Earth which they as well as Moses raise from the Chaos and to degenerate by degrees till the Deluge And as the Author avers the whole Earth to have been in some sense Paradisiacal in the first Ages of the World and that there was besides some portion of it that was peculiarly so and bore the denomination of Paradise so the Ancients besides their golden Age which was common to all the Earth noted some parts of it which did more particularly answer to Paradise as the Elysian Fields Fortunate Islands Gardens of Hesperides Alcinous c The first Character then of Antiquity concerning the first and Paradisiacal state of things was a perpetual Spring and constant serenity of the Air for this he quotes Virgil Ovid and other Poets of the Gentils and Christian Authors for the same and adds that Jewish Authors have spoken of Paradise in the same manner saying that the days there were always of the same length thorowout the whole Year which made them fancy Paradise to lie under the Equinoxial The second Character was the Longaevity of Men and he thinks it probable of all other Animals in proportion and this he says is well attested and beyond all Exception having the joynt Consent of sacred and prophane History The third Character was the Fertility of the Soil and the Production of Animals out of the new made Earth Hence also he says all Antiquity speaks of the Plenty of the golden Age and of their Paradises whether Christian or Heathen and so of the spontaneous Origine of living Creatures out of the first Earth Now as to the time of Duration He says It is to be noted that these three Phoenomena of the first World did not last alike The Longaevrity of Men and the Temper of the Heav'ns lasted to the Deluge but that Fertility of the Soil and the simple and inoffensive way of living fail'd by degrees from the first Ages In the second Chapter the Author upon a more distinct Consideration of the three Characters before mention'd represents the great Change as he supposes of the World since the Flood intimating it as well in the Civil World as the natural and endeavours to shew that the Earth under its present form could not be Paradisiacal nor any part of it I thought it necessary to state the Contents of these two Chapters here that the Reader might clearly possess himself of the Authors Doctrine introductory to this Book tho I shall offer nothing against them at present but refer what I have to say thereon to my considerations on the next and some following Chapters where the Contents of these two will come more properly under Examination CHAP. III. HERE the Author sets forth th' Original differences of the first Earth from the present or Post-diluvian He proposes to find the Characters of Paradise and the Golden Age in the Primitive Earth and gives a particular Explication of each Character The Differences of the Primaeval Earth from the Present He says were chiefly three viz. The Regularity of its Surface it being smooth and even the Situation or Posture of its Body to the Sun which he affirms to have been direct and not as it is at present inclin'd and oblique and the Figure of it which was more apparently and regularly oval than it is now From these Differences he says flow'd a great many more inferiour and subordinate and which had a considerable
not to any other Hemisphere Austin and Hierom and the antient Fathers generally holding that there was no other Continent but this we inhabit And tho the Author refers the Consideration of this Opinion of the high elevated situation of Paradise to another Chapter I think fit to examin it here We find then that several of the Authors before-mention'd as Barcephas Strabus Fuldenses Historia Scholastica Beda Austin besides many others not nam'd before as Damascene Rupertus Basil Alchimus Avitus Tostate and many more gave Paradise a very highly elevated situation some saying it to have been seated as high as the Sphere of the Moon or within the Lunar Circle Which Opinion seems to me to have been taken from the Theology of the Gentils their Divines as Servius tells us placing Elysium about the Lunar Circle But this Opinion the Author says looks very strange and extravagant at first sight but the Wonder will cease if we understand this not of Paradise taken a part from the rest of the Earth but of the whole Primaeval Earth wherein the Seat of Paradise was that was really seated much higher than the present Earth and may be reasonably suppos'd to have been as much elevated as the tops of our Mountains are now and that Phrase of reaching to the Sphere of the Moon signifies no more than these other Expressions of reaching to Heaven or reaching above the Clouds And he believes the Antients aim'd by this Phrase to express an Height above the middle Region or above our Atmosphere that Paradise might be serene And he tells us the Tradition of reaching to the Lunar Circle is deriv'd by Albertus Magnus as high as from S. Thomas the Apostle c. I know some reply to this Opinion that if Paradise had been as high elevated as those Authors represent it the Basis or Foundation of it must have taken up in a manner the whole Earth for it to have afforded an easie and gentle Ascent to Men if the State of Innocency had continued Whence they say that when those Fathers said that Paradise reacht to the Lunar Circle or near Heaven they said it hyperbolically to shew the Excellency of it by its hyperbolical Height or to set forth the continual even Temper of the Air there it resembling in this the coelestial Bodies which are without Contrariety But to pass by this Answer the ground on which these Authors went to give Paradise this high elevated Situation which the Author intimates to have been only for a Sereneness of the Air I find by a learned School-Divine to have been three-fold First for affording a Descent to the four Rivers which are said to have issu'd from Paradise to water the whole Earth Secondly for a serene and wholsom Air whence they would place it above the Winds and Vapors of the Earth Thirdly that it might be preserv'd at the time of the Deluge as they all suppos'd it was being much higher than all the Mountains said then to have been overflown We find therefore on what ground Barcephas gave Paradise an high elevated Situation viz. For the Course of the four Rivers which he plainly signifies thus Asserimus eam terrum in quâ est Paradisus altiorem multò sublimioremque existere hâc quam nos colimus Id enim ita se habere indicio sunt quatuor illa grandia flumina quae orta in Paradisi terrâ per hanc nostram ab illâ diversam feruntur Ralegh also quotes the following Passage from him to this effect Deinde hoc quoque responsum volumus Paradisum multò sublimiore positum esse Regione atque haec nostra extet terra eóque fieri ut illinc per praecipitium delabantur fluvii tantò cum impetu quantum verbis exprimere non possis eóque impetu impulsi pressique sub oceani vado rapiantur unde rursus prosiliant ebulliantque in hoc à nostro culto orbe So again on the other ground viz. The Preservation of Paradise at the Flood it was given an high Situation and as for its Continuance since the Flood Irenaeus says it was an Apostolical Tradition that Henoch and Elias now remain in Paradise and tells us he learnt it from Priests who were Disciples of the Apostles The same is taught by Justin Martyr Athanasius Austin Hierom Aquinas Theophilus Bishop of Antioch Malvenda and many others Malvenda says that no Divine till Peter Lombard nor none after him till Eugubinus said that Paradise was not still in being or that it perisht by the Deluge Hence we see if Christian Tradition shall be stood to and it be the general Tradition of the Fathers that Paradise is still in being then must the Author's Hypothesis concerning the Fall of the Earth at the Flood be void Now whereas the Author says that the high Situation ascrib'd to Paradise must not be understood of Paradise taken a part from the rest of the Earth but of the whole Primaeval Earth wherein the Seat of Paradise was which may reasonably be suppos'd to have been as high elevated as the tops of our Mountains are now We find that tho the suppos'd elevated Situation which the Author gives to the Primaeval Earth and the Course he gives to the Sun in the Antediluvian World might possibly have afforded a Paradisiacal sereneness of the Air as he intimates yet his frame of the Primaeval Earth would manifestly subvert the other two Grounds the Fathers went upon viz. the Course of the four Rivers and the preservation of Paradise at the Deluge and consequently he cannot pretend the least colour of strength given to his Hypothesis as being backt by the Authority of those Fathers and Authors who have given Paradise an high Situation Next The Author mentions another set of Authors that interpret the Flaming Sword that guarded Paradise to be the Torrid Zone whereby he says they plainly intimate that Paradise in their Opinion lay beyond the Torrid Zone or in the Antihemisphere and for this Opinion he quotes Tertullian Cyprian Austin Isidore Hispalensis and Aquinas and in his Latin Copy he much urges for the Torrid Zone's being signified by the Flaming Sword To this I answer That if any of those Authors suppos'd Paradise beyond the Torrid Zone and not in it as Tertullian at least held the later it's manifest that they never suppos'd any other Hemisphere inhabitbited there tho possibly they might suppose an Island there for what then should have hindred all those Inhabitants from entring into Paradise they being past the Flaming Sword And it seems strange that the Author should urge for the Torrid Zone's being signified by the Flaming Sword he having suppos'd that the other Hemisphere was inhabited before the Flood whence consequently all the Men there must have had free access to Paradise These are such Inconsistencies that there is no Man but must see them Another form of Expression is instanc'd by the Author as us'd amongst the Ancients concerning Paradise viz. That it
Timaeus out of them maintain'd the same Slobaeus recording out of him that this world was from Eternity and will remain to Eternity And again That the world may truly be call'd the Eternal Energy or effect of God and of successive generation Epicharmus also a Disciple of Pythagoras held it and Oâ—ellus Lucanus according to Philo. Neither need I to mention any that have maintain'd it since Aristotle the Author being free to own that he has had followers as Pliny Dicaearchus Simplicius Averrhoes Salustius Apuleius Taurus Alcinous and indeed most of the Platonicks and Peripateticks after Christianity I say I may pass by these the Opinion being much more Ancient than any of those Persons I have nam'd and indeed so ancient that its hard to retrieve the Original for Boemus tells us collecting I conceive from Diodorus It was a constant Tradition amongst the Chaldean Priests that the World had never any beginning nor should â—ever have an end which Tradition possibly with other corrupt Doctrines might have been deriv'd to them from times before the Deluge And how indeed could they hold any other Opinion when as Philo tells us they held the World itself or the universal Soul within it to be God which they consecrated under the name of Fate and Necessity persuading themselves that there was no other Cause of things but what is seen and that both goods and evils were dispenc'd by the Courses of the Sun Moon and Stars conformably to which Lucan introduces Cato saying Aestque Dei sedes nisi terra pontus aer Et coelum virtus superos quid quaerimus ultra Jupiter est quodcunque vides quocunque moveris What Seat has God but th' Earth the Air the Seas The Heavens and Vertue Seek no Gods but these It s Jove whate'er you see move where you please So again Psellus in his Exposition of the Dogmata of the Assyrians and Chaldeans says that both of them held the World Eternal I may add that the Ancient Druids held this Opinion of the Worlds Eternity their Philosophy being that of Pythagoras and Plato which is concluded to have been generally the same I say not in this particular with that of Moses and Pythagoras himself is said to have held it by Censorinus Natalis Comes also tells us that all the ancient Sages were divided into two Parties one of them held the World Eternal the others that it had sometime a beginning on the one hand were the most excellent Wits of the most famous Men on the other were divine Persons and Men divinely instructed And even the Ancient Cabalists among the Jews who think themselves the only Persons deep seen in Scripture-knowledge and to whom Origen seem'd inclin'd held an Eternity of Worlds tho indeed they suppos'd renovations of them from Chaos's at certain Periods concerning which I shall say more in the next Book I have deliver'd this Account of the Opinions of Men concerning the Worlds Eternity not but I wholly acquiesce in the Opinion commonly receiv'd among Christians of the Worlds late Beginning but only to give the Point its due Latitude which I judg'd too much limited by the Author of the Theory And upon the whole when we consider what is urg'd on both sides as the Author has brought Arguments of strength to prove the World's late Beginning so I conceive there are as weighty Reasons to be brought on the other part and that many will still say with Scaliger Solâ Religione mihi persuadetur mundum coepisse finem Incendio habiturum and with Melancthon Necessaria est diligentia in omnibus doctrinis videre quae certò adseverari possint quae non possint de quibus rebus humana ratio certam immobilem doctrinam habeat de quibus verò arcanis positis extra conspectum hominum erudiat nos vox coelestis Neutrum humana ratio invenire per sese potèst videlicet fuisse mundum inde usque ab Infinita Eternitate aut conditum esse recens ante annos 5507. And beneath Brevitas temporum mundi à Mose tradita Physicis ridicula zidetur Not a Man among the Gentiles having dreamt of so late a Beginning of the World as Moses seems to intimate And hence the learned Father Simon judges it probable that the Greek Doctors in the Septuagint Translation believing that the World was more ancient than appears from the Hebrew Text have took the liberty of etching out the time especially upon the belief they had that when the body of the Canonick Scripture which we have was publisht the people had only given them what was thought necessary for them So those who will not allow Plato to have held the World Eternal must at least grant he suppos'd it to have existed for a vast and unaccountable Succession of Ages And so we find what Simplicius reply'd to Grammaticus who urg'd against him a first Generation and a Beginning of time according to Moses viz. That Moses's Relation was but a fabulous Tradition wholly drawn from Egyptian Fables Aquinas also seems to me to give an home hint to those who from humane Reason will pretend to assign a time for the Worlds beginning saying Mundum incepisse est credibile non autem demonstrabile aut scibile hoc utile est ut consideretur ne fortè aliquis quod fieri est demonstrare praesumens rationes non necessarias inducat quae praebeant materiam irridendi infidelibus existimantibus nos propter hujusmodi rationes credere quae fidei sunt So again Picolomini Quoniam principium originis mundi longè abest à nobis ejus creatio superat naturae vires per cujus opera elevantur Philosophi ad inventionem causarum ideo mirum non est si Philosophi humanâ ducti ratione facilè in hanc sententiam labuntur quòd mundus omni ex parte sit aeternus reverâ enim per naturam nec principio nec fine valet esse praeditus Moreover as to all those learned amongst the Gentils whose Opinions concerning the Worlds Beginning the Author applauds before Aristotle's it s manifest they were more absurd than him in what they held for generally grounding themselves on this Principle Ex nihilo nihil fit they either suppos'd Corpuscles from Eternity rowling without order in an immense Space or that the said Bodies lay lurking in a confus'd Chaos from Eternity Now wherein do these men excel Aristotle Is it in that they have made a deform'd World from Eternity which came in time to be adorn'd Is there less absurdity and repugnancy in an infinite multitude of disorderly motions than of such as succeed in order and in the Eternity of a deform'd Body than of a beautiful Certainly it was better Aristotle's way who not having foreseen any Impossibility of eternal Motions and Bodies had rather have the Face of the World beautiful from Eternity than at some time to have emerg'd from an eternal
been unsuccessful and so for his Tehom Rabba or the great Abysse of Moses which he has also much urg'd and for any other Passages he has quoted To come to the Author's third Proof which is from Reason and the Contemplation of the Chaos whence the Earth rose this Proof in effect is not only for making out that the Earth as it rose from a Chaos in its first state was of a different Form from the present Earth according to the Authors first Proposition but withall is partly for shewing that the Face of the first Earth was smooth regular and uniform without Mountains and a Sea as he has set forth in his second Proposition wherefore the scope of it being connected with the Motions Progress and Separations which he supposes to have pass'd in the Chaos for forming the first Earth I shall briefly state them both together as he has represented them He supposes then the Chaos as a fluid Masse or a Masse of all sorts of little Parts or Particles of the Matter of which the World was made mixt together and floating in confusion one with another Hence he says there follows an impossibility that this Masse should be of such a Form and Figure as the Surface of our present Earth is Or that any Concretion or consistent State which this Mass could flow into immediately or first settle in could be of the said Figure He proves the first of these Assertions because a fluid Mass always casts it self into a smooth and spherical Surface He proves the second Assertion because when any fluid Body comes to settle in a consistent and firm State that Concretion in its first State of Consistence must be of the same Form that the Surface was when it was liquid as when Water congeals the Surface of the Ice is smooth and level as the Water was before And hence when he has consider'd the broken condition of the present Earth both as to its Surface and inward Parts he concludes that the Form of it now cannot be the same with that it had originally which must have been smooth regular and uniform according to his Second Proposition And to make this clear he sets forth the Motions and Progress which he supposes must have pass'd in the Chaos and how it settled it self in the said Form when it became an habitable World 1. First therefore he presents us with a Scheme which represents the Chaos as is before express'd viz. as a spherical and fluid Masse containing the Particles of all the Matter of which the World is compos'd mixt together and floating in confusion in it 2. The first Change which he conceives must happen in this Masse must be that the heaviest and grossest parts would subside towards the middle of it and there harden by degrees and constitute the interior Parts of the Earth while the rest of the Masse swimming above would be also divided by the same Principles of Gravity into two orders of Bodies the one like Water the other volatile like Air and that the watery part would settle in a Masse together under the Air upon the Body of the Earth composing not only a Water strictly so call'd but the whole Masse of Liquors or liquid Bodies belonging to the Earth and these Separations in the Body of the Chaos are represented to us in a second Scheme 3. The liquid Masse he says incircling the Earth being not the mere Element of Water but a Collection of all Liquors belonging to the Earth some of them must be fat oily and light others lean and more earthy like common Water Now these two kinds mixt together and left to themselves and the general action of Nature separate one from another when they come to settle which these must be concluded to have done the more oily and thin parts of the Masse getting above the other and swimming there as he represents in a third Figure 4. Next he considers that the Masses of the Air and Waters were both at first very muddy and impure so that they must both have their Sediments and there being abundance of little terrestrial Particles in the Air after the grossest were sunk down these lesser also and lighter remaining would sink too tho more slowly and in a longer time so as in their descent they would meet with that oily Liquor on the watery Masse which would entangle and stop them from passing farther whence mixing there with the unctious substance they compos'd a certain Slime or Fat soft and light Earth spread on the Face of the Waters as he shews in a fourth Figure 5. He says that when the Air was fully purg'd of its little earthy Particles upon their general descent they became wholly incorporate with the oily Liquor making both one Substance which was the first Concretion or firm and consistent Substance which rose upon the Face of the Chaos and fit to be made and really constituted an habitable Earth which he sets before us in a fifth Figure and which I have also subjoyn'd where A is the first Sediment of the Chaos B the Orb of Water or the Orb of the Abysse C the Orb which made the first habitable Earth 6. Having thus represented the Rise of the Earth from the Chaos he adds that whereas the Antients generally resemble the Earth to an Egg he thinks the Analogy holds as to those inward Envolvings represented in the Figure of the Earth and that the outward Figure of the first Earth was likewise oval it being a little extended toward the Poles which he represents to us in a sixth Figure and which I also here insert where as the two inmost Regions A B represent the Yolk and the Membrane that lies next above it so the exterior Region of the Earth D is as the Shell of the Egg and the Abysse C under it as the White that lies under the Shell This is the Author's Theory of the Earth in reference to the Composition of it as it settled from the Chaos in its first State which he says he has all along set forth according to the Laws of Gravity And this must now be consider'd by me First then If I should allow that the first Earth was form'd from a Chaos according to those Separations the Author has represented it would no way answer his chief End for which he gave it this Construction viz. The Capacity of causing a Deluge as I shall make appear in my Considerations on the next Chapter But tho I might be free to allow it as for any Deluge to be thence caus'd yet in other respects I must not do it because I take upon me to maintain that the World from its first Existence had Mountains a Sea and the like as it has now And both in reference to the Author's Argument from Reason viz. That all fluid Bodies and any first Concretion on them must keep to a sperical Figure whence he concludes the Earth on its first Concretion from the Chaos to have taken it and
as being the upper Orb. The Author ascribes the cause of the Deluge to the Violence of the Commotion of the Abysse upon the fall of the Earth into it and to represent to us what this Commotion must be he supposes a Stone of a vast weight carried up a Mile or two in the Air and let fall and tells us to what a vast height Waters must then be conceiv'd to fly But I cannot allow this Instance to be fairly brought in If a Painter be to draw a Ceiling-Piece in a Room of an high roof we may allow him to draw the Picture of a Man there suppose much bigger than the natural that it might deceive our Eye to its advantage when viewing it at that distance it takes it in a proportion to the Life But to suppose a Rock an Island or a Continent as he says two Miles high in the Air and to conceive how high Waters would be thrown upon their fall into the Sea why shall this be done to deceive our Reason When the Antediluvian Earth is suppos'd before not to have been suspended in the Air but couch'd close on the Face of the Abysse as is represented by him in his Scheme of the disruption of the Earth Fig. I. p. 135. it being quite a different thing for a Body couch'd on the Face of Waters to subside in them and for it to fall into them from an height Again when part of the Orb of Earth subsided into the Abysse there was no room for the Waters of the Abysse to diverge whereas when any Weight is thrown into a River or the open Sea the Waters may fly off every way And indeed I think it manifest enough that upon the subsiding of any part of such an Orb of Earth in a manner all the Waters that could rise thereupon upon must have been contain'd either in the Chasms or hollow places of its broken parts and that never any could come to make a Deluge on the higher parts of the Earth Besides it 's absolutely contrary to Moses's Narration to make a Deluge by such flights of Water in the Air Moses telling us how the Waters rose and fell gradually and that they exceeded the highest Mountains fifteen Cubits the Author's Explication of it being so forc'd and unnatural that perhaps in so plain a Text it was not fit to be put upon so great a Prophet But to put the matter beyond dispute supposing the Proportions before laid down to the Orbs of the Abysse and the Earth we find a Mile and three quarters of the Orb of Earth missing for if the Sea be allow'd but two Miles in depth as learned Men generally judg it to be and that the Abysse there ends on the first Sediment of the Chaos as the Author supposes we have then in Nature but as much Earth as will make an Orb of two Miles in thickness as I shall shew beneath and what then is become of the other Mile and three quarters Earth The next thing we have to consider is this notwithstanding all the Suppositions of the Author before set down when we come to view the Schemes he has given in his Book we find that contrary to his said Suppositions in all of them he has represented his Abysse-Orb thicker than his Orb of Earth so that counting the more large extent of the Orb of Earth as being the upper Orb and the thickness of the Abysse Orb which lies under it we may judg them to be of equal contents in their Dimensions as you may see in the Scheme before given you And I believe a Reader who should peruse his Book cursorily not finding the Proportions of his two Orbs clearly stated and perhaps not minding the Suppositions before set down which the Author was forct by the necessity of the Argument to make on several occasions when he came to view this Scheme of his or the others would have concluded that the Author really suppos'd his two Orbs of the Proportions he here represents as indeed it is but a blind Put upon our Eye as well as our Reason if he did not Now tho I must declare I cannot comprehend how this can stand with the Author's Suppositions as I conceive they are before set down I am content to suppose as all his Schemes seem to import that the Orbs of the Earth and of the Abysse were in their Contents of equal Dimensions and we shall examin what thereupon could follow in order to a Deluge I suppose then that the Antediluvian Earth contain'd an Orb of two Miles deep or as much as would make two Miles deep if it were coucht on the bottom of the Abysse as it then was on the surface of it and that the Orb of the Abysse contain'd two Miles in depth likewise for I suppose here with the Author as before that the two Orbs together made four Miles in height This being suppos'd when the Earth broke and made a Deluge I ask what became of the two Miles Water The Author tells us that the Sea contains a quarter of a Mile depth in Water over half the Globe of the Earth and says that if the Earth should disgorge all the Waters it has besides in its Bowels it would not make half an Ocean and he tells us again and again that all the Waters of the Abysse are contain'd in the Sea and in the Caverns of the Earth What then is become of the other Mile and three quaters Water Having thus demonstratively refuted as I conceive the Author's whole Hypothesis both according to the Proportions he seems to have given to his Orbs in his Schemes or to have otherwise intimated them to have been in his Work I shall urge the matter a little farther and plainly shew it impossible either for the Author or any Man else to assign any Proportions whatsoever to such Orbs that a Deluge and the Form of the present Earth should be thence caus'd supposing only as the Learned generally do that the Sea is two Miles deep in its deepest part where the Author will have his Abysse to end on the first Sediment of the Chaos For then I say first I conceive Men will generally agree with what the Author has before laid down viz. That there is in Nature but Water enough to make an Orb of a quarter of a Mile depth on the first Sediment of the Chaos And secondly As to the Proportion which must be allow'd to the Orb of Earth it 's manifest to us that since it 's two Miles from the level of the Sea to the deepest part of it and since it 's all Earth in all parts of the Globe to that depth except what the Waters in the Sea and in the Caverns of the Earth do amount to which is but enough to make an Orb but of a quarter of a Mile depth round the Earth a good part of which Orb will also be countervail'd by that part of the Earth which is above the level of the Sea it
influence on the moral World at that time as well as the Natural but he takes upon him to observe only here their more immediate effects and that in reference to those three general Characters or Properties of the Golden Age and of Paradise before exprest The most fundamental of the three Differences mention'd he says was that of the Right Situation and Posture of the Earth to the Sun for from this immediately followed a perpetual Equinox all the Earth over or if you will a perpetual Spring and that was the great thing that made it Paradisiacal or capable of being so the other two Properties of Longaevity and of spontaneous and vital Fertility being thence also easily explain'd Now the Right Situation of the first Earth to the Sun he says needs no proof besides its own evidence it being th' immediate result and common effect of Gravity or Libration that a Body freely left to itself in a fluid medium should settle in such a posture as best answers to its Gravitation and this Earth whereof we speak being uniform and every way equally ballanc'd there was no reason why it should incline at one end more than at the other toward the Sun Wherefore he says the Earth at the Deluge was so broken and disorder'd that it lost its equal Poise and thereupon the Center of its Gravity changing one Pole became more inclin'd toward the Sun and the other more remov'd from it and so its right and parallel Situation which it had before to the Axis of the Ecliptick was chang'd into an Oblique in which skue posture it has stood ever since and is likely so to do for some Ages And from this Change and Obliquity of the Earth's Posture he intimates the change of the form of the Year to have happened it bringing in the inequality of Seasons The Right Situation of the first Earth to the Sun being therefore suppos'd by the Author making a perpetual Equinox or Spring to all the World answering to the first and fundamental Character of the Golden Age and Paradise which Character he says had hitherto been accounted fabulous as it was given them by the ancient Gentils and Hyperbolical as by the ancient Christians He comes to explain the other two Characters viz. the spontaneous fertility of the Earth and its Production of Animals at that time which he will have to proceed partly from the Richness of the Primigenial Soil as he has set it forth in his first Book and partly from this constant Spring and the benignity of the Heav'ns and concludes that what makes Husbandry and humane Arts so necessary now for the Fruits and Productions of the Earth is partly the decay of the Soil but chiefly the diversity of the Seasons whereby they perish if care be not taken of them And for Animals he supposes their Eggs as well as the seeds of Plants there being a great Analogy between them to have been in the first Earth and made fruitful equally with them by the Heav'ns or AEther supplying the Influence of the Male and imbibing nourishable Juices from the well temper'd Earth for carrying on their growth to Perfection The third Character viz. Longaevity he says sprung from the same root with the other because taking a perpetual Equinox and fixing the Heavens we fix also the life of Man the Course of Nature being then more steady and uniform whence followed a stability in all things here below The Change and the contrariety of Qualities we have now being the fountain of Corruption suffering nothing to be much in quiet either by Intestine motions and fermentations excited within or outward Impressions This is the substance of what the Author has deliver'd in this third Chapter against which I shall now proceed in order considering first the three Differences he assigns to his Primaeval Earth from the present and then the three Characters or Properties he ascribes to it as rising from them The first Difference of the Primaeval Earth from the present assign'd by the Author is The Regularity of its Surface it being all smooth and even without Mountains a Sea c. Now as for this difference I have refuted it in my first Book there shewing his Hypothesis as to the rise of Mountains a Sea c. to be erroneous and null and having propos'd a way more probable as I conceive for their Production from the beginning of the World The second difference he has assign'd is The Situation or Posture of the Earth's Body to the Sun which he affirms to have been direct and not as it is at present inclin'd and oblique and subjoyns the reason which I have before set down for it viz. That the first Earth being uniform and every way equally ballanc'd there was no reason why it should incline at one end more than at the other toward the Sun till at the Deluge being broken it lost its equal Poise To this I answer first as is intimated just before I have shewn in my first Book that the Author has fail'd in making out by his Hypothesis the Antediluvian Earth to have been more uniform or otherwise equally ballanc'd than it is now and consequently his Reason here has no place I have also shewn in the said Book that common Gravitation rules not all in the distribution of the parts of the World as he supposes it does but rather that there is a rational distribution of them in order to certain Uses and when a Man considers the present Posture of the Earth to the Sun where one Body so successively enlight'ns the whole that in an annual Revolution one time consider'd with another it ballances light and darkness in every part of it and whereby the Earth in all its parts is rendred as habitable as it may be can this be lookt upon as a forc'd unnatural Contingent or unprovidential Situation of it as the Author intimates it to be happening only upon a Ruin And if the World in its present Posture carries the face of Eternity and there has been no decay in it from the beginning nor will ever be according to the ordinary course of Nature as I think Dr. Hakewill has learnedly made out it looks odd to me that this Posture should be call'd Forc't and Vnnatural since nothing is more contrary to Reason than that Bodies should be held in an Eternal violent State nothing being more certain with Philosophers than that nothing violent can be Eternal And indeed Dr. Hakewill's Apology of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World is one continued Argument against th' Author's Hypothesis which had he perus'd with attention I believe it might have caus'd him to have sav'd his pains in composing it Again The Author seems to have greatly fail'd here in not considering the Vastness of the Earth's Globe and that no conceivable or possible Change happening upon any Dissolution of such a pitiful Epidermical covering of it as he intimates his Orb of Earth to have been
never attain'd unless they had liv'd at least six hundred years the great Year being accomplisht by that Revolution As for Coelestial Causes the boldest Assertor I find is Petrus Apponensis who says we must by no means envy those of the first Age for having liv'd a longer Series of years than us the disposition of the Heav'ns being by Nature more benign and propitious to them for then there were two Animal Circles together co-operating one in the ninth Sphere and the other in the eighth where the Firmament is being so dispos'd that Aries answered diametrically to Aries Taurus to Taurus Gemini to Gemini c. They so fortifying the Celestial Influences that Herbs Roots standing Corn and Fruits grew then much more wholesom than since that Society through a long motion being dissolv'd whence the whole Inferiour World began to grow diseas'd and decay For Sublunary Causes first we may allow as the Author does that the Stamina or Principles of Life of the Antediluvians were much stronger than Men have at present by which they had a more vigorous natural Constitution Secondly we may allow them to have been better circumstantiated and regulated as to the Six Non-Natural things as first that their Atmosphere being throwly impregnated with balsamick Particles arising from that pure primigenial Soil the Celestial Influences had a more kindly Co-operation with them forming an Air far transcending ours now in the healthiest part of the Earth for prolonging Life and in this the Author is free to expatiate as he pleases Secondly as to their Dyet it 's conceiv'd that the Antediluvian Soil being excellently temper'd brought forth better and more wholsome Fruits than are since the Deluge that it has been tainted with the Saltness of the Sea and that the Fountain Waters were also then more wholsom and that those Fathers were endued with a greater Knowledg to discern what was good and bad for them and observ'd a greater Temperance than is now us'd Thirdly it 's conceiv'd that if Man had not so many extrinsical Causes as Pleasures domestick and publick Cares and other Troubles to discompose him he might live a much longer Age in which it 's thought the Antients were not so much concern'd leading a more sedate and calm Life And so as to the other Non-Natural things they may be conceiv'd to have govern'd themselves better in them than Men do now And upon the whole it may be said that tho we may not ascribe the Antediluvian Longaevity to any one of these sublunary Causes singly yet taken altogether they may be lookt upon as competent Causes for it But to go about to alter the Sun's Course or the Earth's Posture to it to make it out I believe it 's what will never pass among learned Men. Having assign'd such Causes as perhaps by some may be thought tolerably plausible for the Antediluvian Longaevity in the last place I shall give my opinion of the matter which is that I look upon the long Lives of the Patriarchs to have been from a particular Providence I cannot say it was for the reason assign'd by Austin that the first World by a few might be peopl'd in a short time for on that account long Life seems as necessary to others as to the Patriarchs besides that each of the Patriarchs as far as we find by Scripture spent many Years as Adam above an Hundred others above an Hundred and Eighty before they got Children whereas before that time they might have got Children enough to have peopled many Countries tho as Rabbi Gedalia says according to the opinion of many Jewish Doctors the Patriarchs did not live so long before they had Children as the Scripture speaks of but that it makes mention of those only from whom they receiv'd the Tradition not taking notice of many others whom there was no necessity of medling withal But I am of the opinion of that Adept Philosopher who in his late Answer to the learned Dr. Dickinson affirms long Life to have been granted the Patriarchs from a particular Providence that they might the better learn and propagate Arts and Sciences and convey down with more Certainty the Tradition of the Creation the Fall of Man God's Judgment upon him and the Hope of his Redemption c. and I know not why we should make a Difficulty of admitting a particular Providence when such particular Designs of Providence are to be carried on by it I reject therefore Lunar Years with the Author tho as to the Testimony he quotes from Josephus saying that the Historians of all Nations both Greeks and Barbarians ascribe Longaevity to the first Inhabitants of the Earth many of the Authors whom he names averring them to have liv'd a Thousand Years I value it not and much doubt whether the Author himself gives credit to those Histories For either they relate to Antediluvian or Postdiluvian Times if to the former I know no colour of Reason we have for relying on any thing as Authentick deliver'd by Greeks or Barbarians concerning those times If to the latter I cannot think the Author believes any Man to have liv'd a Thousand Years since the Deluge So we find that Pliny considering what many of the Greeks and others had writ concerning the length of some Mens Lives plainly says they have writ Fables instead of true Histories through their Ignorance of the various acceptation of Years and Ages an Age signifying with some Thirty Years with others only One Year and with others an Hundred Years And the space of a Year being determin'd by some by one Revolution of the Moon by others it 's made Trimestrial and by others to consist of Six Months And Father Simon tells us It 's certain that even the antient Jews not finding in their Histories Genealogies enough to fill up the time made one single Person to live many Ages whence there is nothing more common in their Histories than these long liv'd Men so that we ought not over easily to give belief to Jewish Histories which make their Doctors survive till such a time as they can find another to joyn him Nay a great many of the Jewish Doctors who have so great a Veneration for the Scriptures are so far from acquiescing in what Josephus urges from the Greek and Barbarian Tradition that they have affirm'd as Father Simon tells us the Patriarchs to have liv'd no longer than other Men and that the Holy Scripture makes only mention of the Head of a Family to whom it immediately joyns the last of the same Family without taking notice of those who have been betwixt both those Doctors believing that when any Head of a Family had ordain'd certain Laws and Methods of living to the Family he was made to live till the last of the Family who had observ'd those Laws were dead so that he is suppos'd to have liv'd all this while in his Family And I doubt that all Men who are not content to have recourse to
a particular Providence for upholding the Ante and Postdiluvian Longaevity will be forc'd to relapse here for any thing that can be made out from Authentick History or Reason in the Case Not but we have several Instances of late date of Persons who have liv'd two or three Hundred Years and upwards But this has not been successively as in the Patriarchs and there is odds betwixt three or four Hundred Years and near a Thousand And whereas the Author urges for a general Longaevity among the Antediluvians as well as for some time after the Flood we do not find it authoriz'd by Scripture And that it was granted only to the Patriarchs and some few others by a particular Providence and this through the means of a certain Panacaea well known to the Mystae I am satisfi'd according to what is written of it by the foremention'd Adept Philosopher But leest instead of open reasoning I seem to obtrude Mystery on the World which by some may be interpreted vain Ostentation I refer the Reader to the Book it self where he may read at least what is written and if hapily he does not fully apprehend what is said he may believe or reject what he thinks good CHAP. V. IN this Chapter the Author treats concerning the Waters of the Primitive Earth what the state of the Regions of the Air was then and how all Waters proceeded from them How the Rivers arose what was their Course and how they ended He applies also several places in Sacred Writ to confirm this Hydrography of the Earth especially the Origin of the Rainbow He says then that the Air being always calm and equal before the Flood there could be no violent Meteors there nor any that proceeded from extremity of Cold as Ice Snow and Hail nor Thunder neither nor could the Winds be either impetuous or irregular in that smooth Earth there being one ev'n Season and no unequal action of the Sun But as for watery Meteors or those that rise from watery Vapours more immediately as Dews and Rains there could not but be plenty of those in some parts or other of the Earth the action of the Sun being strong and constant in raising them and the Earth being at first moist and soft and according as it grew more dry the Rays of the Sun would pierce more deep into it and reach at length the Great Abysse which lay under the Earth and was an unexhausted storehouse of new Vapours He adds but the same Heat which extracted these Vapours so copiously would also hinder them from condensing into Clouds or Rains in the warmer parts of the Earth and there being no Mountains at that time nor contrary Winds nor any such Causes to stay them or compress them we must consider how they would be dispos'd off To this he says as the heat of the Sun was chiefly towards the middle part of the Earth so the copious Vapours rais'd there being once in the open Air their Course would be that way where they found least resistance to their motion which would be towards the Poles and the colder Regions of the Earth for East and West they would meet with as warm an Air and Vapours as much agitated as themselves which therefore would not yield to their progress that way So that the regular and constant Course of the Vapours of the Earth would be towards the extreme parts of it which when arriv'd in those cooler Climates would be there condenst into Dews or Rains continually This Difficulty he says for finding a Source for the Waters in the Primaeval Earth was the greatest he met with in the Theory which being thus clear'd he finds a second Difficulty viz. how those Waters should flow upon the even surface of the Earth or form themselves into Rivers there being no descent or declivity for their Course And he has no way to explain this but by giving an oval Figure to that Earth in which the Polar Parts he says must have been higher than the Aequinoctial that is more remote from the Center by which means the Waters that fell about the extreme parts of the Earth would have a continual descent toward the middle parts of it and by vertue of this Descent would by degrees form Channels for Rivers to pass in through the temperate Climates as far as the Torrid Zone And here he meets a third Difficulty viz. What Issue the Rivers could have when they were come thither To this says he when they were come towards those parts of the Earth they would be divided into many Branches or a multitude of Rivulets and those would be partly exhal'd by the heat of the Sun and partly drunk up by the dry sandy Earth For he concludes as those Rivers drew nearer to the Equinoctal parts they would find a less declivity or descent of Ground than in the beginning or former part of their Course for that in his suppos'd oval Figure of the Earth near the middle part of it the Semidiameters he says are much shorter one than another and for this reason the Rivers when they came thither would begin to flow more slowly and by that weakness of their Current suffer themselves easily to be divided and distracted into several lesser streams and Rivulets or else having no force to wear a Channel would lie shallow on the ground like a plash of Water As for the Polar parts of the Earth he says they would make a particular Scene by themselves the Sun would be perpetually in their Horizon which makes him think the Rains would not fall so much there as in other parts of the Frigid Zones where he makes their chief Seat and Receptacle whence sometimes as they flowed they would swell into Lakes and toward the end of their Course parting into several streams and Branches they would water those parts of the Earth like a Garden Having examin'd and determin'd of the state of the Air and Waters in the Primitive Earth he considers some Passages in Holy Writ which he conceives represent them of a different Form from the present order of Nature and agreeing with what he has set forth First he tells us that the Rainbow mention'd by Moses to have been set in the Clouds after the Deluge makes out that those Heavens were of a different Constitution from ours And secondly that St. Peter says the Antediluvian Heav'ns had a different Constitution from ours and that they were compos'd or constituted of Waters c. He urges concerning the Rainbow that it was set in the Clouds after the Deluge as a Confirmation of the Promise or Covenant which God made with Noah that he would drown the World no more that it could not be a Sign of this or given as a Pledge or Confirmation of such a Promise if it were in the Clouds before and with no relation to this Promise He adds much more concerning the Nature of Signs giv'n by God mention'd in the Scriptures which I think too tedious and
miraculous Effects and therefore of another nature from this here under Consideration Again it s well known that many Institutions in the Law of Moses were made directly in opposition to certain Customs among the Gentils Now whereas Iris among the Gentils was made generally the Messenger of Discord whence it was call'd Iris quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why may it not be thought that in opposition to this which might have been deriv'd down from the corrupt Antediluvian times God would have the Rainbow to be his sign of Love and Concord it signifying in its Nature indifferently Rains and fair Weather as Pliny says As to the existence of the Rainbow before the Flood certainly all the Gentils were of that Opinion Juno must have been an Antediluvian Goddess who was never without her Nymph Iris she being the most diligent Attendant she had alway standing ready at her Elbow and more officiously serviceable to her than the other thirteen Nymphs that belong'd to her among other services she is said to have made Juno's Bed and was represented with Wings and a Robe of divers Colours half tuckt up to shew her readiness to obey the Commands of her Mistris on all occasions The two predominant Colours of her Robes were blew and red denoting the two great destructions of the World the blew that which happen'd by the Waters at the Deluge and the Red the general Conflagration to succeed by Fire so that the Rainbow carries a mixt signality And indeed the antient Philosophers might properly enough make her the Messenger of Discord she carrying the Types of those two contrary Elements Fire and Water and God might make her his Messenger of Peace he controuling and directing all natural Powers and re-establishing a Concord betwixt those two contrary Elements whereof she carries the Types in those Colours she bears I may note in the last place that Father Simon censures Luther of Ignorance in the style and symbolical sense of the Scriptures for saying that there was no Rainbow before the Deluge and that God created it for those very Reasons set down Gen. 9. But though there may be a known symbolical sense contain'd under the Rainbow which may far more require our attention than the Symbol it self yet I shall not here take upon me to determine how far Luther may stand affected by that Censure As for what the Author urges from the Passage of St. Peter viz. That the Antediluvian Heav'ns had a different Constitution from ours containing only watery Meteors I do not find he makes out that there were more of those watry Meteors in the Air then than there are now so that a Deluge should be thence particularly caus'd on which account St. Peter intimates that different Disposition to have been and when the Author has said all he can of it he plainly concludes in his Latin Copy That he cannot find or discover by Reason whence that Glut of Waters rose at that time or wherefore after fifteen Ages after the World was made that Immense Glut of Waters gather'd together in the Air discharg'd itself on the Earth it might have been he says from supernatural Causes And in his Answer to Mr. Warren he says the Rains that made the Flood were extraordinary and out of the Course of Nature And what is this in effect but to own that the Deluge is not explicable by humane Reason and that Miracles are to be allow'd in it but they must be the Authors own way and not as others have said which perhaps by many may be interpreted to carry more of Humour than Reason CHAP. VI. THIS Chapter contains only a review of what the Author has said concerning the Primitive Earth with a more full survey of the state of the first World Natural and Civil and the Comparison of it with the present World so that here is little new wherefore I shall note only the following Passage where the Author says I cannot easily imagine that the sandy Desarts of the Earth were made so at first immediately from the Beginning of the World To this we may reply That if the sense of one Man may be oppos'd against that of another Lucan seems of a contrary Opinion where he says Syrtes vel primam mundo natura figuram Quum daret in medio pelagi terraeque reliquit When Nature fram'd the World at its first birth It left the Quicksands 'twixt the Sea and Earth CHAP. VII HERE the Author comes to the main Point to be consider'd in this Book viz. the Seat of Paradise and says that its Place cannot be determin'd by the Theory only nor from Scripture only and then gives us the sense of Antiquity concerning it as to the Jews the Heathens and especially the Christian Fathers shewing that they generally place it out of this Continent in the Southern Hemisphere He declares that considering the two Hemispheres according to his Theory he sees no Natural Reason or occasion to place it in one Hemisphere more than in the other and that it must rather have depended on the Will of God and the series of Providence that was to follow in this Earth than on any natural incapacity in one of those Regions more than in another for planting in it that Garden Neither do the Scriptures determine where the place was As to Antiquity he says the Jews and Hebrew Doctors place it in neither Hemisphere but under the Equinoctial because they suppos'd the Days and Nights to have been always equal in Paradise Among the ancient Heathens Poets and Philosophers he finds they had several Paradises on the Earth which they generally if not all of them place without or beyond this Continent in the Ocean or beyond it or in another Orb or Hemisphere as the Gardens of the Hesperides the fortunate Islands the Elysian Fields Ogygia Toprabane as it is describ'd by Diodorus Siculus and the like As to Christian Antiquity or the Judgment or Tradition of the Fathers in this Argument he tells us that the Grand Point disputed amongst them was Whether Paradise were Corporeal or Intellectual only and Allegorical Then of those that thought it Corporeal some plac'd it high in the Air some inaccessible by Desarts and Mountains and many beyond the Ocean or in another World but nam'd no particular Place or Country in the known parts of the Earth for the Seat of it and upon the whole he brings it to this Conclusion that tho their Opinions are differently exprest they generally concenter in this that the Southern Hemisphere beyond the Aequinoctial was the Seat of Paradise And this Notion of another World or Earth beyond the Torrid Zone he says he finds among Heathen Authors as well as Christian and that those who say Paradise was beyond the Ocean mean the same for that they suppos'd the Ocean to lie from East to West betwixt the Tropicks the Sun and Planets being there cool'd and nourisht by its moisture And having quoted many of the Fathers
and others in reference to the Seat of Paradise in the other Hemisphere he concludes that in this particular he is willing to refer himself wholly to the report and majority of Votes among the Ancients whether Christians or others who seem generally to incline to the South or South-east Land After so large an Apparatus for making out the Place of Paradise and a new World made for it a Man would have expected that some Circumstances at least should have been brought for pointing it forth and not barely to sit down by saying I wholly refer my self to the major Vote of Antiquity especially having promis'd us in the first Chapter of this Book a just account of it Since then there is nothing brought from Scripture or Reason for proving the place of Paradise I shall only consider the Authority of Antiquity for it as the Author has done but withal I must first declare it is not without a sacred dread that I commit Pen to Paper on this Subject well knowing of what weight it is and what Dispositions could be requir'd in a Person to treat of it according to its Dignity a Man ought to have had a due Institution amongst the Mystae by such I mean those excellent Genii whose better Stars have so dispos'd their Understandings that they have penetrated the Allegories and Aenigma's of the ancient Sages and are able readily to run through the whole systeme of Nature every where adapting Superiours to Inferiours according to those Scales of Numbers which a learned Adeptist has set forth and to have us'd great diligence in Study undisturb'd by worldly Circumstances both which I well know to have been wanting in me A Man ought to be thorowly seen in the Analogies betwixt the Intellectual Coelestial and sublunary Worlds and of the Microcosm to them all for otherwise he shall never be able to discern what is deliver'd literally what figuratively by the Ancients and for want of Persons being thus qualified those infinite Tautological Volumes have been written by School-men and others on this and other Parts of the Scriptures We know how difficult it is sometimes to discern even in Heathen Writers whether they write literally or figuratively as in Plato's Timaeus the Relation of the War betwixt the Athenians and the Atlantiques is said by Crantor Plato's first Interpreter to be a plain historical Relation others say it to be a meer Allegory and others again will have it to be a true Historical Narration but withal to carry on an Allegory Certainly the sense of the Scriptures in many Places and perhaps in this of Paradise is more difficult to be understood than any part of Plato's Works is and therefore I should rather have been content to have kept my self within the bounds of natural History in all my Considerations on this Theory But since the occasion offers that I say somewhat concerning the Seat of Paradise I shall lay down what I conceive the sence of the Ancients to have been in it humbly standing the Correction of meet Judges First then to pass by what the Author allows viz. that the Jews and Hebrew Doctors plac'd Paradise under the Aequinoctial and not in the Southern Hemisphere where he at last concludes it to have been As for the several Paradises of the Antient Heathen Poets and Philosophers which he will have us particularly observe to have been generally plac'd by them without or beyond this Continent as pointing at the other Hemisphere I have this to offer concerning them That I truly look upon it as trifling in any Man to think that any of those Poets or Philosophers judg'd any place on the Earth really Paradisiacal or meant any place so describ'd by them It seems to me plain enough from them that they alway meant Paradise Coelestial or Intellectual as the Allegorical Fathers did It 's true many of them took some place on the Earth noted for Salubrity and Pleasantness for a ground of their Allegory it being usual with the antient Mystae when they had any Doctrine figuratively to set forth to take some historical Ground whether Natural or Civil and those were lookt upon the most ingenious who in the delivery of such figurative Doctrine could make the historical Truth quadrate without addition but when any important Doctrine was to be deliver'd where the historical Truth could not hold then they either wholly feign'd some historical Narration by Analogy to which that Truth they design'd might be set forth or to some true historical Ground they took they added what Flourishes they thought fit for making it serve to carry on their Allegory as in the case of Paradise they have proceeded both ways To consider particularly the Paradisiacal places they describe what have the Fortunate Islands the Gardens of the Hesperides Alcinous c. being places known to us in this Hemisphere as literally understood to do with the other Hemisphere Some Authors as Virgil and others to shew themselves openly Allegorical plac'd the Elysian Fields in the subterraneous Regions where they thought no Man in his wits would seek for them and I think it plain enough to any thing but wilful blindness that those who plac'd Paradise beyond the Ocean in the Air c. did it on the same account as we may judge by the pure aetherial Earth describ'd by Plato The Author intimates more than once that the Pensile Gardens of Alcinous must be expounded by the Pensile structure of his Paradisiacal Earth as it hung over the Abysse before the Deluge whereas it 's well known what these Gardens were they were that Pensile Vault hanging over our Heads Alcinous solem lunam stellasque micantes Et coelum aeternum credidit esse Patrem where should his Gardens of Pleasure or his Paradise be but where his Gods were in the Society of whom he drank Nectar and Ambrosia or to express it according to Christian Divinity in the Love and Contemplation of whom he was ravisht with Delights Mythology tells us that the Gardens of the Hesperides said to be seated in the West were no others the Golden fruits being those Golden globous Bodies with which the Heavens are adorn'd and the watchful Dragon being that Dragon at the North Pole or the Zodiack Circle according to others said to be always watchful because it never sets to this part of the World which was the only part known to the Antients It was said to be seated in the West because as the Sun sets in the West the Stars appear the light of the Sun hiding them in the day-time The Gardens of Adonis are the same Adonis being the Sun that glorious Leader of the Coelestial Host And these are the three Paradisiacal Gardens which as Pliny tells us were most celebrated by Antiquity tho even these must refer higher I mean to the Intellectual and Archetypal Worlds till which the Mind of Man can never rest Those delightful Gardens of Adonis are said by some to have been taken by the Gentils
from the Eden of Moses that word with the Hebrews signifying Pleasures and Delights as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does with the Greeks and as the word Pardeis does with the Chaldeans and Persians whence the Greeks took the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latins Paradisus These are the Gardens where the never-ceasing Nightingale sings Vbi suavis cantat Aëdon Apollo being famous for his Charms he foments his Eggs in his Brest and solaces the waking labour of the tedious Nights with the sweetness of his Songs retiring in the Winter-time from these parts of the Earth to others then more Pleasant Concerning the Elysian Fields the Author takes an occasion to intimate as tho they were in the other Continent as he reflects on those who he conceives have misrepresented Paradise saying these have corrupted and misrepresented the notion of our Paradise just as some modern Poets have the notion of the Elysian Fields which Homer and the Antients plac'd in the extremity of the Earth and these would make a little green Meadow in Campania Foelix to be the fam'd Elysium Considering Homer and others of the Antient Gentils I see not why they must be interpreted to have plac'd those Fields in the other Hemisphere as for that Speech of Proteus to Menelaus in Homer Sed te quà terrae postremus terminus extat Elysium in in campum coelestia numina ducunt Strabo interprets this of the Fortunate Islands or the Canaries famous for a salubrity of the Air and gentle Zephires peculiar to that Region lying in the West Plutarch tells us that by those extreme parts of the Earth is meant the Moon where the shadow of the Earth and these sublunary Regions terminate Macrobius tells us that according to Antiquity those extreme parts of the Earth where the Elysian Fields are is the Sphaera 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the purest Minds reside But to pass by these Interpretations it 's well known to the Mystae what Homer would be at by his extreme parts of the Earth it implying only a passing from the Flesh into the Spirit where the Earth truly ends and where St. Paul found a real Paradise and there is a Torrid Zone to pass e're we come to it and passable only by those Qui solis meridiantis fulgidissimum jubar ferre possunt it being hardcoming near those Coestial Fires without being melted by their heat But I shall say more beneath concerning what some of the Ancient Gentils meant by seeming to place their Paradises in the other Hemisphere Virgil as I have intimated before represents the Elysian Fields as well as the place where the wicked are tormented in the bowels of the Earth And Servius tells that those Fields are at the Center abounding with all Delights and that Solemque suum sua sydera norunt Hither it was the Sibyl carried Aenaeas an Enterprize she had not undertaken but that she knew him of the Heroes and some way qualified to attend her in it for it 's an incredible labour and indeed in a manner insupportable to wade through those subterraneous Regions nor can the difficulty of it sink into the mind of Man without trial The Poet calls it Insanus Labor and it is so a divine Fury attends it during the transaction the Soul is stimulated to exert its noblest Instincts and the Understanding is consummated as far as it 's capable of so being Hence Plato says that humane Wisdom if compar'd with that which is had from Oracles and a divine Fury is as nothing and hence Virgil thought not Aeneas duly qualified for being founder of the Roman Empire till with his other Endowments he had this divine Institution of the Sibyl And I make no doubt but there are Sibyls still in the World who on certain occasions can and do perform the like pious Office to Man though the outward Typical part of Caves and Tripods be left off the Caves only denoting a deep mental Recess the Tripod the three successions of Time all known to Apollo Virgil not only in his sixth Aenead but elsewhere sufficiently intimates the dreadful Labour which attends this Transaction where he disswades Augustus though a great Emperour and a Man of noble Endowments of Mind from ever wishing himself a party concern'd in it saying Quicquid eris nam te nec sperent Tartara Regem Nec tibi regnandi veniat tam dira cupido Quamvis Elysios miretur Graecia campos Nec repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem Da facilem cursum Whate'er you 'll be for Hell ne'r hopes you King Nor so seek Rule to wish so direful thing Tho Greece admires th' Elysian Fields nor was Proserpine fond with Ceres thence to pass Vouchsafe the Favour And perhaps it might be in view of this difficulty that Christ said Regnum Coelorum vim patitur violenti rapiunt illud Mat. 11. and 12. And again That it was as hard for a rich Man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as for a Camel to go through the eye of a Needle If we consider what the Sibyl requir'd of Aenaeas to perform before he could accompany her in this great Undertaking it may not be difficult for us to conceive what those Regions are into which he pass'd the Golden Branch must be gotten and carried with him to gain his admittance into them and a dead Man a Friend of his slain by Triton a Sea God whom he had provok'd must be buried the Old Man the Animal Man must be slain and buried without which sacred Necromantick Practise Christ cannot be form'd nor reign within us nor can we enter the Kingdom of Bliss The Poet makes this Man a Trumpeter the Animal-man being nought but Clamour and Noise his Funeral-pile must be made of that ancient over-grown Forest that Den of wild Beasts with which the golden Bow is all invested Gold for that its a pure and incorruptible Metal and the most ductile and extendible of all Bodies and in its Colour resembles the glorious Lights of Heaven it terminating also the desires of Man was made by the Ancients the sacred Type of the Deity or of that divine Nature diffus'd thorow the World and hence by Divines the whole Intellectual World is call'd the Cataena Aurea and hence also are those famous Stories of the Golden Fleece at Colchos and of the Golden Fruits in the Gardens of the Hesperides and the Golden Age refers here and this is that Aurum Ignitum which St. John says will make a Man Rich. Now the Sibyl truly tells Aenaeas there is no coming at this Golden Branch that divine Spirit which must be his Passeport to the Elysian fields till he has cut down the wild Forest with which it is surrounded and made a Funeral-pile of it to burn the dead Body of his Friend Misenus that animal Man the Forest being nought but that confusion of Vice in which humane Life is involv'd and till this be cut down and burnt igne
were Cattle in it but Dwarfish no Gold nor Silver in it and therefore despis'd by all Men whereas it 's now as pleasant a Counrry almost in all respects as France Spain or Italy Indeed in refetence to the Civil or Moral World it might be said that by the Golden Age is meant the Ancient simplicity which the Poets or others would represent in our Forefathers as leading a quiet and calm Life free from all Treachery Voluptuousness and other burthensome circumstances to humane Nature as we find some of the Ancients formerly had so great a hatred and detestation of Pleasures Superfluities and Voluptuousness that in the Temple of the Town of Thebes there was a famous square Pillar erected on which were engraven Curses and Execrations against King Menis who was the first that withdrew the Egyptians from a simple and sober Life without Mony and Riches But it cannot be thought that ever this Humour was general in the World though it might happen sometimes in one place and sometimes in another according to the vicissitude of humane Affairs Or we may say with Natalis Comes what is the Golden Age but a common liberty of all Men in a City well govern'd by Laws where wild Beasts live freely with domestick Animals Dogs with Hares Lambs with Wolves and the like For in a time of Peace good Men live safe under the protection of the Laws among Cut-throats and Thieves Some by the Golden Age understand the time when Men were govern'd by the Law of Nature written in their Hearts before the written Law was in being And others by the four Ages will have four sorts of Men to be signified But to pass from the Moral World to the Natural though as to the place which God appointed for Paradise it must be allow'd to have been adorn'd with all advantages and delights from the Beginning yet as to the rest of the Earth I know not what warrant we have from the Scriptures or other History Or what may be suggested from Reason for any advantagious furniture it had for supplying Men with Necessaries or Pleasures Indeed the Scriptures tell us of the Longaevity of the Antediluvian Patriarchs and we have suggested Conjectures already of what it may be imputed too but as to the great Fertility ascrib'd to the Primigenial Soil that of necessity must have added to the inconvenience of Habitation by an overgrowth without Persons to cultivate it and it seems likely to me that Adam as soon as he was turn'd out of Paradise was hardly put to his shifts Plutarch also sufficiently tells us what Conveniencies for the support of humane Life a recent World could afford so that a Golden Age in any such respect seems to me to have been represented rather for gratifying the Fancy than the Judgment And all I can bring it to is this that as the Ancients by the Golden Age in the moral World would represent an Ideal state of pure Nature and of Innocency so by all their Flourishes on the then Course of external Nature they would personate an Idaeal state of it correspondent to the other Having thus far shewn how little the Author's Hypothesis is backt by the Sentiments of the Ancients concerning Paradise I shall now briefly set forth what as far as my Reading has gone seems to me most probable in this matter The Learned Mr. Gregory on that passage of Zach. C. 6.12 Behold the man whose name is East whom he makes out to be Christ lays down this as a Ground That the special Presence of God as he superintends this World ever was and is in that part of the Heav'n or Heav'ns which answers to the Aequinoctial East of the holy Land To make this good he says the Ancients always attributed to the Gods the Eastern parts as Porphyry says and those parts are called by Varro and Festus the Seats of the Gods c. He proves it also from Reason according to Aristotle thus The first Mover viz. God must of necessity be present either to the Center or Circumference of his Orb and since Motions are most rapid in the nearest distance to the Impression and since that part of the Sphere is most rapidly mov'd which is most remote from the Poles therefore the movers Place is about the middle Line and this he thinks is the reason why the Aequinoxes are believ'd to be of so sacred an Import and signification in Astrology for by them as Ptolomy says it 's judg'd concerning things Divine and the Service belonging to the House of God Now the Philosophers meaning is not as if the Mover presented himself alike unto the whole Circumference but assisting especially to that part from whence the motion does begin viz. the East whence Averrhoes rightly says some Religious worship God that way Since therefore the Aequinoctial East passes through the whole Circle of necessity 't is to be meant of some certain Position nor is it possible to mean it but of the horizontal Segment of the then habitable World the uttermost bounds whereof from Sun to Sun they absolutely term'd East and West In the Philosophers time the Circle of this Horizon past through the Pillars of Hercules in the West Calpe and Abyla and the Altars of Alexander in the East And at the Pillars of Hercules the Arabians fixt their Great Meridian Now this Meridian passes through the tenth degree of Longitude from that of Ptolomy and the River Hyphasis on the furthest banks of which Alexanders Altars were rais'd as being the place where his Journeys ended is plac'd by Ptolomy in 131.35 the difference of Longitude is about 120 degrees the second part of which is 60. and because the Meridian of Jerusalem is 70 degrees from that of Ptolomy that is 60 from the Arabian the Holy City was as it was anciently term'd Vmbilicus Terrae being precisely plac'd betwixt the East and West of the habitable World Therefore the Aequinoctial East of Jerusalem is the Aequinoctial East of the whole and answering to the first movers Receipt which therefore was said to be in Oriente aequinoctiali Now the Notion of Paradise in the Christian acceptation was that part of the Heaven where the Throne of God and the Lamb is it being as Zoroaster terms it in the Chaldean Oracles the all enlightned recess of Souls And Irenaeus says as he heard from Disciples of the Apostles the Receipt of just and perfect Men is a certain Paradise in the Eastern part of the third Heaven and many others of the Fathers agree with him herein And Paâ— 68.32.33 David says according to the Arabick Translation Sing unto God ye Kingdoms of the Earth O sing praises to the Lord Selah to him that rides upon the heaven of heavens in the Eastern part Gen. 2.8 It 's said And the Lord planted a Garden Eastward or toward the East In the Apostolical Constitutions it 's said And turning toward the East let them pray unto God who sits upon
the heaven of heavens in the Eastern part Mr. Gregory having thus establisht his Ground says that this is the reason why God planted a Garden in Eden Eastward and that though some say with Mercerus That nothing hinders but we may take it generally that Paradise was planted in the Eastern part of the World towards the rising Sun yet Damascen and Barcephas say that at the beginning of March the Sun alway rises directly over Paradise meaning that the Garden of Eden was planted toward the Aequinoctial East of the Holy Land and the meaning of this is that the Sanctum Sanctorum of this Mother Church pointed towards that part of Heaven where the Sun rises in the month Nisan For the Sanctuary of Paradise was the recess of the Garden which was distinguisht and made so by the presence of the Tree of Life Now this Tree according as we commonly translate it was planted in the midst of the Garden but in truth it stood in the Eastern part of the place And that not only Adam but the whole World also worshipt towards the East till Abraham's time Maimoni in his More and S. Ephrem and others in the Arabick Catena testifie And it depends from this very same Ground that the most solemn piece of all the Jewish Service I mean that Great attonement but once a Year to be made by the highest and most holy Man and in the most holy Place was perform'd towards the East contrary to all other manner of addressments in their Devotion For Lev 16.14 15. It 's commanded that the high Priest shall do with the blood of the Goat as with the blood of the Bullock and sprinkle it with his finger upon the Mercy-seat Eastward Now it s known that the sprinkling of blood especially this was the Figure of him who by his own blood entred into the holy Place and obtain'd Eternal Redemption Heb. 9.12 And hence Isychius Hierosolom says this was done to represent the Man Cui oriens nomen ejus and there are many passages in the Scriptures which signifie to us that Christ came down to us from the East And this is one reason why our Saviour is said to be the Man whose Name is the East in reference to whom the Christians by some have been called Orientales and the Blessed Virgin is call'd Orientalis porta The other reason is according to what was intimated before viz. that from Adam till Abraham's time the whole World worshipt towards the East Now this Original Principal and as it ought to have been everlasting Ceremony by an Errour of the Persian and Chaldean worshippers degenerating into an Idolatry of the Sun Abraham says the Learned Maimoni by divine Inspiration appointed the West to his Hebrews therefore the Tabernacle and Temple were set towards that side of Heaven So that they did and they did not worshipt towards the West 'T is true all the Sacrifices were offer'd up that way but all this while they worshipt no more towards the West than towards the North. They worship towards the Ark or towards the place of that and do so still and are so to do because the Sun of Righteousness was to set upon their Horizon and to them the Man whose Name is th' East is not yet brought forth It 's known also that Christs Star appear'd in the East and the Wise-men came thence and Christ ascended up into the Eastern part of Heaven as the Psalmist says Qui ascendit super coelum coeli ad Orientem And S. Jo. Damascen delivers as from the Apostles that he shall come again in like manner as he was seen to go hence answerable to what he himself said For as the lightning comes out of the East and shines even unto the West so shall also the coming of the Son of man be We worship him therefore toward the East as expecting him from thence Mr. Gregory concludes with an ancient Profession of the Eastern Church who say We pray toward the East for that our Lord Christ when he ascended into Heaven went up that way and there fits in the Heaven of Heavens above the East according to David Praise the Lord who sits in the Heaven of Heavens in the East and in truth we make no doubt but that our Lord Christ as respecting his humane Nature has his Seat in the Eastern part of the Heav'n of Heav'ns and sits with his Face towards this World To pray therefore or to worship toward the East is to pray and worship toward our Saviour And that all this is to be meant of the Aequinoctial East it is made out by Moses Barcephas in his Discourse of Paradise he says there that the place toward which they prayed is that over which the Sun rises in the Month Nisan which is the Vernal Aequinox This is what I have briefly collected from Mr. Gregory from which I may draw what follows as a Corollary It appears from what is said that the Ancient Jews and Christians plac'd their Terrestrial and Coelestial Paradises with reference to the states of the Churches Militant and Triumphant the one under the Sun on the Earth the other over it in the third Heavens as the Sun was plac'd in the Aequinoctial East of Hierusalem and consequently of the whole habitable World and how possibly could the ancient Mystae who took upon them to bring all things to Time and Place more aptly personate a particular presence of the divine Logos in Heav'n and Earth than there Since as he enlightens every Man coming into this World so the Sun being in that Aequinoctial East Point equally diffus'd its light over the whole habitable Earth and hence we direct our divine Worship that way and may conclude the Seat of the Terrestrial Paradise there though perhaps it was miraculously founded or at least for many Ages has not been known to Man And as the foremention'd Mr. Gregory has observ'd according to the sense of the most knowing The Year of the World began the Sun being in that Vernal Aequinox Point its Revolutions beginning and ending there nor can any other good reason be given why the Astronomers should deduce all their Calculations from the head of Aries If the Pains I have bestow'd in composing this long Chapter may help somewhat to ease the mind of any Man that peruses it concerning the Seat of Paradise I shall think it well bestow'd at least beside my labour for my pains it seems to give a little ease to my own CHAP. VIII HERE the Author sets forth the uses of his Theory for the illustration of Antiquity and endeavours to explain the Ancients Chaos the Uninhabitableness of the Torrid Zone the Changes of the Poles of the World the Doctrine of the Mundane Egg and endeavours to shew how America was first Peopled c. First then concerning the Ancients Chaos he says they have made a dark confus'd and unintelligible Story of it telling us of moral Principles in it instead
Wine their discourse then being besides the common apprehension of Men and hence S. Paul also in the like circumstance was taxt by Festus of being grown mad through too much Learning In reference to this assertion of the Author viz. that the Rise of the World from a Chaos and its periods must be understood only of our sublunary World there is one Opinion which deserves particularly to be noted viz. that of the Antient Cabalists These Ancient Jewish Rabins as Eleasar Moses Aegyptius Simon Ismael Jodan Nachinan and others with whom Origen seems to agree would never yield precedence in depth of Learning to the Philosophers of the Gentils and therefore derided their Opinions who by Astrology and Philosophy pretended to know the Methods taken by providence in the Rise and Periods of the World and affirm'd themselves the only Men knowing in the Mysteries of that Immense Aeternity as having drawn a consummate knowledge in reference thereunto from a Divine Tradition first communicated to Moses by God himself in Mount Sinai God saying Esdr 4. c. 14. v. 5. that he had shewn him the secrets and end of times These Doctors say that by the benefit of this Cabala or Tradition the marrow of the Law of Moses and the deepest secrets of God are reveal'd to them and that they thence know that God has created infinite Worlds in a continued succession and destroy'd and demolish'd them again viz. this sublunary Region every seven thousand years and the superior Region every forty nine thousand years They add that in six of the seven thousand years the Chaos generates and produces all new things and those being ended it gathers all things into itself again and rests the seventh thousand year and in that millenary of rest it fits and prepares it self for a new Germination and so a certain continued succession of Worlds has been hitherto and will be for the future and at length this inferior World being thus renewed and as it were reborn seven times and the course of forty nine thousand years expir'd in the fifty thousandth year the Heavens will also be dissolv'd and all things will return into their ancient Chaos and first matter and then God taking all the blessed Minds and Spirits to himself will give rest to the bulk of this Universe and afterwards all things being renewed by his Immense Wisdom and Power he will frame a World much more beautiful and pleasant and for this reason no mention is made of the Creation of Angels in the Scriptures where the Creation of the World is set forth because they remain'd immortal in the Creation of the precedent Worlds and hence Solomon in the Book of Wisdom supposes a confus'd matter before the Creation of this World and says elsewhere that there is nothing new under the Sun They endeavour to confirm their Opinion from several other Testimonies taken from the Scriptures which I shall not stand here to relate This Opinion indeed if it would bear might have been a good Salvo for those Men who in the Council of Nice objected to Spiridio and the other Bishops there that it seem'd very absurd God in his Infinite Eternity should have fram'd this World so short a time to continue but about four or five thousand years ago they asking what he did before or what he should do after this World ceas'd But the general stream of Divines is against this Opinion they holding that God framed only one World from the beginning And when all is said of that Opinion the Cabalists being a sort of mystical Writers I look upon the Scope of what they have said concerning infinite renovations of Worlds to be directed in a different way from what the letter seems to import but in such cases every Man being apt to please himself best with his own thoughts I shall not take upon me here to be their Expositor Let us now particularly consider the Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Mundane Egg whence some farther Light may be given to their Doctrine of the Chaos and of the Worlds Form or Figure Now concerning that Doctrine as I have intimated before the Author says it was partly symbolical they comparing the World to an Egg and especially in the original composition of it and he adds it 's certain that by the World in that similitude they did not mean the great Universe but the sublunary World only or the Earth the Figure of which when finish'd he has shewn to have been Oval and that th' inward form of it was a frame of four Regions encompassing one another as in an Egg. I know not why th' Author should be so positive in setting this down as a general Rule for us to prevent error in reading th' Ancients that what they have writ about the Form and Figure of the World as well as of its Origine and Dissolution must be understood only of the Earth when himself tells in his first Book in the Latin Copy that some of th' Antients by the Egg represented the World others the Earth and others the Chaos But he will have those who represented the World and the Chaos by it to have talkt by rote or through an ill understanding or being byass'd by their private Opinions to have wrested the signification of it from what the wisest among th' Ancients thought This indeed would be an easie way of refuting th' Ancients if it would pass but when we particularly consider what they have said in this point we shall not find a Man of them that favours th' Authors particular Opinion and in my first Book I think I have shewn it a notorious error if they had There are three ways then of considering the Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Mundane Egg first how the Egg is compar'd particularly to the Earth or sublunary Region Secondly how to the whole Universe consisting of the Heavens and the Earth Thirdly how to the Chaos In reference to the first Alexander Aphrodiseus says that an Egg comprehends all the qualities of th' Elements and plainly shews those four first Principles of things within itself the crusty shell resembles the Earth it being cold and dry the White carries the nature of water being cold and moist the Spirit contained in the White is for air being hot and moist and the Yolk represents the Fire having most of heat and less of drought nor is it without the colour of Fire Briefly he says that the likeness of the whole Universe which we call the World is shewn in an Egg for it consists of four Elements and has a kind of sphaerical Figure and carries within it a Principle of Life Thus we see he makes the sublunary Region an Egg inverted resembling the Yolk to the Aether and the Shell to the Earth contrary to the Authors Opinion Secondly the Egg is resembled to the whole Universe by Varro the most learned among the Romans as Probus on Virgil's sixth Eclogue acquaints us saying that Varro compar'd the Heavens
to the Shell of an Egg and the Earth to the Yolk Achilles Tatius also quoted by the Author when he tells us that the followers of Orpheus affirm the World to be oval as an Egg he says it of the whole Universe as Varro does which no way advantages the Authors Opinion applied particularly to the Earth and the inward envelopings he supposes it had Ptolomy also in his compost says that the Elements and all things compos'd of them are inclos'd within the first Heaven or the Heaven of the Moon as the Yolk of an Egg is within the White But the main Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Egg as the Author himself owns was by comparing it to the World in its Origin or as it rose from a Chaos they setting forth that as particular Generations are from Eggs so the whole World rose from it Thus Plutarch tells us it was the Opinion of Orpheus and Pythagoras that the Egg was the principle and ordinary source of Generation and that Orpheus held the Egg not only more ancient than the Hen but to have the Seniority of all things in the World Now though we have no ground to think that the Ancients were as good Egg Philosophers as the World has now by the help of late Anatomical Researches assisted by our Opticks yet Plutarch to exemplifie Generations and the rise of things from Eggs says thus The World containing many differing species of Animals there is not one species of them but passes by the Generation of the Egg for the Egg produces volatiles which are Birds swimming Creatures which are Fishes in an infinite number terrestial Animals as Lizards Amphibious Animals which live both in the Waters and on the Earth as Crocodiles such as have but two feet as Poultry such as have no feet as the Serpent and those that have many as Grashoppers Whence Plutarch concludes it is not therefore without great reason that the Egg is consecrated to the sacred Ceremonies of Bacchus as a representation of the Author of nature who produces and comprehends in itself all things Macrobius also who seems in a manner a Transcriber from Plutarch says those that are initiated in the sacred Ceremonies of Liber Pater pay a veneration to the Egg in this respect that from its smooth even and almost Spherical Figure shut up in every part and including life within it it may be call'd a Type of the World and the World by the consent of all Men is the principle of the Universe he says further as the Elements existed at first and then the other bodies were made of the mixture of them so the seminal reasons which are in an Egg are to be lookt upon as certain Elements of the Hen. Thus we find the great Doctrine of the Mundane Egg referr'd to the Generation of all things from the Chaos concerning which the Doctrin of the Ancients runs thus as I find it stated by a certain Author They say the Chaos was before all things and that in a long series of duration it settled in itself a Center and a Circumference gathered together in the form of a vast Egg upon the breaking of which a certain kind of Person of a double form arose being both Male and Female and call'd Phaneta out of this came Heaven and Earth out of Heaven came six Males which they call Titans Oceanus Caeus Crius Hyperion Japetus Cronos or Saturn from the Earth six Women Thya Rhea Themis Mnemosyne Thetis Hebe of all these he that was first born of Heaven took the first Daughter of the Earth to Wife the second the second c. Saturn therefore took Rhea c. From this Doctrin we as plainly see how fairly the Analogy holds betwixt the Generation of the World upon the disruption of the Chaodical Egg and the particular Generations and rise of Animals from their respective specifical Eggs as we may see how forc'd and unnatural it would be to apply this Doctrin only to the Earth and its disruption at the deluge for at the disruption of the Mundane Egg upon the appearance of Phaneta which Orpheus makes the same with Eros or Love the Heavens and Earth with all their beauteous ornament arose as upon the disruption of particular Eggs the Chick with all that admirable Mechanism in the structure of its parts and the advantage of Animal life comes forth whereas if this Doctrine shall be apply'd particularly to the Antedilunian Earth as represented by the Author and it shall be said that that Earth after sixteen hundred years Incubation of the Sun upon its disruption produc'd this present World where is the Analogy with particular Generations from their respective Eggs Since upon the disruption of that Earth the miserable Chick within according to the Authors own Hypothesis was found no way comparable to the Shell it had before the Antediluvian Earth far transcending the present so that if that Earth must have been an Egg it was but an addled one The Author therefore has given the Earth an oval Figure only to serve his Hypothesis for the Course of his Rivers as I have intimated before and if the Sectators of Orpheus or possibly any others of the Ancients gave the Earth itself an oval Figure not a Man of them gives the least Intimation of any inward envelopings it had answering to those in an Egg as the Author does who by over-straining the matter seems to leave a substance by pursuing a Shadow thereby wholly perverting the Analogy betwixt the Egg and the World which those Ancients endeavour'd to set forth And whatever formerly has been variously said concerning the Figure of the Earth whether as oval or else we know the opinion of its spherical Figure has generally obtain'd as lookt upon to be demonstrated And again if Eggs are commonly of somewhat an oval form there are particular reasons for it the directer of Natures Mechanism giving them that Figure either for the greater ease in Exclusion according to the structure of the parts through which they are then to pass or for the more convenient site of the Animal to be form'd within besides that when Eggs are form'd the fluid matter is not free to run into that Figure it would to the film encompassing them being in some part connected to the Ovarium and they are also prest upon by other Eggs whereas neither of these reasons nor any others I conceive are to be found in the Earth and that the Ancients could not nicely insist upon an Analogy betwixt the World and an Egg for its oval Figure it appears from hence that Eggs generally are only oblong and not properly oval they being much larger at one end than at the other The second point consider'd by the Author in this Chapter is the uninhabitableness of the Torrid Zone concerning which he says thus But nothing seems more remarkable than the uninhabitability of the Torrid Zone if we consider what a general fame and belief it had among the
the Change of the Poles otherwise than their private Opinion and the Reasons they assign for it are so frivolous that Vallesius aptly calls them Ineptiae Infantilis illius Philosophiae and shews the erroneous Ground they went upon But because the Author does not insist upon the validity of their Reasons I shall not examine them here but refer the Reader to Vallesius The Author adds some other Witnesses for this Change of the Posture of the Earth and Heavens viz. Plato the Poets some Christian Fathers and Jewish Doctors who all justifie that in the first Ages there was a constant Spring so that the Heavens and Earth must have chang'd their Posture since But I conceive I have sufficiently answer'd all this in my precedent and and some other Chapters and hope the Author will not go about to put upon us Allegorical Fictions for Historical Truths Another thing the Author endeavours to give an account of in this Chapter is how America came to be peopled which he thinks is easily answered according to his Hypothesis viz. that the Antediluvian Earth being smooth Men could freely pass before the Flood to all parts of this Continent and if they could not then pass into the other Hemisphere beyond the Torrid Zone he says Providence seems to have made provision for that in transplanting Adam into this Hemisphere after he had lain the foundation of a World in the other and concludes that God foreseeing how many Continents the Earth would be divided into after the ceasing of the Flood made provision to save a remnant in every Continent that the Race of Mankind might not be quite extinct in any of them As to this Assertion I shall leave it to the judgment of Divines how far we must be determin'd by the Text of Moses as to a destruction of all Mankind saving Noah and his Family in the Deluge there describ'd and shall only offer what follows from common Reason First It will concern the Author to consider how his Assertion here can consist with what he has set forth concerning the universality of the Deluge in the second Chapter of his first Book where he reasons against those who have endeavoured to represent Noah's Flood as a partial Deluge affecting only a particular Countrey and urges thus I cannot but look upon the Deluge as a much more considerable thing than these Authors would represent it and as a kind of Dissolution of Nature Moses calls it a destroying of the Earth as well as of Mankind And beneath he says St. Peter compares the Conflagration with the Deluge as two general dissolutions of Nature and one may as well say that the Conflagration shall be only National as to say that the Deluge was so And again we see that after the Flood the Blessing for Multiplication and for replenishing the Earth with Inhabitants was as solemnly pronounc'd by God Almighty as at the first Creation of Man Gen. 9.1 and Gen. 1.28 These Considerations he says he thinks might be sufficient to give us assurance from divine Writ of the universality of the Deluge and yet that Moses affords anonother Argument as demonstrative as any when in the History of the Deluge he says Gen. 7.19 The VVaters exceedingly prevailed upon the Earth and all the highest Hills that were under the whole Heavens were cover'd all the high Hills that were under the whole Heavens then quite round the Earth And in his Latine Copy he says Moses's History adds particularly the thing being as it were measur'd and accurately examin'd that the Waters overflowed the highest Mountains fifteen Cubits which Mark he judges to be added not without Providence that we might thence gather by a Testimony not to be gainsaid that the Deluge did not keep itself within the limits of any one Region whatsoever And much more the Author urges both in his English and Latin Copies to the same purpose and how all this can consist with a preservation of some Remnant of Men in every Continent at the time of the Deluge I must leave it to him to consider Secondly According to the Authors own Hypothesis when he says that the Passages North and South being not free Men could not go out of one Hemisphere into the other but Providence seems to have made a Provision for that in transporting Adam into this Hemisphere after he had lain a foundation for a World in the other I hope he does not mean by this that Adam left any Children in the other Hemisphere to people it and be a foundation of a World there It being a common Opinion that Adam and Eve were but a few hours in Paradise before they were expulst and that expulsion being suppos'd by the Author to be into this Hemisphere there were no People to remain in the other Wherefore as I have intimated before if the Author's Hypothesis must stand it must be with these Absurdities First that upon the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of Paradise God must have miraculously convey'd them through the Torrid Zone which the Author supposes as impassable as a burning Furnace into this Hemisphere Secondly After Adam had Children God must have wrought another Miracle to have convey'd some of them into the other Hemisphere to People it and it would have been a Curiosity to know which of Adam's Children were convey'd thither Cain we find must have been one because he is said Gen. 4.16 to have dwelt on the East of Eden which could not be in this Hemisphere if Paradise were in the other and it 's much that living so near Paradise and being past the flaming Sword he should not get into it as well as all descended from him to the Flood though his Crime could hardly deserve that Paradisiacal Continent for his Habitation Thirdly God must have wrought a third Miracle to have brought all Animals there of differing Species from those in this Hemisphere to the Ark at the time of the Deluge unless another Ark were built in the other Hemisphere Whereas the Author says in his first Book that Noah's Ark was the the first Ship or Vessel of bulk that ever was built in the World And I would ask whether the Author thinks that a Man may not give a rational account of the peopling of America without being clog'd with so many Absurdities I think it very easie and natural to imagine supposing the first Plantation in this Hemisphere and the VVorld always as it is how without any Miracle some small Vessels with People in them might have been driven by some Storm on the Continent of America from the more Easterly Coasts of the VVorld such small Vessels being a thing of common Notion so that I think we may reasonably conclude them to have been almost as ancient as Mankind Moreover we know that many Jewish Customs were found among the Americans on their first discovery and Ralegh tells us that in Mexico when first discover'd there were found written Books after the manner of
sua convulsáque robora terrâ Et sylvas moveo jubeóque tremiscere montes Et mugire solum manésque exire sepulchris Te quoque Luna traho At list the banks admiring what is done I make the streams back to their sources run By Charms I calm and raise tempestuous Seas The Winds and Clouds attend to what I please By Words and Spells I tear the Vipers Jaws The Rocks and Oaks obey those mighty Laws I Woods remove shake Mountains make th' Earth groan Call Ghosts from out their Graves and thee O Moon From Heaven I draw What shall we say to the Poets sense in all this Is there nothing in 't a Person initiated in Symbolical Learning will tell you that there is a real truth contain'd in it and that he has seen all these things really transacted in that Symbolical Sense the Poet means it and though this be not literal yet there is somewhat very surprizing and extraordinary and beside the common course of Nature in the Transaction When a mere Physiologer reads this being unacquainted in the other Learning and finding these things not solvable according to his Principles he shall tell you that this is only a fancy of the Poet writ to please the Reader by stirring admiration in him And again some literal Tribunitial Writers will tell you that an Old Woman having the Devil at command may do all these fine things as they are literally set down Now there has been always a Contention betwixt these two later Atechnical Writers and the others Inter Mystas et Osores Musarum as Erasmus calls them for these later being incomparably the greater number and many of them Men of great parts and really exceeding many of the mystae in giving accounts of several Phaenomena of Nature and in other parts of Learning think it derogating from their honour that any Men should pretend to understand some mystery in Learning which they do not and therefore commonly brand them with Ostentation Enthusiasm or perhaps somewhat worse not considering that tho God gives great parts to some Men yet he commonly limits them to certain Sciences and does not extend them to all Knowables and tho the others in their defence sing with the Poet Invidus annoso qui famam derogat aevo Qui vates ad vera vocat Yet they commonly Sing to the Deaf Some Writers indeed keep a decorum in the matter as it may be said of Cartes who though a Man of unquestionable Parts in an outward demonstrative way yet finding himself at a loss in divine Mysteries says thus I had a Reverence for our Divinity and desir'd as much as no Man more to be capacitated for Eternal Happiness but having certainly inform'd my self that the way which leads to it lies open to the learned no more than to the unlearned and that the Truths reveal'd from God exceed the reach of Man's understanding I fear'd I should incur the Crime of Rashness if I brought them under the scrutiny of my weak Reason and whoever have the hardiness to take knowledge of them and interpret them seem'd to me to stand in need of a peculiar Grace of God for this purpose and ought to be plac'd in a rank above common Man I would not be so understood all this while as though I pretended my self a Master in Symbolical Learning for I think there is but one of a Town and two of a Tribe that so are yet I may pretend my self a Scholar in such a Classis of it that I see a multitude of Errours introduc'd into Natural and Civil History through the ignorance of it How many Relations invented as meer Symbols have Pliny Solinus and others polite Writers indeed but unacquainted in mystical Learning recorded as plain historical Truths They being Collectors and transcribing from the Works of those they did not understand And we find that Pliny ridicul'd himself by endeavouring to ridicule the Magi for having the Mole in great Veneration he little knowing what that subterraneous Animal symboliz'd To conclude concerning this mystical Learning of the Ancients we find that Pliny though an opposer of it as vain and of no effect found himself oblig'd to own that the highest Renown and Glory of Learning from all Antiquity and in all continued times was from that Knowledge and it 's certain that those of the Ancients who were skill'd in it could thereby perform things far transcending the ability and comprehension of others They had an Institution amongst them whereby they could bring the Mind of Man to its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and make it exert it self beyond the Elements of this World as those who were initiated among the Jews and had seen the rending of the Veil which carried the Types of the four Elements as all the Prophets had saw those Elements pass away and thereby became partakers of divine Mysteries The Ars Amatoria and Obstetricia of Socrates in which it appears that Virgil Theocritus and others were egregiously skill'd contains this Institution it being for courting and impregnating the Mind and at length for helping it to bring forth for as to that illiterate and idle Imputation of their abusive love of Boys Boys may talk of it and as the learned Dr. Henry More has intimated in several parts of his Works a certain dispensation of this kind is made use of now and then though sparingly amongst us and I doubt not but himself was initiated thereby And if I might here use freedom of Speech I must say that let a Mans Parts be never so great otherwise whoever shall undertake to write of the Points consider'd by the Author in his Theory without being well seen in this grand Theorem of the Ancients I must look upon him in a like Circumstance with a Pilot who should undertake a Voyage round the Globe without his Compass In fine if the learned Author of the Theory who has occasion'd me to write this Postscript relating to it as well as my other Considerations on it proposes it as meerly Symbolical I think it might aptly enough serve that way and that by a full consideration of it we may be carried round in a fetch upon external Nature till a time of Revelation comes for which we must wait Gods pleasure keeping us in the mean time to the Institutions of our spiritual Guides and indeed methinks the very ingenious Emblem which he has prefixt to his Book seems to intimate some such meaning in him He there sets forth seven states of the World with the divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Messiah setting one foot on the Chaodical the other on the Astral state of it Now these seven states of the World aptly symbolize the seven states of mans Life At first the mind of Man is a Chaos an inform Being a Tabula Rasa as is represented by the Chaos in the first Figure As he proceeds towards Youth things go on pretty smoothly with him as is Typified by the smooth