come down so fast and in so great abundance as easily to have overpowered the thin Oily Scum on which they fell and being a little soaked in it and incorporate with it have weighed it down in Flakes to the bottom of the Waters upon the top of which it could no longer float as being overloaded with the heaviness of the imbodied Earth And truly the flowing of the Waters with a strong head now this way and their returning by and by with as much force the contrary way must needs put them into such restless agitations and cross commotions as would have much promoted the diving of the Flakes aforesaid Nor are we to measure the motion of the Chaotic Waters from the present great Seas For however they may be less discomposed by Tides yet nature then was in other circumstances according to the Theory than it is now and those Waters might be moved at another rate than these are For our present Earth was at that time all dispersed in the Air. And the thicker and fuller the Air was the stronger pressure would the Moon make upon that and that again upon the Superficies of the Waters and consequently the higher must the Tides rise and the more violent must they be And then the Theory makes another motion in the Chaotick Waters necessary namely A Defluxion of them from the Aequator towards the Sides or Poles of the liquid Globe in order to the forming it and consequently the Earth to be raised on it into an Oval Figure And this motion might create a new disturbance in that Element Yea not only so but it might moreover be fatal to the rise of the Earth For the watry Globe was to grow oblong by the slowing down of the Waters to the sides they are the words of the Theory and the disburthening the middle parts about the Aequator But then when these Waters did thus recede or discharge themselves from about the Aequator or middle of the Globe and flow down to the sides of it how easily might the Oily Matter have followed their course Yea perhaps how necessary was it for it to do so While the uppermost Waters thereabouts being most hurried and most at liberty would have fallen back and carried that away with them But then if the upper Waters thus drew off and the Oily substance slid away upon them what foundation could the Earth have had in those middle parts we speak of Especially if these Waters continued their course for any time as it was needful they should to bring about the effect mentioned For so vast a body of Waters as that of the Abyss could not by this means of a perfectly round be made into an oval or oblong Figure on a sudden 3. But in reference to this matter there is a Douâ—t made by the Theorist which must be considered and removed Otherwise most of what has been said touching the instability and fluctuation of these Waters will be vain and groundless The Doubt is Whether the Moon were then in our neighbourhood And truly I had almost said he might next have questioned whether the Sun were then in our Heaven there being in the Story of the Creation no better evidence for the one than for the other I confess the suggestion as wild as it is would have done the Arcadians a great kindness For they used to boast of what was always a Riddle and nonsense to the Wife their being more ancient than Iupiter and the Moon So says Ovid Ante Jovem Genitum Terras habuisse feruntur Arcades Lunâ Gens prior illa fuit But the service it might have done them as to this arrogant brag will by no means countervail that dammage which it does to the person who raises the Doubt For it involves him in the guilt of unhappy temerity towards the Holy Writings Yet the Theorist does not only start this Scruple but argues for it thus Her presence seems to have been less needful when there were no long Winter-nights nor the great Pool of the Sea to move or govern Too bold an affront to Scripture That says expresly That GOD made TWO great Lights and both upon the Fourth Day Gen. 1. 16. The Theorist suspects he made but One. And truly let him but allow Two to be made and the Moon of necessity must be come into our Neighbourhood because she alone could be a Great light in the neighbouring Heaven to make up the Sun Two There is no bringing any Star into the Number For though the smallest of them be a truer and greater Light than the Moon yet no one of them was ever a great Light in this lower World and GOD created more than Two such Besides Scripture says That when GOD made two great Lights he set them both of them both of them then on the same day in the Firmament of the Heaven to give light upon the Earth And must not both of them then be in our neighbourhood at that time And lastly It says That as GOD made the greater of these Lights to rule the Day so he made the lesser to rule the Night And when did the lesser begin to rule the Night Why just when the greater began to rule the Day For as to the Dates of those their respective Offices we find no difference Yet the Theorist declares That the presence of the Moon and consequently her rule then was not so needful because there were no long Winter-nights Whereas the Moon was no more made to shine only in long Winter-nights than the Sun was to shine only in long Summer-days And which is more as there were no long Winter-nights then so there were no short Summer ones neither So that set but the one against the other and the presence of the Moon may seem to have been as needful then in regard of the length of Nights as it is now Upon the whole matter therefore there are no good grounds for this piece of Scepticism And to what has been said concerning it we need add but this Whereas it is argued that there might be no Moon upon the account that there were no long Winter-nights nor great Pool of the Sea to move or govern we being assured that there was a Moon may much better invert the reason and retorting the force of the Argument conclude that there must be long Winter-nights and the great Pool of the Sea because that Planet was present to rule the one and also to move or govern the other Though Possibly the shutting her out of our neighbourhood might be warily done and with prospect of her malignant influence in the case before us namely That she might not incommode or hinder the rearing of the Earth upon the Waters of the Chaos For truly had she been so near a Neighbour at first as she is now she might have been an injurious one as to that Affair She might have kept those Waters in such Motions as would have dissipated their Oily Covering
and ordered things as that the Protoplast's and so their Childern's innocent and immaculate Spirits must be betrayed or precipitated into that state of inactivity which might last for millions of years of ages and then out of that squalid condition sink into a worse into one full of inexpressible imperfections miseries and dangers where innumerable multitudes lie under almost an inevitable necessity of falling into the torments of everlasting destruction if this I say be the result of Havens wise Councils and Decrees Preexistence will give no satisfaction to understanding Men and do as little honour to the Glorious GOD. It will rather be a Scandal than a Key to Providence Now that the Souls of the first Pair of Mankind did preexist it being improbable and that they should be ex traduce it being impossible what remains but that GOD created the Souls when he made the Bodies of those Persons And so the work of Creation of which Moses treats is so far from being limitable to the lower World or indeed to the higher material one either that it stretches out it self beyond them both even to the Spiritual one And the Host of the Heavens just now done with intimates as much Expositors conclude while they make it refer not only to the Lights but the Angels above And perhaps something of this Truth That Angels and Humane Souls came into being at the same time that the Earth did may be wrapt up in the Doctrine of the Mundane Egg. So Orpheus that anciâ—nt and famous Divine amongst the Heathens who according to At henagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is believed to Theologize more truly than the rest tells how 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a superimmense Egg being brought forth by Hercules that is I think by the Divine Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by attrition it brake into two parts of the upper part of which was made Heaven and of the lower part the Earth And then affirms that Heaven being mingled with Earth it produced both Women Men and Gods By which he might shadow out that the Intellectual or Spiritual World took its beginning with the Terrestrial one But if he meant that Souls or Spirits sprung up out of matter this will make the ancient Philosophy so very mean and gross as not to be at all regarded CHAP. V. 1. The Form of the Earth Excepted against from the want of Rivers 2. Notwithstanding the way devised to raise them there would have been none in due time 3. Whereupon Two great Inconveniences must have ensued 4. No Rivers could have been before the Flood 1. THE chief thing for Life is Water said the Son of Sirach It is necessary and useful upon numberless accounts So that that Hypothesis which implies the Earth was without â—â—rings and Rivers for many hundreds of Years maâ— justly be rejected And for this reason the supposed Form of the Earth cannot be maintained For according to that the Element of Water was fast shut up within the Exteriour Orb of the Earth and how could it issue forth from thence through so thick and solid a terrestrial Concretion For that being made after the manner abovesaid there could be no gaping chasms nor indeed little clefts or chinks in it whereat the imprison'd Waters might get out Or if there had been never such plenty of lesser cracks or larger rists in it yet the Water being settled in that place which was proper to its Nature there it would have staid by the innate Law or Principle of its Gravity Unless by Elastie Power Protrusion Rarefaction or the like it were forced thence there it would have made its perpetual aboad had the Earth been never so open oâ— pervious by reason of fissures or holes in the same 2. But therefore Exhalation is here made use of and as a proper Engin is set to do this mighty work of fetching up Rivers from the inaccessible Pit The operation in short was performed thus The heat of the Sun raising plenty of Vapours chiefly about the middle parts of the Earth out of the subterraneous Deep they finding most liberty and easiest progress toward North and South directed their motion towards the Poles of the Earth Where being condensed by the cold of those Regions into Rain they descended in constant and exuberant distillations And these Distillations were the Fountains that supplied the first World with Rivers running continually from the Polar to the 〈◊〉 parts of the Earth But according to this Hydrography I shall endeavour first to make it out that there could be no Rivers in due time and secondly that there could be none at all And as for Springs the Hypothesis does not pretend to any First It would have kept Rivers too long out of being For according to that Philosophy we have now to do with the new made Earth was composed of nothing but Dust and an Oily liquor And it being of such a Composition and of a vast thickness it must needs be a considerable time before the Sun could penetrate into the Abyis under it and draw up vapours from thence if it could do it at all in so copious a manner Secondly The Air being at first quite empty of Vapours it would take a great quantity of them to make the Atmosphere of the Earth or to fill up that To which add that every part of the Earth about its Aequator being turned from the Sun every four and twenty hours as long as it was obverted to it many of those Vapours which were lifted up by day would fall down again by night in the same Latitude where they arose without being dispersed to the Polar Regions And thus the production of Rivers would have been something retarded again Thirdly The surface of the Earth being endued with a wonderful feracity it must immediately put forth in an inconceiveable plenty of all sorts of Vegetables which from luxuriant pullulations would strangely advance by most speedy and prodigious growths And this Superfetation of the virginal Soil proceeding from that extraordinary fruitfulness wherewith it was originally impregnated must farther hinder the early rise of Rivers Not so much by consuming the matter of them as another way For the Earth being thick beset with the flourishing apparatus or goodly Furniture of its own bringing forth such perhaps for abundance and excellency as never crowned the most fertil Country or fruitful season since though Dews or Rains fell without intermission yet the Waters would have stuck or hung so much amongst the rank and matted tufts of Grass Herbs Shrubs c. as not to have been able in a short space of time to have gotten into Streams and constituted Rivers of such a length as they must have been of Fourthly In case these Waters had met with no checks but had fallen immediately into such Bodies as would have forced their passage along in holding Currents yet then they must â—ave digged their own Chanels too being sure to find none till they made them But
it to others And when it was thus secret and hidden from all learned Men why should the HOLY SPIRIT I say tax these Scorners with wilfull ignorance for not understanding it Who however they might abound with conceited knowledge as the name Gnostics which they arrogated to themselves imports were but piâ—iful Sciolists The Theory also affirms that Paradise and the Vniversal Flood were by length of time and the changed face of nature so much obscured that if holy Story had not minded us of them we should not only not have known them but never have thought of them And if the Flood had been utterly buried out of mind and might never have come into the thoughts of Men if Scripture had not kept it in memory then what hope of understanding that it was occasioned by such a form or Fabric of the Earth as the Theory has invented unless the same Scripture minds us of that also But because it does not how could the Persons whom S. Peter reproves be wilfully ignorant of the Phaenomenon Wilfull Ignorance is that which GOD blames and which is really faulty upon our account which we carelessly rest in when we might come out of When Men might have means of knowledge but will not seek them or when they actually have them but will not use them but in the midst of proper helps to science sit down and chuse to acquiesce in Ignorance this is wilfull and affected But these were not the circumstances of those whom we find to have been Objects of the Apostolical Censure They were so far from standing fair for acquaintance with this structure of the Earth or from being in a probable way to the knowledge of it that they were next door to an utter impossibility of ever attaining it supposing it had been real For their Minds were set I may say with a contrary Biass and it was morally necessary that they should be drawn the other way For the whole World was of that Judgment it is of now and which these Mockers were of then and why should they differ from all people then alive or that ever lived It hath been generally thought or presum'd says the Theory that the World before the Flood was of the same Form or Constitution with the present World And how could they help swimming with the general Stream Yea which is more the Opinion was as Strong as it was general and stood very firmly in Mens apprehensions they thinking it built upon Scripture Grounds For that speaks of Seas created in the beginning and of Mountains covered with Water in the Deluge And all agreeing that the Seas mentioned by Moses were no other than those which are now extant and that the Mountains so covered were praeexistent to the Flood the present face of things which is presumed of good use to evince the Earth was of another Form once became a great Argument to perswade these Scorners that it was always of the Form which it now bears and a means to fix them in that Perswasion And when their condition was such as to be destitute of the knowledge of the Form of the Earth and the most likely means they had to help them to it would rather have run them upon the contrary belief and rivetted them fast in it there could be no reason why they should be charged with Wilfull ignorance of the thing And if they could not upon just grounds be charged with Wilfull ignorance of the Form of the Earth then neither with the like ignorance of the Constitution of the Heavens and of the Change and Dissolution that happened to either they being things as much in the dark and as far removed out of the way of their notice Let us but just point at each of them The whole Superficies of the Terrestrial Globe was entire and continued smooth and even regular and level No Lake nor Sea no Rock nor Island no Hill nor Dale was any where upon it But as the Earth was made of two distinct Orbs so betwixt its outward Orb of an Oval figure and that within was the great Body of the Waters lodg'd and shut up so close as to hold no commerce with the open Air. Such in gross was the Form and constitution of the first Earth The Sun piercing through the outward Orb of the Earth drew up chiefly about the Middle parts of it great quantities of Vapours out of the Abyss Which Vapours directing their Courses in the Air from the Aequinoctial to the Polar Regions they were there condensed into Rains to furnish the World with Rivers But these streams of Exhalations flowing continually through the Aereal Regions made them exceeding watry And such in general was the Form or Constitution of the Heavens The Sun moving always in the Aequinoctial the Earth grew extremely dry about the Aequator and full of Chaps which rendred it more weak and brittle in its exterior Orb. Which Orb being fill'd with Vapours within raised by the penetrating heat of the Sun was still more apt to be blown up and broken At length being able to hold no longer it flew in pieces and down it fell into the Deep beneath sinking till it rested on the Orb below Such in short was the Earth's Dissolution By the fall of that into the Waters under it they were forced violently to fly up aloft and surging and raging in a tumultuous manner the great and fatal Deluge was caused Hence also Seas and Lakes arose while the watry Element abating of its fury quietly retired into such hollownesses as were ready to receive it And whereas the external Orb of Earth was so much bigger than that within as to contain the whole Mass of Water in its Cavity and so could not possibly surround and sit close to the inward lesser one in an orbicular fashion about it but several of its parts in several places were fain to stand erect inclining c. these various Prominencies of different sizes shapes and situations made Mountains and Rocks of all sorts But the Outward Earth being thus dissolved and fallen as low into the Waters as it could it was no more liable to a general Flood but was certainly put past that danger for ever And thus Its Form and Constitution was altered Now the Sun also running a new course about the Earth by reason she had changed her old Position and the Abyss being disordered by the Disruption of the Earth and its falling into it Vapours could no longer be drawn out from thence as they used to be nor fill the Aereal channels with store of Exhalations And so they growing dry the watry Complexion of the Heavens perish'd and Their Constitution was changed also Such in brief so far as we are concern'd to note at present was the Form and Constitution of the Heavens and the Earth and such the changes they both underwent as the Theory teaches If therefore the Parties S. Peter reproves were blamed for not knowing the first constitution of
nearer to the first World that there were Mountains before the Deluge And such another piece of confused Forgery out of sacred Story corrupted occurs in Clemens Alexandrinus He took it out of Plato and it speaks of a Flood to come But then again when the GODS drown the Earth purging it with Waters the Herdmen and Shepherds shall be saved on the Mountains while they that are with us in Cities are carried by Torrents into the Sea And that this was a Fragment or lame kind of Excerption out of the Holy Oracles the Father himself signifies For he presently indites the Greek Philosophers of Pilfering and draws up this smart Charge against them That they were a Pack of ingrateful Thieves who filched 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief of their Opinions from Moses and the Prophets And if this Flood had not been greatly mistaken as to time and so the Story of it set with its face the wrong way it would have looked directly upon what we are asserting and given countenance to it For then the Flood here mentioned must have been that of Noah and the Mountains of refuge for the Herdmen and Shepherds must have been extant in the First World It is well known also that many of the Learned Ancients have taught that Paradise was situate upon high Mountains And according to that Doctrine there must be Mountains at the very first And however some eminent Writers are of Opinion That the Mountains were neither so many nor great before as since the Deluge yet none I think ever excluded them wholly till then And I durst appeal to the Theorist himself if ever he met with any that held the Earth was without an open Sea Yet as many as suppose such a Sea in Nature suppose Mountains too and â—tis necessary they should as himself confesseth The Consequence of which will be That no Authority is to be brought or heard against the being of Mountains before the Flood but such as is express against open Seas And then I presume we may search long enough before we find one I will only add that Traditional Story which is told of Adam namely how that after his Fall and when he repented of his sin he bewailed it for several hundreds of Years upon the Mountains of India Another plain intimation that there were Mountains in the beginning of the World 4. Nor is it hard to conceive how they should be made then as well in-land ones as others And that in such a way to humour Philosophy as Nature might have a considerable stroke in the Work For though it be not for us exactly to understand the manner of GOD's Proceedings in this Case whose ways in forming the Mountains as well as in other things are past finding out and for Men to offer at a clear and certain Explication of their Rise would be arrogant presumption as if the Nut-shell of their Phancy could contain the Ocean of the Divine Methods yet with humblest Adoration of the ALMIGHTY's Infinite Power and Wisdom and acknowledgment that he could and 't is like did produce them another way I will venture to guess he might do it thus But I only hint what it would require a large Discourse to make out and confirm in every Particular The Earth when it was first created lay under Water as the infallible Word informs us till the Third Day and on that Day the Waters were gathered into one place The Alveus that is or Hollow of the Sea being prepared by GOD's pressing down the Ground suppose lower there than it was in other places the Waters fell violently into that Cavity And as they were carried thither in a Natural Course while by the force of their Weight they rolled downward so they were help'd by a Power supernatural 't is like by the Influence of that Blessed SPIRIT who moved upon them when they were first brought forth Otherwise perhaps they could not have been so drained off the Earth in one Day as that the dry Land should have appeared Now the Earth by this Collection of the Waters into one place being freed from the load and pressure of them and laid open to the Sun the Moisture within it by the heat of his Beams might quickly be turned into Vapours And these Vapours being still increased by the continued rarefying warmth from above at length they wanted space wherein to expand or dilate themselves And at last not enduring the conâ—inements they felt by degrees heaved up the Earth above somewhat after the manner that Leaven does Dough when it is laid by a Fire but much more forcibly and unevenly And lifting it up thus in numberless places and in several Quantities and into various Figures Mountains were made of all shapes and sizes Thus we may conceive the In-land ones were produced which in some Countries were more and in some fewer in some bigger and in some lesser in some higher and in some lower in some again earlier and in some later according as the Nature of the Soil the Vapours under it and the Sun above it contributed and concurred to the raising of them And how a Ridge or Chain of Hills might be blown up at once as well as one single one how Mountains should be hollow at the Roots and in their higher parts and full of Caverns how in time they might be dried hardened and turned into Stone in a great measure how some of them through their weight and hollowness might break and fall and in their hideous Fragments and disorderly Postures represent the ruines of an Earth sunk into an Abyss and others might be eaten and worn away by Time and Weather especially by that Weather in time of the Flood and so become rough and craggy and surprizingly horrid and frightful things will be obvious or at least intelligible to thinking and Philosophic Minds And that Mountains might be brought forth thus at first or raised in the way we speak of will seem more likely still in case we consider how Hills oftentimes have been thrown up by Earthquakes where though the Causes were not the same they were very like them or analogous to them The Earth also at first was most disposed or liable to these Effects I mean to have Mountains made out of it For then the Soil being destin'd and prepar'd to be the common Seminium Seed-plat and Nursery â—f all sorts of Vegetables and of some living Creatures was soft and light and unctuous and so of a very yielding Nature The Pores of it also were then close shut up as having never been opened by Sun or Winds By which means the Vapours imprisoned in it having no manner of vent when they became strong enough by their daily increase might easily cast up huge quantities of Ground thereby to free themselves and get loose from under them Nor need we wonder that sometimes a Valley betwixt two Hills should be lower than the common surface of the Earth For the matter of those Hills being spewed
up from under that Tract between them the ground must there sink down in proportion to â—ill up the emptied space beneath and so fall lower down than the rest of the Earth And for the same reason or others like it many places in the Sea may be exceeding deep and seem to go down into a perfect Abyss as it were or a bottomless profundity And we must note that though but only part of the Earth be Mountainous yet little or none of it is exactly level as being every where heaved up by the forementioned Causes more or less And therefore the smoothest Plains that appear to the eye to be very even are not really so Only this we may observe concerning them That when Horse-men travel over them the Ground being struck with the Feet of the Beasts yields a kind of Sound Which shews that the Earth in those Plains is much in that Posture into which the Sun and Vapours did at first raise it loose that is and porous and somewhat hollow Whereas amongst Hills and Dales it yields no such noise when beaten with such Tramplings And the reason is clear because it being â—lung up and fallen down and altered and transposed by eructations and sinkings it has so been driven closer and made more compact And then as to Maritime Hills or those near the Sea when the Ground was crushed down by the hand of OMNIPOTENCE to make a Receptacle for the Water it is easie to conceive how they should fly up at the sides of Seas or not far from them As also how Hills should be highest in those Countries about which Seas are deepest For the Ground in the adjacent or not far distant Seas being sunk very low and forced to give way very much it might well crowd out and thrust up a great height about the Shores or in the adjoyning Regions Nor is it to be thought that when so great a part of the surface of the Earth was pressed down that the Ground should struggle out at the Brinks of the Ocean only and in some considerable distance from the Shores much of it would recoil from under the compression in thâ— Sea it self and fly up irregularly in innumerable places where it could best do it And hence might come Banks in the Sea stretcht out as Mountains are on the Land to extraordinary lengths As also Rocks and Flats and Shelves without number Nor must this be omitted That all the Mountains of the Earth if raised according to this Conjecture will have no reason to hold proportion in bulk to the Cavity of the Ocean A thing which the common Hypothesis of their Formation implys and which lies as a main Objection against it For thus the In-land Mountains would not be made out of the Sea at all Nor would the whole quantity of Earth which at first filled up the Cavity of the Sea be cast out into the Maritime Hills but most of it be squeezed and forced down deeper into the bowels of the Earth Thus also Islands might be made to take a short step out of the way we are in I mean such as are not of the largest size whether they be distant from all Continents as the Canaries Azores Hesperides and others in the Atlantic Ocean or such as lie in whole Fries by the Main-lands-side as they do in several places of the World Though many of this latter sort might be raised out of Mud or Dirt descending in great plenty out of Rivers So were the Echinades in the Ionian Sea just before the mouth of the River Achelous Or else they might be made by the flowing of the Waters into the Sea when they were first drawn off the surface of the Earth For then they running furiously down into the Pit which Providence had fitted and appointed for them might wear away the ground about the Verge thereof and eating into its Superficies by the violence of their course might divide it into a multitude of little Apartments which afterward when the Sea was filled might be petty Islands about its Coasts as the Philippines for instance and others in the Oriental Seas which stand in whole Sholes even thousands of them together against China and India Whirlepools also by the same means might be made in the Sea as well as chanels for Rivers underground by land for the Earth being pressed down deep in some places and thereby forced to ascend in others kind of arched Vaults might so be formed Which leading out of one Sea or one part of a Sea into another the waters flowing through them cause those voragines or Gulfs at the top where they enter their subterraneous Pipes or Passages Many of which Gulfs are so strong that they suck in and swallow up whatever comes into them But to return we need no more wonder at the Greatness or Number of Mountains made in this method on the Earth than at the Granâ—â—losity or ruggedness in the rind of an Orange And as the Mountains in truth bear no more proportion to the Earth's Dimensions than those little pimples do to the fruit we speak of so they and In-land Mountains both may proceed from Causes not altogether unlike Though now those Causes as to the Earth are so debilitated and wasted that they are unable to produce the like Effects Particularly that slatuous Moisture wherewith at first it did abound and might be put into it on purpose to make it heave in general into necessary inequalities and in places to ascend into mighty Hills is spent and gone And we have no more reason to expect that the Earth should ordinarily send forth Mountains now than that a dead ripe Orange pluckt off the Tree should break out into such Wheals or Wens as we see upon some 5. One argument for Mountains in the first World is yet behind which shall end this Chapter There were METALS in the World And these as all know are now found at the Roots of Mountains And they being the places whence they are digged now it is a shrewd presumption they ever lodg'd in the same Indeed the very generating them in the exterior Region of the Earth does necessarily suppose cavities in it And Cavities under-ground do as necessarily infer inequalities above it And here the Theory will receive another wound perhaps an incurable one in its Hypothesis I mean where it makes the Antediluvian Earth all smooth and even without Mountains all solid to the Abyss without caves or holes But therefore to shun this great inconvenience it fairly consents to the abolishing of Metals out of the first state of Nature Some moreover add to what has been said that in the first nature there were no Minerals or Metals who according to our Hypothesis I think want not their Reasons But this is out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire For thus the Fidelity of Moses is assaulted and another intolerable affront put upon the HOLY GHOST For do not both inform us That the City Enoch
was built and the Ark prepared before the Flood But how cloud either be done without Iron Tools Some Barbarous people I have been told do strange Feats in way of Architecture by sharp stones But the Theory allows not so much as greater loose stones or rough Pâ—bbles in the primitive Earth So that if they had not Instruments of Iron the Men of that Age could never have compassed the Works aforesaid Yet all such Instruments are positively excluded by the Theory in these words Nor were there of old Instruments belonging to War or BVILDINGS Nor need we wonder there should not when there were no Materials whereof they could be made Nor could there be such Materials when the World afforded neither Mines nor Metals Nor could the World afford either of them when it was not possible the Earth should yield them And that it was not possible for the Earth to yield them the Theory again does implicitly affirm where it says that the first World was wholly artificial and that the furniture or provision of things which it had was not of such as were bred but of such as were made But the worst is still behind Tubal-Cain as Heaven assures us was an Instructer of every Artificer in Brass and Iron Gen. 4. 22. Yet the Theorist professeth and that in the second publication of his Hypothesis after he had time to consider well as for subterraneous things Metals and Minerals I believe they had none in the first Earth and the happier they no Gold nor Silver nor Courser Metalls But then how Tubal-Cain could learn his Trade himself and teach it unto others must be a Riddle too hard for Oedipus to untie Or else which is the very truth this Assertion of the Theory must be notoriously false and not only â—latly but loudly contradictory to the most express Word of the Infallible GOD. This alone should all that has been said besides fail is enough to blow up and finally to explode this New Hypothesis of the Earth's Formation I mean as it shews its great incongruity not only to Scripture but also to Philosophy For had the Earth been originally framed as that teacheth it was then grant there could have been a Metallic Region in that part of it under the Water yet that Metals or Matter for any one of them should ever have ascended through the Abyss into the upper Crust of the First Earth would have been utterly impossible And therefore that egregious Philosopher Des-Cartes makes this the reason why Metals are not found in all places of the Earth quia per aquas evehi non possunt because they cannot be carried or drawn up through the subterraneous Waters Princ. part 4. § 73. CHAP. XI 1. That there were open Seas before the Flood made evident from Scripture 2. Such Seas necessary then as Receptacles for Great Fishes 3. The Abyss being no fit place for them 4. A farther Confirmation of open Seas 5. An Objection against them answered 6. Another Objection answered 7. A Third answered 1. HE that from the Clifts about it or in sailing through it beholds and contemplates the Watry Ocean That views it so far as eyes and thoughts can reach in the stateliness of its Depth and wide Expansion That considers what vast and numberless Rivers it continually drinks up and yet is never the fuller for all these Accessions How far it extends its ceruleous Arms and how much it disgorges at Millions of Mouths and yet is never the emptier for all its profusions That sees its incessant and unwearied Motions and how it ebbs and flows with haughty and incontrollable Reciprocations That observes how it surges with every Wind and surlily swells upon every Storm and lifting up tumid scornful Waves foams as angry at its Disturbance That marks how it frets and rages in a Tempest and rolls it self up into liquid Mountains as if it thrâ—atned to mingle Floods with the Clouds or in a pang of Indignation to quâ—nch the Stars or wash down those Lights hanged out by Heaven He that gazeth on the spatious Seas or revolves such thoughts as these of it in his mind would be amazed to think that so immense an Element was once lockt up in a Vault under Ground and wonder where the Earth should have Cellerage to hold it He would scarce believe that so proud and strong and furious a Monster could be kept in Chains or was ever so tame as to be coop'd up contentedly in a subterraneous Cave He would hardly be perswaded that it could be made to hide its head in an hole beneath and to lie quiet and still in a nightsom Dungeon where for many Ages it never saw the Sun But how odd and uncoâ—th soever it may seem yet thus it was says this Hypothesis The same Primary Assertion of it that says The Exterior face of the first Earth was smooth and uniform without Mountains says also it was without a Sea All that prodigious Mass of Waters which Imagination as comprehensive as it is knows not well how to measure was once shut up in an invisible Cell and being clapt under Hatches lay incognito as long as the first World stood Not a Drop of it appeared all that while but what strained forth by evaporation or transpired through the Pores of the thick skin'd Earth when by the heat of the Sun it was put into a sweat As for the main Body of the Waters they lurked and hid themselves in a secret Groâ—â—o nor could they be brought to quit their latent Dwellings or to look forth of their close and dark Retirements till the Roof of their Lodgings fâ—ll in upon them and justled them out of their Mansions to make room for it self But against this there lies the usual Exception namely That it fights with the Holy Scripture For that informs us That when GOD made Adam he gave him Dominion over the fish of the Sea But according to this Assertion of the Theory Adam never saw the Sea nor one Fish in it all his life long though it lasted well nigh a thousand Years and so impossible it was that he should have or exercise such a Dominion And it is farther considerable That Adam's Dominion over the Sea was not only granted him by Patent from Heaven but moreover was part of GOD's Image which was stamped on him Whereinsoever the whole did consist this I say seems to have been part of the Impress For GOD said Let us make Man in our Image after our likeness and let him have dominion â—ver the fish of the sea Gen. 1. 26. And so to shut up the Sea within the Earth till the Flood is to deny to Men a part of that Empire wherewith their Maker was pleased to invest them and to deprive them of a piece of his glorious Image which he put upon them For none could share fully in the one or the other but they who lived after the general Deluge If it be said That Men
or Humane Wisdom is interessed in the Affair That the Clouds were made that is and also are managed by a GOD whose Infinite Wisdom indu'd them with that Nature and placed them in that Order and put them in that capacity of serving us as they do So incomparably that is as no wit of Man can mend their Method For let the skilfullest I say chuse at what rate he would have his Grounds to be watered and then see if the Clouds commonly come not up to his Rules and exceed them too in what is fit to be done First We may be sure he would appoint the best kind of Water to be used And what Water so fit for all sorts of Plants as that which descends from the Clouds above For considering how it is raised by the exhalative influence of the Sun it can have nothing of saltness acrimony or deadness in it nor yet of starving thinness nor coldness neither but must be as light and unctuous and spirituous as that Element when simple can well be and by vertue of its sutable qualities and consistency be most proper for invigorating the Seminals of all things And then being drawn up from all parts of the Earth almost as simple as it seems to be there must needs be very great mixture in it I mean though it be all Water yet it must be a Compound of all Waters as it were as being an extract of all sorts of moisture that the Earth affords in its several Regions Whence it follows that all sorts of Plants must find something in it it being originally in part derived perhaps from the Countries in which they grow highly agreeable to themselves as consisting of Particles fit to enter them and easie to be turned into their substance Which being suckt up by them and drained by exquisite percolation through their fine digestive Pores immediately becomes Sap which is the Plantal Chyle or Blood for their nourishment and accretion Secondly Without question he would have these Waterings seasonably performed And here the Clouds are most kind to Vegetables again and by a regular method answer their necessities For they yield both former and latter Rains Such as may cherish them while they are young and make them grow and strengthen them as they grow and carry them on to perfection Whereas if all these Rains should fall at first the tender Springals would come to nothing as being surfeited with too much moisture and the principle of their Life irrecoverably chill'd if not extinguisht And if all should pour down upon them at last the Showres would be to no purpose For coming too late they would be in vain especially as to all Frugiferous things which being shrunk and stunted with immoderate exiccation would be unable to yield their kindly Products Thirdly We need not doubt but he would have his Grounds watered in a gentle manner And this I may say the Clouds do unimitably Sometimes with dewy Mists sometimes with greater sometimes with lesser commonly with soft and moderate Showres Whereas should they discharge themselves in extravagant quantities they would wash up the weaker and beat down the stronger Plants and by their too free and impetuous Defluxions be extreamly injurious if not fatal to both And can we think that what we have noted already should be done by meer accident That the Regions above which need them not but are rather clogged and cumbred with them should draw up such plenty of Waters for us who cannot possibly subsist without them and then send them down again of so elaborate a nature at so seasonable times and in so sutable measures and all by casual Oeconomy and the conduct of blind and incertain Chance Fourthly We may ground upon it that he would have these Waterings to be constant Not only for two or three Months or some few years but so long as he lives at least to name no longer period Nor are the Clouds deficient in this circumstance neither For as they have watered the Earth through all ages past so they will do the same indefatigably for the future even till the final Consummation of all things And though no one Sett of Clouds can ever be fixed or permanent they being perpetually flitting and volant yet as some fly from us others arise and so from new successions of them we have supplys of fresh Rain And therefore albeit they are passant things they leave very good and lasting effects of their transient fugitive presence with us And here the hand of Providence is visible again For put case that things by a fortuitous hit had fallen luckily at first into that convenient posture for Rain in which now they stand which would be most surprising to think yet that then they should persist of themselves so long and steddily and inalterably in the same is not to be imagined No where the Wheel of Order runs on in so even and withal in so laudable and holding a Course 't is a plain case that its Motions were derived from the impulse of Heaven and are maintained by the help of a Divine Influence or Providential Direction and Concurrence Fifthly We may reasonably conclude that he would appoint things to be watered intermittingly Lest too much driness together should injure them on the one side or too much moisture prejudice or bane them on the other Nor are the Clouds faulty in this piece of service but perform it as it were with a great deal of care and seeming Officiousness For when they have poured out their kindness liberally on the Earth they usually stop up their Bottles again and by suspending their effusions promote its fruitfulness as well as by sending them down upon it For as Rains that are new and fresh from above are most nourishing to Vegetables so their intermissive descents make them to be more nutritive still For then having drunk up and digested those that are past they become more receptive of them that succeed And so sucking in what is fit for their aliment with the more greediness they disperse and concoct it with the more ease and speed And truly in the alternate vicissitudes of wet and dry weather there is something at times most remarkably Providential For when we have had sore and tedious Rains for that very reason they should hold and increase because Nature is prepared and inabled thereunto by abundance of Vapours And when we have had a long and excessive drought for the same reason it should continue because Nature is sitted to carry it on the parched ground affording fewer Exhalations and there being a scarcity of matter out of which Rains should be made Yet as experience proves it happens not thus but on the contrary For when Nature's Disposition in the case does sensibly stand one way she is turned about and as it were against her seeming and set Inclinations led into another Which whispers and suggests to the thinking Man that she is certainly directed by an hand from above and in these
preterintentional and undesigned changes as we may call them is over-ruled by a power superior to her own and also joined with such Wisdom as orders her much better than she could do her self Lastly We may presume that this Person would certainly have all his Grounds to be watered That the one might be fruitful as well as the other and all of them recompence the impartial care with a general Fructification And here the Clouds are not at all defective but act their part in this necessary scene most unexceptionably For they spread out their melting dripping Wings even far and near and oblige the whole Earth where it needs not to say where it has no want with their most free and universal Disbursements And truly were it not for their Waters so copiously shed down on the Earth how miserable would the Condition of Mankind be But then when things are so well and happily ordered as that a blessing so needful is made so general and is every where so common and easie to be had what a bright beam of Conviction as to the Being of a DEITY darts forth and shines down from the blackest Clouds For who but the Great GOD could have stretcht out such Fountains in the Spatious Skies and for the needs of Men throughout the World have invented so adequate and incomparable Supplies Nor indeed are they Instruments of Common mercy only but vehicles oft times of Special secular Blessing and Prosperity to some Persons So it appears by Eliphaz's Advertisement who tells us That GOD giveth rain upon the earth and sâ—ndeth waters upon the fields to set up on high those that be low Iob 5. 10 11. Thus we have seen how beneficial Rain from the Clouds is as to the Earth In which respect when GOD pleases to send it 't is said to come for HIS Earth as above noted We have also seen how beneficial it is to Men in watering their Possessions and that in so singular a way as the wisest could never have projected a better In which regard it is said to come for mercy And so it does most signally not only as it fills Men with Temporal good things for the use of their Bodies but moreover as it is or may be a means of Spiritual Mercy to their Souls in ministring an Universal Argument to Mankind of the greatest Truth and most necessary to be believed of any in the World But then in the Third place to pursue and fill up the Holy Man's Distinction it is Vseful for Correction As GOD is infinitely Good in Himself so He alone is able to bring good out of evil That 's an Extract which none but the ALMIGHTY by a most Divine Chymistry peculiar to his MAJESTY is able to make And this he frequently does for those in whose pure Affections he dwells and rules All things work together for good to them that love GOD Rom. 8. 28. But then there is another piece of his Character as true That He will render recompence to his enemies and visit iniquities upon them that hate him And as he has numberless ways of doing this so he often effects it by changing things that are of necessary use into fatal influence Whereby he makes what is naâ—urally good for Men to be unto them judicially an occasion of falling Most evident is this in the Instance of Rain So needful is it that we cannot subsist without it Yet this very thing GOD turns when he pleases into an heavy Rod and by making it unseasonable or else excessive chasteneth his People sorely with it Yea he imploys it not only as a Rod to chastise his Servants but sometimes as a Sword to cut off his Adversaries and an Instrument of Vengeance to sweep away the ungodly in whole sholes or multitudes This was never so tragically apparent as in Noah's Flood when a great part of that generall destructive but deserved Blow which fell upon Mankind was given by this Weapon For by the Waters of Rain in conjunction with other Waters a period was put to the first sinful World by a very just though lamentable Catastrophe And when the Clouds and their Rains or the waters above the firmament were so very considerable in themselves and withal so very useful in way of Preservation to the Earth and in way of Mercy and Iudgment as reaching out GOD's favour and severity to the World Why should they not be worthy and highly worthy of Moses's notice in his Divine Cosmology The Holy Psalmist who we are sure spake by the same Spirit that Moses did looks upon the Clouds as mighty eminent and remarkable things For as he makes them to be GOD's Chariot Psal. 104. 3. So in another place he makes them notable Evidences of his Magnificence and Power His worship and strength is in the clouds 6. But against the Existence of open Seas at first it is farther objected thus Nor are the Waters gathered all into the same place for besides many salt Lakes and some gulfs of the Sea perhaps heretofore impervious the Caspian Sea which is of the same origin and antiquity with the great Ocean is far separate from it To take off which I answer That Moses does not say Let ALL the Waters be gathered into one place Though if he had the word ALL in Scripture is usually taken in a restrained sense to signifie but a Major part and so here it might have meant but the greater quantity of Waters To give Proof of this out of the Writings of Moses He tells us That ALL the servants of Pharaoh went up with Joseph to bury his Father Yet we cannot think that the Court was quite empty at that time and the King left wholly without Attendants And therefore ALL there must denote but a great many So he delivered it as a Law to Israel Three times in a year shall ALL thy males appear before the LORD thy GOD in the place which he shall chuse And yet we know that some of them at those times must be decrepit and some sick and some unclean and so unable to take such a Journey and unfit to make such an appearance And therefore by ALL here can be intended but many neither even as many as were capable of the performance or qualified for it And thus indeed ALL the Waters were gathered into one place That is the great quantity or main Body of them was so as they were incorporate and united in the Ocean Which whereever it diffuseth and insinuateth it self about the Earth is but one continued piece of Water and so fills one continued space with its huge moles I speak of a partial and sometimes a secret continuity for it is not always open visible and entire And that the Caspian Sea is a part of the great Sea and holds a secret commerce with it under ground as the dead Sea or Lake Asphaltites is presumed to do with the Mediterranean is clear from hence that it receives such
length of Seventy five Degrees or between four and five thousand Miles And then Eastward of that Sea runs the main Land of India which from the Western parts of it to Camboia in the East is extended between two and three thousand Miles more And yet it is all-a-long one continued Tract of Land bating the Sinus Gangeticus or Gulf of Bengala which North-wards thrusts up but a little beyond the Ecliptic neither And lastly the same Ecliptic runs obliquely over almost the widest part of America Peruana another piece of Ground three thousand Miles in breadth So that the Earth seems to be too whole in its Aequinoctial Regions I mean those that were so before the Flood to have been dissolved to make the Deluge For had it suffered such a dissolution the middle parts of it falling in first for some reasions before suggested it seems probable that it should have been more broken and shattered thereabouts than any where else if not clean swallowed up and so the Earth must have been of quite another shape than now it is But this I speak as a probable rather than as a certain thing Where grounds are but presumptive and conjectural Assertions built upon them must not be positive and dogmatical 5. Fourthly Had the Earth been dissolved to make the Flood its Dissolution would have brought it into a state of most lamentable barrenness For then the inward parts of it being turned outward and the starven Molds and stony Materials in its Bowels being made into its surface in a great measure in all such places it would not only have been destitute of such things as should have afforded nourishment both to Men and Beasts but moreover indisposed to and incapable of yielding them for a long time The Husbandman when he plows a little deeper than ordinary and fetches up the dead Soil as he terms it it proves a great hindrance to his Crops Yet what is that Soil but part of what upon the exterior Orb 's tumbling into the Abyss must have been turned up by whole Countries at once at least in the Aequinoctial parts of the Earth as being extreamly dried and having all the heart or fatness suck'd out of it by the scorching Sun And where vast pieces of Earth sank whole as they were and the ground also was of a richer nature as retaining we 'll suppose some of its native Oiliness yet there it must have been covered with an huge quantity of Mud which would have made it barren by choking such things as would have grown upon it For the Waters below being by the falling in of the Ground expell'd from their aboad and forced to fly up with unspeakable violence and then by reason of their plenty and gravity descending with as much rage and force again and still as the Earth suffered more fractures and plung'd into the Waters in more pieces they feeling new commotions and being huffed up and put into fresh estuations by their rising and falling and working and beating furiously and incessantly they must needs wash and wear off a mighty deal of Earth from the fragments that dropped into the Deep Which Earth being carried into all places by the tossing rolling turbulent Waters and spread pretty thick upon the face of the Ground and also incorporate with much other Filth it could not but be occasion of great barrenness to the Earth For then when the Deluge settled and went off that Filth could not but harden into a crust or cap upon the Earth's surface very destructive to the Earth's fruitfulness Especially if we consider how long and dismally the Ground was harrass'd by the Flood before it was incrusted For says the Theory the Tumult of the Waters and the extremity of the Deluge lasted for some Months And the fluctuations of the Waters being so boisterous and withal so lasting they could not but wash up or kill most of the tenderer sort of Plants and many of the hardier and stronger ones too yea and perhaps rinse off the top of the ground it self leaving it generally bare and covering it in many places with store of silty sandy or gravelly stuff So that the Earth being first made bare and then overgrown with the Crust aforesaid which with the Sun and Wind would be baked on to it and wax pretty stiff and hard about it how could it at first have afforded sustenance to the living Creatures And therefore we read concerning Attica That by reason of Mud and Slime which the Waters lest upon the Earth it was uninhabited two hundred years after Ogyges's Flood And that the whole Earth should be in as bad a Condition after the general Flood as Attica was after that Inundation which happened to it we need not question if the Theory has hit upon the true Cause of the Deluge So that however Noah and his Family might have made shift for Food supporting themselves by eating some of those Creatures kept alive in the Ark which GOD at their going out of the same gave them for meat with a general Licence to eat Flesh Gen. 9. 3. yet other Animals for a time would have been at a very great loss for Nourishment 6. Again had the Earth been drowned by its being dissolved and falling into the Abyss all the Buildings erected before the Flood would have been shaken down or else overwhelmed Yet we read of some that outstood the Flood and were not demolisht Such were the Pillars of Seth and the Cities Henochia and Ioppa Touching which to avoid quoting of several Authors I shall only recite what I meet with in one And for a more direct proof that the Flood made no such destroying alteration Josephus avoweth that one of those Pillars erected by Seth the third from Adam was to be seen in his days which Pillars were set up above fourteen hundred twenty and six years before the Flâ—od counting Seth to be an hundred years old at the erection of them and Josephus himself to have lived some forty or fifty years after CHRIST of whom although there bâ—â—no cause to believe all that he wrote yet that which he avoucheth of his own time cannot without great derogation be called in question And therefore possibly some foundation or ruine thereof might then be seen Now that such Pillars were rear'd by Seth all Antiquity hath avowed It is also written in Berosus to whom though I give little credit yet I cannot condemn him in all that the City of Enoch built by Cain about the Mountains of Libanus was not defaced by length of time yea the ruines thereof Annius who commented upon that fragment which was found saith were to be seen in his days who lived in the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile And if these his words be not true then was he exceeding impudent fâ—r speaking of this City of Enoch he conludeth in this sort Cujus maxima ingentis molis fundamenta visuntur vocatur ab incolis regionis Civitas Cain ut
as they continue what they are no more could the Earth be drowned a second time so long as it continued a dissolved Earth Yet that it may be delug'd again is clear from GOD's covenanting that it shall not and from the Terms of that Covenant For the Bow in the Cloud is said to be a Token of the Covenant And that when that Bow is seen GOD will remember his Covenant And that he will look upon it to that very end that he may remember the everlasting Covenant Plainly intimating that if that Covenant were not made or being made if by GOD it were not remembred the Earth might again be drowned with as universal and fatal a Flood as ever But then if it may be so from thence it will follow that Noah's Flood could not be caused by the Earth's Dissolution Because then Nature could no longer have been subject to a second Deluge and GOD need not have covenanted to prevent it His very doing it must have been a kind of imposing upon Men as being but an ingaging to save them from an impossible evil and to keep that sad Calamity off them which nothing but miracle or his own Omnipotence was able to bring on So that in fine the case is come to this issue Either that the Glorious GOD has done mighty unworthily pardon the word in making a Covenant which has nothing but vanity and mockage in it or else that the Theory determines falsely in making the Deluge to flow from the Dissolution and Falling in of the Earth CHAP. XV. 1. The Flood Explicable another way as well as by that in which the Theory goes 2. What the height of its Waters might be viz. Fifteen Cubits upon the surface of the Earth 3. The Probability of the Hypothesis argued from Scripture 4. What the Fountains of the great Deep were 5. A Second Argument for the Hypothesis from the easie and sufficient Supply of Waters to raise the Flood to such an height 6. A Third from its agreeableness with St. Peter's Account of the Deluge 7. A Fourth from the Habitableness of the Earth at the Flood 's going off 8. A Fifth from its Consistency with Geography 1. WE are now come to the last Vital or Primary Assertion of the Theory which is this That neither Noah's Flood nor the present Form of the Earth can be explained in any other method that is rational nor by any other Causes that are intelligible That is besides those which the Theory makes use of or assigns Now as to the present Form of the Earth we have spoken something to that already So that could but such an Explication of the Flood be given in as would solve it and the several Phaenomena's of it as rationally and intelligibly as the Theory does this Assertion likewise would be sufficiently encountred in our way of Excepting against it Let us therefore be allowed but some of that liberty which the Theory takes that is to make bold with Scripture a little as that has done a great deal and we 'll try what may be done of this nature Not that I will be bound to defend what I say as real and true any more than to believe what I cannot well endure to speak that the Church of GOD has ever gone on in an irrational way of explaining the Deluge Which yet she must needs have done if there be no other rational method of explaining it and no other intelligible Causes of it than what the Theory has proposed 2. We are now therefore attempting or â—oving at a New Explication of the Flood And if in any thing it seems strange let none wonder or be offended at it We are only trying whether we can hit upon somewhat that may be as rational and intelligible as to the matter in hand as what the Theory offers though it be as extravagant as that is So that where we speak never so positively still what we deliver is to be lookt upon not as an Absolute but Comparative Hypothesis And first let us sound the Waters of the Flood I mean by a true and infallible Plumb-line even the same which Moses reaches out unto us in the Seventh of Genesis So we shall find there is a great mistake in the common Hypothesis touching their Depth For whereas they have been supposed to be fifteen Cubits higher than the highest Mountains they were indeed but fifteen Cubits high in all above the surface of the Earth Not that the Waters were no where higher than just fifteen Cubits above the Ground they might in most places be thirty forty or fifty Cubits high or higher The reason is evident because the surface of the Earth were all its Hills gone would be still â—even and some parts of it considerably higher than others Thus Helvetia is reckoned the highest Country in Europe And in proof of as much it sends forth four great Rivers into the four several Quarters of the Europian World That is to say the Danube Eastward the Rosne Westward the Rhine Northward and the Po Southward For though the Earth be a Globe yet it is not one so true and exact but were the Mountains taken off it I say it would still be rising or prominent in some places by the height of many Cubits over what it is in others At which rate when the Flood ascended fifteen Cubits above the Earth where it is highest which was the true height of the Flood most of the surface of the Earth might be four or five times as deep under water Thus when Switzerland suppose was drowned to the height of fifteen Cubits most of Europe might be drowned many times as high And indeed that the Earth was uneven as we have said and much higher in some places than in others cannot be doubted it being but a wise and most necessary piece of Providence that it should be so contrived For otherwise spacious plain Countries if habitable at all would have yielded but incommodious Dwellings I mean because they must have been perfectly level and so would have lacked devexities needful for Water-courses For Rivers we know never flow but in way of decurse or running downward off precipices steepnesses or declivities 3. This therefore we lay down as the Foundation of our Hypothesis that the highest parts of the Earth that is of the common surface of it were under Water but fifteen Cubits in depth which would drown the rest of its superficies very sadly and sufficiently And this I say we learn from Moses who knowing it himself by Inspiration to inform us of as much has committed it to writing in the Seventh Chapter of Genesis For there we read at the eighteenth Verse That the waters prevailed greatly upon the earth And at the nineteenth Verse that the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth And how greatly and exceedingly did they prevail upon the Earth That we have specified in the twentieth ver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fifteen Cubits upward did the waters prevail What can
be more clear or express They prevailed fifteen Cubits and no more Fifteen Cubits upward that is upon the Earth Upon which they are said to prevail greatly and to prevail exceedingly in the two foregoing Verses that is upon the highest parts of its common surface And thus our Supposition stands supported by Divine Authority as being founded upon Scripture That tells us as plainly as it can speak that the Waters prevailed but fifteen Cubits upon the Earth The cited Text as a certain Plumb-line shows them to have been no deeper where the Earth bosoms out and is most prominent And so it puts an useful key into our hands to help us to unlock the mystery of the Deluge and to free the Doctrine of it from great difficulties and inconveniencies which have run Men it seems upon irrational and unintelligible means and methods of explaining it 4. Before we lay down any other Arguments in confirmation of the Hypothesis let us try if the light of Scripture which shows the Depth of the Flood so plainly will not also discover to us more clearly than yet has been done what those Fountains of the great Deep were which at the time of the Flood were cleaved or broken up And truly this it seems to do very notably giving us to understand that they were but certain Caverns Such Caverns I mean as were contained in Rocks and Mountains And so the breaking up of the Fountains of Tehom Rabbah or the great Deep which the Theory insists so much upon was no more than the breaking up of such Caverns This is evident from Psal. 78. 15. Where it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He clave the Rocks the Rock Rephidim and the Rock in Cadesh and gave them drink 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Abyssis magnis in the great Deeps That is he gave them that for drink which was in those great Deeps till he fetcht it out of them And what great Deeps could they be but great deep Caverns in the Rocks and the better to evince that the breaking open of the Fountains of the great deep Gen. 7. 11. and the cleaving of those Rocks in the Wilderness Psal. 78. 15. were in effect but the same thing the same Hebrew words are used in both places But though these Caverns be called Deeps we must not take them for profound places that went down into the Earth below the common surface of it on the contrary they were situate above it And therefore the Waters issuing out of them came running down So we find in the next verse of the same Psalm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He caused them to run down And Wisd. 11. 4. the Water is said to be given de petra altissima from a most high Rock And Gejerus upon that place in the 78 th Psalm does not only observe that GOD made the Waters to descend ex petra praeeminente out of a very high Rock but also notes the reason why he did so ut origo aquarum omnibus pateret that the source of the Waters might appear to all We cannot but remember likewise that this water is said 1 Cor. 10. 4. to follow the Israelites Which speaks it to have had a fall from an elevated Situation And indeed if it had not it could not so well have run along with their Camp perhaps to Cadesh where we next find them at a want for Water Though if the Rock in Rephidim did supply them all-a-long in their intermediate marches and stages we must needs conclude there were extraordinary accessions of Water into the great Deeps or Caverns of it out of which it flowed with so very plentiful and lasting Streams The least that can be imagined is That they were so framed as to draw abundance of Vapours into themselves which being dissolved in the Vaults within from thence gushed out in a continued Torrent Not unlike to the Waters in Tenariff which every day pour down from a most high mountain being generated I conceive of great store of Vapours which gather in some large hollownesses of the same and through secret passages ascend to its Top. For on it there stands a certain Tree continually covered with a Misty Cloud which every day melting at Noon discharges it self so copiously as to serve the whole Island on which there never yet fell a showre save that one which was forty days long I have set down the high situation of these Caverns or Fountains as forestalling an Objection that might thus be made If the great Deeps whose Waters help'd to raise the Flood were no other than Caverns the Waters they afforded would contribute nothing to that use for as soon as they had come out others would have run into their places immediately and so they had as good have kept in still But now these Caverns being of an eminent or raised site the Waters they yielded towards the Flood might help to swell it to its due pitch according as we have set it without any kind of danger or indeed possibility either of their own returning or of others running into their room In case it be urged that Caverns especially Caverns so high situate cannot properly be called great DEEPS I answer The HOLY GHOST has been pleased to give them that name and his authority is not to be disputed So we find him styling the Red Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Deep as big a name as can be given to the vastest profoundest Ocean now and a bigger than was given to the whole Mass of Waters at first it being called but the Deep simply which yet for a Sea was neither Great nor Deep Though those Caverns which were opened at the Flood might well be as Deep as they were Great measuring their Depths from above downward towards the surface of the Earth And whereas the Psalmist speaks of the great DEEPS as of many and Moses of the great DEEP as but of one this does not argue but the same thing might be meant by both For as in Scripture a Plural word is sometimes but of a Singular signification thus the Ark is said to rest upon the Mountains of Ararat when it could rest but upon one single Mountain so a Singular word does sometimes carry the force of a Plural one with it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Quail is put for the numberless multitude of them Exod. 16. 13. And therefore the different Numbers used by the Holy Writers in this Case need not set them at variance or imply that they intended different things And then tho' Moses speaks of the great Deep singularly as but of one yet he speaks of all the Fountains of that Deep as of many which makes the Expression somewhat more parallel to the Psalmist's great Deeps And then though the Psalmist puts the Substantive DEEPS in the Plural Number yet he puts GREAT the Adjective in the Singular and so goes as far to meet Moses as I may say as Moses comes to
have hindred the same Waters from running back into it Not the Waters in the Bowels of the Earth for if they were there in such plenty as 't is confest there is room enough for them as to have been able to have made a much greater Flood than Noah's yet then against their nature they must have risen above their Source and being so risen they must have stood so long as the Flood lasted in a miraculous opposition to their own nature inclining them to retire from whence they came Not the Supercelestial Waters for then the breaking up of the Fountains of the great Deep and the opening of the Windows of Heaven must be one and the same thing Whereas by Moses they are very plainly and carefully distinguisht Not the inclosed Abyss for then besides that the whole Hypothesis so improbable must be allowed the forty days Rain would have been utterly needless Because then the falling of the Earth into the Abyss being the breaking up of the Fountains of the great Deep it must have fallen in the very first day that Noah went into the Ark because on that very day all the Fountains of the great Deep were broken up Gen. 7. 11. And if by the Earth's falling into the Abyss the World were drowned the first day that Noah entered the Ark as of necessity it must have been if the Earth were dissolved and fell that day to what purpose should it after that rain for forty days together And whereas it is said Gen. 8. 2. That the Fountains of the Deep were stopped the Earth broken down into the Abyss was never made up again nor the Abyss it self covered but remains still as open as ever To which Particular Heads let me add but one more which has a kind of general Relation to them all If either the open Sea or the Waters within the Earth or the Waters above the Heavens or the Abyss under the Earth had been the great Deep meant by Mosâ—s none of them had any true or proper Fountains in them And so what will become of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Fountains of the great Deep But now supposing that the Caverns in the Mountains were this great Deep how surprizingly do all these things fall in with them For First They are called great Deeps by the HOLY GHOST as has been noted Psal. 78. Secondly They were capable of being cleaved or broke open as being fast shut up Thirdly They were able to afford a competent quantity of Water even as much as it was necessary they should yield Fourthly The Water that came forth of them could never return into them more Fifthly The breaking them up must be quite another thing than opening the Windows of Heaven Sixthly They might all be broke up the same day that Noah took into the Ark. Seventhly The Rain which fell in the forty days would still have been as needful as ever Eighthly They were stopped again as strictly and literally as they were broken up Lastly They were as true and distinct Fountains as any in the World So that if they were not the real Fountains of the Mosaic Tehom Rabbah one would think they might well have been so 5. But let us now pass as it is time we should to a Second Ground upon which we build the probability of our Hypothesis above specified namely That the Flood was but fifteen Cubits higher than the highest parts of the surface of the Earth And that Ground is this Supposing that to have been the true height of the Flood it will not only be possible but very easie to find Water enough for it without recourse to such Inventions as have been and justly may be disgustful not only to nice and squeamish but to the best and soundest Philosophic Judgments For thus in the First place we need not call in the Theory's assistance an Hypothesis how ingenious soever in the contrivance and contexture of it guilty of unjustifiable absurdities Nor Secondly need we fly to a New Creation of Water to gain a sufficient quantity of it An Expedient that sounds harshly in the Ears of many And that not only because they are of Opinion that GOD finisht the work of Creation in the first six days But because he has expresly declared That the true and only Causes of the Deluge were these Two The breaking up of all the Fountains of the great Deep and the opening of the Windows of Heaven To which may be added That the Creation of so vast a quantity of Water as should have surmounted the highest Hills would certainly have inferred either an enlargement of the whole Universe to receive it and so a Dislocation and consequently a disorder of its parts respectively or else a Penetration of the Dimensions of Bodies while so much new matter should have sprung into being more than ever existed and yet have been confined to the same space of aboad that was before fill'd up in its whole capacity Nor need we Thirdly to fetch Waters from the Supercelestial Regions Where if the Heavens be Fluid how could they have kept from falling down so long And if they be Solid how could they possibly have descended at last For in their descent they must have bored their way through several Orbs as hard as Crystal and how thick we know not Besides these Waters must have been lodg'd either below the Stars or above them If below them they would have hid them from our sight The Sun himself cannot be seen through a watry Cloud how much less the Stars through a watry Ocean Nor will it help to say the Element of Water above is more fine and transparent than the Waters below For were it as thin as an ordinary Mist still it would hide the Sun's Face from us though it might transmit his light In case they were plac'd above the Stars they must have been delug'd before the Earth could have been so as intercepting them in their fall Nor could they have slid off the Stars again dropping down to the Earth unless that were the Center of the Universe which is hard to prove yea most absurd to think Nor will it be necessary in the Fourth place to suppose the Mass of Air or greatest part of it was changed into Water to make the Deluge A change which some will by no means admit of as being not hitherto proved by Experiment Yet I cannot but own that the best Philosophers have thought it fecible and also believed it to be actually done The Egyptians conceived Manethus and Hecataeus both attest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Rains were made by the version of Air. Plato was of the same Opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Air being thickned and condensed made Clouds and Mists And so was Philo. For besides that he affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it varies and runs through all manner of mutations He says expresly in another Place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That Air being
condensed turns to Water And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Air being condensed may be compressed into Water And then brings in Heraclitus affirming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Destruction of Air to be the generation of Water To this also the Lord Verulam consents offering to make it good by sundry Experiments Though all of them I think come short of Demonstration or of a clear and satisfactory proof of the Phaenomenon And to name the two greatest Philosophers next Aristotle asserts this transmutation in his Book de Mundo And Des-Cartes subscribes to it as possible and real When those Globules move a little slower than ordinary they may change Water into Ice and the Particles of Air into Water And the Famous and Honourable Mr. Boyle in his 22. Experiment leaves it undetermin'd whether or no Air be a primigenial Body that cannot now be generated and turned into Water And truly as Clavius his Glass of Spring-water mentioned in that Experiment Hermetically sealed up for fifty Years past and reposited in the Musaeum Kercherianum does not prove that Water can't be turn'd into Air because the Water continu'd there so long without diminution so neither will M. Rohault's Glass seal'd up the same way full of Air and kept in a Vessel of Water in a Wine-Cellar three whole Years argue that Air can't be turn'd into Water because none of that Air at the three Years end was found to have suffered such a change there being not the least drop of Water in the Glass We only learn from hence that we have not yet attain'd to the right Operation of changing these Elements into one another We will grant therefore that by the power of Nature Air may be turned into Water Yet neither will that take off the whole Difficulty in this Case For if most of the Air incircling the Earth had been thus changed and all of it could not because then respiration would have been impossible to Mankind and the surviving Animals in the Ark it could not have furnisht Water enough for the Flood a great deal of Air going to make up a little quantity of Water Which the proportion of gravity betwixt Water and Air of equal bulk it being found to be as of a thousand to one does sufficiently evince But in case it could have yielded Water enough yet inconveniences would still have remained Particularly it would have endangered sucking down the Moon as the Theorist observes The changing also of one great Body into another which after transmutation takes up so much less room than it did before does either suppose that the whole Frame of the World must sink closer together which would occasion a strange discomposure in it to fill up the space that Change would make empty or that in Nature there must be a Vacuum Though by the way when our SAVIOUR multiplied Bread upon Earth that need have no such influence on the World either as to expansion or contraction of it as the new Creation of Waters above mentioned or this production of them by transmutation does imply For besides that the Matter changed was much less in quantity the change might be made in such a Substance as did take up just the same room in the World before its mutation as after it Fig 4 Pag 317 Nor need we trouble our selves in the Sixth place about Sub-terrestrial Waters Which if never so free passages had been opened for them could no more have flowed up out of the Bowels of the Earth than Waters can do out of our deepest Wells Yea with much more difficulty they must have ascended in regard they were far deeper in the ground and also must have boiled up against the weight and pressure of the incumbent Flood even then when perhaps it was a Mile or two high As for Blood flowing out of a Vein when prickt in a Man's Head it is nothing like a Proof that Water may rise and flow above its source For there is a vital strength and motion forcing it out and Nature conspires as much to help the Course of that Blood as she does to hinder this Course of the Waters we speak of Engines it may be in the heart of the Earth might be able to send up Waters on to the surface of it as the Heart in the midst of the Body sends Blood to its Extremities But we hear of no Engines made to raise the Flood Nor need we in the Last place to betake our selves to a Topical or Partial Deluge A thing which some have done meerly to avoid the necessity of such a vast deal of Water as they knew not where to have for a general Flood according to the rate of the old Hypothesis or in case they could have had it knew not how to get rid of it again Whereas let fifteen Cubits above the Earth be the highest Water-mark of the Flood and then as the Clouds and Caverns would have yielded Water enough to raise it so when its work was done the quantity of this Water would not have been so excessive but it might easily be dried up in that space of time in which Moses declares it was so And this is that which in the Second place gives countenance to our Hypothesis It makes the Flood to be such as Nature out of her Store-houses could very well send on to the Earth and when she had done as conveniently take it off again And so we are excused from running to those Causes or Methods which seem unreasonable to some and unintelligible to others and unsatisfactory to most 6. A Third thing which gives credit to our Conjecture and makes it look like truth is its agreeing so handsomely with St. Peter's Description of the Deluge 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 2 Pet. 3. 5 6. How exactly does this suite with the Hypothesis proposed For according to it the Earth stood partly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Water the most of it being overflowed and in such a measure as that the Animal World thereby perished And yet a great part of the Earth as much as the upper parts of high Mountains come to was standing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the Water at the same time Yea if a Zeugma in the words makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 standing relate to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heavens as well as to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth yet our Explication of the Deluge will fall in very fairly with that too Inasmuch as the Heavens stood then in the Water and out of the Water as well as the Earth For their Territories were then invaded in some measure the Water rising where it incroached least fifteen in most places it may be thirty forty or fifty Cubits into them And therefore so high they were standing in the Water as all above was standing out of the
a New Hypothesis concerning it erected We have seen how it is built upon what Grounds it stands and with what reasons and considerations it is supported and establisht But as things that are new and any whit strange are commonly received with more than ordinary Notice so new Doctrines and strange Hypotheses are usually entertain'd with Disputes and Objections It will be necessary therefore to look out a little and to see what Objections are like to meet us in the way that we go and so to apply Answers to them respectively at least to the chief of them 2. But first I must premise that we have no reason to take this for an Objection I mean from the Theorist or others who take their measures from him that we expound a Text or two of Scripture so as none ever did and deserting the common received sense put an unusual Gloss upon them not to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a private interpretation This I say is not to be urged against us by the Theorist or by those that think fit to abide by his Hypothesis For himself exceeds us in the same thing We only take a few steps out of the beaten path of Expositors and that with open and professed diffidence whereas he has advanced in as untroden a way with a great deal of boldness 3. The First Objection may be raised from the Hills being covered So we read Gen. 7. 19. That all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered And verse 20. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered Whence it has been concluded That the Waters of the Flood prevailed to such an height that they covered the tops of the highest Hills under Heaven Fifteen Cubits upward But the Holy Text says no such thing It tells us indeed That the Waters prevailed fifteen Cubits upwards but this might be meant as to the Earth only upon which it had told us just before the Waters prevailed 〈◊〉 and prevailed exceedingly And truly when they came to be fifteen Cubits upward on the highest parts of the surface of the Earth whereby they might be four or five times as high above its general Superficies as we have observed this was really a great and exceeding prevalence But where it speaks of the high hills and mountains it says no more of them than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they were covered And so indeed they were and fifteen Cubits upward too that is on their sides For the Waters prevailing so high above the surface of the Earth whereon they were founded the bottoms of them must needs stand up so deep in those Waters But to affirm the Tops of them did so is perhaps to make the Comment out-run the Text they being not said to be covered And as the Original may bear this Interpretation so the Septuagint seems not to disallow it For that renders the Hebrew thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the water was lifted up fifteen Cubits upwards But it does not in the least express that it was lifted up so many Cubits above the tops of the high Hills and Mountains Nor will the Vulgar Latin dissent from it if rightly understood It says Quindecim cubitis altior fuit aqua super montes quos operuerat The Water was fifteen Cubits higher upon the Mountains which it had covered But then altior super montes may not signifie that it was higher upon the tops as was said before but only upon or about the sidâ—s of the Mountains And so I remember when Q. Curtius would express Peoples sitting about a Table he says They were super mensam And when he would express their sitting about a Banquet he says They were super vinum epulas According to which Water fifteen Cubits high super montes may be Water so high about the Mountains and so high indeed it had covered them And the truth is the Waters of the Flood never were nor could be fifteen Cubits above the Tops of the highest Mountains though we allow the Assertors of the Old Hypothesis to expound the Story of the Flood their own way To make this out We read Gen. 8. 4. That the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the LXX it sat there That is as the Assertors of the Old Hypothesis will have it The bulk of the Ark pierced through the Waters and so the bottom of it stood upon the Mountain under it Nor could it rest or sit there otherwise because the Tops of the Mountains were not as yet above Water the Flood being at its height For when was it that the Ark thus rested Why in the Seventh Month on the seventeenth day of the Month. And then was the Deluge at the highest For it is said Chap. 7. 24. That the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days That is according to the Assertors of the Old Hypothesis they were increasing or kept as high as ever for so long time Which as the Iews used to reckon their Months making them all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to consist of thirty days apiece will amount to five Months precisely So that count from the seventeenth day of the Second Month when the Flood began to come in to the sevâ—â—teenth day of the Seventh Month when the Ark sat upon the Mountains of Ararat and the hundred and fifty days will be expired just But then if the Ark rested upon those Mountains at that time and in that manner as is said it is most certain that the tops of the highest Hills could never be covered by Water fifteen Cubits upward For then if the bottom of the Ark had rested on the Mountains the whole Body of it must have been quite under Water and we know not how deep The reason is because there are Mountains in the World very much higher than those of Ararat For by those Mountains the Assertors of the common Hypothesis generally understand the Mountains of Armenia And the Vulgar says expresly That the Ark rested upon the Mountains of Armenia And the Septuagint sometime renders Ararat Armenia Yea the Chaldee Paraphrast uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as pointing at the Cordiaean Hills But that there are Mountains much higher than they is evident enough from most considerable Writers Sir Walter Raleigh declares that the Mountains of Ararat or any parts of them are not of equal stature to many other Mountains in the World And again That the Mountains of Gordiaei are the highest of the World the same is absolutely false Nor does he deliver this as his own judgment only but presently adds That the best Cosmographers with others that have seen the Mountains of Armenia find them far inferior and underset to divers other Mountains even in that part of the World and elsewhere And then he instanceth in Athos as one â—ar surmounting any Mountain that ever hath been seen in Armenia and cites Castaldus
he returneth to his Earth According to which where it is said That the Waters returned from off the Earth continually we are to understand their continual version or return into that Principle out of which they were made namely Vapours And the same is to be understood concerning them where it is said Gen. 8. 5. That the waters decreased continually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They were going and decreasing And so the Expression does not denote a violent motion or agitation of those Waters as hath commonly been thought so much as a constant wasting or diminution of them by going quite away And indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies it went away and as Schindler notes is spoken de rebus evanescentibus of things that are vanishing Yea the learned Lexicographer brings in this very Passage as one instance of that its signification Which farther insinuates That when the Waters of the Flood decreased it was done by their vanishing or going away into their first natural Principle by their returning or being converted into Vapours Now this being done at a great rate or very fast as we may gather from so much Water being dried up in so short a time and from the miraculous Wind Gen. 8. 1. sent on purpose to hasten the work by helping forward the attenuation of the liquid Element it must in likelihood overcast and bemist the Air and so conspissate and obscure it as to render things invisible at a little distance from the beholder's Eye Whence it will follow That when the tops of the Mountains were seen this might come to pass not by the Waters sinking below those tops whither they never ascended but by the clearing up of the Sky and the wearing off of its unusual thickness and fogginess And yet this their visibility or new appearance might properly be ascrib'd to the decrease of the Waters too inasmuch as till they were so diminisht as not to afford Vapours enough to thicken and darken the Air any longer at the rate they had done the Mountains tops could not be seen Should it here be objected That according to this way of explaining their appearance they could not have been seen so soon as in the tenth Month because the Waters were then upon the Earth in great abundance that Objection might be thus taken off Though there were waters upon the face of the whole earth then yea and forty days after that which was the reason why Noah's Dove could find no rest yet these Waters were so far exhaled drawn so low and grown so gross and muddy that now they did not return or go away into vapours half so fast as before The Atmosphaere also was now come pretty well to its old consistency again and so the attractive power of the Sun was much damped and weakened and he did not draw vapours so briskly and plentifully as he had done And yet the lower Regions of the Air might be very thick and foggy still so that the Mountains might not be seen by looking right on but rather by looking upward And so the highest parts of the Mountains that by thrusting up aloft did intercept the lightsomeness of the glimmering Skie and terminate the eye-sight might by that means be discerned And therefore indeed only the tops of them were said to be seen Nor let it be thought a meer phancy a whimsical groundless Figment of ours that the Waters of the Deluge did decrease in this manner I mean by going or returning into Vapours and that at such a rate as to fill the Air for a time with constant Mists and make it very caliginous and dark This is so far from being an empty fiction or conceit that I may venture to say It was a necessary Phaenomenon For when the Earth was so generally drown'd the Water being of a smooth Superficies if the Air had been clear yea if it had not been more than ordinarily thick it would certainly have been most exceeding cold Even as cold as it is now in its middle Region where Icy Meteors are continually floating So that in the Natural Course of things the Waters of the Flood would presently have been frozen extreamly hard And if we can suppose they should ever have been melted again as by the force of meer Nature they hardly could yet they could not have been so in that space of time wherein the Deluge went off and the Earth became dry And that a vehement Frost would have seiz'd the Waters of the Flood as soon as they were come down if the Air had not been strangely thick is but reasonable to conclude upon this account Because the Atmosphaere was never so exhausted of Vapours and so never so thin and so never so sharp and terribly cold since the World began as it was at that time And then lastly that the closeness and thickness of the Air was such as to darken and benight the whole Earth at once may fairly be inferred from Gen. 8. ult For there GOD promiseth that while the Earth remaineth there shall be day as will as seed-time and harvest Implying That during the Flood there was as perfect an intermission of day upon Earth as there was of seed-time and harvest 6. A Fourth Objection may be framed from the Possibility and easiness of Mens escaping the Flood For if the Waters prevailed but fifteen Cubits upwards upon the Plain of the Earth and the tops of the spacious aspiring Mountains stood bare excepting a little of the lower parts of them all the time of the Deluge how easily might Men have run up those Mountains and so have been saved from the violence of the Waters and then what need of an Ark to preserve them To this it may be answered For People to ascend these high Mountains when the Flood was coming in could be no such easie matter For at what rate soever the Rains descended in other places it is not to be doubted but they fell in great abundance about the lofty Mountains For the pitchy swollen loaden Clouds which then hung every where bagging in the Air driving and crouding and squeezing against those Mountains could not but empty themselves there like full Spunges when pressed or nipped in prodigious Showres that would have run down in furious and mighty Torrents Yea 't is more than probable that these squeezed Clouds would not only have discharged themselves in immoderate Showres thereabouts but in kind of Ecnephiae or Exhydyriae such as sometimes fall in the Pacific Ocean very terrible Tempests wherein Rain pours down as it were out of Spouts or Buckets and falls in whole Sheets of Water at once So that the sides of the Hills would have been full of Cataracts and the Waters would have come roaring and gulling down them so forcibly that no living Creatures would have been able to stand much less to climb up against them And then the higher sort of Mountains as the Alpes and the like being covered with huge quantities of Snow that
with the Description of Paradise 3. It would have destroy'd the Ark. 4. And have made the Earth of a Form different from what now it is of 5. It would also have reduced it to a miserable Barrennels 6. And have overturned the Buildings which outstood the Deluge 7. And have rendred the Covenant which GOD made with Noah vain and insignificant p. 284 CHAP. XV. 1. The Flood explicable another way as well as by that in which the Theory goes 2. What the height of its Waters might be viz. Fifteen Cubits upon the surface of the Earth 3. The Probability of the Hypothesis argued from Scripture 4. What the Fountains of the Great Deep were 5. A Second Argument for the Hypothesis from the easie and sufficient Supply of Waters to raise the Flood to such an height 6. A Third from its agreeableness with St. Peter's Account of the Deluge 7. A Fourth from the Habitableness of the Earth at the Flood 's going off 8. A Fifth from its Consistency with Geography p. 299 CHAP. XVI 1. Objections must be answered 2. Our Exposition of Scripture not to be made an Objection by the Theorist or any that hold with him 3. The First Objection from the Hills being covered answered 4. The Second from the Arks resting upon the Mountains of Ararat answered 5. The Third from the appearing of the Tops of the Mountains upon the decrease of the Waters answered 6. The Fourth from the possibility of Mens being saved from the Flood without the Ark answered 7. The Fifth from the likelihood of other Creatures escaping answered 8. The Sixth from the imaginary excess of Water answered 9. The Seventh from the Raven which Noah sent out of the Ark answered 10. The Eighth from danger of Shipwrack which the Ark would have been in answered 11. A General Answer to farther Objections p 324 CHAP. XVII 1. The Positiveness of the Theory 2. Noted in the English Edition of it 3. It s Author's Intentions laudable 4 The Conclusion p. 356 LICENS'D Ian. 29. 1688 9. Rob. Midgley ERRATA PAge 13. Line 10. Read incorruption p. 48. l. 3. after that insert were in it p. 58. l. 3. r. host of p. 59. l. 31. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 60. l. 26. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 75. l. 13. r. and. p. 95. l. 1. r. professed p. 98. l. 23. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 109. l. 21. r. canales p. 116. l. 7. r. Miles p. 127. l. 9. r. Brahe p. 129. l. 25. r. descry p. 145. l. 28. r. inartificial p. 233. l. 1. r. grow l. 5. blot out so p. 255. l. 1. r. just l. 30. r. it s p. 282. l. 14. r. Crops p. 289. l. 21. after land insert excepting the Red Sea p. 306. in the last line of the Mâ—â—gent r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 307. l. 17. blot out a. p. 321. l. 25. r. two hundred p. 324. l. 17. after in r. answered p. 333. l. 2. r. about p. 345. l. 25. r. hideous The Parentheses p. 289. l. 15 16 17 18. and p. 290. l. 2 3. should have been left out Some mispointings also must be noted GEOLOGIA OR A DISCOURSE Concerning the EARTH Before the Flood CHAP. 1. 1. The great Usefulness of Natural Philosophy 2. In proving there is a God 3. In acquainting us with His Nature 4. In asserting a Providence 5. In excluding Idolatry 6. In vindicating the Gospel in several Points 7. As the Immortality of the Soul 8. The Resurrection of the Body 9. The Conflagration of the World 10. And the endless fiery Torments of the Damned 11. Philosophy is useful also as to Divinity 12. And like to flourish 13. Caution against abusing it 14. Which is done either by speaking or thinking slightly of it 15. Or by Setting it too low in its Operations 16. Or else by Raising it too high 17. Which is the fault of The Theory of the Earth 18. A Character of it 19. The Occasion of this Discourse against it 20. Together with its Method 21. This Chapter an Introduction to the Discourse 1. IT is a memorable and worthy Saying for a Heathen of Simplicius Philosophy is the greatest Gift that ever GOD bestowed upon Men. And were it restrained to Natural Philosophy alone there would be much truth in that Assertion of his For it serves our interests with a mighty efficacy and is highly conducive to our benefit not only many but innumerable ways Thus it exalts our Minds and inlarges our Understanding and fills them with rich and invaluable Notions It elevates our flat and groveling Souls and make them at once to look up and look high It disinthralls our Judgments inslav'd to Sense and weak Speculations and swells our shrivel'd narrow Thoughts into wide and generous and comprehensive Theories It wipes the dust of Ignorance and dimness of Prejudice out of our Eyes and inables us not only to see Nature's Beauty but duely to admire it Yea in a short time it turns our Admiration into studious Industry and of passionate Lovers of Nature's Perfections makes us curious and painful Searchers into her Mysteries And here new Discoveries bring fresh Delights and our intellectual Satisfactions do more than compensate our most tiresom Disquitions For the Mind being weighed down with the luggage of the Body and bound fast as with Chains in the straitnesses of it Philosophy relieves it says a great Man by giving it a fair Prospect of the things of Nature and lifting it up from Earthly to Divine Concerns To take cognoscence of which while it sallies out it recovers a kind of liberty and breaking loose in some sense from the uneasie pressure and confinement it suffers is refreshed with the survey and study of the Heavens The learned Father flies higher still though not in the least above the Mark. For he makes Philosophy profitable for Godliness to such as fetch Faith from Demonstration And says That if it does not comprehend the vastness of Truth nor is able to perform the Commandments of the LORD yet it makes way for the most royal Doctrine And therefore he would have all not excusing very Women to mind Philosophy And argues That none who are young should defer it and that none who are old should be weary of it because no Man is too young nor yet too old to get a found Mind And then adds He that says 't is too soon or too late to study Philosophy is just like him who says it is too soon or too late to be blessed And that Philosophy should contribute towards Mens Blessedness we need not wonder when as he says in another place it does before-hand purge and prepare the Soul to receive the Faith upon which the truth builds Knowledge And albeit in these Expressions he might not mean Natural Philosophy only yet speaking all along of the Greek Philosophy in general he cannot be supposed to exclude that neither Which indeed does very much qualifie and
reputed or else which is the truth that this very thing does betray the vanity of the Cabbala and shows it to be but an ingenious Phantasie 12. Now the Cabbala being a thing so improbable and the Literal Sense of Scripture so very authentick as not to be thrown off or put by for any other where it can be held to it remains that the Story of the Creation is to be understood according to that sense And so where The Theory of the Earth is contrary to that sense or not agreeing with it it is to be look't upon all the way as contrary to Scripture and disagreeing with That Not that I deny there is Mystery in the Story of the Creation for undoubtedly there is a great deal and that so deep that it is hard to see to the bottom of it But once again I say to prevent my being mistaken That no Mystical or Cabbalistic sense is to be approved of that overthrows or nulls the Literal one And the reason is plain because if the Literal sense should be taken away it would cease to be an History and also could have nothing of fixed or certain meaning in it but might be moulded any way and changed into every thing according to the various apprehensions of Men and their working Phantasies 13. Let me here cast in this as an Overplus Where Scripture delivers it self so as not to be literally interpreted it is sometimes done out of greater plainness that it affects and the better to accommodate it self to our capacity Thus when it expresseth GOD's power or his doing any thing by Hands His Knowledge or Observation of any thing by Eyes c. It is meerly in way of Condescention to us and to render what it speaks of more easie and familiar to our apprehension Here therefore that Axiome of the Talmudists remembred by great Maimonides takes place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law speaks according to the Language of the Children of Men. And for this reason I think the Book of Canticles is so parabolical and allusive Not to veil and darken the sense but the better to illustrate its Divine Argument and the more fully and fairly to set forth that passionate affection and dearness which is betwixt the most GLORIOUS JESUS that great Lover of Souls and all zealously religious and devout Persons CHAP. III. 1. A Second Exception against the Formation of the Earth viz. the Fluctuation of the Waters of the Chaos whereon it was to be raised 2. That Fluctuation caused by the Moon 3. The Theorist's Doubt whether she were then in our Neighbourhood considered 4. The Precariousness of his Hypothesis in several things relating to the Chaos Which ought to have been better cleared and confirmed according to his own declared Iudgment 5. The Descent of the Earthly Particles out of the Air not only Precarious but Vnphilosophical 6. And also Anti-Scriptural 1. AS every Building must have a sutable Foundation so fit it is that the Earth should have such a one It being not only a stately Fabrick in it self but moreover designed at the formation of it to be the Mansion or Dwelling of a World of Creatures And it being destined to so great and noble an use what pity had it been that it should have miscarried in the making and have sunk into Ruines while it was setting up for want of a sufficient foundation to support it Yet had it been built after the manner aforesaid perhaps there would have been no less defect in the Architecture of it than the want of a meet Foundation For it was to be reared upon the Waters risen out of the Chaos and were they fit to bear such a mighty Pile I mean in regard of their unsteadiness and constant Fluctuation That the Earth might be spread and by degrees raised upon them Was it not requisite that they should be of a quiet and even surface Otherwise it may be the unctious Substance could not have gathered upon them nor the Earthly Particles havâ— settled upon that But the incontinuity of the one iâ— being broken by the motion of the Waters leaving many open spaces to the other through those spaces they would have sunk right down to the bottom of the Deep and no Earth would have been produced 2. Yet that those Waters were quiescent and even upon due examination will hardly be found For the Chaos in the beginning was turned about upon its own Center else how comes the Earth to be so now And if it was carried about by such a Gyration how could the face of its Waters be still and equable Not that I mean they were disturbed by the meer Rotation of the Chaos neither but by something else in conjunction with that namely The bulky presence of the Moon For if she was then placed where now she is what hindred but she might have the same Motion which now she has And if she moved then in an Eliptic Circle about the Chaos as now she does about the Earth as in all reason she should the Chaos being then situate where the Earth is now betwixt the Heavens of Venus and Mars from which situation that Eliptic Circle results would not the Waters have been too much discomposed thereby to have been a fit Foundation for the primitive Earth Indeed they being in all places of an equal depth and flowing freely without resistance it is very probable that the Tides then were less fierce and rough than they are now And yet they all making but one Sea and that being open and exposed to the Moon it is as probable again that they swelled extreamly and went mighty high Now the Moon squeezing them her self by streightning the Heavens on one side of the Chaos whereever she was as at her Zenith suppose and occasioning a like compression of them on the opposite side or at her Nadir and the Chaos still turning round upon its own axis every Four and Twenty hours from hence it follows that these Waters felt the force of two Tides in every such space of time Now where they Ebbed end Flowed so frequently and incessantly must not their Aestuation have been so turbulent as to have hindred the gathering or dissolved the continuity of the Oily Matter and so have prevented the Earth's superstruction upon it In case it be urged That the Unctious Matter upon the face of the Waters was so very thick as that they might heave and sink under it as there was occasion and never break it I answer When this Oily Substance did first arise it must needs be thin and so apt to be broken and divided and that being disjoined the Earthly Particles falling in at the void spaces would have sunk directly as was said even now through the Waters having nothing to support them And then which is farther considerable the heaviest Particles of Earth descending at the same time in far greatâ—st plenty the Air being then fullest of impurity and purging it self most freely they would have
and so have put by the Primitive Earth by marring the Basis whereon it should have stood Yet when all is said I would have this Exception lookt upon as propounded in way of Quaery Whether the unsettledness of the Chaotic Waters would not have hindred the Production of the first Earth rather than as a positively assertory Objection as if it must necessarily have done it 4. And here I cannot but remark the exceeding precariousness of the Theorist's Hypothesis in reference to the Chaos and the Formation of the Earth out of it For that that Mass which consisted of and was then first dissolved into the simplest elementary Bodies in the World should cast forth one Body I mean Liquor which in its purest na-natural state could contain so much Oiliness in it That this Oily matter should rise just when it did so as to be sit to receive the Earthly Particles in their fall out of the Air whereas had they come down sooner they had been drowned in the Water That this Oiliness should be of just such a quantity as was sufficient for use just enough that is to mix with those Particles and to make them into a good Soil whereas if it had been more it would have overflowed them and made the Earth useless as a greazy clod if less it would not have imbib'd them but they must have lien loose above in a fine and dry powder that would have rendred the Earth barren as an heap of Dust. That the Waters also should be of a due Proportion just sufficient that is to make a temporary Deluge and then to retire into the Deep and make a durable Sea whereas had there been much less the Earth upon its Disruption could not have been drowned and had there been much more it must have been quite swallowed up for ever That all these things should be thus is altogether precarious and not to be admitted but upon better evidence than on their behalf is given in For here any one will be of the Theorist's Judgment as he has declared it That things of moment such as he treats of are not to stand upon weak and tottering dubious and conjectural Grounds but to be founded upon SOME CLEAR AND INVINCIBLE EVIDENCE But then he who talks at this rate ought when he writes of such momentous things to make them out very clearly and evidently Else by what he says more in the same paragraph he proclaims himself guilty of a rash attempt even of tampering where he ought not to meddle and of striving to enter at that Door where GOD and Nature have both agreed to shut him out For did they think good to let him in it should be by such a way as is certain he tells us and wherein he should walk with the aforesaid evidence on his side Now this I say being his declared Judgment the Phaenomena's above-mentioned should have been more fully explained and made out and also more throughly confirmed and made good 5. But besides those there is another behind which if lookt into will not only be found as Precarious as any of the rest but also Vnphilosophical And that is The descent of the Terrestrial Particles out of the Air which constituted the Praediluvian Earth For of those particles the Theory will have that Earth to be made Which were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or kind of excrementitious Sediment that the Body of the Air threw out when it purified it self But that such a prodigious quantity of gross and feculent substance should then lodge in that part of the Chaos which was so light and volatile at the same time as to mount above other Bodies and also keep it self upon the wing and play in open places might justly be questioned For if such a vast deal of drossy stuff were mixed with the Aereal matter then whatever natural disposition through levity it might have to mount up that one would think should have so pinioned its Wings as to have kept it down at least from rising very high and have been so heavy a clog upon it as to have spoiled its playing in open places at least its playing up so far as the Moon Yet that the Theory allows it to have done so is evident For it supposeth them to have showred down not only from the middle Regions but from the whole capacity or extent of those vast spaces betwixt the Moon and us A supposition that is not only precarious but also seems I say to be somewhat Vnphilosophical For though upon the Theory's account it was necessary these Particles should fill such vast spaces that so the Air might be able to contain enough of them and also have room enough wherein to move and by motion to purge it self and cast them out yet how will the Phaenomenon fall in with a smooth Philosophic Explication For in short either the Bounds of the Chaos and the Sphaere of its gravity as I may call it did extend as high as the Moon or they did not If they did not how came these Particles there Especially in such plenty as to descend from thence in showers Yea how could they come down at all Let Philosophy make it out In case the Bounds of the Chaos and the Sphere of its gravity did reach so high as the Moon then why did not she come tumbling down with those Particles or rather sooner than they as being much heavier Let Philosophy give an account of that For I think we have proved she was then in our neighbourhood though it seems there might be more reason for that Doubt than we were at first aware of 6. And as this Assertion is not very consistent with Philosophy in it self so in the Consequence of it it is against Scripture That assures us That Light was the Product of the first day And as it was made then so it was made visible in these inferiour Regions But this could not be in case the Earth were formed according to The Theory the Air would have been so full of terrestrial Dregs For it then contained enough of such Dregs to compose an Earthly Orb of above one and twenty Thousand Miles in Perimeter and of a depth or thickness we know not how great And such unspeakable measures of Earth in the Air must needs fill it with darkness yea with such a spissitude and opacity as would utterly have spoiled the Pellucidness of it for a considerable height above the Chaos at least For the coarsest and heaviest of the floating Particles setling continually towards the Chaos and the nearer they approached it drawing still into a narrower compass by reason the spaces out of which they descended were much larger than those into which they gathered the mighty throng of them they being crowded together as close as their gravity could squeez them in their fall would have made a Ring of such darkness about the Chaos as would have been like to that which once plagued Egypt It would have been palpable
that is as containing a kind of tangible thickness and clamminess in it Yet in the first day upon GOD's most powerful â—iat given there was light Gen. 1. 3. Which plainly argues That the Body of the Air could not then be of so foul a Constitution If it had though GOD when he pronounced Let there be light had made the Sun which he did not and made him much brighter than he is he could not have illightned these lower Regions as being not only clouded and covered but even stuffed as it were with an impenetrable density or kind of material darkness so far as the aforesaid Ring of Circle about the Chaos reached But then how much less could that Light have done it which was pre-existent to the sun and was no more than a faint glimmering in compare with his Glory Yet on the first day I say there was Light in the Chaotic World even on the very Waters of the Chaos For when GOD said Let there be light where can that Light be thought to have shined more especially than where he said before there was darkness And where was darkness said to be before but upon the face of the deep Gen. 1. 2. And therefore Light must be shot down thither in obedience to the Divine Command But then here again this Hypothesis seems to be unwarrantable as grating too much upon Holy Scripture For whereas that certifies That there was Light on the first day and upon the superficies of the Abyss as the Context intimates this Hypothesis puts nature into such a condition as made it impossible it should be so and positively avers That it was quite contrary For it tells us The Air was as yet thick gross and dark And when was it thus Why most certainly after the first day was past For it was after that the immense Aereal Mass had had time to purifie it self in a great measure as appears by what follows There being abundance of little Particles swimming in it still after the grossest were sunk down And if the Air were thick and dark then after the grossest Particles were sunk down what was it before when they were but sinking And therefore as the first darkness at the World's Formation is acknowledged to proceed ex ipsius Aeris impuritate perturbatione from the impurity and roil of the Air so the Theory calls it by the name of Tenebrae diuturnae lasting darkness CHAP. IV. 1. A Third Exception against the Formation of the Earth the Fire at the Center of it 2. The Theory faulty in not setting forth the Beginning of the Chaos which was necessary to be done 3. Such a Chaos was not Created 4. Nor yet produced in Des-Cartes his way 5. And therefore that Central Fire seems a thing unreasonable 6. That the Chaos was produced in the Cartesian way not to be allowed by the Theory 7. The Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also insinuates the contrary 8. The Septuagint cleared in one passage 9. The Story of the Creation not to be restrained to the Terrestrial World 1. THAT the Earth is not the solidest of the Planets may well be inferred from its nearness to the Sun And therefore we see Mars a less Planet by much advanced above the Earth upon the account of his solidity And for the same reason he may be of such a rutilant or â—iery colour as he is which Complexion among the Hebrews gives him the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the red Planet But though that degree of Proximity which the Earth holds to the Sun shows her to be of a looser substance of a more porous and less solid nature yet it cannot presently be improved into an Argument of her having a great quantity of Fire at her Center This the Theorist admits of as a thing very reasonable that there is a Fire at the Center of the Earth as there is a Yolk in the middle of an Egg. But how can it be so reasonable according to his Hypothesis For according to that the Earth was formed out of a Chaos as we have heard And that Chaos was nothing but a fluid Mass consisting of earthly Principles as is intimated in these words By the Chaos I understand the matter of the Earth and Heavens without form or order reduced into a fluid Mass wherein are the materials and ingredients of all Bodies Suppose then the Elements Air Water and Earth which are the principles of all terrestrial Bodies mingled without any order c. Now when the Chaos was a confused Mass in its principles so wholly terrestrial and in its constitution so wholly fluid it is so far from being very reasonble to allow a Fire at the Center of it and if there were not a Fire at the Center of that how could there be one at the Center of the Earth that it would rather be very absurd to do it For so in the First place very contrary and discordant natures must have been tied to dwell together in the closest cohabitation or a perfect contiguity In which state of conjunction or immediate vicinity how could they have subsisted without preying upon and destroying one another Either the Fire would have dissipated the ambient fluid Bodies that were near it or else those fluid humid Bodies would have suffocated and extinguish'd the Fire they inclosed Or if they could have dwelt together peaceably for a while and not have invaded one another Yet Secondly When the Chaos began to separate and the grossest parts of it to sink down those that subsided first it being a fluid Mass must have met at the very Center of it and the rest as they followed would have gathered close about them and so constituting a central Globe of Earth solid throughout would have left no hollow space within it for a receptacle of Fire Or Lastly If there had been room left for Fire at the Center of the chaos yet how should Fire have conveyed it self into that place of reception or by any means have come to dwell there 2. To make this out it was necessary that the Beginning of the Chaos or the way of its entring into the World should have been declared by the Theory But it is not done which seems to be a king of flaw in the Hypothesis It takes no notice of the cause of its Origin nor of the manner of its Production whereby this difficulty might have been prevented or cleared up And truly the way or manner of its rise or emergency into being is necessary to be known for the explaining of other difficulties as well as this For upon it depends the solution of several Phaenomena's and very material ones I name but one The Magnetism of the Earth as to the influence it has upon the Index nauticus or Needle of the Mariner's Compass the pointing or Direction of which is not so curious and surprizing but it is a useful in the affairs of human Life But then if the Theorist by setting his
considering how slowly they must have crept as having no kind of Precipices or steeper downfals to quicken them and how glib they must have been by gliding gently upon the fat and viscous Glebe and what a thick and thrummy and close wrought Mantle the Earth then wore for them to have furrowed out deep and winding passages in that Earth must have been a good whiles work again if fecible at all without the help of Art For Lastly It seems improbable that any Rivers without the help of that should have been produced The reason is this The Rains descending at all times and in all places alike a round the Poles and the whole surface of the Earth being more level and even than any Plain in the World the Waters instead of parting into streams would have spread over all the Earth at once in a general diffusion as any one may find by pouring Water upon a Globe By which overflow the Primigenial Soil which was a light and soft Mold being suppled into a perfect Moor or Quagmire must have continued drowned till by reducing the Water into artificial Canels it could have been laid dry But when there would have been hands for this great work GOD making Mankind but in one single Pair let them that please consider And they may think also where Paradise could have been and what shift poor Fowls and Beasts yea Men themselves should have made till the Earth like a Fen thus under Water could have been cut and drained 3. Now so slow and late a Production of Rivers would have drawn two great inconveniences after it It would have clashed with Scripture and charged Providence with Preposterousness First It would have clashed with Scripture For no sooner was Man created and placed in Paradise but presently we read That a River went out of Eden to water the garden Gen. 2. 10. But had all Rivers come into being as the Theory teaches one could never have been there so early Nor did it go out of Eden by running through it only but it arose there say some and as much is signified they would perswade us by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which denotes its going out they tell us as a Child goes out of the Womb and so the River must be born in Eden or spring up originally there But the Word is too commonly used in a larger sense both in the Sacred and Rabbinical Writings to have any such stress laid upon it Though most certain it is that a River there was in Eden and in order of Divine Story and so why not in order of time very early even before the Fall of Adam or the Formation of Eve And which is farther remarkable it was a large River too for it was parted into several Heads and able to feed most considerable streams One of which namely Euphrates is reckoned among the biggest Rivers in the World to this day But had it come by derivation from the Polar Fountains it could never have been made so soon much less could it have been so large And then besides we read at the Sixth Verse of the same Chapter that GOD had not caused to rain upon the Earth as yet and so that River could not possibly proceed from Rains that fell about the ends or Poles of it Though by the way how that Expression should countenance an Impluvious state before the Flood as the Latin Theory would â—ake it is not so clear and easie to be understood For if we consider there was no Water upon that Earth but what fell in Rain And in two Regions of that Earth there were Rains continually descending and they seem to have been of little other use than for those Rains to come down in And to say That by the Earth there was meant only Regiones cultâ— or the inhabited Countries of the Earth would be an unwarranted restriction of the Scriptures sense For in the Story of the Creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth is still put as we may observe for the entire Globe of the Earth or at least for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole face of the ground as Gen. 2. 6. Nor may it be said to be spoken ad captum vulgi as to the common peoples apprehension For surely they were not such dull Souls in the first World but had Nature stood in that order as the Theory sets it they would have traced their Rivers to their heads many hundreds of Years before the Deluge and have been generally and throughly acquainted with those Rains by which they were raised They would then have known as well that Rivers came from Rains at the ends of the Earth as we do now that Gold comes from Guinea or the distant Indies Yea the want of room they multiplying exceedingly would have forced them to find out the rainy Regions while they must have spread their Colonies to the Borders of them Secondly It would tax the Providence of Heaven with Praeposterousness That is in reference to one sort of Animals the Fishes For then they must have been brought into being before there were fit Receptacles for them I confess GOD said Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life Gen. 1. 20. Which may seem to take off the objected inconvenience For if so be that the Waters were to bring forth Fishes before they existed they could not lack agreeable Mansions upon their first emergency into being inasmuch as the same Element was to afford them habitation from whence they derived their production But grant that the Waters were to be productive of Fishes Yet they might not be so prima vice at the very first Or if they did then help towards producing them it could be only by yielding a rude kind of matter out of which they might be formed such as Adam's Rib was for the making of Eve And therefore though GOD said at the Twentieth Verse Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life Yet in the next Verse it is said That GOD CREATED every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly Where if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 created does not denote GOD's making them out of pure nothing according to the rigid School-notion of Creation yet it signifies which is the lowest sense of the word that he made them ex materia prorsus inhabili out of matter of it self till the Creator chang'd and disposed it altogether unfit for such an use So that albeit the Waters brought forth Fishes yet they did not do it by any vis plastica formative power of their own solely but so far as they afforded general and naturally inept Materials for their composition And in some sense the Waters we know have brought forth Fishes ever since That is by cherishing their Spermata or Spawn committed to them For they receiving those young and tender rudiments of life upon their first ejection or exclusion into their liquid Wombs do nurse up the
them were to be â—ound at the rate we have them And truly the perpetual absence of them must needs have made the Air more severely nipping in the Frigid Zones then than it is now Especially they being shot out so far from the Sun by virtue of the oblong figure of the first Earth For even as the Earth is now of a Globular make the Rains might have fallen in the Frigid Zones for ten Degrees latitude or six hundred Miles together and yet on the one side have been five Degrees distant from the Poles themselves and on the other side have been seventy five Degrees distant from the Sun in the Aequinox which is as far to half a Degree as he is ever remov'd from us But then if we add better than fourteen Degrees more to each Pole upon accompt of the Earth's Oâ—iformity the Rains must be removed a great way farther from the Sun still perhaps the whole fourteen Degrees into Climates most horridly cold and freezing And though there would have been constant Day about the very Poles yet in this Oval Earth there would have been as much Night in the presumed rainy Regions as in any other part of it whatever For so we may observe that those rays of the Sun which fell upon that Earth suppose at k and l whereabouts according to the Hydrographic Scheme in the Theory we may imagine the Rainy Regions were could not illighten the opposite side of it at m and n till such time as those points were turned to him which they could not be sooner than the point f where it must have been of the biggest circumference measuring it in way of Longitude Indeed it must be owned that it is not the Sun's distance in Winter which does only or chiefly make our Climate so cold but the oblique falling of his beams on the Earth So that instead of his retreating Southward forty seven Degrees the whole space between the Tropics were he at the time of his entring into Cancer when he is nearest to us but elevated directly as many Degrees or removed only perpendicularly from us our Winter if any would be very moderate because his beams would be reflected in the same Angles as before But his recession from us being in way of latitude or declination â—is Rays must fall the more obliquely upon the Earth From which kind of incidence it comes to pass that they rebound in obtuse Angles and the heat which should be caused by more direct reverberations is impaired As also many of his beams are reflected by the Atmosphaere another way and come not at us at all But then the Sun being farther distant from the rainy Regions in the praediluvian Earth his beams must have fallen more obliquely upon them still and so the cold must have been greater there because his influence was less And therefore what can be thought but that the Dewy Rains if any could have been in those parts should either in falling have been turned into Hails or if they fell in Water have been frozen into Ice And so instead of streaming along and refreshing the Earth they must have stood congeled into Mountains Especially if we consider that extremely cold hanging Mists must have always incircled those Regions above and so have shut out that sorry kind of influence which might have been derived from the so remote and feeble Sun It may a little inforce what has been said that all who have held with the Theorist the Torrid Zone was uninhabitable by reason of heat ever believed that the Frigid ones were so through extremity of cold as Aristotle Cicero Strabo Mela Pliny and others To which add That several Navigators attempting to find out a nearer course to China have been frozen to death Yet they failed nothing so far Northward as the rainy Regions in the Oval Earth must have lain Though without question they chose the most seasonable time for the Enterprize I mean when the Sun was on this side of the Aequator where now he may advance though he could not do so says the Theory before the Flood twenty three Degrees and an half which on Earth we reckon about fourteen hundred Miles Nor is what Mercator remembers touching Novâ— Zembla impertinent to the Case Here the Air is very sharp and the Cold most vehement and intolerable And again their Tents are covered with Whales skins the Cold being continually very sharp in these parts Their drink the Geographer goes on is warm blood of wild Beasts or else Ice water there are no Rivers or Springs because the violence of the Cold does so shut up the Earth that Springs of waters cannot break forth And where Rivers cannot flow out of the Earth for Forst surely they cannot fall down from Heaven Yet this Island is extended but form the Seventieth to the Seventy sixth Degree of Northern Latitude or thereabouts Speed also informs us that the Isles of Shetland in the Deucalidonian Sea are ever covered with Ice and Snow Yet Ptolomy placeth them but in the Sixty third Degree of Latitude which is a good way on this side of the Arctic Circle Heylin also says of Island that it is a damnable cold Country And Blaeu reports of the Frigid Zones Perpetuum istic horridumque est frigus There is perpetual and horrid Cold. Lastly the Theorist himself so far agrees with us as to own that the Frigid Zones in the first Earth were uninhabitable and that by reason of Cold as well as Moisture CHAP. VI. 1. Another Exception against the Hypothesis it would have drowned the world though Man had not sinned 2 Or though Mankind had been never so penitent 3. Which would have reflected upon Providence and imboldened the Atheist 1. WE are taught from above That GOD brought in the Flood upon the World of the VNGODLY That is it was a Judicial act of His and a just revenge which he took upon the impious They had grievously offended and provoked His MAJESTY by very great and epidemical Sins For as we read in the Sixth of Genesis the wickedness of Man was great and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted his way before him Whereupon the HOLY GHOST speaking of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of Men declares that he was grieved at the heart to see this And such was the grief he conceived that He repented He made Man And so vehemently did He repent of making him that He resolved to destroy him again And not only him but most of his fellow creatures with him made in good measure for his use and benefit And not only them but the Earth it self in some sense which had been the scene of his vanity and unrighteousness And at length He decrees and proclaims aloud that the Instrument of this fearful general destruction should be a Deluge of water Gen. 6. 17. So that nothing can be more clear than that the Flood
Landskips And however the Theorist does sometimes disparage the Mountainous parts of the Earth at such a rate as if they had been wholly unworthy of the care of Nature and she had scorned to put her hand to the work of their â—ormation and indeed his Hypothesis makes them nothing but ruines yet another while when the ingenious Man is pleased to turn the stream of his Eloquence the contrary way he represents them though certainly the most horrid visible pieces of Nature as exceeding grateful to Beholders Yea he makes this very Earth of ours and that in the hideously amazing and gastly Cragginess of its Mountains to afford more delights to contemplative Minds than ever the Roman or Grecian Theaters did or those Sports wherewith they entertained Spectators So he expresseth himself in the Latin Theory Pag. 89 90. And at the same time we find him transported as it were into a pleasing rapture or pang of Admiration through the singular content and satisfaction he found from the prospect and consideration of what we speak of And truly that roughness brokenness and multiform confusion in the surface of the Earth which to the inadvertent may seem to be nothing but inelegancies or frightful Disfigurements to thinking Men will appear to be as the Tornings and Carvings and ornamental Sculptures that make up the Lineaments and Features of Nature not to say her Braveries Nor need we wonder that the Theorist should be so mightily pleased and raised by the sight and contemplation of these things for though some would take them for flaws and botches and the fag ends of Nature yet in them a quick and piercing Eye can easily discern not only her pretty dexterous Mechanisms but the marvellous and adoreable Skill of her Maker most rarely expressed And therefore the inspired Psalmist meditating upon the Earth in its present Form and particularly revolving in his Holy Thoughts the Mountains the high Hills the Rocks and the great and wide Sea was so taken with them that he could not but think they had GOD for the cause or Author of them And accordingly he declared and proclaimed the worst of them not only to be produced by him but to be the product of his infinite Wisdom O LORD in wisdom hast thou made them all Psal. 104. 24. And when the Divine Wisdom brought forth the Earth and these pieces of it and ordered them into their present places and postures and so admirably well as that the Psalmist directed by the Heavenly SPIRIT could not chuse but celebrate the Production and disposition of them has not this Earth as much to shew for its being made by Rulâ— and Measure as another of a pretended different Form could have had especially when it must all over have been but one vast Plain And then in the Second place this Form of the Earth is most Vseful likewise It appears to be so in sundry respects and very considerable ones For now a great part of Mankind live by the Seas either in way of Traffick or Navigation not to say that all are some way or other the better for them But in the First World says the Theory there was no Sea Mountains also now are most eminently serviceable That is to say in Bounding Nations in Dividing Kingdoms in Deriving Rivers in Yielding Minerals and in breeding and harbouring innumerable wild Creatures I might also add in contributing somewhat towards enlarging the Earth and inabling it in some Countries to sustain its Inhabitants Thus it is alledged as one Reason why Palestine could maintain so many of old that the Country was rising and falling into Hills and Vales whereby ground was gâ—ined and so the Land was far roomthier to use my Author's Phrase And indeed that there were store of Hills in Iudea and very fruitful ones is insinuated by the Royal Prophet where he calls upon Men to give praise to GOD for making Grass to grow upon the Mountains But in the first Earth there were no Mountains neither Lastly The Earth in its present Form and State is attended with Rains and seasonable Showres Whereas in its other Figure and capacity it must have been all over cut into Rills and Aqueducts for the Watring of Mens Grounds and their trouble in doing it would have been endless and unspeakable because it must generally have been done by hand What Tongue can express the toil they must have had in a manual watring of Fields Woods Groves Orchards c. and in slicing a great part of the Earth in pieces thus to moisten and cultivate the rest But now kind Nature saves them that labour while Clouds do the work effectually for them For they filling their Buckets by the help of the Sun and then emptying the same to the best advantage excuse them from the drudgery by taking it upon themselves And that these Rules whereby we measure the Vsefulness of this Earth and shew it to be more excellent than that of the Theory are the most true and proper Rules is manifest from GOD's making use of the same in a Case not unlike For he comparing Egypt and Palestine prefers the latter before the former because in Egypt the Seed sown was watered with the foot as a garden of herbs but Palestine was a land of hills and valleys and drank water of the rain of heaven Deut. 11. 10 11. So that if an Earth most comely and decent in it self and also most Vseful and convenient for Men may most properly be said to be laid in measures and to have had the line stretched upon it or the Rule applied to it as questionless it may than the present Form of the Earth may challenge this Text more justly to it self than the other could do had it ever been And however the Architecture of that is presumed to surpass the Architecture of this yet one thing may here be remarked concerning it That the Holy Man's Language does but indifferently sute it For to talk of Foundations in such a Circle or of a Corner-stone in such a spherical Arch as the primitive Earth is conceived to be sounds but harshly The Sixth Place consists of the 8 9 10 and 11 th Verses of the same Chapter where GOD continues his Interrogatories thus Or who shut up the Sea with Doors when it brake forth as if it had issued out of a Womb When I made the Cloud the garment thereof and thick darkness a swadling band for it and brake up for it my decreed placâ— and set bars and doors And said Hitherto shalt thou come but no farther and here shall thy proud waves be staied Which Period the Theory would have to be understood of the breaking forth of the Sea at the opening of the Abyss but the Context allows it not For that plainly signifies that what the Sea is here said to do and what is said to be done to that was transacted in the beginning when the Foundations of the Earth were fastened and the corner-stone
the Ecliptic but only that it was once in a nearer Parallelism to the axis of the Aequator than Anaxagoras found it in his days And so the Declination he meant might be quite different from that we contend about which Astronomy imputes to the wallowing of the Earth in its annual motion If this will not satisfie I have one thing more to offer Grant that Anaxagoras should mean that very Declination which the Theory would have him yet this truly would contribute little towards the Proof of the thing For he was a Man as like to be heterodox as like to broach and maintain false and groundless Opinions as any of the learned Ancients This perswasion concerning him I build upon a wretched Foundation of his own laying I mean that abominably gross and shamefully absurd Assertion of his That an huge Stone by the River Aegos in Thracia fell down from the Sun An extravagance so childish and ridiculously unreasonable as might justly give a wound and a very mortal one to his Philosophic reputation and make the World conclude that as to Skill in Astronomy he did not exceed Laertius remembers this and tells how Euripides his Scholar did hereupon call the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 golden Glebe Plutarch also mentions it in the Life of Lysander and assures us that as the Stone was shown for a wonder so it was venerable and of high esteem Pliny relates the matter more largely But in case we should believe it says he that a Stone could descend from the Sun fareâ—ell the knowledge of Natures Works and welcome Confusion A very proper Reflection or Inference Nor is this to be lookt upon as a meer â—lip in Anaxagoras or an unlucky error upon which he stumbled by chance It must be his settled and approved Judgment and I make it out thus It is very agreeable to other Notions of his or to the strain or genius of his Philosophy Witness that strange way he invented for generating the Stars For he thought that the ambient aether being of a fiery nature did by its rapid circumgyration snatch up Stones from the Earth and by burning them turn them into Stars According to the rate of which Philosophy that Stone of which the Sun was delivered might possibly be a Star And to this Diogenes very gravely subscribes For he roundly pronounces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it was a stony Star which fell like fire at the River Aegos Which whoever can think will not stick to credit Plutarch's Story of a Lion that in Peloponnesus fell down from the Moon he being flung off thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by some violent agitation which she suffered Such was the Philosophy of that Age. This I have noted not to disparage Anaxagoras or Diogenes but only to signifie That where they stand alone or are more positive than others in asserting any dark or doubtful Opinion we have no reason presently to run over to them and to lay the stress of our belief upon their Authorities especially when in so doing we must walk contrary to the whole World of the Learned at once Yet so it happens that the most likely evidence which the Theory brings in for the Earth's Declination and so for its Right Position and Praediluvian Aequinox is borrowed of these two Men. Fig. 3 Page 186 The Second Query is this Granting there was such an Aequinox in the first World would not the natural day towards the latter end of that World have been longer than in the former periods of the same For while the outward shell or sphere of Earth was contiguous with the Abyss it seems very likely that it was carried about with more celerity than it could be afterwards when that contiguity ceased by reason the Waters of the Abyss were exhaled And in case that external Cortex the then habitable Earth did abate of its diurnal Motion upon losing its contiguousness with the Abyss it inclosed and the wider the distance grew betwixt them the slower was its rotation which must follow if the failure of the contiguity we speak of did at first retard its gyration then the days just before the Flood must of necessity be longer than ever they were in the prediluvian World supposing Day and Night be made by the Earth's turning upon its own axis Especially if the Moon came late into the Earth's Neighbourhood For then she being to be carried about in the exterior part of the Earth's Vortex would have slacked its Motion as an heavy Clogg hanged upon the Rim of a Wheel makes it turn more slowly Yet that the days just before the Flood were of no unusual length is evident in the very Story of the Flood the duration of which we find computed by Months consisting of Thirty Days apiece Whereas had Days been grown longer fewer of them would have made a Month. CHAP. IX 1. The Oval Figure of the Primitive Earth excepted against from the nature of that Mass upon which it was founded 2. And from its Position in its Annual Motion 3. As also from the Roundness of the Present Earth 4. Which Roundness could not accrue to the Earth from its Disruption in regard that would have rendred it more Oval still in case it had been Oval from the beginning 5. â—r at least would not have made it less Oval than it was 1. AMong the several Properties of the Prediluvian Earth there was none more needful than its Oviformity But as needful as it was it seems a thing improbable The necessity of it is apparent from its Usefulness and that was as great as can well be imagined For it was to be as an Aqueduct to the first World or a general Instrument of deriving Waters into all the inhabited Quarters of it So that without it according to the Laws of this New Hypothesis the Earth would have been outwardly but a lump of Sand and as miserably barren as any piece of Wilderness the worst Arabia has And yet if we attend to the first Earth's Origination how could it be of an Oval Shape For a liquid Mass having its Center in it self and being of a Subâ—tance equally yielding in all its parts and likewise equally compressed by an ambient body must of necessity be equally extended in all the lines of its circumâ—erence that is it must be exactly round or spherical For why any piece thereof should thrust up higher or shoot out farther from the common Center than the rest there can be no reason given Unless according to the Hylozoic Philosophy we should suppose there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle of Life or self-movency in matter which indeed is to exalt it above its capacity and to give it a property that destroys its nature And were not these the very circumstances of that Mass whereon the Primitive Earth was founded For First It was self-centred and by vertue of its proper Centre so entirely coherent and united that no parts of it had the
least tendency towards jetting out or flying off from the whole but by the Laws of gravity were all impregnated with the contrary determination a nitency inward or downward towards the Central Point And then Secondly It was Liquid also and so of a yielding temper or consistency Ready to give way to the lightest pressures and by a forward pliantness to fall into that Figure into which the circumâ—luent Air would fashion it For that Element alone or a thinner than that but by moving and gently gliding upon it might easily smooth it into perfect evenness provided it did but encompass it around and so was capable of slicking it by a general levigation And therefore Thirdly It swam in such a fluid Element as did so environ it grasping it on all sides with a soft compression So that during its fluitation in that surrounding and gently constringent Medium it could not but be of a truly Globular Form Which admitted the Primitive Earth must needs be so too and not Oval as being cast upon this Globous Mould But to this it is opposed That the Liquid Mass whereon the first Earth was built was not quiescent So it might yea it must have been truly spherical And the Theory it self owns as much I nothing doubt but amass of Water will naturally make it self into a spherical Figure about its own centre if so be it rests immovable and quiet But then it adds But in case it be turned swiftly about its Center by that agitation it will necessarily make it self oblong and become of a Figure somewhat Oval just as when Waters are pusht forward in a Vessel or in some part of a Sea or Lake are driven by a Wind toward the Shores we see the Waves stretch themselves out long-ways In answer to which let it be confessed That the Liquid Mass on which the Earth was raised was rolled about and that very swiftly upon its own Centre Yet that by vertue of its gyration it should be shaped into an Oval fashion was not at all necessary nor will the Instances brought in prove it was so there being no parity or just proportion betwixt the several Cases For for Waters to be forced an end by the external violence of Winds where the impression propelling them is superficial and their motion progressive is a different thing from their circumrotation in one entire Moles where they turn only with a natural and most even Course carrying the ambient body whereby they are â—ircumscribed and helpt to keep their Figure round along with them For thus we see that notwithstanding the Earth turns so swiftly that every point in its circumference under the Aequator moves at the rate of fifteen Degrees nine hundred Miles an hour yet the finest Sand upon the surface of the Earth or the lightest Dust upon the tops of the Mountains is never dissipated or disturbed in the least by this whisking circumvolution Whence we may gather the case being much the same that the whirling Globe of Water was so far from a necessity of growing oblong by its rotation that that very thing might contribute to preserving it in a Globular Forâ— But therefore let us hear what the Theory says further and more distinctly yet touching the Cause of the Oval Figure of that Mass of Water which was the basis of the primitive Earth It speaks it fully in these words Nor is the reason of this Figure obscure in a Globe of Water which is moved circularly for the Mass of Water being much more agitated under the Aequator than the Waters towards the Poles where it passed through lesser circles those parts which were most moved endeavouring to recede from the Centre of their motion when they could not quite spring up and fly away because of the Air which lay upon them on every side nor yet could fall back again as being checked and resisted by that Air they were unable so free themselves any other way than by flowing down to the sides for Waters being pent do flow that way where they find easiest passage and from that flowing down of the Waters to the sides and disburthening of the middle parts about the Aequator the Globe of Water might become somewhat oblong So that the Cause of the Oval Figure in the Chaotic Waters seems in short to be this Their discharging themselves defluendo ad latera by flowing down to the sides or Poles of the Globe upon their swelling or rising up by means of their rapid circular motion about the Aequator But granting the Waters did swell and rise thereabouts which yet would admit of dispute against this piece of the Theory's Hypothesis it may be thus excepted Either the Waters did flow down to the sides or Poles of the Globe till it became Oval or they did not If they did not flow down so long the Hypothesis fails and the watry Mass could never be Oval If they did flow down so long then they must flow down till they flowed down upwards Pardon the absurdity of the Expression the absurdity of the thing occasions it For the Polar parts of the watry Mass as it became Oval were the highest being most distant from the Centre And yet from the Aequator they did defluere ad latera flow down to the Sides or Poles Which that they might do it was absolutely necessary that the parts about the Aequator should be highest else the Waters in flowing to the Poles would have been so far from flowing down that contrary to their natures they must have risen up above their Source And yet as absolutely necessary again it was that the Polar parts should be highest at last otherwise the watry Mass could never have been made of an Oval Figure And yet if it were made into that Figure by the Waters flowing down as the Theory says from about the Aequator to the sides or Polar parts then a third thing will be as necessary as either of the two mentioned namely That the Waters as was said before should flow down upwards So that it is as unlikely that the Mass of Waters was ever of an Oval Form as it is unlikely that a Contradiction should be true or that the Element of Water should of it self perform a motion which is beyond its power by being above or against its nature I say of it self for however there might be violence that of the circular motion in making it to swell about the Aequator yet when once it was risen there it was left to it self as I may say all farther force was taken off it and it might follow the duct of its own Principles of Gravity and Fluidity And accordingly it is said by the Theory se liberare to free it self from that force which it suffered in receding from its Center or rising up under the Aequator defluendo by falling off or flowing down a proper expression of the true natural motion of Water But then if the place it fell or flowed to
was higher than that it fell or flowed from as in this case it must prove before the watry Globe by Defluxion of its Water could be made Oval it is evident that the Water by a natural motion or of it self did perform a course against its nature For when it flowed down or is said to do so and according to its own nature ought to have done so in reality and according to the reason of the thing it flowed up Nor indeed could it possibly do otherwise to produce the great effect pretended unless it were possible for an Oval body to be highest in its middle parts And then truly but upon no other terms the watry Globe might become oblong ex illo defluxu aquarum ad latera exoneratione partium mediarum from that flowing down of the Waters to the sides which the Theory mentions and the disburthening of the middle parts of it Now if the watry Mass upon which the ingenious Theorist founds the first Earth could not be made Oval in the way he has invented then neither could that Earth be of an Oval Figure it being bound to put on the same shape which the Water had 2. Very improbable it is also that the first Earth should be Oval considering its Position or Direction in its Annual Motion For that was such as could not well consist with its Oval Figure In it its Poles are said to have pointed always to the Poles of the Ecliptic and so it would have been directed not unlike to Ships swimming side-ways Now put a Ship which is an Oval body into the smoothest stream imaginable and lay it cross that stream and see how long it will keep in that Position Will it always hold it No nor for any considerable while but by degrees will quickly wind and fall in to swim long-ways with it and continue mostly in that posture as suiting best with its own shape and the course of the Waters And truly that an Oviform Earth should lie cross-ways in the aâ—thereal Chanel and be carried round the Sun for Sixteen hundred years together and not change its site in compliance with the tendency or stream of it seems very strange if not impossible Especially when that Earth was thin comparatively and hollow like a Shell and so more light and ready to verge or be drawn aside from its supposed primitive situation The Present Earth though generally allowed to be of a spherical Figure and also of a solid composure throughout unless at its Centre and likewise according to the French Philosophy to be held by a particular hand of Nature in its inclining posture which must be more easie to be kept by a round Earth in the Medium which carries it than a Right Position by an oblong one is yet subject to wallowings in its Annual Motion And how then can it be thought that the First Earth which was oblong and had not that hand to hold it steady could preserve its axis in a constant parallelism to the axis of the Ecliptic till the time of the Flood It would rather have turned end-ways in the Celestial Stream and have stood for the most part in that direction as best agreeing with its own Form and the vehicular Current wherein it floated And so its axis by force of the aethereal matter being wrought into a coincidence with the Plain of the Ecliptic and the Ecliptic like a Colure passing through its Poles while its Poles would have lookt East and West and its Diurnal revolutions have gone North and South it would have brought such a confusion into the Heavens and Earth at once as is not easie to be expressed 3. And that the First Earth was not Oval methinks may in some measure be gathered from the Roundness or Sphericalness of the Present Earth For this Terraqueous Body on which we dwell is of a Spherical Fashion So Anaximander thought and also Pythagoras Parmenides and others of old as well as all of later days And as much is fairly inferrible from several things As First From its Conical Shadow Which Figure Zeno almost Two thousand Years since noted the Shadow of the Earth to be of And a common Argument for the Proof of it is fetcht from the Moon For in whatever place she has at any time entered into an Eclipse or emerged out of the same and whatever part of the Earth during any of her Eclipses has been turned to her still it has been observed that the Shadow cast by the Earth upon her Discus was always Circular which argues the Earth it self to be Globular And that it is so may be inferred Secondly From the Place of the Waters For were it Oval they would not fail to retire out of the Seas near the Poles and running down towards the Aequator of the Earth which would be the lowest part of it settle themselves around it in the middle Regions thereof But instead of this we see the Waters are so far from drawing off from the Northern Seas about the Pole that they abound most and are deepest there nor do we know of any thing but vast and deep Waters about the South-Pole neither Whereas I say were the Earth Oval and so the Poles of it highest the Waters must necessarily have settled about the midst of the Earth there being the lowest place and so the properest for their Situation And so the Sea in Figure would have resembled an Hoop or as a liquid Zone would have encompassed the Earth and divided it into two Hemispheres in the same manner that some worthy Ancients conceived it did for want of better Skill in Geography Thirdly If the Earth were Oval Navigation towards the Poles beyond such a Latitude as bounds the Sphericity of the Earth would be extreamly difficult if not impossible For then in such a course Ships must steer up hill and climb as it were all the way they swim as sailing in a perfect ascent But where would be Winds strong enough to heave them up such watry steepness Or in case they had sufficient strength to do it yet would not the Vessels rather pitch into and run under the Waters that bear against them than drive up upon their rising surface And let but the blustring Gales which push them upward cease and would they not forthwith stop Yea immediately tack about and being left to themselves settle down towards the Aequator again But we hearing of no such difficult sailing up the Polar Seas nor such retiring of Ships down to the Aequinoctial ones have still more reason to believe that the Earth and Water make a True Globe And grant that these Arguments will not perfectly demonstrate the Earth to be Spherical yet they being of more force to prove it is so than any ever brought to prove it otherwise we have reason to acquiesce in the received Opinion 4. But to this it may be answered In case the Earth be Round or Spherical now this is no good evidence that it
an abundance of Waters into it self and swells not with them For though the Stream of Volga which is thought to afford Waters enough in a Years time to drown the whole Earth continually discharges it self into the Caspian Sea it is never the fuller And therefore the Theory need not have instanced in that Sea as a distinct and separate Sea by it self Especially when it allows it to have communication with the Ocean by Subterraneous passages whereby it is really though not visibly joined to it and in some sense but one with it And then as for other Gulfs and Lakes that are distinct as to themselves and divided from the Ocean how inconsiderable are they in proportion to it But as so many Buckets-full to a large Pool Yet should the Waters run out of some huge Pool and settle together elsewhere as it might truly be said of them then that they are gathered together into one place though many Buckets-full should lodge in Plashes by the way so the Waters in general may rightly be affirmed by Mases to be gathered together into one place though a Multitude of small Receptacles and the Caspian larger than the rest remain apart 7. But a Third Objection is yet to be removed for I am willing to encounter all that are Material which is this If the Earth had Open Seas at first dividing it into Continents and Islands and interlacing and environing them as now they do how could the several parts thereof so separate be peopled with Men and stockt with Beasts Or to use the words of the Theory The propagating or conveying of Men and Animals into so many separate Worlds would be difficult to explain I answer First It is as difficult to make out how the Earth should be peopled before the Flood though the surface of it had been entire I mean upon account of that Torrid Zone which the Theory supposeth to have been in it Secondly Islands at first might be nothing so numerous as they are since But as many of them were founded as I may say after the Earth so many of them may be of later date than the Deluge Which factitious or upstart Isles came into being Three ways Some were produced of an abundance of Filth rolling down the Streams of Rivers and running into the Sea and settling there So were the Echinades spoken of before Concerning whose Production therefore Ovid makes the River out of which they came to speak thus Fluctus nosterque marisque Continuam deduxit humum pariterque revellit In totidem mediis quòd cernis Echinadas undis Others were thrust up in some Seas and appeared on a sudden Of this sort was Rhodos in the Carpathian Sea an hundred and twenty Miles in compass one of the ancient Academies of the Roman Monarchy Delos in the Archipelago one of the Fifty three Cyâ—lades Remarkable for the Temple of Apollo for most excellent Brass and for the Fountain Inopus which as Pliny affirms rises and falls as the Nile does and at the same times with it Alone hard by Cyzicum and betwen Lebedus and Teon Two Cities of Ionia Anaphe one of the Twelve Sporades I think or at least not far off them as lying near to Melos one of the chief of them Thera called also Calliste where Callimachus the Poet was born and whence they went who built Cyrene It appeared first in the fourth year of the hundred and thirty fifth Olympiad as Pliny relates and from it was the Ilet Therasia broken off Hiera the same with Automate which appeared about an hundred and thirty years after even in our time says the same Pliny upon the Eighth day before the Ides of July when M. Junius Syllanus and Lucius Balbus were Consuls Other Islands again have been made by Disjunction from the Main-land As some have been joined to Continents and become one with them as Aethusa in the Lybian Sea to Mundus Zephyria to Halicarnassus in Caria Narthecusa to Parthenius a Promontory of Arcadla Hybanda to Ionia and the like so some on the contrary have been ravished or rent away from the firm Land Thus Prochyta an Island in the Tuscan Sea was raised not far from Pâ—â—â—oli While a great Mountain in Inarime falling by an Earthquake poured forth that abundance of Earth of which it was composed And so it carries the account of its Original in its name as Delos also above mentioned does Cyprus a noted Island in the Mediterranean was divided from Syria says Pliny whence it is now distant at least an hundred Miles Sicily from Italy Euboea from Boeotia Besbycus from Bithynia And as some have thought Britain from France And truly if Syria and Cyprus which are now so remote from one another were once united this makes it the more probable that England and France might time out of mind have been joined by an Isthmus or neck of Land Thirdly It may be answered That as Islands at first were not so numerous so the bigger of them might not lie so far off from Continents as now they do the Earth being since much eaten away by Waters and so the distance betwixt them made much wider Or if they did lie so far from the Main-land yet the Inhabitants of such Lands might advance into the distant Isles by the help of some rude kind of Boats made of hollow Trees or the like Or if any were such out-liers as that they did not designedly make towards them or accidentally hit upon them we may without inconvenience grant them never to have been inhabited And so we read of that African Island St. Thomas in the Aâ—lantic Ocean under the Aequinoctial that at its first discovery though since the Flood it was unpeopled and had nothing in it but Woods Lastly I answer As to the grand Continents of the Earth Europe Africa and Asia which are three of them have known Inlets by Lands into one another And for ought we can tell there may be Inlets out of Asia into America in the Northern parts of them But however we are sure it is but a narrow Strait that separates the Kingdom of Anian from Tartary And who can say but that before the Flood and perhaps for a good while after it theâ—â— might be some Neck of Land coupling both together and affording an easie Passage out of the one into the other which may be since washt down or swallowed up For as the Earth does sometimes gain strangely upon the Water witness the City of Antioch to say nothing of Aegypt the Bay of Ambrasia the Flats of Teuthrania and the now Meadowy level where Maeander runs once belonging to Neptune's Empire which at first says Pliny stood upon the Sea coast but even in his time became an hundred and twenty five Miles distant from it so the Sea otherwhiles prevailes as much against the Land Thus the Atlantis a vast Continent bigger than Libya and all Asia says Plato by a terrible Earthquake lasting a day and a
this is that will be made good by casting in on the present Earth's side the sinking hollownesses and declivities of Valleys and the swelling protuberancies and gibbosities of Mountains neither of which the first Earth had Farther if People before the Flood were generally so long-liv'd and this their Longaevity proceeded from a perpetual Aequinox and settled benign temperature of the Air as the Theory holds then surely there would not have been that difference as to length of days amongst them as we find there was Thus Lamech's Age as appears in the Catalogue of long livers was short of Mathuselah's near two hundred years Whereas if the Cause of long life had been so uniform and steddy a thing and so generally and equally influential upon all as the supposed Aequinox the Effect would have answered it Longaevity it self would have been more regular and not have admitted of so much disparity Though the truth is such an Aequinox and such an Earth as we have heard of would rather help to shorten life we may think than draw it out to such a length For certain it is that they must shut all Winds and Storms and Clouds and Rains and Thunders and Lightnings out of the First World And what are these but Crises of Nature wherein those malignities and noxious qualities which are lodged in her and would corrupt her suffer a Solution and are discharged just as morbific humors in the Body first ferment and then are thrown off by proper Evacuations But when there could be no Storms or Thunders to put the Air into Motion and to purge and clarifie it that so it might continue pure and wholsome it being always calm and too quiescent like stagnant Water must needs putrifie and contract such foulness as would make it unhealthy and apt to cause grievous Diseases and Death Egypt is almost in the pretended state of the Primitive Earth Situate between the second and fifth Climates its longest day not above thirteen hours and an half has seldom any Rain but is watered by a River Yet how subject is Cairo to raging Plagues and where are greater or oftener Mortalities than there I have only this to add here If the Aequinox spoken of were the cause of a general Longaevity in the Prediluvian World then other Animals would have lived as long proportionably as Men. That is to say Lions Bears Wolves Dogs c. And these multiplying five or six times to say no more as fast as Men might have soon over-powered and destroyed them Also Rats Mice Fowls c. multiplying in that World all the year round and in far greater numbers than the Creatures aforesaid would have destroyed Mankind another way not by devouring them but the Fruits of the Earth which they were to live upon Especially when Men lived wholly on such Fruits without eating Flesh and had no such ways and instruments at first of killing those Vermin as now they have Nor did the Earth yield such plenty of Corn of its own accord as to satisfie all granivorous Creatures without preying upon Mens Corps For upon Man's sin the ground was cursed And upon that Malediction it afforded not Corn without Tillage For thence forward even Adam himself was to eat of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sorrow or labour all the days of his life nor could he have Bread butâ— at the price of his Sweat And if the first Men had no Bread-Corn but what their industry fetch'd out of the Earth how could they defend it against the swarms of devouring Creatures increasing always upon them by numerous Procreations Even barely to name all the sorts of them that would be hurtful upon the account we speak of and would unspeakably abound in a World that knows no season but Spring is so great a Task that I am willing to decline it Yet that other Creatures did live proportionably as long as Mankind the Theory owns where it makes the Longaevity of both at once a Third Phaenomenon of Paradise and the first Ages And which is veâ—â— considerable also it makes the first Earth the common Mother of all sorts of Animals which naturally bred them and brought them forth Whence it must follow that those Terrigenous Creatures strangely increasing by spontaneous Births would soon have filled the World even this way alone though they had not propagated their respective Kinds with such inconceiveable multitudes as would have easily spoiled the Earth and ruin'd Mankind Who as they were made in the beginning but in one Pair so they were capable comparatively but of a slow Multiplication And so Beasts Fowls Creeping Things Insects and all manner of deadly and pernicious Creatures would have poured in upon them in vast numbers and with incredible forces while they were unable to defend themselves against them CHAP. XIV 1. The Flood could not be caused by the Dissolution of the Earth and its falling into the Abyss 2. For it would have been inconsistent with the Description of Paradise 3. It would have destroy'd the Ark. 4. And have made the Earth of a Form different from what now it is of 5. It would also have reduced it to a miserable Barrenness 6. And have overturned the Buildings which outstood the Deluge 7. And have rendred the Covenant which GOD made with Noah vain and insignificant 1. LET us now go on to the next Vital or Primary Assertion of the Theory which is this The Disruption and Fall of the Earth into the Abyss which lay under it was that which made the Vniversal Deluge and the Destruction of the old World For the vehement and piercing heat of the Sun having parched and chapped the exterior Orb of Earth and so greatly weakned it and also having raised great store of Vapours out of the Deep within this Orb their force at length grew to be such that the Walls inclosing them being unable to hold them the whole Fabric brake being torn in pieces as it were with an Earthquake At which time the Fragments of that Orb of Earth of several sizes plunging into the Abyss in several Postures by their weight and greatness and violent descent caused such a rageing Tumult in the Waters and put them into so fierce Commotions and furious Agitations as made them boil and flow up above the tops of the new made Mountains and so caused the general Deluge But against this we Except also and say that the Flood could not be thus effected for several reasons 2. First Because it would be inconsistent with Moses's Description of Paradise What that Description is we have seen already and 't is done according to the proper Rules of Topography For first he marks it out by its Quality a Garden Then by its name Eden Then by its Situation Eastward Then by its Inhabitant Man Then by its Furniture every Tree pleasant to the sight and good for Food And lastly by a River to Water it which rising in it or running through or by it
did divide its stream into four Heads or Branches all which except one are made to refer to some Country or other Thus Pison is said to compass the Land of Havilah Gihon the Land of Cush or the Asian Aethiopia Hiddekel to run towards the East of Assyria But had the Earth been dissolved to make the Flood how could these Rivers or how could these Countries or any of either of them exist in Moses's time as being all swallowed up and for ever perisht in the fall of the Earth And yet if they were not in being then how could he describe the Terrestrial Paradise by them as he does And yet that they could have no being then the Theory acknowledges in these words 'T is true if you admit our Hypothesis concerning the fraction and disruption of the Earth at the Deluge then we cannot expect to find Rivers now as they were before their chanels are all broke up But then if the Hypothesis of the Theory were true what meant Moses to put these Rivers or any part of them or any Countries near them into the Topography of Paradise when together with the Earth they were all broke up and dissolved so long before To make the Argument as short as may be In case these Rivers were not in the first World it was impossible Paradise should be described by them And if they were in that World it was as impossible they should be in this And so we have good evidence that the general Flood could not be the Effect of the Earth's Dissolution For if it were so Moses's Description of Paradise must be false Which to affirm would be horrid Blasphemy it being dictated by the HOLY GHOST Nor will it mend the matter here to fall to Cabbalizing or Expounding things Mystically So we shall run upon the same Rock and put hideous affront upon the Truth of GOD by turning it into meer Figure and Falshood Two eminent Fathers subscribe expressly to this The first Epiphanius whose words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If Paradise be not sensible then there was no Fountain if no Fountain no River if no River no four Heads no Pison no Gihon no Tigris no Euphrates no Fruit no Fig-leaves nor did Eve eat of the Tree nor was there an Adam nor are there Men but the truth is a Fable and all but Allegories The other Father is St. Ierome who commenting on the fourth Verse of the first Chapter of Daniel infers thus from it Let their Dotage be silent who seeking for shadows and images in the truth do overthrow the truth it self while they conceit that Rivers and Trees and Paradise ought to submitt themselves to the Rules of Allegory And here it may not be amiss to take notice how empty and shallow and extreamly trifling their reasons are that argue against a Local Paradise and turn the Holy Story of it into Allegory Let the Observation run but upon one Writer who being as good as any that way may serve instead of all the rest I mean Philo Iudaeus Let no such impiety invade our reason says he as to suppose that GOD tills the ground or plants a Paradise inasmuch as we might presently doubt why he should do it For he could never thereby furnish himself with pleasant Mansions Retirements or Delights nor could such a fabulosity ever enter into our mind For the whole World could not be a worthy place or habitation for GOD who indeed is a place to himself and is full of and sufficient for himself Where the reason why there must be no Material Paradise and why it is impious for us to think that GOD planted one is because it would not be gratifying to him and because the whole World is not a fit habitation for him And therefore by the same reason there never was a World made neither As if Paradise had not been planted for Man but GOD. And elsewhere we find him harping upon the same string though it sounds but harshly To take the Paradise planted by GOD for a Garden of Vines and Olives Apples Pomgranates and the like Trees would be a gross and incurable folly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For one might say To what end was it for a pleasant dwelling place But then might not the whole World be thought the most contentful dwelling for GOD the Vniversal King And a little after Truly as GOD does not at all want other things so neither Fruits for nourishment Where the main reason against a Local Paradise again is that which really is none its Vselessness in reference to GOD. As if the design or end of a Paradise had been to supply the necessities or conveniencies of the DEITY and because GOD did not need it and could receive no benefit by it therefore it must be folly to think he planted it But what was it that made so learned a Man to argue thus 3. Secondly The Dissolution of the Earth could not be the Cause of the general Flood because it would have utterly destroyed Noah's Ark and all that were in it For then that great and heavy Vessel sinking with the Ground whereon it stood must certainly have been staved all to pieces if not overwhelm'd in the Ruines of the Earth I know that in favour of this Ark and for its Preservation it is supposed that the Abyss was not broken open till after the forty days Rain and that those rain-Rain-waters might set it a-float and so prevent its ruinous Fall by keeping it from that impetuous shock which it would have had if it had stood upon dry land when the Earth fell But this Supposition was noted above to be false and must needs be so For by the infallible Records we are assured That the Fountains of the great Deep were broke up and the Windows of Heaven opened in the same day Gen. 7. 11. Yea according to the order of the Holy Words if there be any Priority in those two Causes of the Deluge the Disruption of the Abyss should precede the breaking open of the Fountains being first mention'd And so the Ark having no Water to Float on must certainly have stood upon dry ground when the Earth fell And consequently the impetuous shock spoken of could by no means have been avoided but must certainly have destroy'd the Ark and all Creatures in it 4. Thirdly Had the Deluge been caused by the Earth's Dissolution the Earth or dry Land of this Terraqueous Globe would in likelihood have been of another Figure than what now it bears For under the Ecliptic which in the Primitive Situation of the Earth according to the Theory was its Aequinoctial and divided the Globe into two Hemispheres as the Aequator does now the dry ground is of most spatious extent and continuity Even from the South-west parts of Africa about Guinea there is one entire Tract of firm Land reaching as far as the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea That is for the
nostri mercatores peregrini referunt The large foundations of which huge mass are to be seen and it is called by the inhabitants of the Country the City of Cain as our Merchants and Strangers do report It is also avowed by Pomponius Mela to whom I give more credit in these things that the City of Jopa was built before the Flood over which Cephas was King whose name with his Brother Phineas together with the grounds and principles of their Religion was found graven upon certain Altars of Stone And it is not impossible that the ruines of the other City called Enoch by Annius might be seen though founded in the first Age. Solinus also witnesseth concerning Joppa that it was oppidum antiquissimum orbe toto utpote ante inundationem terrarum conditum the most ancient Town in the whole World as being built before the Flood upon the Earth Now if things were thus that is to say if a Pillar of Seth's erecting whereon was ingraved the rules of Science was standing after the Flood in the Country of Lycia If the City Enoch was so far from being ruined by the Deluge that it was not defaced If Ioppa was so far from being swallowed up or made an heap of Rubbish that the Altars in it were plainly discernible and standing in such order that the Inscriptions upon them were legible then most certainly the Earth's Dissolution and Fall into the Deep could not cause the Flood For them suppose that the Ground had fallen but a Mile or a Mile and a quarter downward which we must grant it did at least according to the heighth of the present Mountains set at ten Furlongs when carefully measured by Xenagoras of old and it would have given such a terrible jar or jounce as would have shattered the abovesaid Structures all down and laid them flat upon the Earth if not sunk them into it And that which would have made it more difficult for them to have continued standing was their Situation For Enoch is said to be built about the Mountains of Libanus But then about the Mountains the Waters would have been most irresistably violent had the Flood proceeded from the Earth's Dissolution So we are assured by the Theory The pressure of a great mass of Earth falling into the Abyss could not but impel the Water with so much strength as would carry it up to a great height in the Air and to the top of any thing that lay in its way any eminency or high fragment whatsoever and then rowling back again it would sweep down with it whatsoever it rusht upon Woods Buildings Living-creatures and carry them all headlong into the great Gulf. So that Enoch being situate about the Mountain Libanus the very force of the Waters alone perhaps might have born it down And then as to Ioppa I have some where read That it is oppidum monte situm too a Town situate on an Hill Or if it be not for certain it stands just upon the brink of the Mediterranean Sea and so could never have escaped being overturn'd For besides that it must have been shaken with the general fall of the Ground it was placed just where the mighty Fragment which dived into the Mediterranean or made the bottom of it was riven off and so at the time of its hideous splitting off the poor City must needs have suffered a very dismal Concussion And the like may be said in a good measure of the Pillar of Seth it standing not far from the Sea neither I know the very Being is questioned of Seth's Pillar c. But what some doubt others believe and having all Antiquity as the cited Historian says on our side we have ventured to put in this piece of Exception among others Valeat quantum valere potest 7. Lastly Had the Dissolution of the Earth been the Cause of the Deluge it would have made GOD's Covenant with Noah a very vain and trifling thing Soon after the Flood was dried up it pleased the great GOD to make an explicit and gracious Covenant with that Patriarch himself and his Children and in behalf of all Living Creatures then in being or afterward to exist that the World should be drown'd no more with such a general Deluge And this Covenant he was pleased to ratifie with a remarkable Sign that of the Rainbow which was to be a lasting token of remembrance to HIM as well as a Pledge of assurance to us So we find Gen. 9 from the 8 th verse to the 17 th And GOD spake unto Noah and to his sons with him saying And I behold I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you and with every living creature that is with you of the fowl of the cattle and of every beast of the earth with you from all that go out of the Ark to every beast of the earth And I will establish my covenant with you neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by thâ— waters of a flood neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth And GOD said This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature which is with you for perpetual generations I do set my bow in the cloud and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud And I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh And the bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the evelasting covenant between GOD and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth And GOD said unto Noah This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth Now if the Earth had been drowned the Theory's way what need of all this Then it had been but GOD's telling Noah how the Flood came and that would have made him and all his Posterity both sensible and secure enough at once that such another Flood could never happen Yea that scarce need to have been told him neither inasmuch as the thing would have been throughly apparent to them that lived in both the Worlds from the great changes they must have observed and so the Covenant would have been vain and useless Yea which is worse it would have been perfect Mockery and Collusion because then the Earth could not have been capable of or liable to such another Deluge So that GOD's covenanting not to drown it any more would have been as if he should have covenanted that a thing impossible should not be done that the Fire should not freeze or the Sun shine darkness For as neither Sun nor Fire can do such things so long
meet him And lastly the Septuagint and Vulgar both do render the Psalmist's DEEPS in the Singular Number Deep as if it were no matter whether Number were used Should it be urged farther yet that no such Deeps or Caverns are found in the Earth now adays and therefore it may be questioned whether there ever were any or no It might be answered Though there are many of them yet they may be of no easie discovery as being inclosed with very thick Walls and shut up within vastest and highest Mountains or Rocks And truly so closely and strongly were they immur'd in the Prediluvian State that had not ALMIGHTY GOD broken them up by his own Power as he did those in Rephidim they might have continued entire and undiscerned to this very day Though when by Omnipotence these mighty Cisterns of Nature were let go and their Waters run out in a great measure no wonder at all that the sides of many of them should cave in making the Mountains or Rocks whereunto they belonged very rough and craggy and deformed things and scattering huge Stones and such heaps of Rubbish whereabouts they fell as might imitate the Ruines of a dissolved World and show not only the Scars of a broken-fac'd Earth but moreover as one would think the very Entrails of it strangely burst out and as it were torn and mangled all to pieces And as a little marvel it is again that the Crowns of several high Rocks and Hills sinking right down into the Caverns beneath them and being not able to fill them up should leave huge Pans on their Tops respectively While innumerable others yet that were broached and well nigh drawn off at the Flood have for many Ages stood dry and gaping and have been Dens for wild Beasts and sometimes Refuges and sometimes it may be Habitations for Men as being of very considerable Capacities Of this sort 't is like was that Cave in Engedi which was able to receive David and his Six hundred Men and for ought we know might have held as many more For these are said to remain in the sides of the Cave and were so well hidden that King Saul who was there at the same time perceived not one of them And that there were store of such Caves in Palestine into which in time of Invasion by Enemies c. the Inhabitants of the Country used to retire even by whole Villages or Towns at once is very well known Iosephus makes mention of some of these Caves in high Rocks and Mountains which being possessed by Robbers King Herod was fain to let down armed Souldiers an unspeakable depth into them in Chests with Iron Chains to fight the Wretches in those their Fastnesses Strabo likewise reports That towards Arabiae and Iturea there are steep Mountains famous for deep Caves one of which is able to receive Four thousand Men. Nor is it to be doubted but that in all rocky and mountainous Regions there are plenty of most capacious Caverns The Theory it self allows them to be more common in such places than elsewhere Should any go on to object That the Waters issuing out of these Caverns upon their Disruption would have made but a slender contribution towards raising the mighty Universal Deluge I answer First They contributed as much to that purpose as Divine Providence thought fit and necessary Secondly They increased the Waters which ran down the Mountains at the time of the Flood and so did service in hindring both Men and other Creatures from ascending those Mountains which might be the chief work they were designed to do Thirdly Scripture it self lays the main of the Flood upon the Rain-waters ascribing it mostly to them For so GOD declares Gen. 7. 4. Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the Earth forty days and forty nights and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from of the face of the Earth Where the great Deluge which was to destroy the then Animal World is owned as proceeding from the forty days Rain Intimating that the Waters of it were to rise mainly from them and as for those flowing out of the Fountains of the Deep they were not to be of equal quantity or use And indeed had they been so they would have swelled the Flood to too high a pitch And therefore though they made but the least part of that fatal Deluge yet so long as they did what was proper and needful and what the great GOD intended they should do that was sufficient If Lastly it be objected How could Waters come into these Caverns I answer By a very natural and easie way even the same way that Springs do now rise and flow out of Rocks and Mountains For great Mountains having great Caverns in them upon the account of their Origination as being heaved up by the force of that flatuous fermentive moisture turn'd into vapours wherewith the Earth at first abounded how easily would those Caverns be filled with vapours by the influence of the Sun and then those vapours condensed into Water by the coldness of those Caverns For what were the great Mountainous Caverns but as it were the Heads of vast Stills as much disposed by Nature to condense Vapours as the other are by Art Yea as cold Water or wet Cloths are applied to the Heads of artificial Stills to help forward their work So huge quantities of Snow which outwardly and continually cover the higher parts of some Mountains might have the like effect on Caverns within Now these Vapours being thus changed into Waters the Particles of that would certainly be too gross to sink down into the Earth again through the little Pores by which they ascended or were drawn up out of it So that unless it could find ways whereby to run forth and discharge it self at places in the nature of Springs there it was bound to stay till Providence should release it from its close imprisonment which it did miraculously at the time of the Flood by breaking up the Caverns or great Deeps that contain'd it and suffering a very great deal of it to run out So that still the great Deep Caverns of the Mountains may very well pass for the Fountains of Moses 's Tehom Rabbah And that which helps to encourage not to say and confirm the Notion is That no one of the several things which have been understood to be that great Deep can fill up the Character of it so fairly and at the same time answer the ends and uses of it in respect of the Deluge so fully as these Caverns Not the Open Sea for as it could not properly be broke open as being open already so the Waters of that were by no means sufficient to make such a Flood as Noah's has been all-a-long reputed Or in case they had been sufficient yet being drawn out of the Sea to drown the Earth what Waters should have filled the Sea again Or if it stood empty what should
would have melted a great pace too and contributed to the dreadful Torrents we speak of And then the Waters of the Great Deep being no other as we suppose than such as flowed out of the Caverns of high Rocks and Mountains when the power of Heaven had broke them up these also would have augmented the mighty Deâ—luxions and made them more violent and irresistable And this was one main end of GOD's breaking up those Fountains even to increase the Downfals of Water off the Mountains and to make them so copious and fierce as that Men might not be able to ascend the Mountains And truly for them to have fled to the Mountains to be saved from the Flood down which such impetuous Streams came rolling and roaring in most hedious sort would have been like plunging themselves into the Sea to prevent drowning And truly if any Houses Towns or Cities stood so high upon Mountains as to be above the Water-mark of the Flood yet the aforesaid Downfals of Water would have ruined them all Or if any could have supported themselves by their great strength the Inhabitants would still have been drowned in them Which might be one main Reason why GOD appointed Noah to build an Ark and not an House or a Castle upon any high Mountains to save himself and such other Creatures as were to be preserved 7. A Fifth Objection may be drawn from the likelihood of some other Animals escaping the Flood That is such as lived within the Earth in the upper and undrowned parts of the Mountains For however they could not get up on the Hills or if they had been upon them could not have harboured there but must have been washed down into the common Gulf that swallow'd all yet having their aboad under ground and perhaps a good depth under it too they might be secure in their subterraneous Dwellings For though the Waters fell in great plenty and with as great violence yet shedding off the Mountains apace and hasting downward swiftly they could not soak so far into the Earth as to incommode much less destroy the Creatures there lodg'd and so well intrencht and fortified against them The Consequence would be no less than that Moses must faulter in what he relates That every living substance was destroyed Gen. 7. 23. I answer Where the Historian tells this that every living substance was destroyed he immediately puts a restriction or plain limitation upon it adding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was upon the face of the ground So that if any creatures were so deep under ground as to continue alive and safe notwithstanding the Deluge this would be no contradiction or repugnancy to the Inspired Writer For still every living substance might be destroyed which was upon the face of the Ground and that was as much as he affirmed Lest that Answer should not satisfie let me put in another The Waters falling so plentifully and violently on the Mountains where they could not soak in and drown the Creatures earthed in them by their continued beating and running upon the Ground for forty days together they did either so settle it that it squeezed them to death or else so stop up the pores of it that they were smothered 8. A Sixth Objection may be taken from the Quantity of Waters as like to exceed very much some may imagine even so as to surmount our supposed limit For they that issued from the Fountains of the Great Deeps joined with those that fell in the forty days must needs have raised a Flood much higher than fifteen Cubits above the Plain of the Earth But the answer says No. For besides the huge deal of Water which the Earth drank up especially in its sandy Regions before its thirst could be quenched and the vast deal that sank into its invisible hollownesses before they could be filled and the abundance that was absorpt by its numberless pits and capacious valleys before they could be replenisht and the Water brought to a level And besides how much it then took up to raise the Flood one Cubit around the Globe as well upon the Sea as dry Land and how much more to raise a second Cubit than the first the higher circumference being still the larger and how much more to raise a third Cubit than the Second and so on till the fifteen Cubits were full Besides all this I say the Rains by which the Deluge was chiâ—fly caused might not descend at any extraordinary rate of violence For however about the Mountains they might be monstrous and intolerable yet every where else they might be quite otherwise and the immensity and destructiveness of the Waters they raised may be imputed to the generality and duration of them rather than to their excessive greatness We are told indeed Gen. 7. 11. That the cataracts or windows of heaven were opened Yet that might betoken nothing extraordinary in the Rains save their continuance For Mal. 3. 10. GOD promiseth his People as a signal mercy to open 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the cataracts or windows of heaven for them And what does the Expression there import Why no more than that he would send such moderate Rains as should make their grounds fruitful So says Lyra GOD opened the Cataracts of Heaven by giving rains and dews convenient to make the ground fruitful And if the opening of the cataracts of heaven implys but an ordinary descent or moderate downfal of gentle fructifying Rains and Dews then notwithstanding these Cataracts were opened at the Flood the Rains might then in most places distill with a wonted gentleness and moderation Which granted there would be no danger of their swelling the Flood above that height to which our Supposition limits it And though according to Marsennus's account forty days Rain might raise the Waters an hundred and fifty Feet yet who can tell whether the Rains fell so fast in those forty days as they did at the time and place when and where he made his Experiment and Calculation Others I am sure are of the mind and Osiander for one that they were only sufficient to set the Ark afloat And they quote that Passage for it Gen. 7. 17. The flood was forty days upon the Earth and the waters increased and bare up the Ark and it was lifted up above the Earth 9. A Seventh Objection may be made from the Raven which Noah sent out of the Ark Gen. 8. 7. It is there said That that Raven went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth Whence some conclude That he was forced to return into the Ark again and again still as he went out because by reason of the Waters there was no convenient place of abode for him abroad And consequently they infer That the Waters which were so high then could not but cover the tops of the Mountains when they were at their full height To this it might be answered First That if the Raven did return this does
opened and all the Fountains of the Great Deep broke up that they should be opened and broke up on the same day that they should be so opened and broke up as to yield such a quantity of Water at that time as they never did before and never did since and never shall do again what could this be but a special and wonderful Work of GOD I might farther observe the like miraculous workings of the DEITY in shutting up those Windows of Heaven again and in stopping the aforesaid Fountains of the Deep and in drying up the Waters of the Deluge so fast c. but I wave that as I have done other things to avoid prolixity Now when the Flood in all the periods of it was thus disposed and govern'd by an Omnipotent and Miraculous hand that the same hand should at once defend and direct the Ark and so guard and steer it as to keep it from Ship-wrack is not at all to be wondred at We may rather wonder and wonder very much if any should think otherwise To which add That a miraculous protection and care of the Ark would have been altogether as necessary according to the Theory or the Old Hypothesis For according to the Theory the Ark must have sunk as low as the falling Earth and then have been thrown up higher than the highest Mountains and have been toss'd with such terrible and hideous jactations as that the worst which are suffered on the roughest Seas would scarce be shadows to them So that unless a miraculous Providence superintended it how could it be safe And therefore indeed the Theory represents it with its Guardian Angels about it in the extremity of the Flood And then according to the Old way the tops of the Mountains must have been above Water all the time that the Deluge was waxing And so without such a Providence again the Ark would have been as much imperill'd by those Mountains if not more as if they had been drown'd no deeper than we suppose them Yea in that very juncture when the Flood according to the common account was at its highest the Ark struck upon the Mountains of Ararat and was stranded there And to save it in such circumstances a most miraculous Providence was necessary indeed But then the same may as lawfully be challenged by and ought as readily to be allowed to our Hypothesis likewise 11. Which grant and then if in this memorable Flood any difficulties be started that Men are puzzled to make out any Phaenomena's arise that are too big to proceed from Nature alone and too intricate to be understood by Reason lo here 's a general Answer to them if not solution of them The Flood was a Miracle in good measure Or had so much miracle running through it and interwoven with it that all passages in it are not to be accounted for by Reason and Philosophy And truly where Nature was over-ruled by Providence it is but fit that Philosophy should give place to Omnipotence and Faith sway out Minds to assent to those things which Reason is unable to apprehend and explicate CHAP. XVII 1. The Positiveness of the Theory 2. Noted in the English Edition of it 3. It s Authors Intentions laudable 4. The Conclusion 1. HAving gone over the several Vital or Primary Assertions of the Theory I shall now only desire leave briefly to note the Positiveness of it It being indeed of an unusual Strain and such as is seldom found in a new Hypothesis especially at its first setting up and sallying out into the World 2. This Positiveness is very apparent both in the Latin and English Editions of the Theory But I shall observe it only in the latter that coming out after the other and so with more deliberation and mature thoughts of things It there discovers it self in such Passages as these I am willing to add here a Chapter or two to shew that what we have delivered is more than an Idea and that it was in this very way that Noah's Deluge came to pass pag. 79. As we do not think it an unhappy discovery to have found out with a moral certainty the seat of the Mosaical Abyss so this gives us a great assurance that the Theory we have given of a general Deluge is not a meer Idea but is to be appropriated to the Deluge of Noah as a true explication of it pag. 84. That our Description is a reality both as to the Antediluvian Earth and as to the Deluge we may farther be convinc'd from St. Peter's Discourse pag. 85. We may safely conclude that this is no imaginary Idea but a true account of that ancient Flood whereof Moses hath left us the History ibid. If they the ancient Earth and Abyss were in no other form nor other state than what they are under now the expressions of the sacred Writers concerning them are very strange and inaccountable without any sufficient ground or any just occasion for such uncouth representations I fear there is something more than Positiveness in this clause which occurs pag. 93. We have proved our Explication of the Deluge to be more than an Idea or to be a true piece of Natural History and it may be the greatest and most remarkable that hath been since the beginning of the World We have shown it to be the real account of Noah's Flood pag. 96. I confess for my own part when I observe how easily and naturally this Hypothesis doth apply it self to all the particularities of this Earth hits and falls in so luckily and surprizingly with all the odd postures of its parts I cannot without violence bear off my mind from fully assenting to it pag. 113. To speak the truth this Theory is something more than a bare Hypothesis pag. 149. It will never be beaten out of my head but that St. Peter hath made the same distinction we make of the Antediluvian Earth and Heavens from the Postdiluvian sixteen hundred years since and to the very same purpose so that we have sure footing here again and the Theory riseth above the Character of a bare Hypothesis We must in equity give more than a moral certitude to this Theory pag. 150. I think there is nothing but the uncouthness of the thing to some Mens understandings the custom of thinking otherwise and the uneasiness of entring into a new sett of thoughts that can be a bar or hindrance to its reception pag. 170. The Theory carries its own light and proof with it pag. 274. These are the Vitals of the Theory and the Primary Assertions whereof I do freely profess my full belief pag. 288. Now I confess I should have been much at a loss whither to impute such extraordinary positive confidence as shows it self by these excerptions in a Man so ingenious touching things so precarious had he not told me in this Maxim of his own A strong inclination with a little evidence is equivalent to a strong evidence pag. 297. Which considered we need
I believe we must stay for Elias to make out to us the true Philosophical modus of the Creation and Deluge THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. 1. THE great Usefulness of Natural Philosophy 2. In proving there is a God 3. In acquainting us with His Nature 4. In asserting a Providence 5. In excluding Idolatry 6. In vindicating the Gospel in several Points 7. As the Immortality of the Soul 8. The Resurrection of the Body 9. The Conflagration of the World 10. And the endless fiery Torments of the Damned 11. Philosophy is useful also as to Divinity 12. And like to flourish 13. Caution against abusing it 14. Which is done either by speaking or thinking slightly of it 15. Or by setting it too low in its Operatiâ—ns 16. Or else by Raising it too high 17. Which is the fault of The Theory of the Earth 18. A Character of it 19. The Occasion of this Discourse against it 20. Together with its Method 21. This Chapter an Introduction to the Discourse Page 1 2 CHAP. II. 1. The Hypothesis of the Earth's Formation stated 2. The first Exception against it It would have taken up too much time 3. The World being made in Six Days 4. How there might be Light and Days before there was a Sun 5. A Proof that the Creation was perfected in Six Days time 6. Numeral Cabbalism cannot overthrow it 7. The Jews in Cabbalizing still allowed a Literal meaning to Scripture only they superadded a Mystical one never contrary to it 8. Though were there a Cabbala Destructive to the Letter of Moses's Story of the Creation that would not invalidate the Argument alledged 9. Moses's Account of the Creation runs not upon bare Numbers but upon Time 10. What Account the Christian Church has made of the Cabbala 11. How it discovers its own Vanity 12. The Literal sense to be kept to in the Story of the Creation 13. Where Scripture speaks so as not to be understood Literally it is sometimes for plainness sake p. 45 CHAP. III. 1. A Second Exception against the Formation of the Earth viz. the Fluctuation of the Waters of the Chaos whereon it was to be raised 2. That Fluctuation caused by the Moon 3. The Theorist's Doubt whether she were then in our Neighbourhood considered 4. The Precariousness of his Hypothesis in several things relating to the Chaos Which ought to have been better cleared and confirmed according to his own declared Iudgment 5. The Descent of the Earthly Particles out of the Air not only Precarious but Vnphilosophical 6. And also Anti-Scriptural p. 73 CHAP. IV. 1. A Third Exception against the Formation of the Earth the Fire at the Center of it 2. The Theory faulty in not setting â—orth the Beginning of the Chaos which was necessary to be done 3. Such a Chaos was not Created 4. Nor yet produced in Des-Cartes his way 5. And therefore that Central Fire seems a thing unreasonable 6. That the Chaos was produced in the Cartesian way not to be allowed by the Theory 7. The Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also insinuates the contrary 8. The Septuagint cleared in one Passage 9. The Story of the Creation not to be restrained to the Terrestrial World p. 86 CHAP. V. 1. The Form of the Earth excepted against from the want of Rivers 2. Notwithstanding the way devised to raise them there would have been none in due time 3. Whereupon Two great Inconveniences must have ensued 4. No Rivers could have been before the Flood p. 106 CHAP. VI. 1. Another Exception against the Hypothesis it would have drowned the World though Man had not sinned 2. Or though Mankind had been never so penitent 3. Which would have reflected upon Providence and imboldened the Atheist p. 121 CHAP. VII 1. Saint Peter's words alledged in favour of the Hypothesis inapplicable to that Purpose 2. Wherein the stress of them seems to lie 3. Seven other Allegations out of Scripture of no Force 4. As being Figurative and so not Argumentative 5. Which Tycho Brahe not minding it gave occasion to his Systeme p. 1â—7 CHAP. VIII 1. A continual Aequinox before the Flood by vertue of the Earth's Position improbable 2. For then that Position would have remained still or the Change thereof would have been more fully upon Record 3. Scripture does not favour this Aequinox but rather discountenance it 4. It would have kept one half of the Earth unpeopled 5. And have hindred the Rains at the time of the Flood 6. The Doctrine of the Aequinox is against the Judgment of the Learned 7. The Authorities alledged for the Right Situation of the Earth upon which the Aequinox depends Insufficient to prove it 8. Two Queries propounded relating to the Aequinox p. 158 CHAP. IX 1. The Oval Figure of the Primitive Earth excepted against from the nature of that Mass upon which it was founded 2. And from its Position in its Annual Motion 3. As also from the Roundness of the Present Earth 4. Which Roundness could not accrue to the Earth from its Disruption in regard that would have rendred it more Oval still in case it had been Oval from the beginning 5. Or at least would not have made it less Oval than it was p. 189 CHAP. X. 1. That there were Mountains before the Flood proved in way of Exception to the Theory out of Scripture 2. And that they could not be made by the Falling in of the first Earth argued from the Mountains in the Moon 3. And from the Opinion of the Talmudists and others 4. How Mountains might arise in the very beginning 5. There must be Mountains in the first World because there were Metals in it p. 201 CHAP. XI 1. That there were open Seas before the Flood made evident from Scripture 2. Such Seas necessary then as Receptacles for Great Fishes 3. The Abyss being no fit place for them 4. A farther Confirmation of open Seas 5. An Objection against them answered 6. Another Objection answered 7. A Third answered p. 218 CHAP. XII 1. The Scripture's Silence touching the Rainbow before the Flood does not argue its non-appearance till after it 2. It s appearance from the beginning no hindrance or diminution of its Federal Significancy 3. But matter of congruence to GOD's Method of Proceeding in other Cases 4. Clouds were extâ—nt before the Flood and therefore the Rainbow was so 5. The Conclusion of this Chapter relating to the Two foregoing ones also p. 252 CHAP. XIII 1. The Doctrine of Paradise intelligible without the Theory 2. Where that Doctrine is best taught 3. What it is with a brief Paraphrase upon it 4. It is Clear in it self though obscured by Writers 5. Longaevity before the Flood no property of Paradise and might be the Priviledge but of few 6. It could not be common to all according to the Theory p. 262 CHAP. XIV 1. The Flood could not be caused by the Dissolution of the Earth and its falling into the Abyss 2. For it would have been inconsistent
conteretur One of them shall not be broken Psal. 34. 20. Now though this be nothing but an empty conceit yet it gives us the measure of the Iews Thoughts in the case and plainly hints That they were not curious or much concern'd about the same Numerical Body's rising again but deemed it sufficient to have the rising Body made out of that Body which is laid down at death or out of any part of it 9. Another Article of extraordinary consequence is The Conflagration of the Earth Of this the Gospel speaks expresly The Earth and the Works that are therein shall be burnt up 2 Pet. 3. 10. A positive Prediction say the Atheistical and Incredulous But how shall it be verified Where is there Fire enough to do it Here Philosophy assists again by giving in most satisfactory Information For it well assures us That there are vast Stores of Fire about the Earth as well as Treasuries of Fire in it Yea that the little Pores of almost every Body have abundance of this Element lurking in them So that we may wonder that the fiery Principle does not forthwith break out and set all on a flame rather than that it should take place at last and seizing upon the World I mean this Terrestrial one burn it up by a furious and inextinguishable combustion it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Epiphanius speaks it delug'd with Fire 10. In the Fifth place The Gospel gives account of a fiery Punishment prepared for Reprobates and of the Eternity of that Fire which is to plague and torment them So we read in the Final Sentence Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared c. An impossible thing says the prophane Objector No Fire can burn for ever for where should be a supply of Fuel to continue it Indeed a great Pile may make a great Fire and durable Fuel may make a lasting one But that any Fire should be everlasting is not to be thought it would want fit pabulum or matter to cherish it and inable it to subsist Were all Combustibles amassed together and made into one heap were the whole Earth as large as it is turned into a fomes or aliment for it it could not hold always No it must spend apace and waste and burn out into Cinders or Ashes and so the Fire that dwelt in it and preyed upon it must be starved and die This is a Knot that Philosophy unties with the greatest ease and no only allows what our SAVIOUR has said to be probable and true but adds confirmation to what he has authenticated by casting in the Overplus of its own authority For it tells us there is a certain matter in the World that burns of it self and will burn for ever It is a Natural and Essential Flame Independent and Vital I may say as being able to support and maintain it self alive without any kind of Fuel to preserve and feed it So sixt and permanent that where it is got together in any good quantities it may very well challenge the Epithet of Vnquenchable which is at once the dreadful Title and Property whereby the Gospel describes that Infernal Fire that is to be the Instrument of the Damneds torture Which must needs have strange force and vehemence in it to excruciate them as being of a most subtil and active and so of a most piercing and raging Nature 11. Once more let us reflect upon the Vsefulness of Philosophy It is very great in reference to Divinity that is as it attends it in an humble subordination and service of its Interests Chiefly in helping to clear up its Difficulties and to keep Absurdities from mingling with its Doctrines For thô as the learned Father truly says The Doctrine of our SAVIOVR which is the Marrow of all Divinity be perfect and stands in need of nothing to improve it as being the Power and Wisdom of GOD Yet Philosophy coming over to it though it makes not the Truth the stronger it makes sophistical Argumentation against it weak and by driving away decitful wiles against Truth may be called a necessary Fence or Fortification of the Vineyard But not to be tedious Philosophy we know has ever been reputed the Handmaid of Divinity and its Honour it is as well as its Excellency that it really is so And indeed where true and substantial Philosophy does interest it self in the Affairs of Theology and serve it with a decent and respectful Ministry it becomes of singular advantage to it For the most perplext and intricate Problems it has provided they be explicable are no where made so clear and intelligible as where Philosophy is permitted or employed to intepret them or call'd in to assist in the Exposition of them Whereas on the contrary where that is shut out there is too much cloudiness and darkness within Even familiar things are made confus'd and abstruse and wrapt up in a nightsom and remediless obscurity This is obvious to any slight notice For in those Theological Systems or Tractates where Philosophy has no place as the Mahometan for instance People are miserably gull'd and shamefully imposed upon by monstrous Assertions and that in common and easie matters Yea in many things the grossest Extravagances pass with them for sublime and solid Notions and the fulsomest Non-sense for venerable Mysteries they wanting wherewith to distinguish betwixt them And all because they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 destitute of Philosophy which would afford them such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rules of Judgment as would inable them to discern what is true and what is false and to take exact measures of a just discrimination That the Virgin MARY conceived by smelling to a Rose and was afterwards delivered of Christ at her Breast That the Moon once slipt into Mahomet's Sleeve That in the End of the World all things shall die at the winding of an Horn even Angels themselves That the Accursed then following Cain as a Leader shall carry their Sins in Satchels at their Backs the weight of which breaking down the Bridge of Iustice as they go over it the Delinquents for their Punishment shall fall into a River of Fire that runs under it What prodigiously dull and heavy Figments are these Yet by the zealous Proselytes of the Epileptick Impostor they are embraced not only as Rational and Consistent but even as Divine and Miraculous Truths But were the light of Philosophy let into the Alcoran it would soon chase away these and all such egregious and nauseous Fooleries And together with them it would send blindness and ignorance packing too which are their Parents and their Nurses making them flee before it as Chaff before the Wind or as the Shades of the Night before the Morning Sun And here if it might not be thought too unseemly a Transition to pass from the Turkish to the Christian Divinity it would not be impertinent to remark its defectiveness in Philosophy likewise in one particular How much better might Hoc
fail to drive it out from thence But then as to the Way of the Earth's Formation we are more at a Loss as being not so satisfactorily instructed concerning it Here Providence seems to have left us to our selves and for the improvement of both remits us to the Conduct of Philosophick Learning in some measure and to our own Judgments Only we must be careful that the Idea's we frame be congruous to the Truths that came down from above and are or should be the Touchstone of all Hypotheses among Christians Which because the way of the Earth's Formation according to the Theory is not it overthrows the first vital Assertion which is this There was a Primitive Earth of another Form from the present and inhabited by Mankind till the Deluge The latter Clause of it touching the Earth's being inhabited till the Deluge we do not question The former part of it cannot stand by reason the Manner of the Earth's Rise which the Theory ascribes to it overturns it It is supposed to have proceeded thus Fig 1 Pag 47 Where 1 denotes the fiery Centre of the Earth 2. The Interior Orb of the Earth composed of the grossest particles of the Chaos 3. The Element of Water or the Abyss 4. The Oyly Liquor upon the surface of the Water 5. The Mass or Body of the Air. But this Body of the Air being at first very muddy and impure through abundance of terrestrial Particles that as fast as they could free themselves from the Air with which they were mingled and in which they were intangled they sunk downward And meeting in their descent with the Oyly Liquor on the face of the Deep there they stuck and incorporating with that unctious Substance made a certain Slime or a fat soft light Earth spread upon the Waters Which growing thicker and thicker by a continual accession of more terrestrial Particles sliding down still out of the Air as it purify'd it self at last it came to its just Dimensions And then waxing more dry and stiff and firm and solid in fine it attained to its due Consistency and so became the First habitable Earth Thus have I briefly but I hope truly represented the Manner of the Primitive Earth's Formation If there be any thing of Mistake in the Description it is altogether involuntary But I think I have spoken the very mind of the Hypothesis as it is more largely set down by the Theorist 2. But if the Primitive Earth's being of another Form does depend upon its rising in such a method as this as indeed it does then it could not be of another Form from the present Earth because it could not rise in such a manner for several Reasons As First Because it would have taken too long time in doing it A longer time by much than that Divine Account we have of its Origination does mention or will allow For to say nothing how long the Inferior Earth would have been in forming by the subsiding of the grossest parts of the Chaos to the Centre of it till which were sunk the other Sedimentals could not so well have separated And to say nothing how considerable a space of time it would have required for the Aereal Matter to have clarify'd it self and to have setled in its proper Region And to say nothing of the Lastingness of that other Purgation whereby the liquid part of the Chaos would have sent forth its Oyliness to invest the Waters to receive those Dregs that fell out of the Air To say nothing of these how much time must have been spent in producing the exterior Orb of the Earth which was to be made up of those terrestrial Particles which fell from above and rested upon the Oyly out-side of the Deep Should these fine Particles have showred down as fast as ever we saw small Rain or Snow do yet how many Days and Weeks must have passed before they could have swell'd into so huge a Body as the Earth was at first I say as the Earth was at first For according to the Hypothesis now before us the Primitive Earth was bigger than this So much bigger as to take all that space into its Ambit which reacheth up to the tops of the highest Mountains at least Yea if the first Earth did not fill a much bigger space than that as it might do for according to this Hypothesis we know not how far its Circumference might extend yet a space somewhat bigger it must needs occupy in regard the Mountains are now worn lower than they were And for such inconceivable Quantities of little Particles to descend out of the Air as would be sufficient to make such a bulky Globe as the Primitive Earth must necessarily be a good whiles work And so it is expresly acknowledged to be Theor. p. 58 59. And then if as fast as they showred down into the Oyly Substance they did immediately mix and incorporate with it yet then it would take up some time again to dry and harden this new made Earth and to reduce it to an habitable Consistency And therefore its Formation this way could by no means fall in with the real time of its Production Nay it could not be compleated in that space of time in which GOD declares that he began and finisht the whole Creation 3. For that glorious Work is expresly limited to Six Days And every Day has its respective Task particularly specified and appropriated to it And however more might be created on some Days than is mentioned as Angels Hell c. yet we may be sure there was no less Not but that GOD could have done all in one Day if he had so pleased or in one Hour or Minute As he could also have given Being to the World many millions of Ages before He did But it was not his Will that it should exist sooner and his Will it was that the Creation of it should be protracted to an Hexaemeron or Six Days Work and therefore he drew it out to that length But then when Philo Iudaeus St. Austin and others teach that the World was created in an Instant we have no reason jurare in verba to give up our selves to a Belief of their Doctrine Nor is the Saying of the Son of Syrach sometimes alleged in Proof of the Opinion to be at all regarded He that liveth for ever creavit omnia simul created all things together As if he created them together in the same moment Whereas besides that the Book is Apocryphal the Greek Copy reads it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He created all things in common as well one as other in which sense it relates to no time And accordingly our English is most proper he created all things in general Yet this Apocryphal Text seems to be the chief ground upon which St. Austin built his Opinion of the World 's being made in an instant But by that Account which Moses gives in the Earth brought forth Grass and Herbs and Trees
Chaos which came from we know not whence in the room of an Earth of a Planetary Origin sunk down from its lucid or Sidereous state takes away the supposed causes of this notable effect it will be incumbent on him to assign others from whence it may be derived In case it be objected that the Phaenomâ—non alledged is not satisfactorily accounted for in the Cartesian way neither forasmuch as it stumbles in the formation of the Striate Particles the main instrument of the work and that Des-Cartes himself dares not trust his own Hypothesis but professes the Earth to have been otherwise produced than that determines as shall be noted by and by then I answer As this is really nothing to us so it will not excuse the Theorist in the least from clearing up the thing according to those measures he hath taken by himself It only shows that the French Philosophy of so great fame is too short to fathom the deeps of Nature and by no means quick-sighted enough to see to the bottom of her profound Mysteries Though that Philosophy may grow up apace to so happy a perfection as to be able to make a more full discovery of such secrets must needs be the desire of wife and good Men. And so we return to the Enquiry we were upon viz. How Fire should come to the Center of the Earth Which is a Problem the more intricate and perplexed in regard The Theory takes no notice of the beginning of the Chaos It tells indeed that there was a Chaos and what kind of one it was but it gives no manner of account how it came into Being As to that the Reader is left at a loss and has nothing to guide him but his own Conjectures I shall guess therefore as fairly at the thing as I can And to me it seems probable that this Chaos should be produced one of these Two ways either by Creation or by Des-Cartes his way for generating Planets Thought it will not be over easie to make out That it came into existence by either of them 3. For first to affirm that it dropt directly out of the hand of Omnipotence in way of Creation is more than we find warranted Yea we are taught something and that from Heaven which is very different from it Namely That in the beginning GOD created the EARTH And if it was and Earth that he created in the beginning it could not be a Chaos I mean Such a Chaos as the Theory makes it for that was no Earth nor had it any specific or distinct Earth in it as being without distinction of Elements It is said indeed Gen. 1. 2. That the Earth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desolation and emptiness Inanis vacua as the Vulgar doubly void That is of its designed order and comeliness which were to beautifie it and of all those creatures which were to furnish it and dwell in it And therefore says the Targum of Ierusalem it was empty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Children of Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and void of every brute And the Prophet describing a most fearful destruction to come upon his People by Wars through which their fruitful Land was to become a Wilderness and Men and Birds were to be driven away tells us in the very Words of Moses That the Earth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desolation and emptiness And in this sense I confess the Earth in its original imperfection and nakedness was a Chaos an incultivate and uninhabited lump rude and confused beyond all imagination as having neither good from nor furniture in it But then at the same time it was an Earth too and so not such a Chaos as the Theory speaks it I might also note would that be of weight that the Praefix 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Genesis 1. 1. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notificationis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scientific or demonstrative and so it points at this Earth and intimates it was this very same Earth at first that it is now The same as to substance and nature though not as to condition and ornaments And this Earth in the state of its primitive disorder and destitution being the true Mosaic Chaos created in the beginning we have no grounds to belive that any other besides it was ever brought forth in way of creation But we have good grounds to believe that no other was so produced inasmuch as to assert it would be to set up Phantasie against Moses's authority and to bring presumptuous conceiâ— into competition with Scripture But grant the Chaos to have been such as it is supposed to be and that it entred into the World at the door of Creation Yet here will be nothing to make it reasonable very reasonable to admit Fire at its Center For if there was a central Fire in it it must either be placed there supernaturally by the immediate power of the ALMIGHTY and we have no reason to admit it upon that score because we are no where informed of it Or else it must be generated there in a Natural way and to admit that would be against reason too For how could a vast quantity of Flame be bred in the Bowels of an Earthy Mass consisting of the Principles of all terrestrial Bodies And whoever shall peruse the first half of the Fifth Chapter of the English Theory will soon be satisfied that the Chaos could consist of no other but terrestrial Principles For there it appears that it was resolved into nothing but Earth Air Water and an unctious substance and so could be made up of nothing else But Fire is quite another thing and as different from those Elements as motion is from rest or the most Celestial from the most Terrestrial Matter and so in a course of Nature could not possibly issue from them and settle it self in the midst of them 4. We will pass therefore to the Second Conjecture whither indeed the Notion of central Fire in the Earth does most directly lead us and that is Des-Cartes's Method by which he supposeth Planets to be formed And according to that the Earth was one of those fourteen or fifteen Stars which once shined gloriously in their respective Heavens hereabouts But being all overgrown and incrusted with Maculaes except one and losing their native strength and light were swallowed up by the Vortex of the surviving Luminary the Sun and so move round about him as so many Satellites or Waiters of his to this day Though some of these Planets also that is Secundary ones are at the same time carried about others of them As the Moon about the Earth the four Medicean ones about Iupiter and Saturn's three Asseclae or Pages according to Cassinus about him And here there may seem to be a plausible account given of the declared Central constitution of the Earth or of a Region of Fire at the heart of it For it having been all Flame
heretofore till it was overspread with Maculaes boiled out of it self and gendred first into a kind of foam or scum and afterwards into an harder substance it could not but retain much fiery matter in its Central Parts And thus this Fire would be sufficiently protected too against dissipation and danger of Extinction from the moist and lumpish Chaos which surrounded it and at the time of its separation would have lain heavy upon it For its Coat of Maculaes worn next it being nealed by furious heat and made into a strong arched Vault there the inclosed Element might have been secure as in a mighty Granado-shell never to be annoyed by any manner of violence But neither by this way as quaint as it is could the Chaos step forth into being For though it be a spruce and gay invention a contrivance rerely ingenious and prettily coherent and withal so laudably instrumental to the trim solution of sundry difficulties that some are ready to think 't is pity but it should be real yet the very first dash of Moses's Pen gives the Philosophic Bubble such a shrewd prick as flals it into Vanity and Romance In the beginning GOD created the Heaven and the Earth So that famous Man told an illiterate People as a faithful Secretary of the MOST HIGH with intention fully to instruct them as to the Origin of the World so far as comported with his Majestick Office and brevity And if GOD in the beginning at the very first created the Earth and created it an Earth how could it before that be a Chaos such a Chaos as it is represented to have been and how could it possibly rise into such a Chaos out of a Sun or â—ixt Star And if GOD created the Heavens at the same time when he created the Earth as Moses affirms for both he says were created in the beginning where could it have place to act the part of a fixed Luminary before it became a Planet But therefore to take off this and the like Arguments the Story of the Creation is supposed to relate to the Earthly World only How truly we shall a little consider in the Close of this Chapter In the mean time to go on with what we have in hand the illustrious Des-Cartes is on our side He openly professes as was noted above that he did not think the Earth was made of a Star according to his Principles but was brought forth by Creation And he judged thus for the same reason I am now urging Because hoc â—ides Christians nos docet the Christian Faith teacheth us as much So that he who shall teach otherwise must in the opinion of that renowned Philosopher broach a Doctrine against Divine Revelation And therefore what has been said that way I hope will relish the better as falling in with the sentiments of so exceeding worthy and judicious a Person And herein he acted like a true and noble Christian Philosopher indeed in that he made his Hypothesis stoop to the Religion of Heaven and would retrench his Principles rather than they should run counter to the sacred Oracles Yea the great Man goes farther and adds hocque etiam ratio naturalis plane persuadet and this also that the World was created with all its perfection so that there was in it a Sun and an Earth c. natural reason does plainly perswade For if we attend to the mighty power of GOD we cannot think that he ever made any thing that was not compleat in all points And therefore he said before And likewise in the Earth there were not only the seeds of Plants but Plants themselves nor were Adam and Eve brought forth Infants but made adult persons And when it is a thing not only worthy of GOD to make Creatures perfect at first but natural reason perswades that he actually did so we must either conclude that the Earth was made so as Des-Cartes does or else in our judging otherwise vary from or go against the dictate of common reason as well as Scripture So that if the Opinion the professeed and openly avowed Opinion of the most eminent Christian Philosopher yea of the admired Author of the new Philosophy the fittest person amongst Philosophers to judge in the Case will cast the Scales for us we have it on our side that the Earth was not produced in his way or according to his Hypothesis 5. But then the premisses considered to admit there is a Fire at the Center of the Earth is so far from being very reasonable as the Theory holds that according to the fairest measures or accounts of things which Philosophy has given to the World as yet it rather appears to be very unreasonable For however Des-Cartes's Principles lean that way and countenance the Phaenomenon yet he himself we see not only doubts of his own Hypothesis as to the Earth's formation but has publickly declared that they who sail by his Compass must swim against the stream of Natural Reason 6. And truly should the Theory allow this Central Fire in the Earth upon the account of its being produced in Des-Cartes's way it would quite overthrow its own Hypothesis by complying with his For then the Earth could never have been of an Oval Figure Nor could it have been without Mountains and without a Sea But its motion of inclination would have been from the first because its Axis would have been perpendicular to the plain of the Ecliptic And so its Equinoctial position to name no more Essentials of the Theory would have been impossible And whereas by the way the present site of the Earth which might seem more convenient were it placed so as that its Annual and Diurnal motions might be both performed on parallel Axes is made by Des-Cartes to depend upon the influence of the Striate Particles and both the formation and motion of them are shewed by a learned Philosophic Pen not to fall in with Mechanical Laws this will be no check or difficulty upon us For first Des-Cartes might in that as he has done in some other things keep too strictly to the Laws of Matter and Motion it being necessary in the works of Nature very often to acknowledge the hand of Providence Or else secondly if there should be no such particles in being and nothing of their power to hold the Axis of the Earth in a parallelism to that of the World's Aequator this would be but an advantage on our side For how can the Earth have a Fire at its Center as being produced in conformity to the Cartesian Principles when according to those Principles it could not be produced at all For put by the Formation of these Particles and according to that Philosophy there could be no Planets and so no Earth the matter of the third Element being not to be made without those particles 7. Were I dispos'd to follow the Rabbies I might here go a little farther still I might venture to lay hold of
land and Seas it follows It was so When GOD said Let the Earth bring forth Grass c. it follows and the Earth brought forth Grass c. When GOD said Let the Waters bring forth abundantly it follows the Waters brought forth abundantly When God said Let the Earth bring forth the living creature after his king and Cattel c. it follows And GOD made the Beast of the Earth after his kind and Cattel c. And when the Divine and Omnipotent Fiat did all-along carry such energy with it as thus to produce other things as in the series of the Story can it in reason be thought to do less when GOD pronounced LET THERE BE LIGHTS To make this one Fiat differ in sense from the rest would be to depart from the Rules of a just Exposition Yet unless we force such a difference into it it must signify more than the bare appearance of lights upon the clearing up of the Chaos and the Sky that is it must signify those lights were just then created And this is farther evident thus in that GOD takes notice express notice of the use of these Luminaries and therein particularly provides for the conspicuity and Radiancy of them Let them be FOR lights in the firmament of the Heaven to GIVE LIGHT VPON THE EARTH So that when he said LET THERE BE LIGHTS if he did not mean more than their becoming conspicâ—ous and shining out upon the Earth the two expressions must be perfectly tautological And yet if he intended any thing else what could it be but their Creation at that time Especially when it follows hereupon And GOD made two great lights and the Stars also And therefore that the work of Creation which Moses treats of reaches farther than what belongs to the Earthly World and resulted from the Chaos is not to be doubted For he does not only mention the making of the Lights in the Firmament things as different from the terrestrial World as they are distant from the same but describes them as fully in reation to their uses and ends and so seems to handle them as profesâ—edly as any piece of the lower Creation whatever In case it be objected that the Stars give little light upon the Earth which is a thing Moses ascribes to the Luminaries in Heaven I answer If they served not so eminently to that use yet to the other he mentions they were very serviceable and indispensibly necessary For how could time have been measured out and divided into Years and Months as it was in the First World without their help especially if there were no Moon And so I demand in the Second place What does Moses mean by the Host of the Heavens being finished Thus THE HEAVENS were FINISHED and all the HOST of them If he meant only the Host of the Heavens belonging to the Earth what was the Host of those Heavens As for the Air it helped to constitute them to make the very Heavens themselves As for Clouds Rain Hail Snow and the like Meteors there could be none says the Theory As for the Moon it might not then be in the Earth's Neighbourhood As for that watry exhalation which abounded in the aereal Heaven it was but one single thing and so answers not the import of the Word HOST it being of a plural signification And what other Host should belong to these Heavens except the Fowls but then though in Scripture they be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Septuagint and in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fowls of Heaven yet I do not remember that they are any where called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the HOST of Heaven That phrase in Holy Writ does usually I think continually referr either to the Angels or else to the Lights of Heaven And of the latter of those at least it must here be understood But then none of these Luminaries being formed out of the Chaos and all of them but one placed in remote or superiour Heavens hence it is evident that the Story of the Creation is not to be restrained to the Terrestrial World For that Moses did not only speak of them but of their being created then is manifest from the words before us The HEAVENS and the EARTH were FINISHED and all the HOST of THEM where if by the Earth and its Host being FINISHED We are to understand their being CREATED at that time as we certainly must then are we bound to understand that the Heavens and their Host were so too because the same thing is equally predicated of both It may be worth the while also to remark that Passage in the 148. Psalm Where the inspired Man desiring that GOD might be glorified by means of the Celestial Luminaries crys out Praise ye him sun and moon praise him all ye stars For he commanded and they were created Whence it is evident that when GOD commanded Let there be lights this was not a command whereby they appeared only but whereby they were created and the Moon with the rest was then commanded into being I might also make a Third demand What is meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 breath of life which GOD breathed into Man No less than his very Soul So says Buxtorf and others the Hebrews by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understand the rational and immortal Soul and therefore they swear by it And when GOD created man did he not create this Soul of his And so did not the work of Creation which Moses writes of comprehend more than those parts of Nature which were made of the Earthly Chaos It may be not will Platonists say at least this instance is no good Proof of it For GOD might not create the Souls of Adam and Eve just then but send them down from a state of Preexistence But then not to ingage in a new Controversie I reply in short If the humane Souls came into their Bodies out of a state of Preexistence then when they descended they were either pure from sin or they were not If they were not pure then how did GOD create Man in his own Image Gen. 1. 27. Or how did he make Adam uâ—right Eccles. 7. 29. Where the Rectitude spoken of must be of a moral nature because as the Context shows it is opposed to moral obliquity or perverseness If they were pure how could the infinitely gracious BEING whose name and so his nature is MERCIFUL who delighteth in mercy and whose mercy is over all his works deal so unkindly with his own most dear and spotless creatures as to thrust them down or suffer them to fall out of a state of Aethereal light and happiness into a state of darkness and stupid silence out of which according to Platonism they must come to be incarnate and so slide into a condition more forlorn still Truly if the goodness and wisdom of Heaven so decreed
was a punishment of Man's sins and was design'd and sent on purpose to be so The Consequence from which is that if Man had not transgressed the Earth had never been so lamentably drowned But here then the truth of the Hypothesis we are upon will come into Question in that it would have let in the Flood upon the World though it had not been ungodly though Men had been never so innocent or upright For if the Earth had been formed as is above supposed it must have been of the same structure that is there phansied It must have held the same situation to the Sun and the same motioâ— about it And the Sun must have had the same power over the Earth and the same effects upon it It must have pierced it as deep and parched it as much and ripened it as fast for disruption as ever The time of which being once come down it must have plunged into the Abyss below and all living upon it must have sunk and drowned together with it self No Natural Causes could have had the least regard to moral integrity but on they would have driven in their appointed Courses till they had come to the Tragical event we speak of So that had all the Sons and Daughters of Men been as pure and bright as they could possibly have dropt out of the Mint of Creation they must still have perisht without pity or remedy And so what would have become of the first Covenant with Adam in case he had stood For by such a Fatality as this in Nature not unlike to absolute Decree in Divinity his Posterity must have died though he had not sinned nor they neither Which would have been a strange and unparallel'd severity and such as did never issue form GOD. Tophet indeed is prepared of old and there are endless and intolerable torments beyond this life But none need suffer them unless they please For still we must be authors of our own misery if any beâ—ides us And if our happiness chance to be blown up at last the Train that does it must be laid and fired by our selves But by this Hypothesis the Race of Mankind must have been wofully undone though they never deserv'd it For the primitive Earth had that in it which we have Frailty in its very Nature or Constitution And in the ordinary setled Course of things must necessarily have been dissolv'd and delug'd 2. And if purest Innocence must have fared thus ill Repentance for certain should have sped no better That I add for this reason Noah we know was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Preacher of righteousness And that not only in a vocal way but by his religious and exemplary life Yea more than so his building the Ark was a Mechanical Sermon to the World and perhaps of an hundred and twenty years long For in the same Chapter where GOD denounc'd the Sentence of Inundation and commanded Noah to prepare the Ark He deteâ—minâ—d and declar'd that the days of Man that is before the Flood was to come shall be an hundred and twenty years And such a way of Preaching and of such a continuance in reason should have wrought with that stubborn Age beyond the most elaborate and pathetic Discourses And GOD seems to have expected no less For because it did not His Holy SPIRIT has clapt a black Brand upon them and markt them out for incorrigible and ungracious Wretches Who were disobedient in the Days of Noah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 while the Ark was a preparing Disobedience in that juncture under such a warning against it and motive to the contrary was such a disobedience as for circumstances of aggravation could hardly be parallell'd in that World It deserv'd to be recorded as a standing testimony against them that were guilty of it and as an eternal monument of their base unworthiness For it was no other than the fruit of contumacious refractoriness and bespeaks them arrived at the height of obstinacy and a most consummate viâ—iousness But put case the Sermons of this mighty Preacher had wrought so kindly and effectually as to have turned Mens disobedience into true repentance would this have altered the State of Nature or put a stop to its fatal tendencies Not in the least measure Still the World would have stood in its Original frame and a change in the minds and manners of people would have made none in the Physical Course of things So that unless God had interpos'd and by His immediate hand given a timely check to Natures Wheels they would have run directly into this watry ruine and what should have kept the sincerest penitents out of it For to suppose that GOD ingaged so far as to support the Earth by strength of miracle to secure it from the Flood would be as great a flaw in the Philosophy of this new Hypothesis as it is thought to be in the Divinity of the Old one to hold the Deluge was caused by Creation of Waters and then dried up by annihilation of the same 3. And yet if Omnipotence had not miraculously upheld the Earth supposing its Inhabitants righteous or penitent it would have fallen heavy upon GOD Himself So heavy as to have crusht the Reputation of his Providence extremely For it would have recoiled so rudely and violently upon its Goodness and so shamefully Eclipsed and blasted its Justice as to have brought its very Being into question And we may certainly conclude that an Hypothesis of this Nature which would weigh out the Portion of Men with so inequal a Ballance as to make ruine the lot of a righteous or repenting World instead of gagging or silencing the pragmatical Atheist by a more clever Explication of the Deluge would open his Mouth wider and but oil his virulent and sawcy tongue to run more glibly and rantingly on in his tremendous way of extravagance For what can mâ—re encourage so wicked a person than to disparage and lessen GOD's Goodness and Equity And how can those Atâ—ributes be more disgraced and diminished in the Judgment of an Atheist than by supposing that in the Works of His Providence through the whole Series of which he could look with a clear and easy prospect and so nothing of oversight could mingle with them He laid a cruel Train of inavoidable Death for Millions of his Innocent or Penitent Creatures How little this would have comported with those His illustrious and Cardinal Properties and how much it would have blemisht and dishonored them we may guess from hence in that when he was minded to overthrow Sodom and in his Holy Agents was come down from Heaven on purpose to do it He would have spar'd it for the sake of Ten righteous Persons And truly if He had destroyed the righteous with the wicked He must have done a thing in the sense of Aâ—raham not at all agreeable to the Integrity of the Judge of all the Earth Especially in those Ages when Spiritual Encouragements to GOD's Service
and recompences of it being not so frequently dispensed and the Eternal ones not so fully revealed the Divine favour was more commonly measured and expressed to Men by temporal and outward Blessings and deliverances And therefore that He abhorred such inequitable Dealings he was pleased to evidence by the contrary Procedure For when He consumed that accursed Town he saved just Lot by the Ministery of Angels Nor could He endure that Nâ—ah should perish being righteous but took particular care for his wonderfull preservation when the whole World besides Him and his Family was drowned But then so much less reason there is to admit this Hypothesis for that it makes the Earth at first of such a Form and puts Nature into such a Frame as would have involv'd Mankind in most horrid Destruction And not only so but moreover makes Providence accessary to their Perdition yea the principal and sole Contriver of it by making the place of their Habitation a perfect Trap to vast multitudes of them whereby without a Miracle they must certainly have been taken and quite undone had they been never so pure or never so penitent Should it be suggested that GOD foresaw the impiety and incorrigibleness of Men and so in way of just judgment ordered Nature and timed the Earth's Dissolution accordingly this would give little satisfaction to the Atheist the silencing of whose Cavils the Theory seems to aim at For he would take it at best but for a smooth Evasion or a slim Subterfuge or for a sorry kind of Fetch to help the Hypothesis at a dead lift Nor need we doubt but a Lucian or an Hobbs would raise as considerable Objections against this New way of explaining the Flood as against the Old one And would insist as tenaciously upon that Particular now mentioned and cavil as much and as justly at it as at the difficulty or unsolvableness of any single Phaenomenon in the way of its usual Explication CHAP. VII 1. Saint Peter's words alledged in favour of the Hypothesis inapplicable to that Purpose 2. Wherein the stress of them seems to lie 3. Seven other Allegations out of Scripture of no Force 4. As being Figurative and so not Argumentative 5. Which Tycho Brache not minding it gave occasion to his Systeme 1. TO countenance the Formation and Structure of the Earth aforesaid the Ingenious Theorist has call'd in several Divine Authorities And it being attempted to authenticate the Hypothesis by Allegations of that nature it is but necessary that we take notice of them and show their invalidity The first is cited out of the Second Epistle of S. Peter and runs thus For this they are willingly 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 overâ—lowed with water perisht But the Heavens and the Earth that are now by the same word are kept in store reserv'd unto fire against the day of judgment Where it is thought the Apostle doth plainly intimate some difference that was between the Old World and our present World in their form or constitution by reason of which difference that was subject to perish by a deluge as this is subject to perish by conâ—lagration To wind his words into a favourable compliance with this sense some specious offers are made But instead of applying answers to each of them in Particular we may shorten our work by obviating them with one general Observation touching the Paragraph which is this There is a Clause in it that will by no means suffer it to be interpreted the Theorist's way Namely this they are willingly ignorant of And of what were they thus ignorant Why of the Nature of the first Heavens and Earth and of the alterations that befel them at the time of the Flood So we are assured The Apostle tells them that they are willingly ignorant of the first constitution of the Heavens and the Earth and of that change and dissolution which happen'd to them in the Deluge But if St. Peter meant these things I dare boldly say that his charge was too smart and heavy upon the Men yea false and unreasonable For though ignorant of the things they might well be yet how could they be WILLINGLY ignorant of them Must not that be hard to make out Let us try but as to one of the mentioned heads the FORM of the Earth By what means should they have come to the knowledge of that though they would never so fain have done it GOD had not reveled it nor had Man apprehended it And how then could their ignorance in the case be wilfull In what Books was this Form of the Earth recorded Or what lively Tokens or Monuments were there of it Whence should they have gathered it Or where should they have met with Intelligence concerning it To say that Hills and Valleys and Mountains and Rocks that the Clifts of the Sea and its Deeps and Chanels that the rugged and broken Surface of the Ground or any thing of that nature might have informed them of it would be but wild and extravagant talk For besides that these Scoffers whom the Apostle reproves had no reason to believe that the aforesaid Phaenomenaes were marks or Footsteps of a ruinated Earth so if by chance they had phansied them such they might still have been far from a right Idaea of its supposed primitive frame A man may view and review an heap of Rubbish which was once an house very long and often and yet be never the more able at last to pronounce what Model the Fabric was of In like manner the most curious Surveys and reiterated observations of things in that confused posture wherein the Earth presents them to the eye could never have led those the Apostle disputes against into a right apprehension of this its Figure which the Theory makes it of before the Flood Had there been fair Indications of such a Form why did they not direct Men into an earlier Discovery thereof For touching it we find not one word in Antiquity Yet Mountains and Rocks and the like Deformities in Nature as we are taught to think them were altogether as visible ever since the Deluge as they are now And when none of the most searching prying minds none of the most busy intelligent Speculators were ever so quick-sighted as to decry this Form of the Earth from the aforesaid imagined Irregularities or any other hints or Characters of it it was certainly a thing too obscure to fall under the notice of those Heretical Mockers deservedly reprehended by the HOLY GHOST But then how could He rebuke them for being wilfully ignorant of it it being so very dark a Mystery Even by the Theorist's own confession this Doctrine was always abstruse and such as the Wisest Philosophers did never hit upon They never knew of a Paradisiacal Earth themselves nor did they ever speak any thing of
the Heavens and the Earth and that change and dissolution which happened to them in the Deluge their ignorance of those Particulars rehearsed must be the Summ of their Charge But then all those things being perfectly new such as neither Pythagoras nor Plato nor Aristotle nor Zeno nor any Philosophers of any Sect or Age did understand and declare how can it be thought that silly Gnostics or Pseudo-Christians could be acquainted with them And yet if they could not then neither could they be condemned of wilfull ignorance of them nor can the Text be applied to the Theory's Hypothesis 2. But if this were not S. Peter's Drift if it were not his intent to rebuke them for their ignorance of these things what then could be the scope of his correption I answer Though he could not give them this gird for their being ignorant of the Flood yet he might do it properly for their being ignorant of the Chief Cause of it Ignorant of the Flood they could not be it was a thing so well known and so generally received in the Church That the Heavens were of old and the Earth standing out of the water and in the water and that in their standing thus the then World was overflowed with water and perished they could not be chargeable with ignorance of this But the stress or Emphasis of the Apostles charge lies here that they were ignorant of its being done by the Word of GOD. The Heavens were of old says he and the Earth standing out of the Water and in the water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word of GOD. And then it follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which that is by which situation and by which word of GOD causing it the World that then was being overflowed with water perished So that this seems to have been their fault that they had not a true notion of the principal Cause of the Deluge But through their own heedlesness were much in the dark and mightily to seek as to that particular They did not know because they would not that GOD brought it in by the word of his power or in pursuance of that righteous decretory Sentence denounced by him Gen. 6. They were of opinion as others have been that the Flood was a meer casual thing and that the hand of GOD was no otherwise in it than in the purest contingent Calamities Or else that it proceeded wholly from Nature and Second Causes as from the Conjunction and influence of watry Planets However they might think it was of larger extent and longer Duration they might ascribe it to no higher Cause than some do the Flood of Ogyges that happened in Arcadia or that of Deucalion which drowned Thessaly Concerning the latter of which Lucan thus phansied Deucalioneos fudisset Aquarius imbres Aquarius 't was that made those rains pour down Which in Deucalion's time the Earth did drown He plainly imputed it to Astral efficiency or the force of the heavenly Constellations Now if these Men thought thus vainly of the general Innundation and knew it not to be the Effect of the special Providence of GOD they were grossly ignorant in the Case and this their ignorance was grievous wilfull and deserved the holy reproof they met with For had they but consulted the Story of it and considered what Moses says concerning it they would soon have perceived it was the direful issue of divine power and justice and came not by the influence of the Sâ—ars but by the appointment of the DEITY And that to condemn this very ignorance was the real meaning of S. Peter seems to be clear from its agreeableness to his aim or intention Which was to prove the World's Conflagration upon perverse Men who question'd the same and disputed against it by this Argument that all things continued as they were from the beginning whereby they hardned themselves against the Doctrine of the Conflagration in which the Apostle threatned them with a dismal Catastrophe Now how does the Apostle answer and take off this Why by fetching a compass about in his Discourse and by telling them though not in these words to this purpose that when the World was to be drowned all things continued then as they were from the beginning and Nature did not signify it beforehand by any sensible observable Changes because the work was not to be naturally done but by the Word of GOD commanding and causing it which to be ignorant of was their great fault And therefore that in their time all things continued as they were from the beginning ought to be no reason to them that the World shall not be Burned because it is not to be expected that Nature should foreshow it by any prâ—vious alterations inas much as this Burning is no more to be effected in a natural way than the Deluge was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the same Word which drowned the World and by which the Heavens and the Earth which are now are reserved unto fire Were it necessary in the least after what has been said it might here be noted that the words are very capable of and might properly be expounded to another sense This they are willingly ignorant of That is they are willingly mindless or forgetfull of it For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signify which in the case the Apostle speaks to must be an hainous fault and worthy of reprehension and therefore a thing forgotten is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Isocrates commending the actions of Hercules and Theseus says they were such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as no time could bring into oblivion or blot out of remembrance Tho' still there would be as little reason to charge these Heretics with wilfull forgetfulness of those things that the Theory would make the Text point at as there is to check them for wilfull ignorance of the same 3. Besides this of S. Peter other places of Scripture seem manifestly to describe this same new form of the Abyss with the Earth above it as we are told But as all those places may as well or better be applied to the Earth in its present form so they can hardly be interpreted in favour of this other without some kind of violence or absurdity The First occurrs Psal. 24. 2. He hath founded it the Earth upon the Seas and established it upon the Floods Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred upon does as properly signify by And so He founded it by the Seas and established it by the Floods Which David might the rather note because so much of Palestine where he lived lay along by the Mediterranean Though when our Learned Translators turned the word upon they made it speak most true English For where land lies by the Sea we commonly say it lies upon it But then on the other side the Earth according to its first imagined form could in strictness be founded neither upon the Seas nor yet by them because no Seas were then
in being but only an Abyss Should it be answered that the Abyss is here called Seas by a Prolepsis I rejoin Those Seas must then be called Floods by another Proleâ—sis And so the advantage will be cast on our side For in respect of the present form of the Earth the words may be expounded most naturally without a Figure but in reference to the other form they must not only be strained up to a Figure but that Figure must be twice made use of And which is very considerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred Floods does signify Rivers and so the LXX and Vulgar do both render it And though that sense falls in most properly with the present form of the Earth as it is every where extended by Rivers yet it can by no means hold with its first form supposing it established upon the Abyss for in that allowing there were Floods there could be no Rivers As to the next place Psal. 136. 6. Who stretched out the Earth above the Waters We need say no more than has been said already It may as well be read juxta aquas by the waters as super aquas above the waters The Third plaâ—e is Psal. 33. 7. He gathered the waters of the Sea as in a Bagg He layeth up the Abysses in Storehouses Which says the Theory answers very fitly and naturally to the place and disposition of the Abyss which it had before the Deluge inclosed within the Vault of the Earth as in a Bagg or in a Store-house But I say it sutes the present form of the Earth as well as it does the first only this difference The Bagg and Stâ—re-houses supposed to be in the first Earth were shut but in this they are open Yea it sutes it much better upon two accounts For in the Earth as it is now there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many Treasuries or Storehouses of Waters according to the Text which has the word in the Plural Number Whereas in the first Earth there could be but one before the disruption And then the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred as in a Bâ—g should be rendred as on an heap as it is in the English The Theory indeed faults that Reddition as not making a true sense But in all likelihood our Translators were in the right for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly is an heap And though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a Bag yet as Buxtorf notes where it is written without Aleph it is not found in that signification but signifies an heap And so says Fagius and the same says Masius And therefore Schindler renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this very place tanquam â—umulum as an heap And so does Bithnor adding That whereas the Targum and LXX render it a Bag it was because they read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 coming of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 motion and so being quasi rei motae in unum congregatio the gathering of a thing moved into one he will have to signifie an heap And whereas the Theory alleges That the Vulgate Septuagint c. render the word in a Bag or by Terms equivalent yet granting that to be the only proper Reddition it would make nothing at all to the Theorist's purpose another place of Scripture plainly defeats it For Psal. 78. 13. we read in the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in the Vulgar statuit aquas quasi in utre He set the Waters as in a Bag. Which not only makes the forecited Clause of the 33. Psalm to be no manner of evidence of the Seas being inclosed at first but moreover makes it a Proof of the clean contrary For it speaks of the Red-Sea and says it was in a Bag as much as the fore-quoted Text can possibly be made to say that the Abyss or Proleptic Sea was so and yet at the same time it was not only open as other Seas are now but much more open than ever For it speaks of it at that very time when Israel passed through it as the same Verse testifies And whereas the Theorist notes that the Oriental Versions and Paraphrase render the word as he does in a Bag I may affirm that the Targum Syriac Arabic c. render it so in the place I have alleged But how little their Authorities will countenance his Exposition of the Psalmist's words which he cites and how little that Exposition will help his Hypothesis of the form of the Earth may appear from the Psalmist's words that I have cited Which if they had been considered might have damped that thought which concludes the Paragraph belonging to that place of Scripture we have now spoken to The thought is thus expressed by the Theory I think it cannot but be acknowledged that those Passages which we have instanced in are more fairly and aptly understood of the ancient form of the Sea or the Abyss as it was enclosed within the Earth than of the present form of it in an open Chanel But then that Passage in Psal. 78. 13. being parallel to Psal. 33. 7. so far as we are concerned in it must be acknowledged to be most fairly and aptly understood of the Red Seas being enclosed within the Earth when Moses and the Hebrews marched through it and could that be The next place is Iob 26. 7. He stretcheth out the North over the empty places and hangeth the Earth upon nothing The same is as true of the South also but the good Man living in this Hemisphere the North was the nearer and more obvious of the two And what could be morâ— agreeable to the present Earth For it having no visible sensible thing under it or about it to shoar it up or support it it may very well seem in common apprehension and be said in the vulgar way of speaking to be stretcht out upon emptiness and hanged upon nothing And so the Sun stood still upon Gibeon and the Moon in the Valley of Ajalon though the places were without the Tropic And however Iob in this Expression might accommodate himself to the ordinary Phancy and speech of Men while he represents the Earth as extended and pendent over an immense vacuity yet to cry quit with the Theory which makes an illiterate Apostle a profound Philosopher let me say in the truth of the Notion he was a perfect Platonist For in this matter whensoever he lived he fully agrees with Plato's Doctrine For he also conceived the Earth to â—e hanged upon nothing as having no other Prop to sustain it but it s own figure and equiponderancy by which it swims evenly in the Element about it In testimony of this and so of the mutual concent betwixt Iob and him let this Passage out of his Phaedo speak I am perswaded that if the Earth be but in the midst of the Heavens it needs not the air nor any other help of the like nature to keep
it from falling But that a general equality of the Heaven in it self and an even-poizedness of the Earth is sufficient For an Equilibrious thing placed in a sutable or similar medium will not sway any way little or much but keeping it self evenly ballanced is free from inclination But in this New Hypothesis Ioâ—'s notion can have no place For to say the Earth according to that was stretcht out upon emptiness and hanged upon nothing would be notoriously false For the Theory teaches that it rise upon the face of the Chaos and could not have been formed unless by a concretion upon the face of the Waters and that it had the mass of Waters as a basis or foundation to rest upon And so the Antediluvian Earth was no more stretcht out upon emptiness and hang'd upon nothing than an Arch is when it is built upon its Center And it was but just now that the Theory contended from that Passage in the 24. Psalm that it was founded upon the Seas and established upon the Floods But how then could it be stretched out upon emptiness and hanged upon nothing Or how can the two Texts in the Theory's sense be reconciled In case it be answered That though the Earth at the very first was not stretcht out upon emptiness and hanged upon nothing yet in process of time it was so when the Abyss was sunk in some measure by reason of the huge quantity of Waters the Sun had drawn out of it and so the Earth sat hollow about it I reply in short Iob for certain meant no other than this present Earth For in the very next Verse he speaks of thick Clouds in which Waters were bound up and they not rent And such Clouds according to the Theâ—ry there could never be till the first Earth was dissolved A Fifth place is Iob 38. 4 5 6. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth declare if thou hast understanding Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest or who hath stretched the line upon it Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened Or who laid the corner stone thereof This likewise answers as properly and perhaps more fully to the present real form of the Earth than to the other fictitious one For GOD is here said to have laid the foundations of it Which surely he may as properly be supposed to have done in case he produced it by immediate Creation as if there had been only matter and motion and the power of gravity and levity in the Architecture of it and so its formation had been meerly mechanical as the â—heory makes it And then the measures and the line that are here mentioned do only imply that the Earth was made with fitting accâ—racy of necessary and convenient of regular and comely dimensions and proportions And may not this Earth in those regards be allowed to vie with that supposititious one undâ—r debate Yea does it not in some things excel it For though it has not the very same Elegancies which that Earâ—h had yet it has other Imbellishments equal to them if not beyond them Indeed it has not that smoothness and entireness which is pretended to have been in the first Earth But then which is more considerable it has the raised work of Hills the Embossings of Mountains the Enamellings of lesser Seas the Open-work of vast Oceans and the Fret-work of Rocks To say nothing of those stately Curtains over-head wanting heretofore which are frequently drawn and â—lung open upon occasion and sometimes curiously wrought and most richly gilt even to admiration far surpassing the goodliest Landskips that ever were or can be painted I mean the Clouds which though they be things distinct from the Earth yet having their beginning from the Earth and from this Earth too according to the Theory in opposition to the other are no improper instance of its out-vying it But not to run out into endless Particulars this Earth may compare with and be thought to out-go that imaginary one in Two general and chief things Comelinâ—ss and Vsefulness First in Comeliness For irregularities many times make a sort of Ornaments and those ruggednesses and inequalities that are void of all exactness and order do often pass for Beauties or a kind of Prettiness But then more especially may they do so in the Earth whose natural pulchritude is made up of such things as Art would call rudenesses and consists in asymetries and a wild variety And yet for an Earth it is most beautiful and comely still Thus an Urchin may be handsom in his kind though he has not the beauty of a Dog and a Dog though he has not the beauty of an Horse and an Horse though he has not the beauty of a Man And so is this Earth though it has not the beauty of â—iner things in it but only that which is peculiar to it self For as the beauty of the Sun lies in brightness and glory and the beauty of the Sky in clearness and serenity so the beauty of the Earth which is a different thing does and must needs lie in very different instances namely in Seas and Lakes and Islands and Continents in Flats and Prominencies and Plains and Protuberancies and Hollownesses and Convexities in smooth and spacious Levels in some places and Hills and Mountainous Roughnesses in others Whose careless diversifications and interchangeable mixtures as they mutually set off one another so they all conspire to adorn the Earth Insomuch that to suppose it of the prediluvian From would be rather to detract from its measures than improve them Yea it would be in a manner to make it no Earth or at least not so perfect a one as it is For as we can have no Camels without Bunches nor Mules without Hairs nor Fowls without Feathers or if we could they would be but the more imperfect so were the Earth abstracted from its aforesaid appendages however it might have the more uniformity in it yet as an Earth it would have the less comeliness Somewhat to inforce this Were a Man to contrive a Prospect for himself we may be sure he would not have it all of a piece or alike throughout but would have it cast into Swamps and Hillocks Bottoms and Gibbosities Evennesses and Asperities yea into Seas and Ilets and Rocks if it could be and so it would be an Image not of the primitive but present Earth A petty Argument to prove that there is something of perfection or at least of pleasingness in this Earth's disorder if we may call it so and that it is fitter to gratifie its principal Inhabitants and so far better in it self than if it had been regular and undiversified And the truth is several of those appearances which we are apt to call rude confused and uncouth and to count but Blemishes Scars and Deformities are commonly so well placed and suted to one another as to become very taking in artificial Draughts and a kind of natural
thereof was laid and the morning Stars sang c. And therefore when the Theory would put a difference in respect of time betwixt the foregoing 4 5 and 6 th Verses and those last set down so as to make the Questions in the former Verses proceed upon the Form and construction oâ— the first Earth and those in the latter upon the demolition of that Earth the opening of the Abyâ—s and the present state of both what it says is gratis diâ—tum and the distinction groundless Yea it seems not only to be applied without grounds but with force and violence for the Context intimates no such matter but rather the contrary It runs on in a direct series of Queries without giving the least hint that any of the Particulars touching which they are made were of later date than others And that the first set of them relate to things as ancient as the Primitive Earth's Production the Theory owns and therefore why should not the other too To which add when the Sea brake forth at the time of the disruption it could not be said to issue as out of a Womb so properly as out of its House where it had dwelt above Sixteen hundred Years for a Womb is the place where a thing is conceived and brought into being which before was not But these Waters were preexistent to the inclosure of the Abyss the Womb which held them yea against the order of Nature they were contributive to the being of it as they were the basis whereon the First Earth was built So that the place of the Abyss falls in but ill with the notion of a Womb in reference to these Waters And consequently they could as ill be said to issue from thence as out of a Womb. And then the Darkness at the Disruption was not so thick nor so much a garment or swadling band to the Sea as darkness was at the Creation Yea the truth is it could then be no garment or swadling band at all for the Sea but only for the Flood For by that time the tumultuary Waters of the Deluge were quietly retired into the decreed place and became a Sea the Sky was cleared up and the darkness gone Nor could it so properly be said to be shut up with Doors and to have Bars set upon it then as to be infranchized or set at liberty For those Doors and Bars which shut it up and made it fast in a closer state before the Disruption were then all broken down and thrown open for ever and it was put into a condition of far greater freedom than it formerly had its present settlement being perfectly a state of enlargement to it But now turn the words to the sense of the Old Hypothesis and besides that they keep time exactly with the Context how patly do they fall in with it For when on the First Day GOD together with the Earth made the Water of the Sea as it brake forth into being as if it had issued out of a Womb indeed because it just then gushed out of the Womb of nothing into Existence and as he then made the Cloud the garment thereof and thick darkness a swadling band for it in a fuller sense for darkness was then upon the face of the deep Gen. 1. 1. and that darkness for certain most thick there being then neither Sun nor Light so on the Third Day when he brake up Chanels for it he might well call them His decreed place and declare that he had beset it with Bars and Doors because by his command the Waters were gathered off the surface of the Earth where was their first and naturâ—â— situation and shut up in such Receptacles and with such a confinement as they would never have withdrawn into of themselves but would always have remained in their original diffusion over the whole Terrestrial Globe And that this shutting up of the Sea in its decreed place was a thing done in the beginning and not at the time of the Flood is evident Prov. 8. 29. where GOD's giving his Decree to the Sea that it should not pass his commandment and his appointing the foundations of the Earth are made to be Sâ—nchronals But from the last Verse of the Quotation Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther and here shall thy proud waves be stayed an objection is raised against the usual exposition of the Place For that sentence shews saith the Theory that it cannot be understood of the first disposiâ—ion of the Waters as they were before the Flood for their proud waves broke those bounds whatsoever they were when they overâ—lowed the Earth in the Deluge I answer If they did so yet that argues not but the words may speak the disposition of the Waters before the Flood according to the common interpretation of them for that Inundation was by GOD's special appointment And when he assigned to the Waters the place of their abode he did not intend to fortifie them in it against his own Omnipotence or to devest himself of his Sovereign Prerogative of calling them forth when he pleased And when they passed the bounds he set them so long as they did it not by any force of their own but meerly by his powerful order or providential act this their Eruption and spreading Overflow cannot be lookt upon as a breach of that Law or those Limits he prescribed them It was only the marvellous effect of an extraordinary Cause and a particular Exception of GOD's own making to the general and standing Rule of his Providence Just as Enoch's or Elijah's Translation was to the universal and irrevocable Sentence of Death That may be one answer in defence of the ancient Hypothesis But then to the Theorist I may give in this for another The proud Waves of the Sea did never pass their bounds to make the Deluge The great Deep or the Fountains then broken up had no relation to the Sea I confess this implies that the Flood is to be explained by a new Hypothesis but if we can but bring in such a one as may be as justifiable as the Theory's is which we shall endeavour to do we need not concern our selves farther about it The last place is Prov. 8. 27 28. When he prepared the Heavens I was there when he set a compass upon the face of the Deep when he established the Clouds above when he strengthned the fountains of the Abyss Whence is inferred So there was in the beginning of the World a Sphere Orb or Arch set round the Abyss which is presumed to be no other than the first habitable Earth But this is a sense far fetcht to serve the turn of an Hypothesis when there is a nearer at hand will do much better For by the Compass set upon the face of the Depth is meant no more than those bounds wherewith GOD encompassed not the Theory's Abyss but the open Waters The HOLY GHOST who is the best Interpreter of his own Writings expounds it so
could not chuse but derive good Skill in that Science from them And so by the way it will be easie to conceive how Abraham came to such perfection in it as to impart it to the Chaldeans Aegyptians c. as by Iosephus he is said to have done For he being near Sixty Years old when Noah died by living and conversing with him so long he might gain so much knowledge in Astronomical matters as to be able to instruct those Nations in them Especially if he addicted himself so much to the study of Astronomy as that that gave him his name Abram as the Knowledge of GOD caused Alpha to be put into it and turned it into Abraham For so a Learned Man has given us to understand That he pursuing the high Philosophy of things that happened in the Air and of those aloft that move in the Heavens was called Abram which is interpreted Sublime Father But afterwards he takes Alpha into it the knowledgâ— of the one and only GOD and is called Abraham Indeed it is not to be doubted but a great deal of the ancient Learning is lost as the Theory concludes And he that observes what a multitude of Books are said by Laertius to be written by Xenocrates Theophrastus Democritus and others of which so few are now to be found will easily believe it But yet this will not satisfie as to the deep silence of Antiquity touching the Aequinox asserted or the change thereof For other Theorems or Dogmaes even far more remote from notice and of a nature every whit as obscure or inevident though of late cleared up have been plainly delivered by some Philosophers or other and saâ—ely handed down to us either in their or in other Men's Writings Thus Pythagoras as Laertius relates taught the Earth to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inhabited round about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that there were Antipodes to whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things under us were above to them A Doctrine heretofore as little approved as believed and so ill thought of that the asserting it has cost some Men dear To which add what Plutarch in the Life of Numâ— remembers That the Pythagoreans thought the Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be neither immovable nor placed in the midst of the vortex or center of the turning Region 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to be hung up in a circle running about the fire that is the Sun The very Hypothesis revived by Copernicus and improved by Des-Cartes And to typifie the Sun 's being seated in the center of that Heaven in which he shines the same Numa says Plutarch built the Temple of Vesta in a circular form and placed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fire never to go out in the middle of it Leucippus also as we find in the aforesaid Laertius affirmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Earth was carried round or rolled about upon its own axis From whom likewise we learn That Anaxagoras was of opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Lightnings were caused by collision of Clouds as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Moon was habitable and full of Hills and Deles As if Galileo's Glass had been an old Invention and this Philosopher had known as much of the Moon above Twenty Centuries ago as â—e discovered of late and has given the World an account of in his Sidereus Nuncius Heraclides also as Plutarch reports believed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that every Star was a World comprehending in a vast aethereal space an Earth c. And so thought Orpheus Now when these and the like pieces of Philosophic Learning were preserved in the midst of that Shipwrack which it suffered it is strange that the Dint of Fate should fall so heavily on this single Notion of a Perpetual Aequinox as to sink it down to the bottom of Oblivion and leave us not so much as one clear Assertion of its existence or expiration For however the Latine Theory tells us of testimonia satis illustria testimonies clear enough to evidence the right Position of the Earth and consequently the Aequinox depending upon it yet when we come to examine them we shall find they are but blind and cloudy things and without all solid reason for their Foundations So that upon the whole matter the Assertions concerning the things aforesaid which are supra nos more out of the way except the Antipodes and less subject to Observation than thâ— Situation of the Earth and the Aequinox attending it and the change of both are more express and rational than any of the Testimonies concerning These Which is somewhat strange I say these being Phaenomenas which of old fell under common notice in way of Experience whereas the other were never so obvious and tried And the more strange will it seem yet if what was hinted before be duly considered namely That Noah might be well qualified to observe so great and remarkable things and to recommend the Observations to his Posterity 3. As for Scripture it is so far from favouring this Aequinox that it does rather discountenance it And those words Gen. 8. ult while the earth remaineth seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and night and day shall not cease instead of any change in the frame of Nature which the Theory would infer from them intimate the contrary that things still continued in their former State and were not out of a more regular and uniform then put into a new and less orderly course and posture than they were in before For First The words seem to look so directly the other way that they can scarce be made to cast an eye on such a sense without violent Distortion of their natural Aspect Noah was just now come out of the Ark and having so dismal a prospect before him so black and horrid and amazing a Spectacle as the utter Destruction of all Mankind excepting himself and seven more this might very well damp him extreamly and fill him with melancholy and sad Dejection And then the dreadful apprehensions of what might yet be behind or happen again afterwards of the like nature might startle him exceedingly and fright him into farther Consternation Now to support the good Man under the weight of this double terror and solicitude or to take off its heavy pressure GOD here passeth a solemn Promise that no such â—lood should ever drown the Earth any more And then in Confirmation of this Promise adds That the yearly Seasons should never thenceforward be interrupted which they certainly must be in case of such another universal Deluge That this was the occasion and full scope of these words Iosephus attests with advantage on our side For he says That Noah upon his coming out of the Ark fearing lest the Earth should every year be overflowed offered burnt sacrifice to GOD beseeching him that hereafter he would entertain the ancient order c. To which
According to the Ancients who stretched it from one Tropic to the other it was about Seven and forty Degrees wide that is near Three thousand Miles But yield it to have been but half so broad and what Men could ever have marched over it For as under their feet there would have been vehemently hot and scalding Sands so the scorching fury of the glaring Sun would have beat intolerably upon their Heads And then what should have guided them through this burning Tract where was nothing of Path or Way-mark to be seen Suppose they had the Direction of Stars by night yet who or what should have led their Caravans by day And yet had they journied without sure conduct whither might they have wandred and to what length might they have spun out their rangeing Progress at the shortest too long and tedious to be born Especially if we consider that in those their Travels they could have met with no manner of shelter or refreshment No not so much as with a Grove or a Tree with a Lake or a River with one poor Fountain or Spring of Water or a single puff of fresh and cooling Air. And say the driest burningest part of this Zone had not been above Five hundred Miles over yet who durst have thought of venturing through it as not knowing its extent And who that had advanced a few Furlongs into it could have been able to have gone forward or to return alive None will be surprized at this that have a right Notion of the nature of this Region or of the excessive degree of its raging heat The Theory speaks it in these words which all circumstances weighed carry no Hyperbole in them It was a wall of fire indeed or a Region of flame which none could pass or subsist in no more than in a Furnace Now if Adam were seated at first in the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth as the Theory holds then how could he or any of his Off-spring have removed into this Northern one there being such a fiery Partition betwixt them Yet we are told of Providence's transplanting Adam into this Hemisphere after he had laid the Foundation of a World in the other But that Adam in any ordinary Providential way and no extraordinary one is mentioned should cross a wall of fire or a Region of flame we know not how many hundred Miles broad which none could pass or subsist in no more than in a Furnace may justly be concluded a thing impossible And then equally impossible it was that this Hemisphere of ours should ever be peopled by Adam or his Progeny before the Flood To say that GOD led Adam through this Mediterranean fiery Zone the Barrier betwixt the two Hemispheres which nothing could pass either way as soon as he had sinned and so very timely that it was not as yet grown hot and burning might be a useful suggestion in the case were it not perfectly forestalled and quite shut out by what was said before namely That Adam was not transplanted into this Hemisphere till he had laid the Foundation of a World in the other Which suppose to have been done in Twenty Years time as it could not well be done in less yet in that interval the fire would have been so kindled in the Torrid Zone as to have made it too hot a Climate for him to have gone through If in this our Land we have no Rain for eight or ten weeks together in a Summer we see how lamentably the Ground is scorched and how the surface of it is turned as it were into a meer Turf and yet all this while the Sun is not perpendicular to us by two or three thousand Miles But how inconceivably hot then must the middle circumference of the First Earth have been supposing it subject to his perpendicular Beams not only for ten weeks but twenty years together and no one Cloud to have overshadowed it and no drop of Rain to have fallen upon it all that while It is said to have been the Opinion of Athanasiâ—s and Ephrem Syrus That Paradise into which Adam was put lay beyond the Ocean and that he wading through it made towards the Country where he was formed and at length dying there was buried in Mount Calvary Upon what good grounds this conceit was built I know not but by no means can it escape the Censure of absurdity Yet the vast Ocean it self might as well be â—ordable to the first Father of Mankind as this glowing Zone passable And therefore the difficulty of getting through that Ocean was one thing that induced St. Austin to follow Lactantius and the Ancients generally in denying Antipodes For in their Judgment an immense Ocean begirt the Earth after the manner this Zone is supposed to have done and parted our Northern from the Southern Hemisphere For which reason the good Father deeming it impossible that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Inhabitants of that side of the Earth which is opposite to ours should ever spring from the same Stock with us and be of Adam's Race he fairly concluded that there were no such It is too absurd to say that any Men could out of this get into that part of the Earth by sailing over the huge Ocean as also it would be to say That Mankind was founded there of that first Man Adam And tâ—erefore by the way how could St. Austin if consistent with himself place Paradise in the Anti-hemisphere or Continent opposite to ours as the Theory understands he did when he thus expresly declareâ— it to be his Judgment That Mankind was not propagated there and could not be transported from hence thither 5. Again Had the Earth held such a Right Situation to the Sun it would have put by the Rains which helpt to raise the Flood I confess it is granted That at that time the rains fell forty days and forty nights together and that throughout the face of the whole Earth And this is but a certain truth and so a necessary concession But then it is more than the Hypothesis can bear which makes Rain impossible while the first Earth stood in any other place but the Frigid Zones And therefore to admit such general Rains is to desert or overthrow the Hypothesis and to suppose the Situation of the Earth changed before it was so So incompatible were Rains to the first order or constitution of Nature as fixed by the Theory that a Particular Hydrography was calculated by it to serve the prediluvian Age with Water But then the same System or Frame of Nature which rendred that World so impluvious all along would have done so at the time of the Flood likewise Yea in that critical juncture when Rains were most useful it would have taken most place and made them least plentiful For then the Earth it self would have been hottest and driest and the Subterraneous Abyss most exhausted Nor can these general Rains be pretended to come from the
disruption of the Abyss as if the fall of the Earth had caused such extraordinary commotions in the Air or convulsions of its Regions as made them every where to pour down Waters For the Theory will have the Rains to be antecedent to the disruption I do not suppose the Abyss broken open till after the forty days rain But then this is most directly against Scripture again for that plainly affirms the contrary that the Fountains of the great Deep and the Windows of Heaven were both opened upon one day Gen. 7. 11. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life in the second month the seventeenth day of the month the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened So that in the same year of Noah's Life and in the same Month of that Year and on the same Day of that Month the Fountains below and the Windows above were both set open that the Waters issuing out of both might raise the Deluge 6. Let me add in the next place That it is a known Question that has been moved by Writers of all sorts Ancient and Modern Iewish and Christian Divines Historians Chronologers c. at what time of the year the Flood came in Iosephus for instance will have it to happen in Autumn others in the Spring and they give their reasons for it The Question does manifestly proceed upon inadvertency their not minding that when it was Spring in one part of the World it was Autumn in another And the like Question is put by Writers and bandied among them touching the Creation at what time of the year that great Work was done But somewhat more improperly there being no Seasons of the year before the Creation Now this being the general Judgment of the Learned That the year had Tempestival Changes from the beginning even the same that it has now as these Questions import from hence it may be inferted that they never dreamt of this Position of the Earth or a Perpetual Aequinox but were all of the contrary perswasion or common Opinion 7. As for the Authorities that are made use of to establish the Doctrine we are upon if they be examined they will hardly be found to speak home in the case For though in the Contents of the Tenth Chapter of the Second Book of the Latin Theory it be thus declared the last Article concerning the right Situation of the first Earth is establisht by the sentences of Philosophers yet if their Sentences alledged in that Chapter be well considered they will appear to be too weak and insufficient I shall set them all down fully to avoid suspicion of perverting or misrepresenting them The first is taken out of Plutarch and delivered by him as the joint Opinion of two ancient Philosophers Diogenes and Anaxagoras think that after the World was constituted and living creatures were brought forth out of th◠Earth the World in a manner was inclined towards its Southern part of its own accord And that this perchance was done by providence that some parts of the World might be inhabited and others not by reason of cold heat and convenient temperature But this will do the Theory little service it rather fights against it For the Inclination here is said to be made by Providence that some of the Worlds parts might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitable by reason of a good temperature Which agrees not with the Theory for that holds the World to have been of the best temperature before the Earth was inclined insomuch that it knew no Season but Spring And what then could mend its habitableness Yet in order to that the Earth was inclined as the Citation intimates And when in the Judgment of these Philosophers the inclination of the Earth was to conduce to or improve its habitableness and according to the Tenor of the Theory it would rather have been an hindrance or disadvantage to the same it is apparent that this Allegation does rather cross than confirm the Hypothesis In case it be argued That this Inclination might promote or mend the habitableness of the Earth as it quenched the flame in the Torrid Zone and reduced its intolerable to a gentle hea◠neither thus can the Passage be drawn to favour the Theory For say the Philosophers by vertue of this Inclination some parts of the Earth were to be rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uninhabitable and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too upon the account of vehement heat Whereas this very Inclination was of necessity to be a qualification or corrective or indeed a perfect extinction of all furious burning in the Torrid Zone as the Theory owns So that the Authority cited is so far from establishing the Theory's Hypothesis of the Earth's Inclination that it will not be easily reconciled to it Nor can it excuse the matter with this Pair of Philosophers to say that they were blinded here with the common Error and ran for company with those that believed there was a Torrid Zone when there really was none For allowing they were so sagacious as to discover this Secret of the Earth's Inclination we must also grant that by the same quick-sightedness they would clearly have discerned that the effect thereof could not have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a scorching raging insufferable heat about the middle of the Earth but a certain mitigation or quenching of the same The second Sentence is that of Empedocles which occurs in the same Chapter of Plutarch Empedocles teacheth That the Air giving way to the force of the Sun the North inclined the Northern parts being elevated and the Southern ones depressed and this happened by that means to the whole World Here is a mighty effect produced without a cause assigned at least here is non causa pro causa the assignation of a cause altogether incompetent and not to be understood For why should the Air yield to the force of the Sun more towards the South than towards the North when his force was equal upon both the Regions at once For he moving at all times exactly in the midst betwixt them his influence must be exactly alike upon each and therefore that it should cause the depression of one more than of the other is a thing in the dark and unintelligible But say the Sun had had power to displace the Earth and by sinking one Pole of it through such a cession of the Air to have raised the other yet then that this cession should not be in the Air nor consequently this dislocation of the Earth till the Flood happened is not to be thought And therefore this Sentence favours not the Theory neither for that has positively determined the time of the Deluge to have been the juncture of the Earth's declension or dislocation Whereas if the Sun had been the cause thereof by working a change in the Air conducive thereunto it must have been accomplisht
was so at first It might then be Oval or oblong and its present Roundness may be owing to its Disruption I reply Admit the Earth was oblong before the Disruption and the falling in of its outward Orb could hardly reduce it into a Spherical Form but would rather have made it more oblong still For the Orb we speak of must in likelihood break and fall in first about the Aequator or Middle parts of it For there it was most heated and there it was most cracked and there it was most hollow underneath the Waters of the Abyss being much exhaled And these parts falling those whereabouts the Tropics are now might fall soon after them Whereas the Poles of this Orb being turned with a shorter or narrower Arch were much the stronger And then being remote from the Sun and continually wet were not disposed to break at all through driness and brittleness as the Regions about the Aequator were So that the Poles might remain whole and keep those very places almost which they held before For as for their sinking lower and coming much nearer together than they were it was not likely because that huge Circle of Ground which fell in about the Aequator and Tropics would have intercepted and hindred them For though the Poles were hollow they could not slip over the Earth which fell in betwixt them and clasp it in their cavities in regard they were not wide enough For the Orb being Oval was narrowest towards the Poles So that the falling in of the Earth must have rendred it rather more than less Oval While the Poles of it would have continued at their usual distance almost and the intermediate Regions by dropping into the Abyss would have been contracted into streighter Dimensions of Circumference 5. Or say the Disruption of the Earth would not have made it more Oval than it was yet surely it would not have made it less For as the Earth in all probability would have broke in first about the Aequator for the reasons alledged so those Fragments being nearer the inward Earth than the Polar parts would sooner have reached it in their fall than these could have done Especially considering these Polar parts according to what was said before must have fallen entire in two vast Caps as it were For so they would have contained such abundance of Air as must have rendred their descent very slow much slower than that of the Aequinoctial and Tropical Fragments Which being of quite another fashion that did not inclose the Air so much would have descended a great deal faster Insomuch that before the Polar Hemispheres let me call them could have got down to the interiour Earth all the ground that fell in about the Aequator and Tropics would have been settled there and fit to receive those mighty Hemispheres when they should have come and whelmed themselves whole upon it Or grant they should have broke by pitching upon that vast heap of Earth which fell down betwixt them yet there they must have laid in a confused posture where they flew in pieces and so would have helped to make the Earth oblong In a word suppose they did sink down as far proportionably towards the common Centre as the Aequinoctial and Tropical parts did yet if they sank no farther as indeed why should they all circumstances considered the Earth in case it were Oval at first must of necessity continue so CHAP. X. 1. That there were Mountains before the Flood proved in way of Exception to the Theory out of Scripture 2. And that they could not be made by the Falling in of the first Earth argued from the Mountains in the Moon 3. And from the Opinion of the Talmudists and others 4. How Mountains might arise in the very beginning 5. There must be Mountains in the first World because there were Metals in it 1. TWO Properties of the Prediluvian Earth we have done with its Continual Aequinox and its Oval Figure We must now proceed to its next Property or rather to the former Branch of it The exterior face of it was smooth and uniform without Mountains But neither can this be asserted without some violence to the Inspired Writings LORD thou hast been our refuge from one Generation to another Before the Mountains were brought forth and the Earth and the World were made Thou art GOD from everlasting So we read Psal. 90. 1 2. Where the scope of the Psalmist being to set forth GOD's Eternity and his early Providence over his People he declares of him That as he was always a Shelter and Protection to them from Age to Age so he existed before the Creation even before the Mountains were brought forth and the Earth and the World were made Where his ranking the Production of the Mountains with the Formation of the Earth and the World speaks them coaeval with the same And which is not unworthy of remark Moses says the Title of it composed this Psalm to whom the Rise of all things and the Order of their rising into being was better known than to any Man born Yet this Moses as he illustrates GOD's Eternity à parte ante by his Preexistence to the Universe so he measures his most timely care over his Church as much by the Moâ—ntains duration as by the duration of the Earth or World Thereby giving us to understand That the one is as good a Rule as the other as bearing the same date of Existence and issuing forth into being not by a far distant Succession but all together as fast as nature could permit And however some Mountains might be produced long after others yet that will make nothing against us if we do but suppose the Psalmist to speak of the Earliest This by the way does sufficiently confute the Peripatetiâ— error touching the Worlds Eternity For if GOD was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the Earth and habitable World 't is certain the World had a beginning and could not be from everlasting as hâ— was And the same Moses makes mention not only of lasting Hills but of ancient Mountains Deut. 33. 15. But had there been no Mountains till the Flood he would scarce have given them that Epithet as being but few ages older than himself I confess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the East as well as ancient And the Samaritan and Syriaâ— Pagnin and Montanus render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mountains of the East But not so well For Ephraim and half the Tribe of Manasseh Ioseph's Posterity mentioned ver 17. in whose Land the Blessings of these Mountains are here prophesied of by Moses were planted in that Division of Palestine called Samaria which being on this side of Iordan and upon the Mediterranean Sea lay towards the West and consequently its Mountains could not be called Mountains of the Cast. And as for the other Half of Manasseh though they were seated beyond Iordan yet I do not find that the Mountains in their allotment were known by the name
at length were made Lords of the Seas as soon that is as they were open and had power over the Fish therein and so the word spoken by their Creator was sufficiently verified and the Prerogative promised amply conferred I answer First The Divine Word was never made good to Adam nor was that high Prerogative bestowed on him Yet he being the Head of Mankind had reason to be instated in all the Privileges of Humane Nature which GOD annexed to it or settled upon it as such Secondly Adam's Off-spring as many as lived and died before the â—lood did no more partake of this Priviledge than he himself Thirdly The Rule or Dominion over Seas and Fish intended for Adam and his Posterity was immediately conveyed to them Even at the same time that Dominion was given to them over Fowle and Cattle and Creeping things And therefore we find it transferred by the same Act and in the very same form of Donation Only Dominion over the Sea was First mentioned which is no sign that it was Last to be attained The Royal Charter by which they claim and hold the Prerogative testifies as much it runs as followeth 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 cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth Gen. 1. 26. And again ver 28. have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth So that admit nothing of GOD's Similitude imprinted upon Man did consist in this Dominion yet let any judge whether GOD did not intend hereby to pass unto Men as full a Dominion over the Fish as over other Creatures As also whether they were presently to have and exercise this Dominion or to be suspended from it for above sixteen hundred Years That they had Dominion over the Fowl and over the Cattle and over the Creeping things from the beginning I dare say the Theorist himself will not deny And how then can he bar them from it over the Fish till after the Flood especially it being the first thing in order in the Sacred Grant Which Clause had they been kept from the benefit of it so long would not only have been quite eluded but miserably inverted For then insâ—ead of Mankindâ—s having Dominion over the Sea that would have had Dominion and a most Tyrannical one too over them Insomuch that the very first time they should have seen it it would have drowned them all even a whole World of them save eight Persons 2. And that there should be open Seas even from the Creation seems very necessary upon the Fishes account For when GOD gave them the Blessing of Multiplication endued them that is with Appetite of Generation and Power of Propagating their kinds respectively he commanded them to fill not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Deep or Abyss but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Waters in the SEAS And therefore Seas there must be in the beginning of things else Fishes could not have replenish'd them with their Breed And indeed some kind of Fishes there were that could be no where conveniently but in Seas as being too big for Rivers For on the same day that other Fishes were made GOD created huge Whales also passing the same Benediction upon them as he did upon those I confess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does signifie other Creatures as well as Whales but the word denoting them amongst the rest that will be enough for our purpose For Animals they were of so vast Dimensions that where could they harbour but in spacious Seas Aelian reckons up several sorts of them as the Leo Libella Pardalis Physalus Pristes and Maltha Which last he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Creature hard to be conquered To which he adds the Aries most mischievous and dangerous to be seen For when he appears a far off he troubles the Sea and makes it tempestuous But then he notes withal that these Fishes come not near to Shores or Shallows but keep constantly in the Deeps And the same Author remembers that Theocles speaks of Whales 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bigger than Galleys of three banks of Oars on a side And that Onesicritus and Orthagoras wrote of Whales about India half a Furlong long and of proportionable breadth and so very strong that oftentimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they puffed with their Snouts they would spout up the Water at such a rate that the unexperienced would take the Seas to be tossed with Whirl-winds Nor need we wonder at the excessive size of these Whales when Pliny gives account that King Iuba in Books sent to Claudius Caesar touching the History of Arabia makes mention of some that were six hundred Feet long and three hundred and sixty broad And the same Pliny speaks of Balaenae in the Indian Ocean as long as four Acres of Ground Mercator also in his Description of Island besides other huge Fishes tells of the Royder and hundred and thirty Ells long And of a great kind of Whale seldom seen like an Island for magnitude rather than a Fish As also of the Stantus Valur which when it shows it self seems an Island for bigness and overturns Ships with its Fins Now where could Fishes of such prodigious greatness move and multiply but in vast and open Seas Am I a Sea or a Whale said Iob. He put them together as having special Relation to one another And truly if in the beginning there were such monstrous Whales there must be Seas answerable to them And that the Whales at first created were as large as any we need not question For as it became the ALMIGHTY to send forth them in their full perfection as well as other Creatures so to convince us that he did so he bestowed the Epithet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon them calling them GREAT Whales Gen. 1. 21. So that could there have been Rivers or Lakes in the first Earth sutable to other Fishes yet these mighty ones would have been too big for them 3. What remains therefore but that the only place of aboad which according to this new Hypothesis can be allowed these Bulky Creatures though it does not allot it to them must be the subterraneous Abyss And then the Waters in that Abyss how improperly soever must be the Waters in the Seas wherein they were to live and multiply according to the Divine Blessing and appointment But that Abyss though of a meet capaciousness could by no means have been a fit Dwelling for them upon several accounts For First It would have been a place exceeding Dark full of perpetual and blackest Midnight Neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars could ever have lookt into it or darted so much as one bright Beam into the Pitchy Recesses of it So that besides the
loss they would have been at for Pâ—ey how could they have seen to direct their Motions having no manner of Light at any time to guide them So that upon occasion they must have râ—n at tilt upon one another and being inclosed between two Earths would have been in danger of stranding themselves both above and below Secondly It would have been a place as close as it was dark And therefore what shift should they have made for Air I think I may say for Breath For as for Whales and other Fishes that have Lungs Pliny says It is fully resolved by all Writers that they breathe And his Opinion it is That all Water-creatures do the same after their manner In proof of which he offers several Arguments not to be despised As their Panting Yawning Hearing Smelling c. To which add their Dying upon being frozen up for any time Or if they be alive their greedy flying to any little hole made in the Ice whereat the Air enters But in the Abyss they could have had neither Air nor Breath and so for lack of the same must all have been smothered Lastly It would have been a place as Cold as it was dark and close For the same Cover of Earth of unknown thickness that would have hindred Light and Air from piercing into the Abyss must have kept out the Suns cherishing and benign Warmth too So that could they have struggled with and overcome the two first Inconveniences yet here they would have met with a Third insuperable Could they have lived without Light and Breath yet they could not have multiplied without the Influence of Heaven The want of that would have chil'd and quench'd the desires of Procreation in them and rendered them impotent that way Thus Winter we see is no season for Production of Fishes as being destitute of that quickning power and encouragement which the Presence of the Sun affords 4. Farther yet That there were Seas in the Beginning even on the Third Day we are taught Gen. 1. 10. GOD called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas And why should they not be such Seas as we have now For we have no more grounds to think or say That the Waters there mentioned were an invisible potential or proleptic Sea than we have to imagine or affirm that the dry Land there spoken of was an invisible potential or proleptic Earth And that there were open Seas then may be argued from the Waters we read of under the firmament Gen. 1. 6 7. And GOD said Let there be a firmament in the midst of the Waters and let it divide the waters from the waters And GOD made the firmament and divided THE WATERS WHICH WERE VNDER THE FIRMAMENT from the waters which were above the Firmament But had there been none but River-waters in the first World and not such an open and huge Collection of Waters as we now see the Firmament could not so properly have been said to divide the waters from the waters For then it must rather have been in the midst betwixt the Earth and the Waters and so must have divided the Earth from the Waters the Earth which was under the Firmament from the Waters above it For as for the River-waters they would have been too inconsiderable to have had the Partition made by the Firmament predicated of them in exclusion of the Earth or in preference to it It would have been as if the KING should have said Let a Wall be built betwixt the Thames and the Conduits of London to part them without taking any notice at all of the City which is infinitely more remarkable than the Conduits are But therefore the Theory presents us with a new Notion of the Firmament and makes it to be quite another thing than what it has always been said to be namely That Cortex or Outward Region of Earth spread and founded upon the Abyss And so the Waters of the Abyss under that Earth must be the Waters under the Firmament I cite but two Paragraphs to this purpose Any one at the first view might be able to guess that this exterior frame which GOD establisht upon the Abyss is to be understood by that Firmament which GOD is said to have establisht between the Waters below and above Gen. 1. 6. 7. And again As to the Firmament between the waters it was a remarkable Phaenomenon of the first Earth or rather the first habitable Orb it self which every way encompassed and shut up the Abyss and so divided the Waters above from those below But this truly is so far from giving any satisfaction that it will rather bring the whole Hypothesis to confusion I mean while thus it runs against Scripture again and that most directly and shamefully For the Firmamentum interaqueum Firmament that divided the Waters was so far from being a Frame or an Orb of Earth or the first habitable Earth that as the DIVINEST SPIRIT tells us it was that wherein the Fowls were to fly which yet were to fly above the Earth Gen. 1. 20. Yea in that very Verse it is said to be the Firmament of Heaven And by GOD himself is stiled Heaven GOD called the Firmament Heaven ver 8. Even that very Firmament which divided the Waters as we learn from the two foregoing Verses And therefore the waters under the Firmament in the seventh Verse are said in the ninth Verse to be the waters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Heavens I confess the Theorist twits us for understanding by the Firmament what we commonly do calling it an Vnphilosophic thing But I forbear to retort It is enough to shew that the advantage lies so much on our side and that the ingenious Philosopher is so utterly lost in his Notion And since to make the Earth before the Flood to be this Firmament is so impossible as being manifestly repugnant to the Truth of GOD what remains but that it should be that diaphanous Expansum stretched out betwixt us and the Clouds which as it is constituted of Air chiefly so it is the place wherein Fowls do fly according as Providence was pleased to appoint And to seal up this for a certain truth it is known that the Hebrews have no other word whereby to express Air but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven or Firmament Only whereas this Aereous Expansion extends from hence to the cloudy Regions where are the Wates above the Firmament and therefore are called Waters above the Heavens we must note that there is another Firmament mention'd by Moses I mean that Expanse of indefinite vastness wherein the Celestial Lights are fixed for as we read Gen. 1. 17. GOD set them in the Firmament of Heaven But then this Aereous space we speak of being the true Firmament this proves there were open Seas at first Else as was said before this Firmament must have divided the Waters from the Earth whose
surface bating a few Rivulets would have been entire under it but could not so properly have divided the Waters above the Firmament from the Waters under it because the Waters under the Firmament would have been in no united Body and of no join'd or continuous Superficies but to grant what the Theory supposeth dispersed in Rivers running on the Earth which would have been one huge unbroken Continent Yea and in a considerable Tract of Ground around this Earth there would not have been so much as one Rill of Water neither even according to the Theory it self allowing its Hydrography 5. But here we meet with Opposition upon several Accounts As first if Open Seas were the Waters under the Firmament in the primitive State of things then the Clouds must be the Waters above the Firmament But against this it is objected thus If nothing be understood by the Celestial Waters or Waters above the Firmament but the Clouds and the middle Region of the Air as it is at present methinks that was no such eminent and remarkable thing as to deserve a particular Commemoration by Moses in his six days work To which I take leave to answer That the Clouds how contemptible soever they may seem are no whit unworthy to be specified or remembred by that famous Writer in his Cosmopoeia or Story of the Worlds Creation And this will appear if we rightly consider but Two things concerning them Their Dimensions and their Vsefulness First Look to their Dimensions Who can tell what vast and mighty things they are To what length and breadth do they stretch out themselves and how do they cover whole Kingdoms at once with their shady Canopies And then they are of answerable thickness too So that interposing betwixt the Sun and us they oftentimes turn day into night almost by intercepting his light Which in the Holy Philosophy as an act of Providence is thus ascribed to GOD. With clouds he covereth the light and commandeth it by that which cometh betwixt Iob 36. 32. Sometimes they mount up and fly aloft as if they forgat or disdain'd the meanness of their Origin and scorn'd to be thought of earthly extraction Sometimes again they sink and stoop so low as if they repented of their former proud aspirings and did remorseful humble Penance for their high presumption And though I may not say they weep to expiate their arrogance or kiss the Earth with bedewed Cheeks in token of their Penitence yet they often prostrate in the Dust and sweep the very lowest grounds of all with their misty foggy trains One while they are spread thin and single over us another while they are doubled trebled and strangely pil'd up or whelm'd one upon another or else built with Stories as it were and made into several Concamerations And therefore they are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His that is GOD's Chambers Psal. 104. 3 13. Now they look like Ridges of Hills in our Horizon anon like a Row or Chain of Rocks and by and by they hang like pendulous Mountains or swim like floating Islands in the Aiery Ocean Here they pour down abundance of Rain and there as much Hail in one place they scatter Sleet in another deep Snow and that for many hundreds of Leagues together To say nothing of those glorious things the Rain-bow Parelia's Paraselenes c. Thunder also is from the Clouds And yet it is a thing so very considerable that GOD himself calls it his VOICE in the Psalms yea his Mighty VOICE and also his Glorious or Majestic VOICE So much Power and Glory and Majesty is there in it that it strikes awe and terror into the hearts of the best as well as of the greatest And certainly the righteous being bold as a Lion it was a greater sign of its Dreadfulness that a good Man's Heart should tremble and be moved out of its place at this VOICE of GOD's excellency Iob 37. than that the Roman Emperor should run under his Bed Thus the Clouds appear to be strangely capacious Vessels or Store-Houses rather of Meteor Provisions And yet which is admirable when they are never so large and never so thick never so full and never so heavy and as one would think should load the Air with inconceivable gravitation yet they do not fall down and crush us to pieces or bury us alive under Mountains of Ice No they bear up as lightly and drive on as swiftly through the yielding Sky as if they had no kind of weightiness in them And to whatsoever Philosophy may impute this as to their being always in Motion their being turgid with Vapours to the thickconsistency of the Air under them or the like the thing is really and greatly to be wondered at And therefore Pliny considering it was struck with Admiration and cry'd out as in a pang of rapture or surprize quid mirabilius aquis in coelo stantibus What is more wonderful than the Waters standing in the Air And well might he think it a marvellous Phaenomenon when the Ballancings of the Clouds are said by the ALMIGHTY to be his own works and not only so but the wondrous works of him as he is perfect in knowledge Job 37. 16. In which regard the Etymology of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heavens is not unfitly fetcht from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be astonish'd and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Waters Quòd stupendo modo aquae illic suspensae haereant Because Waters hang there in an astonishing manner says Buxtorf But why then should they be thought so despicable by the Theorist as to be unworthy of a particular commemoration by Moses They cannot be so if in the Second place we consider their Vsefulness They are so far from being wholly Superfluous or purely Ornamental things that they are highly beneficial or Vseful Three ways That is to say For the Earth For Mercy and For Correction The Distinction is Iob's and therefore so authentic that we need not scruple to go upon it First They are Vseful for the Earth As they contribute greatly to the Preservation of it to preserving it in a good and verdant State If the same Great GOD whose Powerful Goodness brought the World into being and fixt it in a Regular and Curious Order did not by a wise and gracious manutenency exerted chiefly in a well contrived Disposition and Concatenation of things linkt to one another by a continued Chain of just Connexion and dependence hold them fast together they would soon shatter and dissolve into saddest Confusion For though the Machin of the Universe be as august as it is immense yet were it not for the accurate Symmetry of its parts so skilfully fitted and connected amongst themselves and for the mutual support which one piece derives and affords to another by means of that necessary and elegant contexture which runs through the whole habit or Compages thereof it would immediately fall asunder and rush into an heap of irreparable Ruines
Its Motions in some places would flag and faulter and in others grown as much too fierce and violent and so through unhappy deficiencies and redundancies of Motion that commonly change and destroy Nature post into innumerable Disorders and Intanglements and so become a most lamentably hampered thing eternally devoid of all beauty and harmony And the very same would happen to the Earth in its Proportion It is now a very goodly piece and incomparably furnisht and adorned There are few places in it but afford taking Prospects or present the eye with such pretty Objects that if the Beholders be not too incurious they may well be affected with them Herbs Flowers Trees Fruits Springs Brooks Rivers c. with what variety and in what abundance does it send forth But yet let the Clouds we speak of with-hold their moisture but a few years and what a rueful change would then appear The choicest Grounds which now swell with Plenty and luxuriate with fatness and pleasing Gayeties would be miserably exhausted and their tempting amoenities turned into horridness They would be quite devested of their florid attire and of all their rich and gorgeous habiliments Yea not only their wanton gawdy Dresses but even their coarsest and most ordinary Cloaths would be â—indg'd off their Backs and being stript of their decent necessary Garments would have nothing leâ—t to cover their nakedness We live in an Island where according to St. Peter's phrase the Earth stands in the Waters and out of the Waters more than in other places Yet as much Water as we have about us should the Clouds be unkind and deny us their effusioâ—s to what grievous straits should we soon be reduced We may justly conclude so from what has happen'd by some short Droughts amongst us the effects of which are found upon Record in our English Chronicles And if a little dry weather be intolerable to us who dwell so near the Seas and have Neptune's Territories round about us how extreamly pernicious must lasting Droughts be to higher or more In-land Situations But therefore the First Vse of the Clouds is to keep the Earth in a Flourishing Condition To temper the immoderate heat of the Sun and to asswage his scorching fury To moisten the Air and keep it cool and to cool the Earth by keeping it moist That so once in a year at least it might put on its bravery and be deckt and array'd in its prideless Gallantry the Image of its native finery and those higher glories wherewith at first it was better beautified and imbellisht And therefore when GOD brings the Clouds over it to perform their work of natural Distillation He is said to do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for hiz Earth in the quoted Text. Because the Earth is His and because it might continue to be like his that is Comely and Graceful Whereas if Clouds by their Waters should not refresh it in a short time it would scarce be fit to be owned for GOD's Earth It would be so fear and bare and barren and desolate that it would hardly look like a piece of His Workmanship Yea so parched would it be and so dry would it grow and such heats would it conceive from the inflaming Sun that it would be forced to anticipate its final Destiny by burning in good measure before the Conflagration Secondly The Clouds are Vseful for Mercy They do not keep the Earth from Desolation and help to maintain it in a Condition good and flourishing upon its own account only but upon ours also That so we may be fed and cloathed and furnished with its valuable Products and the fruits of its increase The Psalmist if we would read this in Holy Stile expresses it thus Thou visitest the earth and blessest it Thou makest it very plenteous Thou waterest her furrows Thou sendest rain into the little valleys thereof Thou makest it soft with the drops of rain and blessest the increase of it thou crownest the year with thy goodness and thy clouds drop fatness They shall drop upon the dwellings of the wilderness and the little hills shall rejoice on every side The folds shall be full of sheep the valleys also shall stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing And in another place He watereth the hills from above the earth is filled with the fruit of thy works He bringeth forth grass for the cattle and green herb for the service of man That he may bring food out of the earth and wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oyl to make him a chearful countenance and bread to strengthen man's heart But this is not all the mercy which showrs down from the Clouds They drop an higher mercy on us still I mean as they are an Argument and a mighty Argument against the black and cursed sin of Atheism For being notable Instruments of Divine Providence they so bear witness in a powerful manner to the existence of a GOD. And therefore when as great a Disputant as ever entered the Christian Schools except the adorable Master of them would have reasoned Men into an acknowledgment of the True GOD he argued from this very Topic the Clouds or which is all one from the Rain they afforded Yea he told them plainly That GOD himself made use of it as an Evidence to prove and attest his own being He left not himself without witness in that he gave us Rain Acts 14. 17. And truly he that shall consider all the Phaenomena's of this Meteor and trace it along from its Rise or Generation to its fall and profitable effects upon the Earth will find it of singular force to evince a DEITY As for the Causes Nature and Qualities of Rain the way of its Production the manner of its Distillation c. the Apostle urged them not he knew those things were too high for the Men of Lystra But then he pressed them with the thing another way more suitable to their Capacity namely As Rain was a means of the Earth's being fruitful He gave us Rains and fruitful seasons Pursue it but on this part and how powerful an Argument or Testimony will it be of the Existence of a GOD I mean as it will appear to be a wonderful Instrument exactly sitted for its appointed work and as it manifests a strange Providential Contrivance in adapting it in point of congruity and ability to be the excellent Cause of such signal Effects For suppose the most understanding Man as to that concern in the whole World had Woods and Nurseries and Orchards and Gardens and Fields and Pastures to be watered how would he chuse to have it done so as it might be most for their and consequently for his own advantage Why in the same way we shall find it done by the Clouds only better and indeed so much better that it will be very hard if not impossible for Art to match it by any Invention A certain Indication that a more than ordinary
ratifie that Promise And no wonder that things extant and common in the World should be made confirmatory Signs of GOD's Promises when things transient and actually past long before and so not to be taken cogâ—oscence of but by remembrance and things that never did or were to exist till long after his Promises should be accomplisht and so as yet were no real things and to be lookt at only with an eye of Faith have been made such Signs Of the first sort was the Sign of the Prophet Jonas Whose being vomited up of the Whale after three days continuance in its Belly was made a Sign of our SAVIOUR's rising from the dead after his triduous abode in the Holy Sepulchre Though Ionah was swallowed and cast up by the Fish near a thousand years before our LORD's interment and Resurrection Of the latter sort was the miraculous Conception and Birth of the Messiah which was made a Sign of safety promised to Ahaz against Rezin and Pekah but was not brought to pass till above seven hundred and forty years after Other instances of the same kind occur Exod. 3. 12. Isai. 37. 30. 4. But we have a farther proof yet of the existence of the Rainbow before the Flood And though it be but indirect and consequential yet it may not want its weight It is the existence of Clouds then For if they were before the Deluge as they are now there were all causes needful for the production of the Iris which could not but frequently conspire or fall in with one another so as to paint that beautiful thing in the Heavens And that there were Clouds in the first World has been proved already by the same Arguments that evince there was a Sea and Mountains for they imply and necessarily infer the being of Clouds The Flood also was made of Rains in a great measure and those Rains must descend from Clouds And if Nature could produce Clouds then she must be supposed to have done it long before as being in a better capacity to effect it For the Earth and Air could never be more hot and dry than when the Deluge came Scripture also gives countenance to this that Clouds were extant from the beginning When he prepared the Heavens When he established the Clouds above When he appointed the foundations of the Earth Prov. 8. 27 28 29. Whence it appears that GOD's establishing the Clouds was contemporary with his preparing the Heavens and appointing the foundations of the Earth Indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 coming of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of various significations It may signifie Aether or Air or small Dust. But then the Heavens and the Earth being both mentioned besides Aether Air and fine Dust must be comprized in them which determines the word here to that sense in which it is rendred And very properly for besides that Clouds are said to be the Dust of GOD's Feet Nah. 1. 3. the word in many places of the Holy Volume does denote Clouds and that so directly and inavoidably as it can be applied to no other sense Nor may we forget that clear intimation or evidence rather of the early existence of Clouds Gen. 1. 7. Where the Waters above the Firmament must be Waters in the Clouds as has been already shewed Even the Theory it self allows them not to be Supercelestial Waters For as they are inconsistent with that System of the World which it goes upon so it expresly disputes against them and rejects them And so what Waters else could they be save those in the Clouds Which grant them to have been and how peculiarly were those Clouds above established according to Solomon's word by GOD himself when as yet there was no Sun to exhale them from the Earth Let this be cast in as an Overplus the Rabbies believed there were Rains in Paradise Though for some little time there might be none Gen. 2. 5. For when the LORD GOD put Adam into the Garden to dress it they understand a kind of spiritual Cultivation of it as he occasioned it to flourish by his religious Performances Particularly he presented 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gifts or Oblations for obtaining Rain and a right Influence of the Heavens upon it Yet if there were Clouds and Rain how necessarily must the glorious Bow appear when Showres fell in a just position to the Sun 5. To conclude this Chapter If any thing in it will prove there was a Rainbow or Clouds from the beginning the same will prove Mountains and open Seas And if any thing in the Two precedent Chapters will prove there were Mountains from the beginning the same will prove Seas and Clouds And if any thing will prove open Seas from the beginning the same will prove Clouds and Mountains For these three do mutually imply and depend on one another And there being no good account of their later emergency into Being but much to the contrary they must in reason be thought to coexist from the first And I remember the learned and ingenious Dr. More setting down some odd conceits of Philosophical Enthusiasts puts this amongst the rest That there were no Rainbows before Noah's Flood Discourse of Enthusiasm § 44. CHAP. XIII 1. The Doctrine of Paradise intelligible without the Theory 2. Where that Doctrine is best taught 3. What it is with a brief Paraphrase upon it 4. It is Clear in it self though obscured by Writers 5. Longâ—evity before the Flood no property of Paradise and might be the Priviledge but of few 6. It could not be common to all according to the Theory 1. THUS at length we come to Paradise A place of greatest Fame and of equal obscurity For though touching it we hear very much yet as to the site of it we know but little And to this Paradise the next Vital or primary Assertion of the Theory relates which runs thus The Doctrine thereof cannot be understood but upon supposition of the aforesaid Primitive Earth and its Properties But against this Assertion also we except and do not doubt but upon enquiry into the Doctrine of Paradise to make it out that it is Intelligible without the help of the Theory At least as intelligible without its Hypothesis as it is with it and that will be sufficient to our purpose 2. Should any demand where the Doctrine of Paradise is best or most truly delivered and what Writings contain the most authentic and credible account concerning it whither could they be directed but to the Sacred Scriptures For what there occurs in reference to the Paradisiacal State or Regions may be firmly grounded upon as infallibly true Whereas what we meet with in some other Books may be incertain as written by Persons of suspected Credit Poets for instance are by no means to be regarded in this matter They are Men of wit and licentious fiction and when they are struck with their proper Oestrum or Rage and grow warm in the vein
credit to what they said and their great Authority drawing others after them they were followed by many though themselves went not in the right way Lastly Here is not the least touch upon a perpetual Aequinox or a perpetual Spring or the Pullulation or Growing of Animals out of the Earth which the Theory makes Properties of Paradise Nor is there a Syllable spoken of Adam's being formed at first on the other side of the World that is in the Southern Hemisphere and then of his being transplanted hither Nor is there any intimation that the Flaming Sword was the Torrid Zone as the Theory allows it to have been but rather something that suggests the contrary For Cherubim could no way be concerned in that nor could it well be said to be placed at the East of the Garden of Eden when it was placed round the Earth in way of Longitude Nor do we hear a word of Rivers springing up on one side of the Earth and then shooting through it to the other side by deep and unintelligible trajections or transmeations Thus a multitude of Difficulties would be started and such as before we could run them down would lead us a weary yea an endless Chase. But therefore these are no pieces of the true Doctrine of Paradise That 's clear and obvious and easie to be understood at least as easie as the Theory's Doctrine concerning it is For say that Two Branches of the Paradisiacal Stream be somewhat obscure yet we need not fear but they will as soon be set out to all Mens satisfaction as the other two so well known together with Assyria c. shall be found in the Southern Hemisphere of the World where according to the Theory Paradise was situate Especially when the upper Orb or Rim of the Earth fell into the Abyss and Rivers and Countries were all jumbled together in unspeakable Confusion 5. As for the Longaevity of the Antediluvians that could be no Property of Adjunct of Paradise neither inasmuch as the common Parents of Mankind were soon thrown out of it and so the length of their or of their Childrens lives could not be owing to that State or Place because none of them lived and died therein Indeed the Theory will have this Longaevity to be a Character of the First Earth as Paradisiacal and holds it was common to good and bad and lasted till the Deluge Mens houses of clay standing eight or nine hundred years and upwards And though I will not positively deny this That the People of the First World did generally live to so wonderful an age it being a received opinion yet give me leave to ask upon what good authority does it stand The sacred Historians will hardly support it For though he tells of ten Men in a lineal descent that were long livers yet this will be no conclusive Argument that all were so For they were excellent Persons and admirably useful upon several accounts Besides founding and improving of Learning and Sciences they were to instruct the World in Vertue and Goodness to govern both in the Civil it may be and Ecclesiastical capacity To countenance and propagate as well as to defend the True Religion to take care of the Worship and promote the Kingdom and Interest of GOD and to shame the looseness and reform or restrain the lewdness of Men. And they being thus highly useful and needful no wonder they were continued so long upon Earth And thus we find Noah it being requisite still in some measure upon the same accounts living three hundred and fifty years after the Flood and reaching to nine hundred and fifty in all And also Shem Arphaxad Salah and Eber living for the same reasons much longer just after the Flood than others did then or have done since Though we may say of their long life as Rabbi Levi quoted by Genebrard in the first of his Chronology did of the Longaevity of the Antediluvian Patriarchs that it was opus Providentiae non Naturae the work of Providence not of Nature Of such a miraculous providence as superintended the Hebrews in the Wilderness and caused that their Cloaths by forty years wearing did not wax old And then if we grant some of the prophane stock of the impious Race of Cain to have lived as long as the Ten Patriarchs before the Flood and perhaps some few others not mentioned by the same kind of Providence for that they were exceding eminent in their ways for very laudable and necessary things as Cain himself for Husbandry and Architecture Iabal for Pasturage and the ordering of Cattle Iubal for Musick Tubal-Cain for Mechanics and the like Grant I say but some of the degenerate Seed of the worser sort of Men to have lived a great while for perfecting the lower and lesser Arts as some of the Holy Seed and better sort did for carrying on things of an higher nature and bigger concern and possibly the Prerogative of Longaevity will be stretcht as far as by the sacred Records it can upon certain Grounds be extended And though the Theory makes the Longaevity we speak of common to all the Antediluvians yet in the Sequel of this Chapter it will appear that even according to the Theory it self it could not be a general thing But in the mean time if Divine Story proves not such Longaevity common to the Antediluvians how shall other History do it The Theorist cites Iosephus as to this and he brings in several Authors What he says of the long life of them before the Deluge I shall set down more fully than the Theory does They being beloved of GOD and newly created by him using also a kind of nourishment agreeable to their nature and proper to multiply their years it is no absurd thing to suppose that their years were of that continuance considering that GOD gave them long life to the end they should teach Vertue and should conveniently practise those things which they had invented in Astronomy and by Geometry the demonstrations whereof they never had attained except they had lived at least six hundred years For the great year is accomplished by that number of years whereof all they bear me witness who either Greeks or Barbarians have written ancient Histories For both Manethon who wrote the History of Egypt and Berosus who registred the Acts and Affairs of the Chaldeans together with Molus Hestiaeus and Hierom of Egypt who give an account of the Phoenician Antiquities accord with me in that I have said Hesiodus also Heccataeus Hellanicus and Acusilaus Ephorus and Nicholaus do declare That they of the first World lived a thousand years But let every Man judge of these things as he best liketh Where to let pass other circumstances let it be noted that Iosephus attributes long life only to such as were beloved of GOD. and that to such ends as were now specified that they might teach Vertue and use and improve Astronomy and Geometry wherein they
could have attained to no considerable skill without long life And then as to the rest of those Authors he remembers how could they understand the thing better than himself For besides Scripture which Iosephus was much better acquainted with than they what else could give them information in the case And therefore their account we know is utterly false for none of the first Worlds Ancients could ever reckon a thousand years compleat Only some of them in the sacred Register came pretty near it though most fell short of it by such a Period of time as very few Lives comparatively now reach to And that Iosephus himself did not believe that all lived so long as the Writers cited by him do mention is plain from his shutting up the fore-quoted Chapter with an expression showing diffidence in himself by allowing it to others Let every Man judge of these things as he thinks best Which I desire may be noted the rather because there are few that write for this Longaevity of the Prediluvians but they still quote this place in Iosephus and back what they say with the Authorities he brings Yet we see he is so far from being positive in the matter that he leaves People wholly to their own judgments about it And as for Scripture I say he read and understood it as well as others and could he have found good proofs of the Point there he would doubtless have spoken more definitively of it And the truth is Scripture says not one word of Cain's or his Childrens living eight or nine hundred years And therefore when we granted they might do so it was no absolutely necessary Concession But this is observable that the Invention of Manual Arts and such things as might be carried on to good degrees of Perfection in a less of space of time fell to their care and management Whereas according to the Iewish Historian Astronomy and Geometry which could not be learnt but in longer Periods were studied by those Virtuoso's who are upon Holy Record for long-livers Which tacitly intimates that the reason of long life and so long life it self was not common to all And though Moses remembers a few by name that lived so very long yet this no more proves that all attained to the like age before the Flood than his saying there were Giants on the Earth in those days does imply the whole Race of Mankind were such Yea as his telling the World there were some Giants then does import that the rest were otherwise so his mentioning some◠so very long livers may insinuate that the rest were not so Nor do we stand quite alone in this Opinion For Rabbi Moses in his Book de directione perplexorum as Burgensis cites him Addit 1. in Gen. 5. apud Lyr. was of the same mind And as he attributes length of life before the Flood miraculo divino to divine miracle so he says diuturnitas fuit solùm in illis qui in sacra Scriptura nominantur scilicet Adam Seth Enos c. non autem in aliis contemporaneis qui non tam diuturnè vivebant sed sicut past diluvium Length of life was only in those who are named in the Holy Scripture that is to say Adam Seth Enos c. but not in others their contemporaries who did not live so long but as Men lived after the Deluge Burgensis himself also first a most learned Iew of Spain and then a famous Christian Doctor seems to be of the same judgment with the Rabbi in this matter But if at last it be urged that the Authors aforesaid are too many and considerable to have their Testimonies questioned or rejected and that what they delivered of the Praediluvians Longaevity must be true of them in general they receiving the thing by authentic Tradition let it be yielded But then I must demand and may be allowed to do so How comes it to pass that Tradition is so partial and not equally faithful as to other great concerns of the first World Particularly why does it not by the Pen of the same or of other Writers tell us explicitly of a constant Aequinox and a perpetual Spring as Causes of that Longaevity and not leave it to be imputed to nourishment and higher things whither Iosephus we see ascribes it Why does it not tell us of a Sky without Clouds and an Heaven without Rains and an Earth without Seas and Mountains c. Surely if Tradition spake so loud in one case and was so dumb or deeply silent in the rest this seems to evidence that however there might be somewhat of truth in that one Phaenomenon there was none in the other 6. Though truly that all the Prediluvians were such long livers cannot well be supposed for this reason Because then their Multitudes would have everlaid the Earth and they would have wanted room wherein to subsist For grant them to have multiplied but as Mankind did just after the Flood or as the Israelites did in the Land of Egypt or even as People do now adays and where would there have been place convenient for them And yet that they did increase at such a rate and faster too is but reasonable to think in regard humane Nature if ever it were stronger at any time than other was so at first To which add that Digamy was in use before the Flood and Lamech one who was infamous for it is said by Iosephus to have had seventy seven Children by his two Wives Yea perhaps Men were not only for two but many Wives Genesis 6. 2. and Polygamy must contribute greatly to the encrease of Mankind But there needs no farther Prosecution of this The Theory yields as much as we contend for or can desire in the Case Though no more than what may be true and so inavoidable 'T is likely they were more fruitful in the first Ages of the World than after the Flood and they lived six seven eight nine hundred years apiece getting Sons and Daughters And again If we allow the first Couple at the end of one hundred years or of the first Century to have left ten pair of Breeders which is an easie supposition there would arise from these in fifteen hundred years a greater number than the Earth was capable of allowing every pair to multiply in the◠same decuple proportion the first Pair did So that if a Supposition which in the Theorist's own judgment is easie may be but admitted as why should it not either the Longaevity of the Antediluvians must not be universal or the Earth was incapable of the number of its Inhabitants Nor could the Primitive Earth receive greater numbers of People than this For grant it had no open Seas in it yet the Middle Regions of it being uninhabitable in regard of heat and the Polar ones upon account of Wet and Cold both will be reduced to a pretty equal capaciousness And should it be alleg'd that the first Earth was bigger in Circumference than
same And which is something more the Heavens and the Earth will thus be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 standing together out of the Water and in the Water as some will have the word signifie there both of them being in the like circumstances at the same juncture of time I will only add under this head That taking the Heavens here mention'd for the lowest Region of the Air or for the lower part of that Region is but consonant to the Sacred Style 7. A Fourth advantage commending our Hypothesis is That it puts the drowned Earth into a far more habitable condition at the Flood 's going off than otherwise it could have been in That Noah's Flood was Universal is most clear from Scripture 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 die Gen. 6. 17. So the ALMIGHTY threatned and what he threatned he fully made good And all flesh died that moved upon the earth both of fowl and of cattel and of beast and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth and every man All in whose nostrils was the breath of life of all that was in the dry land died And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground both man and cattel and the creeping things and the fowl of heaven they were destroyed from the earth and Noah only remained alive and they that were with him in the ark Gen. 7. 21 22 23. And if all flesh under heaven and every thing in the earth even every living substance upon the face of the ground were destroyed and died and Noah only remained alive and the creatures in the ark hence it will follow that the whole Earth was drowned or else that Mankind was not generally spread through all the Regions of the same But that the Earth was generally inhabited before the Deluge we need not doubt nor can we well deny For the Consequence would be That the Prediluvians begat fewer Children or lived shorter lives than the Postdiluvians which would not be phanciful only but false Though truly if some Countries had not been peopled still they must have been drowned that so fowl and creeping things c. might be destroyed according to the Testimony of the HOLY GHOST Yet admitting this that the entire Earth was overflowed and that to such an height that the loftiest Hills as is commonly believed had their Tops fifteen Cubits under Water and what a Case must the Earth have been in upon drying up of the Flood What abundance of Mud Slime and Filthiness must every where have covered the surface of it How thick must it have lain How close must it have stuck And how hard would it have been to have clear'd the ground of it Attica upon this account as was observed before after a far less Flood was not peopled for the space of three hundred Years Nor will the Theory's Explication of the Deluge help here unless it be to make things worse For had the Flood been caused by so strange a fraction and falling in of the Earth as that supposeth this would have added very much to its â—oulness and so to its Barrenness for a time as above remembred and consequently to its unfitness for immediate habitation But now according to the way that we go the uppermost parts of Mountains could never be drowned and so never clogg'd neither or dawb'd over with the filth of the roiled Waters So that let but the floating Ark have stopped at last by the side of some very large Hill and the Earth would there have been ready to receive all that came out of it And that after all its Tossings it did rest near to or in some sense upon such a tall vast Hill perhaps the biggest the Earth has is rightly believed as being taught from above And indeed its doing so seems to be no other than a signal Providence and a special effect of Heavens particular Care That so those few Creatures which out-lived that grievous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or general destruction that fell so heavy on the animate World might not be destitute of fit habitations and sustenance And truely that Mankind upon quitting the Ark did inhabit Mountains for a considerable time may be gathered as some think out of the Tenth and Eleventh Chapters of Genesis For there it appears that they were grown numerous say they when they left the Hills and came down to settle in the Plains of Shinar But then if they did chuse the Hills for their Seat and stay there so long before they removed their Quarters one reason might be the unfitness of the lower grounds to entertain them as affording at first no commodious Dwellings And whereas they would have them to keep on the Hills with design to secure themselves from future Floods such a Design would have been utterly vain For what security could they expect by their abode in Mountains from Floods to come when the highest Mountains were over-top'd no less than fifteen Cubits by one so lately past 8. A Fifth Plea which may be taken up in favour of our Hypothesis is its Coherence with Geography Wherein it seems to be much more plausible than the old Hypothesis or that of the Theory It falls in with it by a far more natural and justifiable Compliance than either of them do As for the Theory it flatly denies that there were Hills or Valleys or Seas or Islands before the Flood which Geography hitherto never dreamt of The old Hypothesis also makes the Mountains of Ararat or Armenia the highest in the Earth and this Geography again cannot down with And indeed the chief reason why they have been reputed the highest is because the Ark has always been presumed to rest on the top of them and in that regard it was requisite they should be the highest But our Hypothesis ties up none to the belief of this neither Nor indeed does it seem to be worthy of credit as shall be noted by and by CHAP. XVI 1. Objections must be answered 2. Our Exposition of Scripture not to be made an Objection by the Theorist or any that hold with him 3. The First Objection from the Hills being covered answered 4. The Second from the Arks resting upon the Mountains of Ararat answered 5. The Third from the appearing of the Tops of the Mountains upon the decrease of the Waters answered 6. The Fourth from the possibility of Mens being saved from the Flood without the Ark answered 7. The Fifth from the likelihood of other Creatures escaping answered 8. The Sixth from the imaginary excess of Water answered 9. The Seventh from the Raven which Noah sent out of the Ark answered 10. The Eighth from danger of Shipwrack which the Ark would have been in 11. A General Answer to farther Objections 1. WE have seen a New way of explaining the Flood proposed or
seen there in their days they were probably over-rul'd by History or Hearsay and so easily mis-led by such as went before them And indeed that the thing was utterly false we have great reason to conclude when if it were true it must either impeach Scripture which in the sense of all Men hitherto taught all-a-long that the Flood was fifteen Cubits above the tops of the highest Mountains and that in the height of this Flood the Ark rested on the top of Ararat or else clash with Geography which never allowed the Hills of Ararat to be by a great deal the highest or else sink the Ark quite under Water to make it rest upon those Hills 5. A Third Objection may be formed from the appearing of the tops of the Mountains upon the decrease of the Waters So it is recorded Gen. 8. 5. That the waters decreased continually until the tenth month and on the first day of the month were the tops of the mountains seen Now if the Mountains had not been quite under Water and so invisible for the time they were overwhelmed how could they be said to become visible again or to be seen upon the Floods going off In answer to this we may consider First That by the tops of the Mountains in Scripture are not always meant the higher but sometimes the inferior parts of them Thus it is prophesied Amos 1. 2. That the top of Carmel shall wither Where by top the sides or lower parts of that Hill may be intended chiefly For the withering of the meer top of it only would not 't is like have either caused or signified such a scarcity of feed as should have occasioned such affliction to Shepherds as is there foretold the principal part of an Hill for Pasture being usually towards the bottom of it So Exod. 19. 20. it is said That Moses went up to the top of mount Sinai But that he did not go up to the very top of that Mount we have great cause to believe for Two reasons First Because the LORD descended upon it in fire ver 18. in such a fire as was not only real but raging for it made the Mountain smoak as a furnace Yea it is said Exod. 24. 17. to be like devouring fire on the top of the mount And so devouring was it that it seiz'd most terribly upon the Mountain insomuch that it is said to have burnt with fire unto the midst of heaven Deut. 4. 11. But how then could Moses go up to the top of this Mountain Nor Secondly could he well do it by reason of its height and the great difficulty of its ascent For Iosephus assures us That it is the highest Hill beyond comparison of all that Country and long of its strange height and its steep inaccessible craggy Rocks is not only unfrequented by Men but not to be lookt up to it puts the eye to such pain And yet if Moses did not go up to the top of this Hill in strictness we know not how much below it he might present himself And in case he stood on any lower ridge or part of that Mount it is clear that by the tops of high Hills in Scripture may be meant but the lower parts of the same And therefore where we read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deut. 33. 15. from the top of the mountains the Arabic reads it from the roots of them And so by the tops of the Mountains being seen upon the drying up of the Flood will be meant no more than that some lower parts of them not far from the bottoms were made bare and expos'd to view again which before were hidden under Water or Secondly By the tops of the Mountains said to be seen on the first day of the tenth Month may be meant but the tops of some lower Mountains which were quite overwhelm'd with Water by its ascending fifteen Cubits upward upon the highest parts of the plain of the Earth If these two Considerations will not satisfie we must carry on the Enquiry a little farther and seek for a Third And truly some one or other must needs be found out For certain it is that the tops of the highest Mountains could not be said to be seen by reason of the Waters sinking down below them because as we have sufficiently proved they could not possibly be above them That is according to the common measures Men have taken of the Flood and the usual sense they have put upon the sacred Story of it Thirdly Therefore in way of answer to the Objection we consider that the tops of the Mountains may be said to be seen at the time mentioned upon account of their emergency out of darkness not out of the Waters Nor let it seem strange that at the time of the Flood there should be darkness over the whole face of the Earth For then there was a solution of the continuity of the Atmosphaere all the vapours almost contained in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or comprehension of it turning into Clouds and resolving a great pace into Rains And as it is but reasonable to think it was dark then considering the state of the Atmosphaere so it was very requisite it should be so For when the Rains began to fall and that at such a rate as to threaten in good earnest to make that Deluge which Noah had foretold this must needs startle and alarm Men dreadfully Then had there been light in the World in any good degree what could have been expected but that People who dwelt nearest to that place where the Ark stood should have run directly to it and rudely assaulting and invading it have turned out Noah his Friends and all Creatures and have taken immediate possession of it themselves as the only probable means of their own preservation And therefore that the Earth was then wrapt up in nightsome darkness it being not only likely in respect of Nature but necessary in point of Providence we need not fear to conclude And as it was dark all the time that the Flood was coming in and waxing so the Air might well be very foggy and misty during the continuance and decrease of the same For the Atmosphaere being put into so great a disorder and even dissolution as it was it could not quickly resettle into its wonted clearness And then we must heedfully attend to that account of the Floods abatement and drying up which the HOLY GHOST has given us The waters returned from off the Earth continually says he Gen. 8. 3. Where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 returned does often signifie in Scripture the returning of a thing into its Principles So Psal. 90. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 return ye sons of men As much as to say be resolved into Dust and Spirit the primigenial parts or constituent principles of your Nature And Gen. 3. 19. it is used in the like sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to dust shalt thou return And Psal. 146. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
not argue that the Waters were then at such a mighty height and so that they had been higher than the loftiest Hills because it is said That he went to and fro that is to and from the Ark as our Objectors would have it until the waters were dried up So that his returning was not occasioned by the excess of Waters not suffering him to remain at large nor does it prove them to have been so excessive as they would make them For even when they were abated and so abated that the tops of the Mountains were seen ver 5. where he might have had both rest and prey still according to the Hebrew Phrase he was going and returning from and to the Ark. Yea he continued to do thus all-a-long even untill the waters were dried up from off the earth Which makes it plain that as the excess of the Waters could not be the cause of his returning to the Ark so his continual returning could not argue the Waters to be so excessive inasmuch as he never ceased returning till the Waters were quite dried up But Secondly I answer The Raven in likelihood returned not at all And therefore the Vulgar is positive in the case egrediebatur non revertebatur he went out and did not return And so is the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Bochart says That if the Negation be taken out of the Original Text there will be no sense in it And therefore he thinks that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 putting the Future Tense for the Praeterperfect And then the Raven for certain did never return to Noah And the Arabian Proverb intimates as much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he stays as long as Noah 's Crow To which the Latin one is near akin Corvus nuncius Or Corvum misimus So that the Objection against us will at last be a piece of an Argument for us So far that is as the Raven 's not coming home again after he was sent out shows the Waters were low and that he had Food enough to live upon and Room enough to fly up and down in from place to place which might be that going and returning of his mentioned ver 7. Indeed the Dove which was sent out after found no rest for the sole of her foot and therefore she returned to Noah into the ark verse 9. And no wonder For though the Waters were much abated yet still they were on the face of the whole earth covering its Superficies in most places And the Dove being a more nice and tender Creature than the Crow might want proper Food and a warm Roost and for the sake of these be glad to fly back to the Ark where it had found both And therefore the second time that it was sent forth it returned not till the evening that is till the coolness of the approaching night made it sensible of the want of a convenient Lodging And for the same reasons especially it being a tamish Bird it might perhaps have come back to Noah when he sent it out last only the Earth and Air being now grown more dry and warm and pleasant probably it was tempted to fly so far from the Ark as not to be able to find the way to it again Yet it s not returning might be really to Noah what he took it to be a sign that the Waters were dried up 10. An Eighth Objection may be the Danger the Ark would have been in of being stav'd or wrackt For if during the Flood the tops of the great Hills had been all above Water how easily might the Ark have run aground and have been broken and shattered all to pieces It may be answered thus The great Deluge from the Beginning to the End of it was in great measure a miraculous work Yea even where GOD was pleased to make Nature his Instrument He took her as I may say into his own hand and wielded her by his own Omnipotent Arm and so inabled her to do what in her own way and by her own strength she could never have effected Look into the inspired Story and what a great deal of miracle shall we see in the very Praelusories or preparatives to that mighty Inundation Thus as GOD preacquainted the Patriarch Noah with his design of bringing it in so he ordered him to build an Ark against it came to save himself and his Family from that fearful ruine which was to attend it He directed him of what Timber to make it and of what Dimensions how to frame it without and to fashion it within and the whole Vessel seems to have been all of his wise contriving Such Creatures also as were to be kept alive for future propagation he appointed Noah to admit into this Ark inclining them at the same time to come in their several species and offer themselves to him For as the Father says Noah did not catch them and put them in but when they came and went in he suffered them to do so And thus much he will have signified Gen. 6. 20. Two of every sort shall come unto thee Non scilicet hominis actu sed Dei nutu Not by the diligence of man that is to say but by the disposition of GOD. And as he injoined Noah to receive these Animals into the Ark and harbour them there so likewise to provide sustenance for them instructing him as to the quality and quantity of the same So says the same Father What wonder if that wise and righteous man who also was divinely taught what was agreâ—able to every creature did procure and lay up sutable nourishment to every kind And to the end he might have all in a due readiness against the time GOD gave him a weeks notice just before the irruption of the fatal Waters Gen. 7. 4. And lastly when the good Man and his Relatives entred the Ark whose Cargo was such as no single Ship nor the mightiest Fleet could ever boast of though the Sea it navigated was as wonderful as its Lading the LORD himself is said to shut them in Gen. 7. 16. That is by the Ministry of his Holy Angels And when the ALMIGHTY was thus miraculously ingag'd in ordering the Preparatives to the Flood we may be sure it was no less concern'd in bringing in the Flood it self And therefore GOD openly proclaims it to be his own Fact and challenges and appropriates it to himself alone as peculiarly belonging to his Providential Efficience Gen. 6. 17. and 7. 4. And St. Peter expresly declares That GOD brought in the flood upon the world 2 Pet. 2. 5. Where upon view of the Context it will appear that the Apostle makes the bringing in of the Flood to be as much GOD's Work as ever it was to cast the sinning Angels down to Hell to save Noah to burn Sodom or to deliver Lot all which were undeniably immediate and miraculous Acts of his And truly that the Windows of Heaven should be
cont Celsum lib. 6. d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Amator * In Amator * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apol. Socr. * Gen. 19. 24. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. de Mund. Opif. †Act. 7. 22. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cont. Cels. Lib. 3. b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo in vit Mos. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orig. cont Cel. lib. 1. b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id ib. a Theory pag. 288. * Lib. 1. chap. 5. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aelian Var. Hist. lib. 8. cap. 11. b Ecclus. 18. 1 c Gen 1. 12 13. a Quinimo etiam ad res naturales melius explicandas earum causas altius repetam quà m ipsas unquam extitisse existimem Non enim dubium est quin mundus ab initio fuerit creatus cum omni perfectione suâ ita ut in eo Sol Terra Luna Stellae extiterint Des Cart Princip par 3. sect 45. b Quodque fortè paradoxum multis videbitâ—r haec omnia ita se haberent in materia coelsli etiamsi nulla planè esset vis in Sole aliove astro circa quod gyratur adeo ut si corpus Solis nihil aliud esset quà m spatium vacuum nibilominus ejus lumen non quidem tam forte sed quantum ad reliqua non aliter quam nunc câ—rneremus saltem in circâ— o secundum quem materia â—oeli movetur Id. ib. sect 64. a St. Mat. 27. 45. Why it should be read over all the LAND that is Palestine as if the darkness had extended no farther may well be made a question when it is known that it reached into other Countries Dionysius to give one Instance observed it in Egypt being then an Heathen And is said by Suidas upon his observation of it thus to express himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Atlas Chin. part 2. pag. 46. †Reuchlin de Aâ—t Cabbal p. 9 c. * De Rep. Heb. * Nisi quis apud eos â—etatâ—â— Sacerdotalis ministerii i. e. triâ—â—simum annum impleverit nec principium Geneseos legere permittitâ—r a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Philo in lib. de Mund. Opif. Vid. Nicomach Gerasen Arithmet Theolog. lib. 2. Meâ—rs Dâ—â—â—r Pythag. * Orig. cont Câ—ls lib. 4. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Leg. Allegor lib. 1. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Mund. Opif. b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. * Epist. ad Mich. Bulg Princip * Mor. Nevoch a Ex illo deâ—luxâ— aquarum ad la tera exoneratione partium mediarum circa Aequatorem Globus aqueâ—s deveniret aliquantulum oblongus Theor. pag. 198. a Theor. pag. 241. b Ibid. a Ego quidem in eâ sum sententiâ si in harum rerum de quibus agitur cognitionem aut aliarum quarumcâ—nqâ—e quae momenti sunt visum suerit Deo vel naturae ut pateret hominibus ratio perveniendi â—atio illa certa est in aliquâ clarâ inâ—ictâ evidentia âundatâ non conjecturalis varia dubia c. Lat. Theor. pag. 5. * Theor. pag. 54. †Theor. Pag. 60. * Theor. pag. 57. †Theor. pag. 243. ‖ Page 64. * Gen. 1. 1. †Theor. pag. 44. * Jer. 4. 23. a The Schemes of the Châ—os show it terrestrial throughout Theor. pag. 54 55 56 57. The Eâ—rth also formed out of it is represented without Fire at the Cenâ—er pag. 58. * Chap. 2. § 4. †Princip part 3. Art 45. a Attendendo enim ad immensam Dei potentiam non possumus exisiimare illum unquam quicquam fecisse quod non omnibus suis numeris fuerit absolutum Ubi supra b Ac etiam in terrâ— non tantum â—uerint semina plantarum sed ipse plantae nec Adam Eva nati sint infantes sed facti sint homines adulti Ibid. * Princip part 3. Art 155. †Dr. Mâ—re Epist. ad V. C. * Heb. 11. 3. †2 Maâ— 7. 28. * Ad Exod. cap. 12. v. 16. * Illud primâ— notandum est noâ— id agere Mosen ut primam materiâ—e productionem atque Vniversi Mundi ortum describeret sed mundi nostri scilicet telluris nostrae Coeli nostri è suo chao sormationem Theor. lib. 2. cap. 8. †Subjectum autem Geneseâ—s Mosaicae est Chaos conâ—usiâ—â—imum terresâ—re quâ—e ex hoc Chao eductasunt ad illud tanquam centrum referuntur â—a propriè spectant ad mundum Mosaicum ib. * Ne putemas itaque nobis nascentibus mundo nostro necesse esse ut tota natura eodem tempore nasâ—â—retur ib. †Pro certo explorato habeatur Mundum Mosaicum non omnes Vâ—iversi regiones neque omnes rerum ordines complecti sâ—d illas naturae partes quaeè Chao terrestri educi potuerunt ib. †Gen. 1. 14. * Diâ—i possunt tum nasci oriri eâ—e partes coelestes Vniversi cùm primum conspicueâ—rant â—tque dissâ—patâ caligine Châ—os nigri aeris eminusse ostentabant terris paulatim emicantes è tenebris quasi ab iisdem eodem Chao enatae â—uissent Neque aliter Cosmogoniam Mosaicam intelligendam esse si opus esset mâ— demonstrare posse existimo lib. 2. cap 7. †Gen. 1. 15. * The Moon is really a great light to the Earth though the light she transmits thither be borrowed of the Sun †Gen 2. 1. * Dan. 2. 38. * Gen. 2. 7. †Lexic in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Vsurpatur de homine tantùm animam hâ—jus ratione praeditam denotat Schind Lexic Pentag Pag. 1177. Dicitur propriè de anima hominis immortali quam Deus in illum insufflavit Prophet in Psal. 18. v. 16. †Exod. 34. 6. * Mic. 7. 18. †Psal. 145. 9. * Leg at pro Chrisâ—ian a Ecclus. 29. 21. * Page 206. * Theor. paâ— 227. * Page 227. * Instit. Astron de 〈◊〉 Glob c. 4. § 2. †Pag. 242. * 2 Pet. 2. 5. * Gen. 6. * Read 18th 19th and 20th pages of the Theory * Chap. 3. â—erses 5 6 7. †Theor. pâ—g 46. * Read the L. Bishop of Hereâ—ord's Aâ—imaâ— Sect. 1. almost throughout †Theor. p. 47 48. * Nullus enim Philosophorum sive veterum sivâ— recentiorum cujuscunque Sectae unquam aniâ—advertit aut â—x causarum contemplatione invenit primam telluris â—aciem â—uisse Paradisiacam Theor. p. 2. †Quibus temporis longinquitas mutata Naturae facies tantum obscuritatis attulisset ut nisi excitati ab historia saâ—ra de iis forsan nunquam cogitassemus Pag. 11â— * Page 276. †It will be found it may be upon a stricter Enquiry that in the present â—orm aâ—d constitution of the Earth there are certain marks or indications of its first State Theor. p. 8. * Theor. p. 86. * Page 86. a Iâ—id b Sin◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro utre non reperitur Vind. ver Heb. c Vter