are now about also that it ought to be of peculiar force in the present case Thus also the Builders of Babel said Go to Let us build us a City and a Tower whose top may reach unto Heaven So mention is made of Cities great and fenced up to Heaven The Clouds pass by the name of the Clouds of Heaven nay they are by the Psalmist agreeably to the Interposition of the Expansum Firmament or Heaven on the second day of the Creation between the superior and inferior Waters made as it were its farthest Boundaries and Limits the Waters contain'd in them being call'd Waters which are above the Heavens The very Fowls which still reside nearer to the Earth are stil'd the Fowls of Heaven and were originally appointed to fly above the Earth in the open Firmament of Heaven By all which places 't is evident That the word Heaven is commonly so far from including the Sun or Planetary Chorus much less the fix'd Stars with all their immense Systems that the Moon our attending and neighbour Planet is not taken in The utmost bounds of our Atmosphere being so of this our Heaven also which was the only Point which remain'd to be clear'd But here before I proceed farther I must take notice of a considerable Objection which threatens to wrest this Argument out of my hands and indeed to subvert the intire Foundation of the Proposition before us and is I freely own the main difficulty in this whole matter and 't is this That such a Sense of the words World and Heaven and Earth as has been pleaded for whatever may be said in other cases will yet by no means fit here nor take in all the extent of the Mosaick Creation because 't is certain that neither the Light by whose Revolution Night and Day are distinguish'd nor the Sun Moon and Stars which are set in our Firmament belong to our Atmosphere or are contain'd within those Boundaries within which we confine the present History and 't is equally certain that both of them belong to the Mosaick Creation and are the first and fourth days works therein and by consequence it may be said the Subject of the six days Creation must be the whole System of the heavenly Bodies or at least that particular one in which the Earth is and is stil'd the Solar System Now this Objection is in part already taken off by the Sense in which the Production and Creation of things has been shewn to be frequently taken in the Holy Scriptures whereby there appears to be no necessity of believing these Bodies to have been then brought into being when they are first mention'd in the Mosaick Creation But because this is not meerly the chief but only considerable Objection against the Proposition we are upon because it seems to have been the principal occasion of men's Mistakes and Prejudices about this whole History and because 't is the single instance wherein this intire Theory as far as I know seems to recede from the obvious Letter of Scripture 't will be but proper to give it a particular review and clear withal not only this but several other like Expressions and Passages in the Holy Scripture Now in order to the giving what satisfaction I can in this Point let it be consider'd That the Light being not said to be created by Moses its Original were without difficulty to be accounted for if the other Point the making of the Heavenly Bodies were once setled which therefore is the sole remaining difficulty in the case before us And that would be no harder if the Translation of the Words of Moses were but amended and the Verses hereto relating read thus And God said Let there be lights in the firmament of the Heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of the Heaven to give light upon the Earth and it was so And God having before made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and having before made the stars also God set them in the firmament of Heaven to give light upon the Earth c. or which is all one And God had before made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night he had before made the stars also and God set them in the firmament c. In which rendring 't is only changing the perfectum for the plusquam perfectum and every thing is clear and easy and the Objection vanishes of its own accord the Creation of the heavenly Bodies being hereby assigned to a former time and the Work of the fourth day no other than the placing them in our Firmament according as the account hereafter to be given does require Now to prove this a fair and just Interpretation to omit the Creation of the Heavens and Heavenly Bodies already related before the six days work 't is only necessary to observe that the Hebrew Tongue having no plusquam perfectum must and does express the Sense of it by the perfectum and that accordingly the particular circumstances of each place must alone determine when thereby the time present and when that already past and gone is to be understood How many knots in the Scripture the omission of this Observation has left unsolv'd and which being observ'd would be immediately untied I shall not go about to enumerate there being so many in the very History before us of the Origin of the World that I shall not go one jot farther for instances to confirm the before-mention'd Translation and which on the account of their agreement in place will more forcibly plead for a like agreement in Sense also On the seventh day God had ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made He had rested from all his work which God had created and made The Lord God had not caused it to rain on the Earth and there had not been a man to till the Ground but there had gone up a mist from the Earth and had water'd the whole face of the ground and the Lord God had formed man of the dust of the ground and had breathed into his nostrils the breath of life And the Lord God had planted a Garden eastward in Eden And out of the ground had the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food And out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air In all which places the whole Context is so clear'd by this rendring and so many strange Absurdities avoided that there is I think all imaginable reason to acquiesce in it And tho' the fourth days work is among those other
God himself says I form the light and create darkness I make peace and create evil I the Lord do all these things Where the objects of the Divine Creation being not real and substantial Beings could not be capable of a proper production out of nothing Which also is the case in the verse immediately following Let righteousness spring up together I the Lord have created it Thus also says God by the same Prophet I create new Heavens and a new Earth which tho' the very case before us yet would odly enough be expounded of an annihilation of the World and a reproduction of it again But what comes still more home to our purpose is that in the very History of the Creation it self the word Create as well as Make is us'd in the sense we contend for the very same things being ascrib'd to the Creating and Making Power of God which are also describ'd as the regular offspring of the Earth and Seas God created great Whales and every living Creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind And God said Let the Earth bring forth the living Creature after his kind Cattel and creeping thing and Beast of the Earth after his kind and it was so And God made the Beast of the Earth after his kind and Cattel after their kind and every thing that creepeth upon the Earth after his kind and God saw that it was good So that when the words made use of in the History of the Creation are there and every where taken promiscuously when some of them are by the confession of all of no larger importance than the Proposition before us will admit and when lastly that word of which the greatest doubt can arise has been prov'd not only in other Texts of Scripture but in the very History of which we are treating to be of no more determinate signification than the rest and alike capable of the sense we here put upon it I think 't is a clear Case that if no Argument can be drawn from such words for yet neither can there justly be any against that Proposition we are now upon III. Those synonymous Phrases The World or the Heavens and the Earth under which the Object of the six days Creation is comprehended every where in Scripture do not always denote the whole System of Beings no nor any great and general Portion of them but are in the Sacred Stile frequently if not mostly to be restrained to the terraqueous Globe with its dependances and consequently both may and if the subject matter require it ought to be understood in such a restrained sense and no other That by these Phrases the Mosaick Creation or six days work is usually understood is evident every where in Scripture as the following Texts will easily evince God who made the World and all things therein The Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in the World and the World was made by Him and the World knew Him not Hence those frequent expressions From the Foundation of the World from the Beginning of the World from the Creation of the World and before the World was which tho' capable of including more must yet be allow'd to have generally a peculiar nay sometimes a sole regard to the six days work particularly stil'd by St. Mark The Beginning of the Creation which God created In the same manner and with the like frequency the other Phrase Heaven and Earth denote the same six days work also Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the Host of them These are the Generations of the Heavens and of the Earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the Earth and the Heavens In six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day which being so express I shall not need to look out for any other parallel places And that both the World and Heaven and Earth signify the terraqueous Globe alone with its Air or Atmosphere and other Appurtenances without including the whole Universe nay or Solar System also which yet I do not deny sometimes to be comprehended therein the following Texts will sufficiently shew Our Lord says of the Woman who poured the Oyntment on him Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole World there shall also this which this Woman hath done be told for a memorial of her His Charge and Commission to his Apostles was Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature The Tempter came to Jesus and shew'd him all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them In all which places no other than the habitable Earth can be understood and 't is still so frequent and natural for Men to use this manner of Speech in the same restrained Sense to this very day that one may the less wonder at the Sacred Stile in this Case But this word the World having not so much difficulty in it nor being so much stood upon as those which follow the Heavens and the Earth I shall no longer insist upon it but proceed And here when the World as a totum integrale is divided into its two contradistinct Parts the Heavens and the Earth it will be said That by such a Phrase or Enumeration of the Parts of the Universe no less can be meant than the whole World in the largest acceptation or however more must be intended than the bare Earth which is but one Member or Branch and so certainly less than that whole of which it is a part In answer whereto I freely confess That the Heavens and the Earth do not seldom denote the intire Universe an instance of which the first words of Genesis have already afforded us but that they always do so I have reason to deny As the Signification of the Earth is known and capable of no Ambiguity so 't is quite otherwise in the word Heaven which in common use and the sacred Authors sometimes refers to the Seat of the Blessed or the third Heaven sometimes to the place of the Sun Moon and Stars and otherwhiles is no farther to be extended than the Clouds or the open Expansum about the Earth where the Air Atmosphere Meteors Clouds and Volatils have their abode Instances of the two former Significations were it pertinent to my present purpose might easily be produc'd but that not being so I shall wave the same and only prove the third and last Signification namely That by the Heavens is frequently understood nothing more than the Atmosphere of the Earth with its appendant or contained Bodies Thus God made the Firmament and divided the Waters which were under the Firmament from the Waters which were above the Firmament and it was so And God called the Firmament Heaven Which place is so express and in the very History it self which we
now Inhabit with such Bodies as are immediately contiguous and appertaining thereto Which I think the following arguments will sufficiently demonstrate 1. If we Appeal to External Nature and enquire what confused Masses or Chaos's either at present are or ever within the Annals of Time were extant in the Visible World we shall discover no footsteps of any such thing excepting what the Atmosphere of a Comet affords us If therefore without the allowance of precarious and fanciful Hypotheses relying on no known Phaenomena of Nature a Comet 's Atmosphere be the sole pretender if moreover the same Atmosphere gives a Just Adequate Primitive and Scriptural Idea of that ancient Chaos if it answers its particular Phnooemena recounted by Sacred or Prophane History if it prove a peculiarly fit Foundation of such an Earth as ours is and is extraordinarily adapted to suit and account for its present and past Phaenomena all which shall be prov'd hereafter I think we may cease our farther enquiries and with the highest reason and justice conclude That a Comet or more peculiarly the Atmosphere thereof was that very Chaos from whence that World arose whose Original is related in the Mosaick History And with equal reason and justice be satisfi'd which is but a certain consequent thereof that not the innumerable Systems of the fixt Stars not the narrower System of the Sun nay nor the Moon her self but our Earth alone was the proper subject of the Mosaick Creation Which conclusion will be farther establish'd by the coincidence of the several days works recounted by Moses with those Natural and Orderly Mutations which in the Digestion and Formation of a Planet from a Comet 's Atmosphere would Mechanically proceed as hereafter will appear 2. The Chaos mention'd by Moses is by him expresly call'd The Earth in contradistinction to The Heavens or the other Systems of the Universe and all its parts taken notice of in the Sacred History appear by the following Series of the Scriptures to belong to our Earth and no other The words of Moses are In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters Where I think 't is plain as has been already observ'd that when the Author comes to the Chaos or Foundation of the six days work he excludes the Heavens from any share therein and calls the Chaos it self An Earth without form and void with Darkness upon the Face of its Abyss and this all ought to grant these being the very Words from which 't is concluded that the Heathen Chaos was no other than what Moses deriv'd the World from And that the Chaos is here confin'd to the Earth will be sure put past doubt by the latter part of this Argument which observes no other parts to be mention'd belonging thereto than such as the succeeding Series of the Holy Scriptures shews to have afterward belong'd to our Earth and no other viz. An Abyss or Deep and Waters Both of them frequently mention'd in the Holy Books and now actual parts of the present Globe as will appear hereafter So that when Moses calls his Chaos expresly the Earth when by the coherence of his discourse he excludes the Heavens taken in a large and proper sense from the same when lastly he mentions no other parts of this Chaos than such as afterward and at this day are parts of our Earth 'T is somewhat unaccountable and like a kind of fate upon Commentators that they should unanimously resolve to make this Chaos of so extravagant a compass as they too incongruously do and that they should agree in it so universally tho' without any warrant from nay contrary to the obvious sense of the Text it self and the plain drift coherence and description of Moses therein I know it will be said the First and Fourth days works the Origin of Light and of the Sun Moon and Stars necessitated such a supposition and gave just cause for the common Exposition Which as I believe to have been the true occasions of all such mistaken Glosses so I think them far from just and necessary ones and if what has been already said has clear'd those difficulties there can be no reason to reject the Cogency of the present Argument but a great deal to rest satisfi'd in it and to confess it no less unscriptural than 't is absurd to expect from this single Chaos a Sun Moon and Systems of fix'd Stars as hitherto the World has commonly done 3. The Mosaick and ancient Chaos could not include the Sun or fix'd Stars because just before the extraction of Light from it as 't is usually explain'd it was Dark and Caliginous which on such a supposition is not conceivable A strange Darkness this where more than ninety nine parts of an hundred whether we take in the intire System of the World or the Solar System only appear to be fiery Corpuscles and the very same from whence all the fix'd Stars or at least the Sun were constituted and are now the Fountain of all that Light and Heat which the World has ever since enjoy'd Let every unbiass'd person judge how Dark that Chaos could be where the Opake and Obscure parts were so perfectly inconsiderable in comparison of the Light the Active and the Fiery ones So that on this Hypothesis The state of the Chaos must have been exceeding Light Hot and Fiery before the first days work when it was on the contrary according to all Antiquity Sacred and Profane Dark and Caliginous 'T is true upon the separation of the particles of Light the business in this Hypothesis of the First Day the Chaos would become Obscure and Dark enough at the same time that the Sun or fix'd Stars were collecting their Masses so lately extracted and were growing Splendid and Glorious But this is to contradict the History according to which the Light on the First Day is consider'd with relation to the Chaos and its distinguishing Night and Day There not as it was collecting into Bodies of Light without it which rather must belong to the Fourth Days Work when by this account 't is evident that this day is the peculiar time for the most pitchy Darkness possible For when all the Light was just separated from the Chaos the most Caliginous Night must certainly ensue So that unless we can change the Order in Moses and prove that the Chaos before the First Days Work was all over Light and on the First Day cover'd with the Thickest Darkness we in vain pretend to justifie the vulgar opinion and include the Sun or fix'd Stars among the other Matter of the Chaos Besides when Heat is the main Instrument of Nature in all its separations of Parts and Productions of Bodies 't is sure a very improper season just then to extract the Light and Fiery Corpuscles out of the Chaos when
six Days work to be of the very same and no larger extent than those are and leave the whole to the Judgment of the Reader There shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying Where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation For this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up In the day of God the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat Nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of thine hands They shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as doth a garment and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed I have now finish'd all those Arguments which to me are fully satisfactory and I think prove beyond rational contradiction That not the vast Universe but the Earth alone with its dependencies are the proper subject of the Six Days Creation And that the Mosaick History is not a Nice Exact and Philosophick account of the several steps and operations of the whole but such an Historical Relation of each Mutation of the Chaos each successive day as the Journal of a Person on the Face of the Earth all that while would naturally have contained The sum of all is this 1. The very Words and Coherence of Moses himself require such a Construction 2. The Words of Creating Making or Framing things here us'd are commonly of no larger importance than this Proposition allows 3. The World or Heaven and Earth the objects of this Creation are alike frequently restrain'd to the sublunary World the Air and Earth 4. The Chaos that known fund and seminary of the Six Days Creation extended no farther 5. On the contrary supposition the time of the Creation of each Body is extremely disproportionate to the work it self 6. On the same supposition there is an intolerable disorder disproportion and confusion in the works themselves 7. The sinal cause of the six days Creation is the advantage of Mankind the Inhabitant of the Earth 8. Neither the intention of the Author nor the capacity of the Readers require or could bear any other account of the origin of things 9. Lastly Neither the Deluge nor Conflagration whose extent appears commensurate to that of this Creation are of any larger compass than is here assign'd Upon this view of the whole matter give me leave to say That to make the Universal Frame of Nature concern'd in the particular Fates and Revolutions of our Earth is at this time of day to demonstrate either very mean thoughts of the Ends of the Divine Workmanship and of the Essects thereof in the World or else very proud and extravagant conceits of our own worth and dignity and at best argues a narrow ignoble and unphilosophical Soul 'T is much such another Wise and Rational Notion as it would be to suppose that the whole Terraqueous Globe with all its parts and dependencies all its furniture and productions was alike concern'd in the Fates and Revolutions pardon the expressions of one single Fly or Worm belonging to it And we may e'en as fairly allow the intire dependence of this sublunary World on the fortune of such a single animalculum That on its peeping into the World the whole Earth must arise out of nothing to afford it a resting place while it was growing and continued in its prime all things below must spring and flourish rejoyce and look gay on its decay all things must put on a mournful countenance and on its destruction Universal Nature here beneath must expire together and return to its primitive nothing This representation will I imagine seem bold and extravagant But 't will be hard to prove it so And I may appeal to Astronomy whether the Earth can be shewn to bear as considerable a proportion to the Universe as such a poor animalculum does certainly bear to it I would not by this or any thing else I have heretofore said in this Discourse be so far mistaken as to be believ'd prone to depretiate and and debase Mankind or to put a slight on all those Works of Nature and Providence which are subservient to it Neither do I deny that in some sense all the Visible World Heaven and Earth are ordain'd for our use and advantage I fully believe that we are the Creatures of God of whom he has a tender regard and over whom he exercises a constant a special Care and Providence As I look upon the Souls of Men in their proper and primitive perfection when they came out of their Maker's Hands to be Noble to be Glorious to be Exalted Beings and perhaps in capacities or faculties in dignity or happiness not inferior to some of the Angelick Orders so I also most undoubtedly believe what our Saviour affirms of good mens state hereafter that they shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Children of God himself While I am perswaded that the Creation of Man was not effected without the concurrence and joint consultation of the Blessed Trinity Nor his Redemption without the Acceptance of the Father the Sacrifice and Death of the Son in his Humane Nature and the Sanctification and Operation of the Holy Spirit While I am perswaded that the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has ever since the Fall of Adam been sollicitous about our Reconciliation to God and made it his constant business even before as well as since his Incarnation to mediate for us and take care of our eternal happiness While I believe that by the new Covenant Good Men even in this Imperfect state are esteem'd Heirs of God joint-Heirs with Christ and denominated the Brethren and Friends of their Glorious Redeemer While I do not doubt but our Humane Nature is now in the Person of our Blessed Saviour in Heaven and there on account of the Hypostatical Union with the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as a reward of that Obedience and Suffering it underwent for us on Earth advanc'd above the most exalted Intellectual Orders at the Right Hand of the Majesty on High
allow'd to be if not lighter yet at least not heavier than others at the same distance from the Center So that by a just tho' a little surprizing way of reasoning from the greater weight of some parts of the Mountainous Columns the less weight of the whole is infer'd 3. Mountains are the principal Source and Origin of Springs and Fountains Now Dr. Woodward from his own observations asserts That these are neither deriv'd from Vapours condens'd in the Air at the Tops of Mountains nor from meer Rains or fall of Moisture as several have differently asserted but from the Waters in the Bowels of the Earth and that 't is a Steam or Vapour rais'd by the Subterraneous Heat which affords the main part of their Waters to them On which Hypothesis which I take to be the truest and most rational of all others the Vapours appear to have a more free and open vent or current up the Mountainous Columns than the neighbouring ones and consequently They are more rare laxe and porous or less dense and weighty than the others 4. All Volcano's or subterraneous Fires are in the Bowels of some Mountain to which a Plain or a Valley was never known to be liable Which observation affords a double Argument for such a levity and rareness as we are now contending for The One from the temper of an inflammable Earth Sulphureous and Bituminous which being in part made up of Oily Particles the lightest Fluid we have must in likelihood be the lightest of all Strata whatsoever The other from the free admission of Air into the Bowels of these Mountains without which no Fire or Flame can be preserv'd Which also infers such a porosity and laxeness as we are now concern'd to prove 5. Mountainous Countries are chiefly subject to Earthquakes and consequently are as well Sulphreous and Inflammable as Hollow and Cavernous Loose and Spungy in their inward parts without which properties the Phaenomena of Earthquakes were difficultly accountable Especially according to Dr. Woodward's Hypothesis of them who deriving them from steams of Subterraneous heat ascending from the Central parts and collected in great quantities together must by consequence own that the Bowels of Mountains so commonly subject to Earthquakes are most Pervious Porous and Cavernous of all other All which Arguments especially taken together with some other coincidences hereafter observable will I hope be esteem'd no inconsiderable evidence of the Truth of the Proposition we are now upon III. Tho' the Annual Motion of the Earth commenc'd at the beginning of the Mosaick Creation yet it s Diurnal Rotation did not till after the Fall of Man Tho' I cannot but expect that this will appear the greatest Paradox and most extravagant Assertion of all other to not a few Readers yet I hope to give so great evidence for the same from Sacred as well as Prophane Authority that competent and impartial Judges shall see reason to say that if it be not sufficient to force their assent yet 't is such as they did not expect in so surprizing remote and difficult a case the Records relating to which the Sacred Ones excepted are so few so dubious and so ancient and the constant opinion of the World within the Memory of History so fixt and setled on the contrary side Let it only be by way of Preparation remark'd That the Annual and Diurnal Motions are in themselves wholly independent on each other as was before taken notice and consequently that 't is as rational to suppose the former without the latter if there be evidence for the same in the Original State of Nature as 't is to believe them capable of being conjoin'd from the known Phaenomena of the World in the present state Let it also be observ'd that there is yet no evidence that either the Central Bodies of any of the Comets or that even several of the Planets who undoubtedly have an Annual Motion about the Sun have yet any Diurnal Rotation about Axes of their own And let it lastly be consider'd that when the Diurnal Rotation must have an Original a time when it began that time may as rationally and naturally be suppos'd after the Fall as before the Creation or Six days Work and which was the true and real one must be determin'd by the Testimonies of Antiquity or other Collateral Arguments to be from thence or from the Phaenomena of Nature Ancient or Modern deriv'd and infer'd Which things beings suppos'd I thus attempt to prove the present Assertion If the Primitive State of Nature before the Fall had those peculiar Phaenomena or Characters which certainly belong to a Planet before its Diurnal Rotation began and are as certainly impossible in the present state of the Earth revolving about its own Axis 't is plain the Assertion before us is true and real But that those peculiar Phaenomena or Characters did belong to that Primitive State the Testimonies of Sacred and Profane Antiquity to be presently produc'd do make appear and by consequence the Assertion before us is true and real The Phaenomena or Peculiar distinguishing Characters here intended have been already mention'd and are these five 1. A Day and a Year are all one 2. The Sun and Planets Rose in the West and Set in the East 3. There was through the whole Earth a perpetual Equinox 4. The Ecliptick and Equator were all one or rather the latter was not in Being but all the Heavenly Motions were perform'd about the same invariable Axis that of the former 5. To such as liv'd under the Ecliptick the Poles of the same or of the World they being then not different were neither elevated nor deprest but at the Horizon These are the certain and undeniable Characters of such a state And that they belong'd to the Primitive State of our Earth before the Fall I am now to prove 1. In the Primitive state of the World Days and Years were all one Which Assertion I endeavour to Evince by the following Arguments 1. On this Hypothesis the Letter of Moses is as exactly followed as in the contrary one 'T is agreed that Moses calls the several Revolutions of the Sun in which the Creation was Perfected Days every where in that History Now as a Year is properly the succession of the four several Seasons Spring Summer Autumn and Winter arising from one single Revolution of the Earth about the Sun so a Day is the succession of Light and Darkness once or the space of one single apparent Revolution of the Sun from any certain Semimeridian above or below the Horizon till its return thither again Now in the case before us both these Periods are exactly coincident and both are perform'd in the same space of time Which space therefore in equal propriety of speech belongs to either or both those names indifferently and by consequence may with the exactest Truth and Propriety be stil'd a Day or a Year Which thing duly consider'd if I had no
positive evidence for the Proposition before us yet setting aside prepossession I had an equal right and pretence to Truth with the Common Expositors I keeping equally close to the Letter of the Sacred History 2. This Hypothesis gives a rational account of the Scripture stile wherein a Day even in after Ages very frequently denotes a Year as is commonly taken notice of by Expositors Thus by Moses himself the Word Day is not only in the very recapitulation of the Creation us'd for the intire Six These are the Generations of the Heavens and of the Earth when they were Created in the Day that the Lord God made the Earth and the Heavens and every Plant of the Field before it was in the Earth and every Herb of the Field before it grew But in other places as it seems for the just space of a Year And at the end of Days or after some Years it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. The days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years and he died And so of the rest of the Genealogies in that Chapter Thus in others of the Holy Writers I will give thee ten shekels of Silver by the days i. e. per annâ—s by the years or every year Thus what in one place is Joshuah waxed Old and came into Days is in another Joshuah was old and stricken in years The like phrases we have of David the number of Days that David was King in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven Years and six months The Days that David reigned over Israel were forty years So what was in the Law Bring your Tyths after three Years is in the Prophet Bring your Tyths after three Days Which ways of speaking with others that follow may seem alluded to and explain'd by these two tho' themselves somewhat of a different nature Your children says God to the Israelites shall wander in the Wilderness forty Years after the number of the Days in which ye searched the land even forty Days each Day for a Year shall you bear your iniquities even forty Years Lye thou says God to the Prophet Ezekiel on thy left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it according to the number of the Days that thou shalt lye upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity For I have laid upon thee the Years of their iniquity according to the Number of the Days three hundred and ninety Days so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel And when thou hast accomplish'd 'em lye again on thy right side and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty Days I have appointed thee a Day for a Year But what I mainly and principally intend here is that known frequent and solemn way in the Prophetick Writings of determining Years by Days the instances of which are very obvious some whereof I shall here barely quote for the Reader 's satisfaction and more in a case so notorious and remarkable need not be done How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation to give both the Sanctuary and the Host to be trodden under foot And he said unto me Unto two thousand three hundred Days then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the abomination that maketh desolate be set up there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety Days Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the one thousand three hundred five and thirty days But go thou thy way till the end be for thou shalt rest and stand in thy Lot at the end of the days I will give power unto my two witnesses and they shall prophecy one thousand two hundred and sixty days cloathed in sack-cloth The Woman fled into the Wilderness where she hath a place prepared her of God that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days Agreeably whereto a Week consisting of seven days denotes seven years and a Month consisting of thirty days denotes thirty years in the same Prophetick Writings Thus in that most famous of all Prophecies concerning the death of the Messias Seventy Weeks are determin'd upon the people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression and to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting rightcousness and to seal up the vision and prophecy and to anoint the most Holy Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and sixty and two weeks the street shall be built again and the wall even in a straight of times And after the sixty and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off but not for himself The Holy City shall they tread undersoot forty and two months Power was given to the Beast to continue forty and two months All which expressions with others of the same nature are not accountable I mean there is no satisfactory reason can be given why a Day should so frequently denote a Year in the Sacred Writings on any other Hypothesis We usually indeed content our selves in these cases with the bare knowing the meaning of Scripture expressions as if they were chosen at a venture and so for instance finding a Day to represent a Year in the same Books we rest satisfi'd without enquiring why a Day rather than an Hour a Week or Month the two latter of which terms are yet us'd by these Authors were pitch'd upon to signifie the before-mention d space to us or why if the word Day must be made use of it must mean a determinate just Year rather than a Week a Month or a Thousand Years for which last it yet seems sometimes to be taken so frequently in the Sacred especially the Prophetick Writings But 't is very supposable that 't is our Ignorance or Unskilfulness in the Stile of Scripture and those things therein deliver'd not the Inaccuracy of the Writers themselves which occasions our so laxe and general Interpretations It will sure at least be allow'd me that wherever not only the Meaning of Phrases but the Original and Foundation of such their Meaning is naturally and easily assignable an account thereof is readily to be embrac'd And certainly the Primitive Years of the World being once suppos'd to have been Days also and call'd by that name in the History of the Creation this matter will be very easie the succeeding Stile of Scripture will appear only a continuation of the Primitive and fitted to hint to us a time wherein a Day and a Year were really the same And this without any diminution of the true designs
this Earth or the Change of that Chaos into an habitable World was not a meer result from any necessary Laws of Mechanism independently on the Divine Power but was the proper effect of the Influence and Interposition and all along under the peculiar Care and Providence of God The Testimonies for this are so numerous and so express both in the Mosaick History it self in the other parts of Scripture relating thereto and in all Antiquity that I may refer the Reader to almost every place where this matter is spoken of without quoting here any particulars He who is at all acquainted with the Primitive Histories of this rising World whether Sacred or Prophane can have no reason to make any doubt of it III. The Days of the Creation and that of Rest had their beginning in the Evening The Evening and the Morning were the first Day And so of the rest afterward IV. At the time immediately preceding the six days Creation the face of the Abyss or superior Regions of the Chaos were involv'd in a thick Darkness Darkness was upon the face of the Deep To which Testimony the Prophane Traditions do fully agree as may be seen in the Authors before refer'd to V. The visible part of the first days Work was the Production of Light or its successive appearance to all the Parts of the Earth with the consequent distinction of Darkness and Light Night and Day upon the face of it God said Let there be Light and there was Light And God saw the Light that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night And the Evening and the Morning was the first day VI. The visible part of the Second Days Work was the elevation of the Air with all it s contained Vapours the spreading it for an Expansum above the Earth and the distinction thence arising of Superior and Inferior Waters The former consisting of those Vapours rais'd and sustain'd by the Air the latter of such as either were enclosed in the Pores Interstices and Bowels of the Earth or lay upon the Surface thereof God said Let there be a firmament or Expansum in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament And it was so and God called the firmament Heaven And the Evening and the Morning were the second day VII The visible parts of the Third Day 's Works were two the former the Collection of the inferior Waters or such as were now under the Heaven into the Seas with the consequent appearance of the dry Land the latter the production of Vegetables out of that Ground so lately become dry God said Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear and it was so And God called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas And God saw that it was good And God said Let the Earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in it self upon the earth and it was so And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in it self after his kind and God saw that it was good And the Evening and the Morning were the third day VIII The Fourth Day 's Work was the Placing the Heavenly Bodies Sun Moon and Stars in the Expansum or Firmament i. e. The rendring them Visible and Conspicuous on the Face of the Earth Together with their several Assignations to their respective Offices there God said Let there be lights in the Expansum or firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so And God made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night he made the stars also And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good And the Evening and the Morning were the fourth day IX The Fifth Day 's Work was the Production of the Fish and Fowl out of the Waters with the Benediction bestow'd on them in order to their Propagation God said Let the Waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven And God created great Whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind and every winged fowl after his kind and God saw that it was good And God blessed them saying Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the Seas and let fowl multiply in the earth And the Evening and the Morning were the fifth day X. The Sixth Day 's Work was the Production of all the Terrestrial or Dry-land Animals and that in a different manner For the Bruit Beasts were produc'd out of the Earth as the Fish and Fowl had been before out of the Waters But after that the Body of Adam was form'd of the Dust of the Ground who by the Breath of Life breath'd into him in a peculiar manner became a Living Soul Some time after which on the same day he was cast into a deep Sleep and Eve was form'd of a Rib taken from his side Together with several other things of which a more particular account has been already given on another occasion God said Let the Earth bring forth the living creature after his kind cattel and creeping thing and beast of the Earth after his kind and it was so And God made the beast of the earth after his kind and cattel after their kind and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind and God saw that it was good And God said Let us make man in Our Image after Our likeness and let them have dominion over the Fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattel and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth So God created Man in his own image in the image of God created he him Male and Female created he them c. Vid. ver 28 29 30 31. and Cap. 2. 7 15 c. XI God having thus finish'd the Works of Creation Rested on the Seventh day from the same and Sanctified or set that day apart for a Sabbath or day of Rest to be then and afterward observ'd as a Memorial of his Creation of the World in
the six foregoing and his Resting or keeping a Sabbath on this seventh day Which Sabbath was reviv'd or at least its Observation anew enforc'd on the Jews by the Fourth Commandment Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the host of them and on the seventh day God had ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made And God blessed the seventh day and sanctifyed it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt do no manner of work thou nor thy son nor thy daughter nor thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant nor thy cattel nor the stranger which is within thy gates For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it XII There is a constant and vigorous heat diffused from the Central towards the Superficiary parts of our Earth Tho' I might bring several Arguments from Ancient Tradition the Opinion of great Philosophers and the present Observations of Nature for this Assertion yet I shall chuse here for brevities sake to depend wholly on the last evidence and refer the inquisitive Reader to what the Learned Dr. Woodward says in the present case which I take to be very satisfactory XIII The Habitable Earth is founded or situate on the Surface of the Waters or of a deep and vast Subterraneous fluid This Constitution of the Earth is a natural result from such a Chaos as we have already assign'd affords foundation for an easie account of the Origin of Mountains renders the Histories of the several states of the Earth and of the Universal Deluge very intelligible is as Philosophical and as agreeable to the common Phaenomena of Nature as any other without this supposition 't will be I believe impossible to explain what Antiquity Sacred and Prophane assures us of relating to the Earth and its great Catastrophes but this being allow'd 't will not be difficult to account for the same to the greatest degree of satisfaction as will appear in the progress of the present Theory And Lastly The same assertion is most exactly consonant to and confirm'd by the Holy Scriptures as the following Texts will fairly evince When the Lord prepared the heavens I was there When he set a compass Circle or Orb on the face of the deep When he established the clouds above when he strengthened the fountains of the deep When he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment when be appointed the foundations of the earth He hath founded the earth upon the seas and establish'd it upon the floods To him that stretched out the earth above the waters for his mercy endureth for ever This they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the Earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with waters perished The fountains of the great deep were broken up The fountains of the deep were stopped XIV The interior or intire Constitution of the Earth is correspondent to that of an Egg. 'T is very well known that an Egg was the solemn and remarkable Symbol or Representation of the World among the most venerable Antiquity and that nothing was more celebrated than the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most early Anthors which if extended beyond the Earth to the System of the Heavens is groundless and idle if referr'd to the Figure of the Earth is directly false and so is most reasonably to be understood of the intire and internal Constitution thereof XV. The Primi ive Earth had Seas and Dry-land distinguish'd from each other in great measure as the present and those situate in the same places generally as they still are This is put past doubt by part of the third the intire fifth and part of the sixth Day 's Works One half of the third being spent in distinguishing the Seas from the Dry-land the intire fifth in the Production of Fish and Fowl out of the Waters and in the assigning the Air to the latter sort and the Seas to the former for their respective Elements and on the sixth God bestows on Mankind the Dominion of the Inhabitants as well of the Seas as of the Dry-land All which can leave no doubt of the truth of the former part of this Assertion And that their Disposition was originally much what as it is at present appears both by the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates running then into the same Persian Sea that now they do And by the Observations of Dr. Woodward fully confirming the same XVI The Primitive Earth had Springs Fountains Streams and Rivers in the same manner as the present and usually in or near the same places also This is but a proper consequence of the Distinction of the Earth into Seas and Dry-land the latter being uninhabitable without them and such Vapours as are any way condensed into Water on the higher parts of the Dry-land naturally descending and hollowing themselves Channels till they fall into the Seas However the other direct proofs for both parts of the Assertion are sufficiently evident I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was When there were no depths I was brought forth when there were no fountains abounding with water A river went out of Eden to water the garden and from thence it was parted and became into four heads Pison Gihon Tigris and Euphrates The two latter of which are well-known Rivers to this very day And the same thing is confirm'd by Dr. Woodward's Observations XVII The Primitive Earth was distinguish'd into Mountains Plains and Vallies in the same manner generally speaking and in the same places as the present This is a natural consequent of the two former The Caverns of the Seas with the extant Parts of the Dry-land being in effect great Vallies and Mountains and the Origin and Course of Rivers necessarily supposing the same For tho' the Earth in the Theorist's way were Oval which it is not 't is demonstrable there could be no such descent as the course of Rivers requires However the direct proofs are evident The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the Earth was Before the mountains were setled before the Hills was I brought forth While as yet he had not made the earth nor the fields nor the highest part of the dust of the world Art thou the first man that was born or
confirm'd by what I shall propose in the 3. Place and which must by all be allow'd very fair and reasonable namely That tho' Mankind Caeteris Paribus increas'd but in the same proportion before as they have done since the Deluge we shall find upon a due allowance for the two things before-mention'd Coexistence and more numerous Posterity that the number last assign'd is rather too small than too great and the numbers of the Inhabitants of the Earth were more than the present Earth does or can maintain many years before the approach of the Deluge For if the number of years before had been the same as that since the Flood the Inhabitants tho' they had been no longer livers than we now are would have been as numerous as the present But because the number of years before the Deluge wanted about two thousand four hundred of that since we must allow or abate the increase which has arisen in the last two thousand and four hundred years Which since in these latter ages it has been double in two hundred and eighty years and so in two thousand and four hundred years about three hundred times as great as before the Antediluvians if their lives had been no longer than ours since must have been but the three hundredth part so many as the Earth now contains upon it But when on the two foremention'd accounts the number is to be eight hundred times as great and on this only three hundred times as small the excess is on the side of the Antediluvians and their number five hundred times as great as that of the present Inhabitants of the Earth So that on this last Hypothesis which I suppose none can justly except against tho' the present Earth be allow'd capable of maintaining five times as many People as are now by computation upon it yet will it appear that the Antediluvian Earth maintain'd an hundred times as many Which I imagin not to be wide from probability and being so near the calculation before may be allow'd as reasonable in the present case XXXIV The Bruit Animals whether belonging to the Water or Land were proportionably at least more in number before the Flood than they are since This is I think generally look'd upon as no other than a reasonable deduction from the last Proposition and is very fully attested by Dr. Woodward's Observations as far as the remains of those Ages afford any means of knowing the same And so ought in reason to be universally allow'd XXXV The Antediluvian Earth was much more fruitful than the present and the multitude of its vegetable productions much greater This is both necessary to be allow'd by reason of the multitude of its Inhabitants rational and irrational maintained by them of which before And abundantly confirm'd also by Dr. Woodward's Observations XXXVI The Temperature of the Antediluvian Air was more equable as to its different Climates and its different Seasons without such excessive and sudden heat and cold without the scorching of a Torrid Zone and of burning Summers or the freezing of the Frigid Zones and of piercing Winters and without such sudden and violent changes in the Climates or Seasons from one extreme to another as the present Air to our sorrow is subject to These Characters are extremely agreeable to and attested by the ancient Accounts of the Golden Age. The gentleness of the Torrid and Frigid Zones is necessary to be suppos'd in order to the easie Peopling of the World with the dispertion and maintenance of those numerous Inhabitants we before prov'd it to have contain'd Which if they were as now they are would be very difficultly accountable The gentleness of Summer and Winter with the easie and gradual coming on and going off of the same Seasons are but necessary in order to the very long lives of the Antediluvians which else 't were not so easie to account for And indeed the most of those Testimonies which have been suppos'd favourable to a perpetual Equinox before the Deluge are resolv'd into this Proposition and if it can be separately establish'd need not be extended any farther XXXVII The Constitution of the Antediluvian Air was Thin Pure Subtile and Homogeneous without such gross Steams Exhalations Nitrosulphureous or other Heterogeneous mixtures as occasion Coruscations Meteors Thunder Lightening Contagions and Pestilential Infections in our present Air and have so very pernicious and fatal tho' almost insensible effects in the World since the Deluge This is the natural consequent or rather original of the before-mention'd equability and uniformity of the Antediluvian Air This must be suppos'd on the account of the Longaevity of the Inhabitants And this is very agreeable to the last cited descriptions of the Golden Age. The contrary Heterogeneous and Gross Atmosphere which now encompasses the Earth is disagreeable to a regular state which an original formation from the Chaos supposes as containing such Dense and Bulky Exhalations and Masses which at first must have obtain'd a lower situation and were not to be sustain'd by the Primitive Thin and Subtile Air or AEther Such mixtures as this Proposition takes notice of or those effects of them therein mention'd have no Footsteps in Sacred or Prophane Antiquity relating to the first Ages of the World there is no appearance of them in the Serene and Pellucid Air of the Moon or of the generality of the Heavenly Bodies and so there can be no manner of reason to ascribe them to the Antediluvian state XXXVIII The Antediluvian Air had no large gross Masses of Vapours or Clouds hanging for long seasons in the same It had no great round drops of Rain descending in multitudes together which we call Showers But the Ground was watered by gentle Mists or Vapours ascending in the Day and descending in great measure again in the succeeding Night This Assertion is but a proper consequent of such a Pure Thin Rare AEther as originally encompass'd the Earth 'T is very agreeable to the descriptions of the Golden Age and to the present Phaenomena of most of the Planets especially of the Moon whose face tho' so near us is never obscur'd or clouded from us 'T is necessary to be suppos'd in an Air without a Rainbow as the Antediluvian was of which presently and is indeed no other than the words of the Sacred History inform us of The Lord God had not caused it to Rain upon the Earth But there went up a Mist from the Earth and watered the whole face of the ground XXXIX The Antediluvian Air was free from violent Winds Storms and Agitations with all their effects on the Earth or Seas which we cannot now but be sufficiently sensible of This the foregoing Phaenomena enforce So Homogeneous Pure and Unmix'd a Fluid as that Air has been describ'd to have been by no means seeming capable of exciting in it self or undergoing any such disorderly commotions or fermentations Where no Vapours were collected into Clouds there must have been
living as I have done While the Earth remaineth seed-time and harvest and cold and heat and Summer and winter and day and night shall not cease And this as to the time past is abundantly confirm'd by all the Ancient History and Geography compar'd with the Modern as is in several particulars well observ'd by Dr. Woodward against the groundless opinions of some others to the contrary CHAP. V. Phaenomena relating to the General Conflagration With Conjectures pertaining to the same and to the succeeding period till the Consummation of all things XC AS the World once perished by Water so it must by Fire at the Conclusion of its present State The heavens and the earth which are now by the word of God are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men The heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up In the day of God the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat But this is so fully attested by the unanimous consent of Sacred and Prophane Authority that I shall omit other particular Quotations and only refer the Reader where he may have more ample satisfaction SCHOLIUM Having proceeded thus far upon more certain grounds and generally allow'd Testimonies as to the most of the foregoing Phaenomena I might here break off and leave the following Conjectures to the same state of Uncertainty they have hitherto been in But being willing to comply with the Title and take in all the great and general Changes from first to last from the primigenial Chaos to the Consummation of all things Being also loth to desert my Postulatum and omit the account of those things which were most exactly agreeable to the Obvious and Literal sense of Scripture and fully consonant to Reason and Philosophy Being lastly willing however to demonstrate that tho' these most remote and difficult Texts be taken according to the greatest strictness of the Letter yet do they contain nothing but what is possible credible and rationally accountable from the most undoubted Principles of Philosophy On all these accounts I shall venture to enumerate and afterward to account for the following Conjectures In which I do not pretend to be Dogmatical and Positive nay nor to declare any firm belief of the same but shall only propose them as Conjectures and leave them to the free and impartial consideration of the Reader XCI The same Causes which will set the World on Fire will also cause great and dreadful Tides in the Seas and in the Ocean with no less Agitations Concussions and Earthquakes in the Air and Earth The Powers of Heaven shall be shaken The Lord shall roar out of Sion and utter his voice from Jerusalem and the heavens and the earth shall shake The sea and the waves roaring Mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the Earth for the powers of heaven shall be shaken XCII The mtmosphere of the Earth before the Conflagration begin will be oppress'd with Meteors Exhalations and Steams and these in so dreadful a manner in such prodigious quantities and with such wild confused Motions and Agitations That the Sun and Moon will have the most frightful and hideous countenances and their antient splendour will be intirely obscur'd The Stars will seem to fall from Heaven and all manner of Horrid Representations will terrifie the Inhabitants of the Earth I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord come The sun shall be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars and upon the Earth distress of Nations with perplexity Mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth XCIII The Deluge and Constagration are referr'd by ancient Tradition to great Conjunctions of the Heavenly Bodies as both depending on and happening at the same Thus Seneca expresly Berosus says he who was an Expositor of Belus affirms That these Revolutions depend on the Course of the Stars insomuch that he doubts not to assign the very times of a Conflagration and a Deluge That first mention'd when all the Stars which have now so different Courses shall be in Conjunction in Cancer All of them being so directly situate with respect to one another that the same right line will pass through them all together That last mention'd when the same company of Stars shall be in conjunction in the opposite sign Capricorn XCIV The space between the Deluge and the Conflagration or between the ancient state of the Earth and its Purgation by Fire Renovation and Restitution again is from ancient Tradition defin'd and terminated by a certain great and remarkable year or Annual Revolution of some of the Heavenly Bodies And is in probability what the Ancients so often refer'd to pretended particularly to determine and stil'd The Great or Platonick Year This year is exceeding famous in old Authors and not unreasonably apply'd to this matter by the Theorist Which it will better suit in this than it did in that Hypothesis XCV This general Conflagration is not to extend to the intire dissolution or destruction of the Earth but only to the Alteration Melioration and peculiar disposition thereof into a new state proper to receive those Saints and Martyrs for its Inhabitants who are at the first Resurrection to enter and to live and reign a thousand years upon it till the second Resurrection the general Judgment and the final consummation of all things The Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat Nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness Behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind Verily I say unto you That ye which followed me in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory ye also shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel And every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my names sake shall receive an hundred fold now in this time houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with his present persecutions and in the world to come eternal life Of old thou hast laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of
does the Clouds above the Earth and was thereby the means of separating them from their Fellows in the Bowels or on the surface thereof Which state of the Chaos or Progress of the Creation is well represented in the Theorist's fourth Figure which here follows Corollary I. Hence appears a sufficient Reason why in this Six Days Creation one intire Day is allow'd to the Formation of the Air and the distinguishing the Vapours in the same from those beneath which has hitherto seem'd somewhat strange and disproportionate 'T is certain this Work requir'd as long a time and was of as great importance as any other whatsoever All that Water which the Earth was to have in its Air or upon its Surface till the Deluge being 't is probable intirely owing to this day's elevation of them For had they not been thus buoy'd up and sustain'd on high they must have sunk downward and so been inclosed in the Bowels of the Earth without possibility of redemption and have rendred the Antediluvian World more like to a dry and barren Wilderness than what it was to exceed a juicy fruitful and habitable Canaan Coroll 2. Hence arises a new confirmation that the Days of the Creation were Years also For seeing the quantity of Water which was preserv'd above ground and fill'd all the Seas before the Deluge was no greater than was this Second Day elevated into Vapour had this Day been no longer than one of ours at present the foremention'd quantity would have been so far from saturing the Earth supplying the Rivers and filling all the Seas that every day it would be wholly exhal'd afterwards and suffer the intire Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms to perish for want of moisture All which in the Hypothesis we here take is wholly avoided and a very fit and suitable proportion of Waters preserv'd above for all the necessities of the Earth with its Productions and Inhabitants And this consideration affords one very good reason why the commencing of the Diurnal Rotation was defer'd till after the Formation of the Earth was over there being an evident necessity thereof in order to the providing Water sufficient for the needs of those Creatures for whose sake the whole Creation was ordain'd and perform'd In which procedure plain tokens of the Divine Wisdom cannot but be very conspicuous and observable to us VII The visible parts of the Third Day 's Works were two the former the Collection of the inferior Waters or such as were now under the Heaven into the Seas with the consequent appearance of the dry Land the latter the production of Vegetables out of that Ground so lately become dry VII In order to the Apprehending of the double operation of this Day we must call to mind what state the Orb of Earth was in by this time We have seen already that it had been setling together and fixing it self on the surface of the Abyss from the very beginning of the Creation and we ought to suppose that in the space of two years it was not only become wholly distinct from the Abyss below and the Atmosphere above it but that it was settled and consolidated together and its Strata grown firm and compacted We must farther observe that by reason of its Columns different Density and Specifick Gravity attested to à priori from the Chaos's and à posteriori from the internal Earth's Phaenomena it was setled into the Abyss in different degrees and thereby became of an unequal surface distinguish'd into Mountains Plains and Valleys Which things being suppos'd and consider'd the two Works of this Day or Year of the Creation which are of themselves very different will be easily understood and reconcil'd For when at Sun-set or the conclusion of the last Day we left the Air by half a Years Power of the Sun crowded with Vapours to a prodigious degree upon the coming on of this Third Day and in its Night or former half the said vast quantities of Vapours must needs descend and so by degrees must leave the Air pretty free and take their places on the Surface of the Earth altering thereby their own denomination and becoming of Upper or Coelestial Lower or Terrestrial Waters Indeed if we do but allow the effect to be in any measure answerable to the time we shall grant that in the half year of Night which is the former part of this Third Period of the Creation the main Body of the Vapours must have not only descended down upon the Earth but by reason of the inequality of its Surface and the Solidity withal have run down from the higher and more extant parts by the Declivities and Hollows into the lowest Valleys and most depressed Regions of all must in these places have compos'd Seas and Lakes every where throughout the Surface of the Earth and so by that time the light appear'd and the Sun 's rising began the latter part of this Day the intire face of the Globe which was just before cover'd as it were with the descending Waters must be distinguish'd into overflow'd Valleys and extant Continents into Seas and Dry-land that very Work of this Day we were in the first place to enquire about The waters under the heavens were now gathered together into their respective and distinct places and the dry land appear'd and became fit for the Production of the Vegetable Kingdom Which therefore most naturally leads us to the second branch of this Day 's Work For when this part hitherto was compleated on the Night or former half of this Day which the Absence of the Sun so long together rendred peculiarly and solely fit to permit and procure the descent of the Vapours and when at the same time the Dry Land was now distinguish'd from the Seas and just become in the utmost degree moist and juicy upon the Sun Rising or coming on of the Day-time 't was of all other the most fit and convenient Season for the Germination of the Seeds of Vegetables and the growth of Trees Shrubs Plants and Herbs out of the Earth The Soil Satur'd and Fatned by the foregoing half Year's descent of Vapours was now like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that fruitful Seminary of the Vegetable and Animal productions of Primitive Nature so much celebrated by all Antiquity An intire half year of the Sun's presence together was a time as proper and as natural for such a purpose as could possibly be desir'd And when there was this half Year of Day to spare in this Period of the Creation after one Work was compleated and the same was so very fitly prepar'd and dispos'd for the production of Vegetables 't is no wonder that this above all the other Divisions has a double Task and that the Seas and Dry Land were distinguish'd and the Vegetables produc'd on the same Day or Year of the Creation according as from the Mosaick History the present Proposition asserts And if we allow for the defect of the inequalities of the
as Rains constantly now are but from some other Superior and Coelestial Original XLVI This is already evident from what has been just now said The source of all these Rains being one of those Superior or Coelestial Bodies which we call Comets or more peculiarly the Atmosphere and Tail thereof XLVII This vast Fall of Waters or forty Days Rain began on the fifth day of the Week or Thursday the twenty seventh day of November being the seventeenth day of the second Month from the Autumnal Equinox corresponding this Year 1696. to the twenty eighth day of October XLVII This has been already explain'd in effect in the Hypothesis hereto relating where it was prov'd that a Comet on that very day here nam'd pass'd by the Earth and by consequence began those Rains which for the succeeding forty days space continued without any Interruption XLVIII The other main cause of the Deluge was the breaking up the Fountains of the great Abyss or causing such Chaps and Fissures in the upper Earth as might permit the Waters contain'd in the Bowels of it when violently press'd and squeez'd upwards to ascend and so add to the quantity of those which the Rains produced XLVIII This has in part been explain'd in the Lemmata hereto relating and will be more fully understood from the Figure there also refer'd to For Let adbc represent the Earth moving along the Ecliptick GH from G towards H. 'T is evident that the Figure of the Earth before the approach of the Comet as far as 't is here concern'd was Sphaerical But now let us suppose the Comet bi Dh as it was descending towards its Perihelion along its Trajectory EF from E towards F to approach very near and arrive at the nearest Position represented in the Figure 'T is evident that this presence of the Comet would cause a double Tide as well in the Seas above as in the Abyss below the former of which being less considerable in it self and not to our present purpose need not be taken any farther notice of But the latter would be vastly great suppose seven or eight Miles high above its former Position would produce mighty Effects on the Orb above it and so deserves a nicer consideration in this place As soon therefore as the Comet came pretty near as suppose within the Moon 's distance this double Tide would begin to rise and increase all the time of its approach till the Comet was nearest of all as in the Figure And then these Tides or double Protuberances of the Abyss would be at their utmost height So that the Surface of the Abyss and of its incumbent Orb of Earth would put on that Elliptick or rather truly and exactly Oval Figure under which 't is here represented Now 't is certain that this Sphoeroid Surface of the Abyss is larger than its former Sphoerical one 't is also certain that the Orb of Earth which rested on this Abyss must be oblig'd to follow its Figure and accommodate it self to this large Oval which being impossible for it to do while it remain'd Solid continued and conjoyn'd it must of necessity enlarge it self and by the violent force of the encreasing Surface of the Abyss be stretch'd crack'd broken and have innumerable Fissures made quite through it from the upper to the under Surface thereof nearly perpendicular to the same Surfaces So that this Orb of Earth which originally in its primary formation was Sphaerical its inward Compages or Strata even conjoin'd and continual which had afterward at the commencing of the Diurnal Rotation been chang'd into an Oblate Sphoeroid and at the same time been thereby broken chap'd and disjointed by that time its wounds had been well healed and it was in some measure setled and fix'd in such a condition receiv'd this new Disruption at the Deluge It s old Fissures were open'd and the Fountains of the Abyss most Naturally and Emphatically so stil'd according to Dr. Woodward's Account of the Origin of Fountains broken up and sufficient Gaps made for a Communication between the Abyss below and the Surface of the Earth above the same if any occasion should be given for the Ascent of the former or Descent of any thing from the latter And here 't is to be noted that these Chaps and Fissures tho' they were never so many or so open could not of themselves raise any Subterraneous Waters nor contribute one jot to the drowning of the Earth The Upper Orb was long ago setled and sunk as far into the Abyss as the Law of Hydrostaticks requir'd and whether 't were intire or broken would cause no new pressure and no more than maintain its prior situation on the Face of the Deep These Fissures had been at least as open and extended in their Original Generation when the Diurnal Rotation began as at this time and yet was there no danger of a Deluge So that tho' this breaking up of the Fountains of the Deep was a prerequisite condition and absolutely necessary to the Ascent of the Subterraneous Waters yet was it not the proper and direct cause or efficient thereof That is to be deriv'd from another original and is as follows As soon as the presence of the Comet had produc'd those vast Tides or double elevation and depression of the Abyss and thereby disjointed the Earth and caus'd the before-mentiond patent holes or breaches quite through the Body of it the Fall of Waters began and quickly cover'd the Earth and crouded the Air with vast quantities there of Which Waters being adventitious or additional ones and of a prodigious weight withal must press downward with a mighty force and endeavour to sink the Orb of Earth deeper into the Abyss according as the intire weight of each column of Earth and its incumbent Waters together agreeably to the Law of Hydrostaticks did now require And had the Earth as it was in its first subsiding into the Abyss been loose separate and unfix'd so as to admit the Abyss between its parts and suffer a gentle subsidence of the Columns of Earth in the requisite proportion we could scarce have expected any Elevation of the Subterraneous Waters But the Strata of the Earth were long ago setled fastened and consolidated together and so could not admit of such a farther immersion into the fluid On which account the new and vast pressure of the Orb of Earth upon the Abyss would certainly force it upward or any way wheresoever there were a passage for it To which therefore the Breaches Holes and Fissures so newly generated or rather open'd afresh by the violence of the Tides in the Abyss beneath would be very ready and natural Outlets through which it would Ascend with a mighty force and carry up before it whatever was in its way whether Fluid or Solid whether 't were Earth or Water And seeing as we before saw the Lower Regions of the Earth were full of Water pervading and replenishing the Pores
days Works given an account of in the same chapter In the Beginning God Created the Heaven and the Earth says the Scripture which is as I take it a Preface or Introduction to the following account and may be thus paraphras'd Altho' that History of the Origin of the World which shall now be given you do not extend any farther as will appear presently than that Earth we live upon with those Bodies which peculiarly belong to it and so the rest of the Universe be not at all directly concern'd therein and altho ' the same History will not reach to the Creation of the matter but only Production of the form and disposition of the Earth it self Yet to prevent any misunderstanding and obviate any ill effects of a perfect silence touching these things I am oblig'd by the Divine Command to assure you That the Original of all Beings whatsoever was primarily owing to that same God of Israel whose Works I am going to relate and that not only this Earth and all its Bodies but the vast Frame of Universal Nature was by him at first Created out of Nothing and dispos'd into those several Systems which now are extant and make up what in the largest sense is stil'd Heaven and Earth or the whole Word This sense of the Words is allow'd by our late Excellent Commentatour the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Ely whose Sentiments cannot but be justly valued by all who are conversant in his Expositions of the Holy Scriptures and is I think clearly confirm'd by the following words And the Earth was without Form and Void and Darkness was upon the Face of the Deep and the Spirit of God moved on the Face of the Waters Where 't is clear that as soon as the Holy Writer descends to the Description of the Chaos and the commencing of the Six Days Creation he mentions not a word of any Production out of Nothing before suppos'd and asserted to have been past and done In the Beginning he omits and thereby evidently excludes that Heaven or those Superior Systems of the World already spoken of from any place therein and by the whole coherence plainly confines the Narration following to the Earth alone with its dependencies Moses does not say as the common Expositors do That just at the commencing of the Six Days Work the Earth and all the rest of the World was originally produc'd But that When God had formerly created all the World which is usually distinguish'd into the Heaven and the Earth the latter of these the consideration whereof was alone pertinent to the present design at the time preceding the Six Days Work was in a Wild Irregular and Dark condition or such a perfect Chaos as nothing but the Power of God and his Spirit 's moving on and influencing the same could ever have reduc'd into a habitable World This is a very easie and natural account of this matter and I think the most obvious and genuine signification of the words themselves And were not Mens Minds too much prejudic'd with other apprehensions this alone might be sufficient to limit their thoughts and prevent their Enquiries after any Creation of Bodies out of nothing in the Six Days Work and their stretching the same beyond the Earth either to the whole System of things as the most do or indeed to the Solar System with which others are more modestly contented in the case Which two things once granted me the Propoposition we are now upon would soon be establish'd and little farther labour become necessary But that I may give all possible satisfaction and lay this Foundation firm on which my Account of the Mosaick Creation is intirely superstructed I shall more at large prove the same Truths craving the Pardon of those Readers who are already satisfy'd in these matters if I shall seem to them to insist too long on a plain case as perhaps they may and that I think very justly esteem this to be And indeed The prejudices of Men are here so great their fears of a Philosophical Hypothesis so rooted the attempts hitherto made have been so unsuccessful and besides the Honour of God in his Holy Word is so much concern'd and the usual Expositions of this History of the Origin of Things is so poor so jejune so unbecoming the Penman much more the primary Author of the same that a large and full Discourse is but necessary and tho' it should prove somewhat prolix will be 't is hop'd not improper but as well serviceable to Religion as to Philosophy by rescuing this Ancient Venerable and Sacred Account of the Origin of things from such false and unwary Glosses as have been and still are put upon it as have rendred it in the opinion of too many an uncouth and incredible System nay somewhat below some of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the imperfect Traditions of the Heathen World enabled them to describe To proceed therefore in the arguments before us I affirm II. That the words here us'd of Creating Making or Framing of things on which the main stress is laid in the stile of Scripture are frequently of no larger importance than the Proposition we are upon does allow and signifie no more than the ordering disposing changing or new modelling those Creatures which existed already into a different and sometimes perhaps a better and more useful state than they were in before I do not say this is the utmost or only importance of these words I have already allow'd that Creating in the first words of Genesis includes Producing out of nothing and I add that in our common Creed wherein we profess our Faith in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth the words are agreeably to the extent of the Divine Power and the nature of that profession to be taken in the same large and comprehensive sense and the like is to be said of many other places of the Holy Scripture But then I observe withal that the other more narrow and limited sense is very common and familiar in the Holy Writings and therefore where the subject matter and coherence requires it as I think 't will be evident it does in the present case these words both may and ought to be taken in the same acceptation This signification of the two latter words Make and Frame will I suppose be granted me by all and that the same is as true of the other Create the following Texts will sufficiently evince and from the promiscuous use of them all and others of a like importance might however be very fairly suppos'd If says Moses the Lord make a new thing or Create a Creature and the Earth open her Mouth and swallow them up Where none can imagine any thing produc'd out of nothing but only such an unusual and miraculous disposal of things as would at once demonstrate God's Vengeance against the Wicked and his absolute Command over all Creatures Thus
of the Sun Moon and numberless Systems of Stars has only a poor single part allotted to it Must the expanding the Air between the Earth and the Clouds be thought to equal the disposal of all those Coelestial Bodies into their several Regions and the producing a few Fish and Fowl be a weightier concern and require more time than the replenishing all the other habitable Worlds with Beings suitable to their several Constitutions Will a wise Builder bestow twice as much time in decking and adorning of one Bycloset of inferior use and that only to some of the meanest Servants too as of the Royal Palace with all its stately Rooms and Apartments intended for the King himself and his Courtiers Should we hear of such strange Actions and disproportionate Procedure among Men we should not be able to induce our selves to give credit thereto But it seems Suppositions ten thousand times more disproportionate and unaccountable when ascrib'd to God Almighty are easily believ'd So far can Ignorance Prejudice and a misunderstanding of the Sacred Volumes carry the Faith nay the Zeal of Men and to such a mean Opinion of the most glorious and perfect of Beings are we thereby reduc'd that as if we were not content to think him such a one as our selves but intended to depress him below the very meanest of us we venture with confidence and eagerness to ascribe to him that disproportionate unequal and unaccountable disposal of the Works of Creation which the simplest Artificer could not bear the Imputation of It must here be confess'd That such Notions of the Mosaick Creation as I now oppose having begun or at least been chiefly establish'd and propagated when the Aristotelean Philosophy and Ptolomaick Astronomy were believ'd those who have embrac'd them till this Age were less absurd and nearer to some tolerable degree of probability For so long as the Earth with its adjoyning Elements was suppos'd the Center and Basis of all the World while the distance of the Heavenly Bodies was believ'd to be comparatively to what we now find very small and inconsiderable and all their Motions perform'd about us their proper and immovable Center while the whole Series of Spheres above tho' the several distinct ones mov'd the contrary way by their own peculiar Motions was in twenty four hours constantly hurried from East to West by the Primum Mobile on purpose to cause Day and Night to us below while Comets were esteem'd Exhalations from the Stars and sent only at certain Seasons to affright Mankind with their fiery Tails and then to be dissipated and vanish into Vapours again while the Sun and Stars in the Opinion of the Philosophers themselves were nourish'd by the Steams from our Earth and while the last named were either stuck in one Spherical Superficies as the fix'd Stars or fastned in their Solid Orbs like a Nail in a Cartwheel as the Planets and no other use imagin'd but to twinkle to us in Winter Evenings and by their Aspects to forebode what little Changes of Weather or other Accidents were to be expected below while no other habitable World was dream'd of than this Globe of Earth no other Animals once conjectur'd at besides those on the face thereof while Mankind was look'd on as the sole Lord of the Creation and Him for whose sake all other Creatures in the World were made and while 't was commonly granted that as all things the visible Heavens and Earth with their intire Furniture began with him so at the Conclusion of his Succession or the period of Humane Generations here must they for ever cease and be annihilated While all this I say was the current Philosophy 't is not very surprizing that the Mosaick History we are now upon was understood in the Vulgar Sense and seem'd not wholly disagreeable to the presumed Frame of Nature and 't was not hard to believe that this Earth and its Inhabitants in the Opinion of the World the main and principal concern of all and that to whose uses every thing else intirely serv'd had the principal care bestow'd upon it both in its Original Creation and its subsequent Changes and Revolutions But tho' such a Scheme and such an Apprehension were passable enough in the days of our Forefathers 't is by no means so now Those greater degrees of Knowledge which the Providence of God has in this Age afforded us make such Opinions intolerable in the present which were not so in the past Centuries 'T is now evident That every one of the Planets as well as that on which we live must have a right in its proportion to share in the care of Heaven and had therefore in all probability a suitable space or number of Days allow'd to its proper Formation much what the same Separations of Parts Digestions and Collections being no doubt to be suppos'd in the Original Formation of any other as in that particular Planet with which Moses was concern'd And if one or two on account of their smallness might be finish'd in less the rest on account of their bigness from a parity of Reason would take up much more than that six days time which was spent in our Earth's Formation And let the Reader judge if it be so impossible to reduce the Planets alone within the fourth days Work how much more so it will be in case we allow degrees of impossibilities to reduce thither that vast noble and useful Body the Fountain of our Light and Heat the Sun and still in a prodigious degree more so to include the immense and numberless Systems of the fixt Stars among whom when the Sun is but one and perhaps no bigger than the rest and consequently to have in reason but an equal portion of time with them allotted for its Origination It must tho' above Sixty thousand times as big as the Earth while the Earth takes up four intire ones be thrust into the Corner of a single Day Corner did I say rather Minute nay Moment of a Day and 't is uncertain whether even that pittance of time can fairly and separately be allow'd to it So that one need not fear to assert That he who should affirm the Divine Power to have spent four entire Days in the Formation of a Fly or Worm nay of a single Plant or Herb and but one in the Formation of the Terraqueous Globe with all its Parts Regions and Furniture would be less unreasonable than some Expositors now are and more observe Decorum Fitness Agreement and Proportion than they do in the Vulgar Interpretations of the Mosaick Creation And I need not be afraid to call all that Astronomy and Philosophy are Masters of to attest the fairness of such a Comparison And can any one who is sensible of this and entertains no other than great and worthy Thoughts of his Alwise Creator embrace so fond and so strange an Opinion And if the Reader will pardon a short Digression and give me leave to speak a great Truth
the Phaenomena of Nature rendred plain and intelligible For a Comet besides its thinner fluid Atmosphere consisting of a large dense solid central Body and sometimes approaching so near the Sun that the immense Heat acquir'd then tho' sooner failing in the thinner and expos'd Atmosphere will not do so in the central Solid under very many thousands of Years nothing can better suit the case of our present Earth than to allow a Comet 's Atmosphere to have been her Chaos and the Central Body of the Comet the Source and Origin of that Central heat which our Earth appears still to inclose within it 8. The bigness of Comets and their Atmospheres agrees exactly with the supposition we are now upon For tho' the Atmospheres are 10 or perhaps 15 times in Diameter as big as the Central Bodies which yet have been formerly observ'd to be near the Magnitude of the Planets and thereby of a much larger capacity than this Argument supposes yet if from that thin rare expanded state in which they now are they were suppos'd to subside or settle close together and immediately rest upon the Central Body as on a Formation they must do the intire mass would make much such Bodies in Magnitude as the Planets are As Astronomers from the observations made about them must freely confess So that when to all the other inducements to believe these Atmospheres to be the same Masses of Bodies we call Chao's from one of which all Antiquity Sacred and Prophane derive the Origin of our Earth it appears that the Magnitude is also exactly correspondent I know not what can be alledg'd to take off or weaken the force of them Which general conclusion might be confirm'd by some other similitudes between them and the Planets observable in the succeeding Theory or probably deduc'd from their Phaenomena which I shall not at present insist particularly upon So that on the whole matter upon the credit of the foregoing Arguments united together and conspiring to the same Conclusion I may I think venture to affirm That as far as hitherto present Nature and Ancient Traditions are known 't is very reasonable to believe that a Planet is a Comet form'd into a regular and lasting constitution and plac'd at a proper distance from the Sun in a Circular Orbit or one very little Eccentrical and a Comet is a Chaos i. e. a Planet unform'd or in its primaeval state plac'd in a very Eccentrical one And I think I may fairly appeal to all that the most Ancient History or Solid Philosophy can produce hereto relating in attestation to such an Assertion Especially considering withal 9. Lastly That there is no other pretender no other Mass of Bodies now known or ever related to have been known in the whole System of Nature which can stand in competition or so much as seem to agree to the description of the Ancient Chaos but that which is here assign'd and pleaded for Now this I am secure of and all will and must grant They cannot but be forc'd to confess that the Atmosphere of a Comet set aside they have no other Idea of the Nature and Properties of that Mass of Bodies call'd a Chaos but what profane Tradition with the concurrence of the Holy Books afford them without any visible instance or pattern in Nature Which acknowledgement join'd to the remarkable correspondence of the particulars before-mention'd and the no objection of any moment as far as I see to be produc'd to the contrary is I think a mighty advantage in the present case All that can reasonably be requir'd farther is that the Phaenomena of the Earth to be superstructed on this foundation and deriv'd successively through the several Periods to the consummation of all things prove coincidents to this Hypothesis and confirm the same Which being the attempt of the following Theory must be by no means here pretended to before-hand but left to the Impartial Judgment of the Reader when he is arriv'd at the end of his Journey and digested the whole Scheme From the intire and conjoint View whereof and not from any particulars by the way occasionally reflected on a prudent and well-grounded Sentence is to be pass'd upon it and upon several of the prior Conclusions themselves also However when here is a known and visible foundation to depend on and the Reader is refer'd to no other Chaos than what himself has seen or 't is probable may in a few years have opportunity of seeing it must be at the least allow'd a fair and natural procedure and of the consequences whereof every thinking and inquisitive Person will be a proper Judge The reasonings proceeding without begging any precarious Hypothesis at first of the nature of that old fund and promptuary whence all was to be deriv'd or sending the Reader to the utmost Antiquity for his Notion thereof to which yet in the most Authentick accounts of the Primitive Chaos now extant I fear not to appeal and submit my self II. The Mountainous Columns of the Earth are not so dense or heavy as the other Columns This Proposition will also I imagine be new and unexpected to very many but I hope the following Arguments which I shall very briefly propose will demonstrate it to be no unreasonable or precarious one 1. Mountains are usually Stony and Rocky and by consequence lighter than the main Body of the Earth For tho' Stone be somewhat heavier than the uppermost Stratum or Garden Mold as some stile it yet 't is considerably lighter than that beneath the same For if we compare its weight with that in the bottom of our Mines which is alone considerable to our purpose our upper strata as will hereafter appear being generally factitious or acquir'd at the Universal Deluge we shall be forc'd to own the necessity of the consequence of the present Argument The Specifick Gravity of Stone is to that of Water as 14 to 51 3. but the Specifick Gravity of the Earth at the bottom of our Mines is to that of Water as 3 to 1 sometimes as 4 to 1 nay sometimes almost as 5 to 1 and therefore to be sure considerably Denser and Heavier than Stone So that were the Mountainous Columns of the Earth intirely made up of Stone they would without the consideration of those empty Caverns they inclose be plainly the lightest parts of the whole Earth 2. Those very Dense and Heavy Corpuscles of Gold Lead Silver and other such like Metals and Minerals are mostly if not only found in the Bowels of Mountains Now when the Gravity of these Bodies is so great that in a regular formation they ought to have seated themselves one would think much nearer the Center than they now are to account for such their position it must be suppos'd that the Columns under them and the Earth among them were lighter and rarer than the Neighbouring Columns did afford that upon the whole the intire Compositum or Mass taken together may be
creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God For the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope Because the creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travelleth in pain together until now XXVII The temper of the Air where our first Parents liv'd was warmer and the heat greater before the Fall than since This appears 1. From the heat requisite to the Production of Animals which must have been greater than we are since sensible of Of which the hot Wombs in which the Foetus in viviparous Animals do lye and the warm brooding of the Oviparous with the hatching of Eggs in Ovens are good evidence 2. From the nakedness of our first Parents 3. From that peculiarly warm cloathing they immediately stood in need of afterwards the Skins of Animals Unto Adam also after the Fall and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and cloathed them XXVIII Those Regions of the Earth where our first Parents were plac'd were productive of better and more useful Vegetables with less Labour and Tillage than since they have been The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it before the Fall The Lord God said unto Adam after the Fall Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herb of the field In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou made XXIX The Primitive Earth was not equally Paradisiacal all over The Garden of Eden or Paradise being a peculiarly fruitful and happy soil and particularly furnish'd with the necessaries and delights of an innocent and blessed life above the other Regions of the Earth The Lord God planted a Garden Eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil The Lord God sent the Man forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken So he drove out the man XXX The place of Paradise was where the united Rivers Tigris and Euphrates divided themselves into four streams Pison Gibon Tigris and Euphrates Of this see the fourth Hypothesis before laid down XXXI The Earth in its Primitive State had only an Annual Motion about the Sun But since it has a Diurnal Rotation upon its own Axis also Whereby a vast difference arises in the several States of the World Of this with all its consequents see the third Hypothesis before laid down XXXII Upon the first commencing of this Diurnal Rotation after the Fall its Axis was oblique to the plain of the Ecliptick as it still is Or in other words the present vicissitudes of Seasons Spring Summer Autumn and Winter arising from the Sun's access to and recess from the Tropicks have been ever since the Fall of Man God said on the fourth Day Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night which was their proper office till the Fall And let them be ever after for signs and for seasons and for days and years After the Flood While the Earth remaineth Seed-time and Harvest and Cold and Heat and Summer and Winter and Day and Night shall not cease Implying that tho' the Seasons as well as Night and Day had been during the Deluge scarcely distinguishable from one another yet the former as well as the latter distinction had been in nature before And surely the Spring Summer Autumn and Winter with their varieties of Cold and Heat Seed-time and Harvest were no more originally begun after the Deluge than the succession of Day and Night mention'd here together with them is by any suppos'd to have been But of this we have at large discours'd under the third Hypothesis foregoing already to which the Reader is farther referr'd for satisfaction CHAP. III. Phaenomena relating to the Antediluvian State of the Earth XXXIII THE Inhabitants of the Earth were before the Flood vastly more numerous than the present Earth either actually does or perhaps is capable to contain and supply In order to the proof of this Assertion I observe 1. That the Posterity of every one of the Antediluvians is to be suppos'd so much more numerous than of any since as their lives were longer This is but agreeable to the Sacred History in which we find two at sixty five and one at seventy years of Age to have begotten Children While the three Sons of Noah were not begotten till after their Father's five hundredth year When yet at the same time the several Children of the same Father appear to have succeeded as quickly one after another as they usually do at this day For as to Cain and Abel they appear to have been pretty near of an Age the World being at the death of the latter not without considerable numbers of People tho' their Father Adam was not then an hundred and thirty years old and so in probability contain'd many of the Posterity of both of them Which by the way fully establishes the early begetting of Children just now observ'd in the Antediluvian Patriarchs and if rightly consider'd overturns a main Argument for the Septuagint's Addition of so many Centenaries in the Generations Before and After the Deluge And as to the three Sons of Noah born after the five hundredth year of their Father's Life 't is evident that two of them at the least Japhet and Sem were born within two years one after another All which makes it highly reasonable to suppose that in the same proportion that the Lives of the Antediluvians were longer was their Posterity more numerous than that of the Postdiluvians 2. The Lives of the Antediluvians being pretty evenly prolong'd without that mighty inequality in the periods of humane Life which we now experience the proportion between the Lives of the Antediluvians and those of the Postdiluvians is to be taken as about nine hundred the middle period of their Lives to twenty two the middle period of ours Which is full forty to one And accordingly in any long space the Antediluvians must have forty times as numerous a Posterity as we usually allow with us for the same space on account thereof 3. On account of the Coexistence of so many of such Generations as are but successive with us we must allow the Antediluvian number of present Inhabitants to have been in half an
of Stone of Chalk of Cole of Earth or whatever matter they consisted of lying thus each upon other appear now as if they had at first been parallel continued and not interrupted But as if after some time they had been dislocated and broken on all sides of the Globe had been elevated in some and depress'd in other places from whence the fissures and breaches the Caverns and Grotto's with many other irregularities within and upon our present Earth seem to be deriv'd This is prov'd by the same Observations LXXIX Great numbers of Trees and of other Vegetables were also at this subsidence of the Mass aforesaid buried in the Bowels of the Earth And such very often as will not grow in the places where they are lodg'd Many of which are pretty intire and perfect and to be distinctly seen and consider'd to this very day This is prov'd by the same Observations LXXX It appears from all the tokens and circumstances which are still observable about them That all these Vegetables were torn away from their ancient Seats in the Spring time in or about the Month of May. This is prov'd by the same Observations LXXXI All the Metals and Minerals among the Strata of our upper Earth owe their present frame and order to the Deluge being reposed therein during the time of the Waters covering the Earth or during the subsidence of the before-mention'd Mass. This is prov'd by the same Observations LXXXII These Metals and Minerals appear differently in the Earth according to the different manner of their first lodgment For sometimes they are in loose and small Particles uncertainly inclos'd among such Masses as they chanc'd to fall down withal At other times some of their Corpuscles happening to occur and meet together affix'd to each other and several convening uniting and combining into one Mass form'd those Metallick and Mineral Balls or Nodules which are now found in the Earth And according as the Corpuscles chanc'd to be all of a kind or otherwise so the Masses were more or less simple pure and homogeneous And according as other Bodies Bones Teeth Shells of Fish or the like happen'd to come in their way these Metallick and Mineral Corpuscles affix'd to and became conjoin'd with them either within where it was possible in their hollows and interstices or without on their surface and outsides filling the one or covering the other And all this in different degrees and proportions according to the different circumstances of each individual case All this is prov'd by the same Observations LXXXIII The inward parts of the present Earth are very irregular and confused One Region is chiefly Stony another Sandy a third Gravelly One Country contains some certain kinds of Metals or Minerals another quite different ones Nay the same lump or mass of Earth not seldom contains the Corpuscles of several Metals or Minerals confusedly intermix'd with one another and with its own Earthy parts All which irregularities with several others that might be observ'd even contrary to the Law of Specifick Gravity in the placing of the different Strata of the Earth demonstrate the Original Fund or Promptuary of all this upper Factitious Earth to have been in a very Wild Confus'd and Chaotick condition All this the fore-mention'd and all other Observations of the like nature fully prove LXXXIV The Uppermost and Lightest Stratum of Soil or Garden Mold as 't is call'd which is the proper Seminary of the Vegetable Kingdom is since the Deluge very thick spread usually in the Valleys and Plains but very thin on the Ridges or Tops of Mountains Which last for want thereof are frequently Stony Rocky Bare and Barren This easie Observations of the surface of the Earth in different places will quickly satisfie us of LXXXV Of the four Ancient Rivers of Paradise two still remain in some measure but the other two do not or at least are so chang'd that the Mosaick Description does not agree to them at present This the multitude of unsatisfactory attempts to discover all these Rivers and their courses with an impartial comparison of the Sacred History with the best Geographical descriptions of the Regions about Babylon will easily convince an unbyass'd Person of LXXXVI Those Metals and Minerals which the Mosaick description of Paradise and its bordering Regions takes such particular notice of and the Prophets so emphatically refer to are not now met with so plentifully therein This must be allow'd on the same grounds with the former LXXXVII This Deluge of Waters was a signal Instance of the Divine Vengeance on a Wicked World and was the effect of the Peculiar and Extraordinary Providence of God God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the Earth and it grieved him at his heart And the Lord said I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air for it repenteth me that I have made them The earth was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence and God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the Earth And God said unto Noah the end of all flesh is come before me for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will destroy them with the earth Behold I even I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven and every thing that is in the earth shall dye God spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly LXXXVIII Tho' the Moon might perhaps undergo some such changes at the Deluge as the Earth did yet that Face or Hemisphere which is towards the Earth and which is alone expos'd to our view has not acquir'd any such gross Atmosphere or Clouds as our Earth has now about it and which are here suppos'd to have been acquir'd at the Deluge This the present figure and large divisions of Sea and Land visible in the Moon with her continued and uninterrupted brightness and the appearance of the same Spots without the interposition of Clouds or Exhalations perpetually do sufficiently evince LXXXIX Since the Deluge there neither has been nor will be any great and general Changes in the state of the World till that time when a Period is to be put to the present Course of Nature The Lord smelled a sweet savour and the Lord said in his heart I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake for or altho' the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth Neither will I again smite any more every thing
intire Bodies of all Plants and Animals 't is by no means hard to conceive that he might Create them in what degree of Maturity and Perfection he pleas'd without any manner of infringement of the Order of Nature then to be establish'd And if we have reason to believe that the Bodies of bruit Creatures were created in parvo in a small State such as we now call Seeds and so requir'd a proper Generation i. e. Nutrition and Augmentation of parts as the Mosaick History plainly describes them and had it not done so we could not with any certainty have asserted it We have sure equal reason to believe from the description of the same Author in this other case that the Bodies of our First Parents were Originally created in their Mature Bulk and State of Manhood so as immediately to be capable of the same Operations which at any time afterward they might be thought to be This Miraculous Origination of the Bodies of our First Parents is therefore very rationally ascribed to the Finger of God by Moses And we may justly believe that the Blessed Trinity as 't is represented in the Sacred History was peculiarly concern'd in the Production of that Being which was to bear the Image of God and be made capable of some degree of his Immortality And then as to the Soul of Man 't is certainly a very distinct Being from and one very much advanced above the Body and therefore if we were forc'd to introduce a Divine Power in the Formation of the latter we can do no less than that in the Creation and Infusion of the former And indeed the Dignity and Faculties of the Human Soul are so vastly exalted above all the Material or merely Animal Creation that its Original must be deriv'd from the immediate Finger of God in a manner still more peculiar and Divine than all the rest That nearer resemblance of the Spiritual Nature Immortal Condition Active Powers and Free Rational and Moral Operations of the Divine Being it self which the Souls of men were to bear about them did but require some peculiar and extraordinary Conduct in their first Existence after-Union with Matter and Introduction into the Corporeal World Agreeably whereto we may easily observe a signal distinction in the Sacred History between the formation of all other Animals and the Creation of Man In the former case 't is only said Let the waters bring forth the moving creature that hath life Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind But of the latter the entire Trinity consult And God said Let Us make man in our image after our likeness And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. As therefore the several parts of the Mosaick Creation before-mention'd are not to be mechanically attempted but look'd upon as the effects of the Extraordinary and Miraculous Power and Providence of God so more especially the Formation of the Body of Man in its mature state and most of all the primary Creation and after-Infusion of the Rational Human Soul is to be wholly ascrib'd to the same wonderful Interposition and Efficiency of the Supreme Being the Creator of all things God blessed for evermore All which taken together and duly considered is I think a sufficient and satisfactory Account of the Proposition before us and attributes as much to the Miraculous and Immediate Hand of God as either Tradition Reason or Scripture require in the present Case III. The Days of Creation and that of Rest had their beginning in the Evening III. This has been already accounted for and need not here be repeated Corollary 1. This Phaenomenon in some measure confirms our Hypothesis that the Primitive Days of the World were Years also For otherwise the space of one single short Night seems too inconsiderable to have been taken such notice of in this History and then and ever after made the first half of the Natural Day But if it were equal to half a Year it was too considerable to be omitted and its memory was very justly preserv'd in succeeding Ages Corollary 2. We may here begin to take notice of the Regularity and Methodicalness of this History of the Creation Which tho' it principally intends the giving an account of the Visible Parts of the World and how the state of Nature in each Period appeared in the Day time yet Omits not the foregoing Night which is very Mechanical and Natural For in the preceding Night all things were so prepar'd and dispos'd that the Work of each Day might upon its appearance display it self might be exhibited not in its unseen beginnings or secret Workings not in its praevious Causes and gradual Procedure which was not the Design of this History but in that more distinct and perfect condition in which things would in the Day time appear to the view of a Spectator and under which chiefly they were to be discribed and recorded in this History IV. At the time immediately preceding the Six Days Creation the Face of the Abyss or superior Regions of the Chaos were involv'd in a Thick Darkness IV. If we consider what has been already said of the Nature of a Comet or peculiarly of that Atmosphere which has been before shewn to have been the ancient Chaos we ought to represent it to our selves as containing a Central Solid Hot Body of about 7000 or 8000 Miles in Diameter and besides that a vastly large fluid heterogeneous Mass or congeries of Bodies in a very rare seperate and expanded condition whose Diameter were twelve or perhaps fifteen times as long as that of the central Solid or about 100000 Miles which is the Atmosphere or Chaos now to be consider'd In which we must remember was contain'd both a smaller quantity of dry solid or earthy Parts with a still much smaller of Aery and Watery and a much larger quantity of dense and heavy Fluids of which the main bulk of the Atmosphere was compos'd all confusedly mix'd blended and jumbled together In which state the Theorist's First Figure excepting the omission of the Central Solid will well enough represent it and in which state we accordingly delineate it in the following Figure But upon the change of the Comet 's Orbit from Elliptical to Circular the Commencing of the Mosaick Creation and the Influence of the Divine Spirit all things would begin to take their own places and each species of Bodies rank themselves into that order which according to the law of specifick gravity were due to them By which method the Mass of dense Fluids which compos'd the main bulk of the intire Chaos being heavier than the Masses of Earth Water and Air would sink downwards with the greatest force and velocity and elevate those Masses inclosed among them upwards Which procedure must therefore distinguish the Chaos or Atmosphere into two very different and
and not till then was Man created and introduc'd into the World Then and not before was He constituted the Lord and Governor of the whole and all things put in subjection under his feet In which intire procedure the Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator and the Dignity and Honour of his principal Creature here below are equally consulted and the greatest occasion imaginable given to our first Parents and all their Posterity of adoring and celebrating the Divine Bounty to them in the present and succeeding Ages Which naturally leads us to the next Proposition XI God having thus finish'd the Works of Creation Rested on the Seventh day from the same and Sanctified or set that Day apart for a Sabbath or Day of Rest to be then and afterward obsrev'd as a Memorial of his Creation of the World in the six foregoing and his resting or keeping a Sabbath on this Seventh day Which Sabbath was reviv'd or at least its Observation anew enforc'd on the Jews by the Fourth Commandment XI Nothing sure could be more sit and proper at this time than the praising and worshipping of that Powerful and Munificent Creator who in the foregoing six Days Productions had so operously and so liberally provided for the well-being and happiness of Mankind And seeing this intire Fabrick was design'd for the use and advantage of all succeeding Generations as well as the present it could not but be reasonable to perpetuate the Memory of this Creation and devote one Period in seven to the peculiar Worship and Service of that God who was both the Author of the Works themselves and of this Institution of the Sabbath to perpetuate the memory of such his six Days of Work and of this seventh of Rest to all future Generations What relates to the Fall of Adam and the intire Moral State of the World comes not within the compass of this Physical Theory and so notwithstanding it naturally enough belongs to this Day and might I imagine be shewn not to be so difficult as for want of a right understanding thereof 't is usually imagin'd to be and that without receding from the literal obvious and usual Sense of Scripture must be wholly omitted in this place XII There is a constant and vigorous Heat diffused from the Central towards the superficiary Parts of our Earth XII This has been already accounted for and need not here be resum'd Corollary From the consideration of the very long time that the Heat of a Comet 's central Solid may endure 't is easy to account for that otherwise strange Phaenomenon of some of those Bodies viz. That tho' the Tails of the Comets appear to be no other than Steams of Vapours rarified by the prodigious Heat acquir'd in their approaches to the Sun yet some at least of these Comets have no inconsiderable ones as they are descending towards the Sun long before they approach near enough to acquire new ones by a fresh Rarefaction of their Vapours in his Vicinity For since the prodigious Heat acquir'd at the last Perihelion must remain for so many thousands of Years tho' the Tail which the Sun 's own Heat rais'd at that time must have been either dispersed through the Ether or by its Gravitation return'd to its old place in the Atmosphere yet will there still remain a Tail and its Position will be no other than if the Sun 's own Heat had elevated the same For by what Heat soever the Vapours in a Comet 's Atmosphere become rarer than the Parts of the Solar Atmosphere in which they are or subject to the Power and Velocity of the Sun's Rays elevating the same a Tail must be as certainly produc'd as if the Sun 's own Heat were the occasion of it Which Observation rightly consider'd will afford light to the foremention'd Phaenomenon and will deserve the consideration of Astronomers to whom it is submitted XIII The habitable Earth is founded or situate on the Surface of the Waters or of a deep and vast Subterraneous Fluid XIII This has been sufficiently explain'd already and is observable in the foregoing Figures of the four latter periods of the Mosaick Creation XIV The interior or intire Constitution of the Earth is correspoudent to that of an Egg. XIV This is also very easily observable in the same Figures Where 1. the Central Solid is answerable to the Yolk which by its fiery Colour great Quantity and innermost Situation exactly represents the same Where 2. the great Abyss is analogous to the White whose Density Viscosity moderate Fluidity and middle Positition excellently express the like Qualities of the other Where 3. the upper Orb or habitable Earth corresponds to the Shell whose Lightness Tenuity Solidity little inequalities of Surface and uppermost Situation admirably agree to the same 'T is indeed possible to suppose that the Quantities specifick Gravities and Crassitudes of each Orb to instance in nothing else here may be in the Earth proportionable to their Analogous ones in an Egg but because the Similitude is so very obvious and full in the foregoing more certain respects and more than sufficient on those accounts to solve the present Phaenomenon and because a bare possibility or fancied probability cannot deserve any more nice consideration I forbear and look upon the Coincidences already observ'd not a little surprizing and remarkable XV. The Primitive Earth had Seas and Dry land distinguish'd from each other in great measure as the present and those situate in the same places generally as they still are XV. The former part of this has been already sufficiently explain'd and of the latter part there can then be no reason to make any question since the same Earth that was made at first does still as to its main parts remain as it was to this Day XVI The Primitive Earth had Springs Fountains Streams and Rivers in the same manner as the present and usually in or near the same places also XVI The Origin of Fountains and Rivers is undoubtedly either from Vapours descending from without the Surface of the Earth or from Steams elevated by the heat within And which way soever we chuse to solve the present 't will also serve to solve the Primitive Phaenomena here mention'd 'T is only to be observ'd That before the upper Earth was chap'd and broken at the commencing of the Diurnal Rotation and indeed before the Strata became so firmly consolidated as they afterward were the subterraneous Steams would arise and pass through the same more uniformly and more easily and so more equally dispense their Waters over every Part and Region of the Earth than afterward Corollary If therefore Dr. Woodward be right in asserting That the Cracks and Fissures which he calls perpendicular ones since the intire Consolidation of the Strata of the Earth are necessary to the Origin of Springs and I believe he may have good grounds for his Opinion from the Being of such Springs and Fountains after the
wast thou made before the hills Lord thou hast been our dwelling place from one generation to another Before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God And indeed these three last Phaenomena are in their own Natures so linked together they so depend on and infer one another mutually that the proofs of each of them singly may justly be esteemed under the same Character to both the other and all of them are thereby establish'd past all rational Contradiction Of which whole matter Dr. Woodward's Observations are a sufficient Attestation also XVIII The Waters of the Seas in the Primitive Earth were Salt and those of the Rivers Fresh as they are at present and each as now were then stor'd with great plenty of Fish This appears from the difference of the Species and Natures of Fishes some being produc'd and nourish'd by Salt Water others by Fresh and yet all created on the fifth Day And this in all its parts is confirm'd by Dr. Woodward's Observations XIX The Seas were agitated with a like Tide or Flux and Reflux as they are at present There is in it self no reason to doubt of this and 't is moreover attested by Dr. Woodward's Observations XX. The Productions of the Primitive Earth as far as we can guess by the remainders of them at the Deluge differ'd little or nothing from those of the present either in Figure Magnitude Texture of Parts or any other correspondent respect This is prov'd by Dr. Woodward's Observations XXI The Primitive Earth had such Metals and Minerals in it as the Present has In the land of Havilah there was gold and the gold of that land was good there was bdellium and the onyx-stone Tubal-cain was an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron Which is withal attested by Dr. Woodward's Observation XXII Arts and Sciences were invented and improv'd in the first Ages of the World as well as they since have been Abel was a keeper of sheep but Cain was a tiller of the ground Cain builded a city and called it after the name of his son Enoch Jabal was the father of such as dwell in tents and of such as have cattel Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ Tubal-cain was an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron See also the Right Reverend Bishop Patrick on Gen. iv 20 21 22 25. and v. 18. CHAP. II. Phaenomena relating to the Primitive State of the Earth XXIII THE Primitive State of the Earth admitted of the primary Production of Animals out of the Waters and dry Ground which the subsequent States otherwise than in the ordinary method of Generation have been incapable of This appears from the History of the Creation compar'd with that of Nature ever since By the former of which agreeing with the oldest Traditions 't is evident That the Fishes and Fowls were the immediate Productions or Off-spring of the Waters and the Terrestrial Animals of the Dry-land in the Primitive State of the Earth And by the latter 't is equally so that neither of those Elements have assorded the like ever since XXIV The Constitution of Man in his Primitive State was very different from that ever since the Fall not only as to the Temper and Perfections of his Soul but as to the Nature and Disposition of his Body also This the whole Drift and Series of the Sacred History of this Primitive State supposes in which these two Particulars may here be taken notice of 1. Nakedness was no shame and so no sense of any need to cover it does appear Those Inclinations which provide for the Propagation of Mankind were it seems so regular and so intirely under the command of Reason that not so much as an Apron was esteem'd necessary to hide those Parts which all the World have since thought proper to do 2. The Temper of the Humane Body was more soft pliable and alterable than now it is Some sorts of Fruits and Food were capable of causing a mighty change therein either to fix and adapt it to its present Condition or discompose and disorder it i. e. in other words either to render it Permanent and Immortal on the one hand or to devolve upon it Diseases Corruption and Mortality on the other What concerns the Soul or its moral Perfections is without the compass of this Theory and not here to be consider'd XXV The Female was then very different from what she is now particularly she was in a state of greater equality with the Male and little more subject to Sorrow in the Propagation of Posterity than he 1. Her Names were as much as possible the very same with his The Husband was call'd Adam the Wife Adamah the Husband Issch the Wife Isschah God called their Name Adam in the day that they were created She shall be called Isschah because she was taken out of Issch. 2. We find little to infer any Inequality or Subjection till after the Fall Adam said This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh Unto the woman God said after the Fall thy desire shall be subject to thine husband and he shall rule over thee 3. Her pains in Conception and Childbirth were inconsiderable in comparison of what they since have been Unto the woman God said after the Fall I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children XXVI The other Terrestrial Animals were in a state of greater Capacities and Operations nearer approaching to reason and discourse and partakers of higher degrees of Perfection and Happiness than they have been ever since This appears 1. From the necessity or occasion of a particular view and distinct consideration of each Species of Animals before Adam was satisfied that none of them were a Help meet for him or suitable to his Faculties and Condition 2. From the Serpent's discourse with the Woman In which tho' the Old Serpent the Devil was also concern'd yet the particular Subtilty of the Serpent is taken notice of as a means of her Deception and a Curse denounced and inflicted on the same Beast upon account thereof Now the Serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made c. I fear lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty The Lord God said unto the serpent Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattel and above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life 3. From St. Paul's Discourse in the Eighth Chapter to the Romans For the earnest expectation of the