the heaven of heavens in the Eastern part Mr. Gregory having thus establisht his Ground says that this is the reason why God planted a Garden in Eden Eastward and that though some say with Mercerus That nothing hinders but we may take it generally that Paradise was planted in the Eastern part of the World towards the rising Sun yet Damascen and Barcephas say that at the beginning of March the Sun alway rises directly over Paradise meaning that the Garden of Eden was planted toward the Aequinoctial East of the Holy Land and the meaning of this is that the Sanctum Sanctorum of this Mother Church pointed towards that part of Heaven where the Sun rises in the month Nisan For the Sanctuary of Paradise was the recess of the Garden which was distinguisht and made so by the presence of the Tree of Life Now this Tree according as we commonly translate it was planted in the midst of the Garden but in truth it stood in the Eastern part of the place And that not only Adam but the whole World also worshipt towards the East till Abraham's time Maimoni in his More and S. Ephrem and others in the Arabick Catena testifie And it depends from this very same Ground that the most solemn piece of all the Jewish Service I mean that Great attonement but once a Year to be made by the highest and most holy Man and in the most holy Place was perform'd towards the East contrary to all other manner of addressments in their Devotion For Lev 16.14 15. It 's commanded that the high Priest shall do with the blood of the Goat as with the blood of the Bullock and sprinkle it with his finger upon the Mercy-seat Eastward Now it s known that the sprinkling of blood especially this was the Figure of him who by his own blood entred into the holy Place and obtain'd Eternal Redemption Heb. 9.12 And hence Isychius Hierosolom says this was done to represent the Man Cui oriens nomen ejus and there are many passages in the Scriptures which signifie to us that Christ came down to us from the East And this is one reason why our Saviour is said to be the Man whose Name is the East in reference to whom the Christians by some have been called Orientales and the Blessed Virgin is call'd Orientalis porta The other reason is according to what was intimated before viz. that from Adam till Abraham's time the whole World worshipt towards the East Now this Original Principal and as it ought to have been everlasting Ceremony by an Errour of the Persian and Chaldean worshippers degenerating into an Idolatry of the Sun Abraham says the Learned Maimoni by divine Inspiration appointed the West to his Hebrews therefore the Tabernacle and Temple were set towards that side of Heaven So that they did and they did not worshipt towards the West 'T is true all the Sacrifices were offer'd up that way but all this while they worshipt no more towards the West than towards the North. They worship towards the Ark or towards the place of that and do so still and are so to do because the Sun of Righteousness was to set upon their Horizon and to them the Man whose Name is th' East is not yet brought forth It 's known also that Christs Star appear'd in the East and the Wise-men came thence and Christ ascended up into the Eastern part of Heaven as the Psalmist says Qui ascendit super coelum coeli ad Orientem And S. Jo. Damascen delivers as from the Apostles that he shall come again in like manner as he was seen to go hence answerable to what he himself said For as the lightning comes out of the East and shines even unto the West so shall also the coming of the Son of man be We worship him therefore toward the East as expecting him from thence Mr. Gregory concludes with an ancient Profession of the Eastern Church who say We pray toward the East for that our Lord Christ when he ascended into Heaven went up that way and there fits in the Heaven of Heavens above the East according to David Praise the Lord who sits in the Heaven of Heavens in the East and in truth we make no doubt but that our Lord Christ as respecting his humane Nature has his Seat in the Eastern part of the Heav'n of Heav'ns and sits with his Face towards this World To pray therefore or to worship toward the East is to pray and worship toward our Saviour And that all this is to be meant of the Aequinoctial East it is made out by Moses Barcephas in his Discourse of Paradise he says there that the place toward which they prayed is that over which the Sun rises in the Month Nisan which is the Vernal Aequinox This is what I have briefly collected from Mr. Gregory from which I may draw what follows as a Corollary It appears from what is said that the Ancient Jews and Christians plac'd their Terrestrial and Coelestial Paradises with reference to the states of the Churches Militant and Triumphant the one under the Sun on the Earth the other over it in the third Heavens as the Sun was plac'd in the Aequinoctial East of Hierusalem and consequently of the whole habitable World and how possibly could the ancient Mystae who took upon them to bring all things to Time and Place more aptly personate a particular presence of the divine Logos in Heav'n and Earth than there Since as he enlightens every Man coming into this World so the Sun being in that Aequinoctial East Point equally diffus'd its light over the whole habitable Earth and hence we direct our divine Worship that way and may conclude the Seat of the Terrestrial Paradise there though perhaps it was miraculously founded or at least for many Ages has not been known to Man And as the foremention'd Mr. Gregory has observ'd according to the sense of the most knowing The Year of the World began the Sun being in that Vernal Aequinox Point its Revolutions beginning and ending there nor can any other good reason be given why the Astronomers should deduce all their Calculations from the head of Aries If the Pains I have bestow'd in composing this long Chapter may help somewhat to ease the mind of any Man that peruses it concerning the Seat of Paradise I shall think it well bestow'd at least beside my labour for my pains it seems to give a little ease to my own CHAP. VIII HERE the Author sets forth the uses of his Theory for the illustration of Antiquity and endeavours to explain the Ancients Chaos the Uninhabitableness of the Torrid Zone the Changes of the Poles of the World the Doctrine of the Mundane Egg and endeavours to shew how America was first Peopled c. First then concerning the Ancients Chaos he says they have made a dark confus'd and unintelligible Story of it telling us of moral Principles in it instead
avoid Cavillations in this kind I shall only set down briefly what I conceive to have been the sense of the Ancients concerning the Chaos and the Mundane Egg and let it bear as far as it may though withal to lessen that Reverence which some may have for the Cosmogonia of the ancient Gentils I shall first set down the sense of Eusebius concerning it who says That though Plato out of a seeming compliance with the Laws of his City pretends to give credit to the Poetick Theogonia which is the same with their Cosmogonia as a Tradition deliver'd down from the Sons of the Gods who must not be suppos'd to have been ignorant of their Parents yet all the while he does but slily jeer it plainly intimating the fabulosity thereof when he affirms it to have been introduc'd not only without necessary Demonstrations but also without so much as Probabilities This being premis'd I may set down what my own thoughts may be concerning it as follows The Ancient Philosophers who made it their business to search into the Reasons of Humane and Divine things could not rest in the Examination and setting forth of the Causes of particular Effects they found here on the Earth but attempted the consideration of the whole World and how all things issued at first from their divine or metaphysical Principle Now the World being anterior to Mankind after they had contemplated the proceeding of it from God when they came to set it forth they could not more plausibly do it than by similitude or Analogy to those common Generations we have before us whence came the Doctrine of the Mundane Egg and by the references which they conceiv'd were betwixt the operations of the Ideas in the Divine Mind and those they observ'd in the mind of Man They observ'd that Nature and Art proceeded from certain obscure and rough Dilineations to a more exact Form and concluding that as Art imitates Nature so Nature does the Deity from whence it flowed they thought that by observing that order which Nature holds was the only method to find out the way of the Divine Operation But as I have intimated in my Considerations on the first Book I know not how far we may look upon any of the most learned amongst the Gentils to have held any real successive Changes to have pass'd in the Chaos toward the formation of the World their design in setting forth a Chaos and Changes it underwent seeming to have been only to help our way of conceiving by reducing all things mentally to Number and Order as issuing at first from one Principle according to the Pythagorean Philosophy deriving all things à monade or as rising ab ovo Analogically which amounts to no more than what Jamblicus says of the Egyptians viz. that they made Mud and Water floating the Chaos being suppos'd such their Hieroglyphick of material and corporeal things And as Austin says when the Ancients talk of a Beginning of the World intellerunt non esse hoc temporis sed substitutionis initium De Civ Dei l. 10. c. 31. Whereas the Author will not allow Moses's Cosmopaeia to be Philosophical it not passing from one rank of Beings to another in a Physical Order and Connection according to the motions and transformations of the Chaos Moses making all things to spring from the all-powerful Word of God one after the other in that order which was fittest for furnishing an habitable World according to a popular Decorum To this I say first that many Men already pretend to have shewn and among others the Learned Vallesius a due Physical Order and Connexion in Moses's Cosmopoeia and that all things past in it according to a due priority of Nature And concerning this Cosmopoeia I could wish to have read a Book writ by Don Isaac Abravanel a Spanish Jew mention'd in Father Simon 's Catalogue of Jewish Authors annext to his Critical History entituled Miphaboth Elohim Works of God where the said Rabbin has learnedly treated of the Creation of the World and withal examin'd whence Moses had what is writ in the Book of Genesis Secondly That when the Author shall shew us in a more Philosophical way than Moses has done let him take it from whom of the Gentils he pleases how the World at first proceeded from God we may hearken to him mean while there is this to observe first that the Creation was a Metaphysical act and the Order of it is incomprehensible to Man farther than it has pleas'd God to reveal it to him by his Prophets Secondly That I have already validly refuted as I conceive those separations which the Author has suppos'd to have past in the Chaos at the formation of the World Thirdly That if the Author or any Man else shall attempt to explain what the Ancients have said of a Chaos and any successive Changes it underwent when it form'd an habitable World before they expect us to acquiesce in their Explanation or to believe that the Ancients meant more in what they said in that kind than to render our thoughts easie as to an apprehension of a beginning of things by their setting it forth by a similitude to common Generations from Eggs they ought to bring that ancient debated Point to a clear determination viz. whether the Egg or Chick were first for those who maintain a Chaos and real successive Changes to have past in it must make out the Egg to have been before the Chick whereas Plutarch Macrobius and others who have debated the Point seem more inclin'd to the other Opinion holding all things at first to have been set in their perfect state through the perfection of the first Cause Aristotle also tells us that Pherecydes Syrus the Magi and others of the Sages affirm'd that the first Principle whence all other things were generated was the best or of an absolute perfect Being so that in the Scale of Nature things did not ascend upwards from the most imperfect to the more perfect Beings as the ancient Poets represent but on the contrary descend downwards from the most perfect to the less perfect of which Opinion he also declares himself Whereas the Author sets down this as a Maxim that what the Antients have said concerning the Original of the World from a Chaos or about its Periods or Dissolution is never to be understood of the great Universe but of our Earth or of this sublunary World and thinks he can demonstrate that Moses's Cosmogonia is so to be under stood I know not whether it may be so easily done finding the greatest part of Writers to be of a contrary Opinion And those that maintain that Opinion may do well to tell us if the Heavens were for I know not what series of Ages before this Earth and sublunary Region what this place was before the time of the Creation set forth by Moses whether it were a Vacuum or a Spacium imaginarium for it would seem an odd Hole left
Wine their discourse then being besides the common apprehension of Men and hence S. Paul also in the like circumstance was taxt by Festus of being grown mad through too much Learning In reference to this assertion of the Author viz. that the Rise of the World from a Chaos and its periods must be understood only of our sublunary World there is one Opinion which deserves particularly to be noted viz. that of the Antient Cabalists These Ancient Jewish Rabins as Eleasar Moses Aegyptius Simon Ismael Jodan Nachinan and others with whom Origen seems to agree would never yield precedence in depth of Learning to the Philosophers of the Gentils and therefore derided their Opinions who by Astrology and Philosophy pretended to know the Methods taken by providence in the Rise and Periods of the World and affirm'd themselves the only Men knowing in the Mysteries of that Immense Aeternity as having drawn a consummate knowledge in reference thereunto from a Divine Tradition first communicated to Moses by God himself in Mount Sinai God saying Esdr 4. c. 14. v. 5. that he had shewn him the secrets and end of times These Doctors say that by the benefit of this Cabala or Tradition the marrow of the Law of Moses and the deepest secrets of God are reveal'd to them and that they thence know that God has created infinite Worlds in a continued succession and destroy'd and demolish'd them again viz. this sublunary Region every seven thousand years and the superior Region every forty nine thousand years They add that in six of the seven thousand years the Chaos generates and produces all new things and those being ended it gathers all things into itself again and rests the seventh thousand year and in that millenary of rest it fits and prepares it self for a new Germination and so a certain continued succession of Worlds has been hitherto and will be for the future and at length this inferior World being thus renewed and as it were reborn seven times and the course of forty nine thousand years expir'd in the fifty thousandth year the Heavens will also be dissolv'd and all things will return into their ancient Chaos and first matter and then God taking all the blessed Minds and Spirits to himself will give rest to the bulk of this Universe and afterwards all things being renewed by his Immense Wisdom and Power he will frame a World much more beautiful and pleasant and for this reason no mention is made of the Creation of Angels in the Scriptures where the Creation of the World is set forth because they remain'd immortal in the Creation of the precedent Worlds and hence Solomon in the Book of Wisdom supposes a confus'd matter before the Creation of this World and says elsewhere that there is nothing new under the Sun They endeavour to confirm their Opinion from several other Testimonies taken from the Scriptures which I shall not stand here to relate This Opinion indeed if it would bear might have been a good Salvo for those Men who in the Council of Nice objected to Spiridio and the other Bishops there that it seem'd very absurd God in his Infinite Eternity should have fram'd this World so short a time to continue but about four or five thousand years ago they asking what he did before or what he should do after this World ceas'd But the general stream of Divines is against this Opinion they holding that God framed only one World from the beginning And when all is said of that Opinion the Cabalists being a sort of mystical Writers I look upon the Scope of what they have said concerning infinite renovations of Worlds to be directed in a different way from what the letter seems to import but in such cases every Man being apt to please himself best with his own thoughts I shall not take upon me here to be their Expositor Let us now particularly consider the Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Mundane Egg whence some farther Light may be given to their Doctrine of the Chaos and of the Worlds Form or Figure Now concerning that Doctrine as I have intimated before the Author says it was partly symbolical they comparing the World to an Egg and especially in the original composition of it and he adds it 's certain that by the World in that similitude they did not mean the great Universe but the sublunary World only or the Earth the Figure of which when finish'd he has shewn to have been Oval and that th' inward form of it was a frame of four Regions encompassing one another as in an Egg. I know not why th' Author should be so positive in setting this down as a general Rule for us to prevent error in reading th' Ancients that what they have writ about the Form and Figure of the World as well as of its Origine and Dissolution must be understood only of the Earth when himself tells in his first Book in the Latin Copy that some of th' Antients by the Egg represented the World others the Earth and others the Chaos But he will have those who represented the World and the Chaos by it to have talkt by rote or through an ill understanding or being byass'd by their private Opinions to have wrested the signification of it from what the wisest among th' Ancients thought This indeed would be an easie way of refuting th' Ancients if it would pass but when we particularly consider what they have said in this point we shall not find a Man of them that favours th' Authors particular Opinion and in my first Book I think I have shewn it a notorious error if they had There are three ways then of considering the Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Mundane Egg first how the Egg is compar'd particularly to the Earth or sublunary Region Secondly how to the whole Universe consisting of the Heavens and the Earth Thirdly how to the Chaos In reference to the first Alexander Aphrodiseus says that an Egg comprehends all the qualities of th' Elements and plainly shews those four first Principles of things within itself the crusty shell resembles the Earth it being cold and dry the White carries the nature of water being cold and moist the Spirit contained in the White is for air being hot and moist and the Yolk represents the Fire having most of heat and less of drought nor is it without the colour of Fire Briefly he says that the likeness of the whole Universe which we call the World is shewn in an Egg for it consists of four Elements and has a kind of sphaerical Figure and carries within it a Principle of Life Thus we see he makes the sublunary Region an Egg inverted resembling the Yolk to the Aether and the Shell to the Earth contrary to the Authors Opinion Secondly the Egg is resembled to the whole Universe by Varro the most learned among the Romans as Probus on Virgil's sixth Eclogue acquaints us saying that Varro compar'd the Heavens
to the Shell of an Egg and the Earth to the Yolk Achilles Tatius also quoted by the Author when he tells us that the followers of Orpheus affirm the World to be oval as an Egg he says it of the whole Universe as Varro does which no way advantages the Authors Opinion applied particularly to the Earth and the inward envelopings he supposes it had Ptolomy also in his compost says that the Elements and all things compos'd of them are inclos'd within the first Heaven or the Heaven of the Moon as the Yolk of an Egg is within the White But the main Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Egg as the Author himself owns was by comparing it to the World in its Origin or as it rose from a Chaos they setting forth that as particular Generations are from Eggs so the whole World rose from it Thus Plutarch tells us it was the Opinion of Orpheus and Pythagoras that the Egg was the principle and ordinary source of Generation and that Orpheus held the Egg not only more ancient than the Hen but to have the Seniority of all things in the World Now though we have no ground to think that the Ancients were as good Egg Philosophers as the World has now by the help of late Anatomical Researches assisted by our Opticks yet Plutarch to exemplifie Generations and the rise of things from Eggs says thus The World containing many differing species of Animals there is not one species of them but passes by the Generation of the Egg for the Egg produces volatiles which are Birds swimming Creatures which are Fishes in an infinite number terrestial Animals as Lizards Amphibious Animals which live both in the Waters and on the Earth as Crocodiles such as have but two feet as Poultry such as have no feet as the Serpent and those that have many as Grashoppers Whence Plutarch concludes it is not therefore without great reason that the Egg is consecrated to the sacred Ceremonies of Bacchus as a representation of the Author of nature who produces and comprehends in itself all things Macrobius also who seems in a manner a Transcriber from Plutarch says those that are initiated in the sacred Ceremonies of Liber Pater pay a veneration to the Egg in this respect that from its smooth even and almost Spherical Figure shut up in every part and including life within it it may be call'd a Type of the World and the World by the consent of all Men is the principle of the Universe he says further as the Elements existed at first and then the other bodies were made of the mixture of them so the seminal reasons which are in an Egg are to be lookt upon as certain Elements of the Hen. Thus we find the great Doctrine of the Mundane Egg referr'd to the Generation of all things from the Chaos concerning which the Doctrin of the Ancients runs thus as I find it stated by a certain Author They say the Chaos was before all things and that in a long series of duration it settled in itself a Center and a Circumference gathered together in the form of a vast Egg upon the breaking of which a certain kind of Person of a double form arose being both Male and Female and call'd Phaneta out of this came Heaven and Earth out of Heaven came six Males which they call Titans Oceanus Caeus Crius Hyperion Japetus Cronos or Saturn from the Earth six Women Thya Rhea Themis Mnemosyne Thetis Hebe of all these he that was first born of Heaven took the first Daughter of the Earth to Wife the second the second c. Saturn therefore took Rhea c. From this Doctrin we as plainly see how fairly the Analogy holds betwixt the Generation of the World upon the disruption of the Chaodical Egg and the particular Generations and rise of Animals from their respective specifical Eggs as we may see how forc'd and unnatural it would be to apply this Doctrin only to the Earth and its disruption at the deluge for at the disruption of the Mundane Egg upon the appearance of Phaneta which Orpheus makes the same with Eros or Love the Heavens and Earth with all their beauteous ornament arose as upon the disruption of particular Eggs the Chick with all that admirable Mechanism in the structure of its parts and the advantage of Animal life comes forth whereas if this Doctrine shall be apply'd particularly to the Antedilunian Earth as represented by the Author and it shall be said that that Earth after sixteen hundred years Incubation of the Sun upon its disruption produc'd this present World where is the Analogy with particular Generations from their respective Eggs Since upon the disruption of that Earth the miserable Chick within according to the Authors own Hypothesis was found no way comparable to the Shell it had before the Antediluvian Earth far transcending the present so that if that Earth must have been an Egg it was but an addled one The Author therefore has given the Earth an oval Figure only to serve his Hypothesis for the Course of his Rivers as I have intimated before and if the Sectators of Orpheus or possibly any others of the Ancients gave the Earth itself an oval Figure not a Man of them gives the least Intimation of any inward envelopings it had answering to those in an Egg as the Author does who by over-straining the matter seems to leave a substance by pursuing a Shadow thereby wholly perverting the Analogy betwixt the Egg and the World which those Ancients endeavour'd to set forth And whatever formerly has been variously said concerning the Figure of the Earth whether as oval or else we know the opinion of its spherical Figure has generally obtain'd as lookt upon to be demonstrated And again if Eggs are commonly of somewhat an oval form there are particular reasons for it the directer of Natures Mechanism giving them that Figure either for the greater ease in Exclusion according to the structure of the parts through which they are then to pass or for the more convenient site of the Animal to be form'd within besides that when Eggs are form'd the fluid matter is not free to run into that Figure it would to the film encompassing them being in some part connected to the Ovarium and they are also prest upon by other Eggs whereas neither of these reasons nor any others I conceive are to be found in the Earth and that the Ancients could not nicely insist upon an Analogy betwixt the World and an Egg for its oval Figure it appears from hence that Eggs generally are only oblong and not properly oval they being much larger at one end than at the other The second point consider'd by the Author in this Chapter is the uninhabitableness of the Torrid Zone concerning which he says thus But nothing seems more remarkable than the uninhabitability of the Torrid Zone if we consider what a general fame and belief it had among the
the Change of the Poles otherwise than their private Opinion and the Reasons they assign for it are so frivolous that Vallesius aptly calls them Ineptiae Infantilis illius Philosophiae and shews the erroneous Ground they went upon But because the Author does not insist upon the validity of their Reasons I shall not examine them here but refer the Reader to Vallesius The Author adds some other Witnesses for this Change of the Posture of the Earth and Heavens viz. Plato the Poets some Christian Fathers and Jewish Doctors who all justifie that in the first Ages there was a constant Spring so that the Heavens and Earth must have chang'd their Posture since But I conceive I have sufficiently answer'd all this in my precedent and and some other Chapters and hope the Author will not go about to put upon us Allegorical Fictions for Historical Truths Another thing the Author endeavours to give an account of in this Chapter is how America came to be peopled which he thinks is easily answered according to his Hypothesis viz. that the Antediluvian Earth being smooth Men could freely pass before the Flood to all parts of this Continent and if they could not then pass into the other Hemisphere beyond the Torrid Zone he says Providence seems to have made provision for that in transplanting Adam into this Hemisphere after he had lain the foundation of a World in the other and concludes that God foreseeing how many Continents the Earth would be divided into after the ceasing of the Flood made provision to save a remnant in every Continent that the Race of Mankind might not be quite extinct in any of them As to this Assertion I shall leave it to the judgment of Divines how far we must be determin'd by the Text of Moses as to a destruction of all Mankind saving Noah and his Family in the Deluge there describ'd and shall only offer what follows from common Reason First It will concern the Author to consider how his Assertion here can consist with what he has set forth concerning the universality of the Deluge in the second Chapter of his first Book where he reasons against those who have endeavoured to represent Noah's Flood as a partial Deluge affecting only a particular Countrey and urges thus I cannot but look upon the Deluge as a much more considerable thing than these Authors would represent it and as a kind of Dissolution of Nature Moses calls it a destroying of the Earth as well as of Mankind And beneath he says St. Peter compares the Conflagration with the Deluge as two general dissolutions of Nature and one may as well say that the Conflagration shall be only National as to say that the Deluge was so And again we see that after the Flood the Blessing for Multiplication and for replenishing the Earth with Inhabitants was as solemnly pronounc'd by God Almighty as at the first Creation of Man Gen. 9.1 and Gen. 1.28 These Considerations he says he thinks might be sufficient to give us assurance from divine Writ of the universality of the Deluge and yet that Moses affords anonother Argument as demonstrative as any when in the History of the Deluge he says Gen. 7.19 The VVaters exceedingly prevailed upon the Earth and all the highest Hills that were under the whole Heavens were cover'd all the high Hills that were under the whole Heavens then quite round the Earth And in his Latine Copy he says Moses's History adds particularly the thing being as it were measur'd and accurately examin'd that the Waters overflowed the highest Mountains fifteen Cubits which Mark he judges to be added not without Providence that we might thence gather by a Testimony not to be gainsaid that the Deluge did not keep itself within the limits of any one Region whatsoever And much more the Author urges both in his English and Latin Copies to the same purpose and how all this can consist with a preservation of some Remnant of Men in every Continent at the time of the Deluge I must leave it to him to consider Secondly According to the Authors own Hypothesis when he says that the Passages North and South being not free Men could not go out of one Hemisphere into the other but Providence seems to have made a Provision for that in transporting Adam into this Hemisphere after he had lain a foundation for a World in the other I hope he does not mean by this that Adam left any Children in the other Hemisphere to people it and be a foundation of a World there It being a common Opinion that Adam and Eve were but a few hours in Paradise before they were expulst and that expulsion being suppos'd by the Author to be into this Hemisphere there were no People to remain in the other Wherefore as I have intimated before if the Author's Hypothesis must stand it must be with these Absurdities First that upon the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of Paradise God must have miraculously convey'd them through the Torrid Zone which the Author supposes as impassable as a burning Furnace into this Hemisphere Secondly After Adam had Children God must have wrought another Miracle to have convey'd some of them into the other Hemisphere to People it and it would have been a Curiosity to know which of Adam's Children were convey'd thither Cain we find must have been one because he is said Gen. 4.16 to have dwelt on the East of Eden which could not be in this Hemisphere if Paradise were in the other and it 's much that living so near Paradise and being past the flaming Sword he should not get into it as well as all descended from him to the Flood though his Crime could hardly deserve that Paradisiacal Continent for his Habitation Thirdly God must have wrought a third Miracle to have brought all Animals there of differing Species from those in this Hemisphere to the Ark at the time of the Deluge unless another Ark were built in the other Hemisphere Whereas the Author says in his first Book that Noah's Ark was the the first Ship or Vessel of bulk that ever was built in the World And I would ask whether the Author thinks that a Man may not give a rational account of the peopling of America without being clog'd with so many Absurdities I think it very easie and natural to imagine supposing the first Plantation in this Hemisphere and the VVorld always as it is how without any Miracle some small Vessels with People in them might have been driven by some Storm on the Continent of America from the more Easterly Coasts of the VVorld such small Vessels being a thing of common Notion so that I think we may reasonably conclude them to have been almost as ancient as Mankind Moreover we know that many Jewish Customs were found among the Americans on their first discovery and Ralegh tells us that in Mexico when first discover'd there were found written Books after the manner of
sua convulsáque robora terrâ Et sylvas moveo jubeóque tremiscere montes Et mugire solum manésque exire sepulchris Te quoque Luna traho At list the banks admiring what is done I make the streams back to their sources run By Charms I calm and raise tempestuous Seas The Winds and Clouds attend to what I please By Words and Spells I tear the Vipers Jaws The Rocks and Oaks obey those mighty Laws I Woods remove shake Mountains make th' Earth groan Call Ghosts from out their Graves and thee O Moon From Heaven I draw What shall we say to the Poets sense in all this Is there nothing in 't a Person initiated in Symbolical Learning will tell you that there is a real truth contain'd in it and that he has seen all these things really transacted in that Symbolical Sense the Poet means it and though this be not literal yet there is somewhat very surprizing and extraordinary and beside the common course of Nature in the Transaction When a mere Physiologer reads this being unacquainted in the other Learning and finding these things not solvable according to his Principles he shall tell you that this is only a fancy of the Poet writ to please the Reader by stirring admiration in him And again some literal Tribunitial Writers will tell you that an Old Woman having the Devil at command may do all these fine things as they are literally set down Now there has been always a Contention betwixt these two later Atechnical Writers and the others Inter Mystas et Osores Musarum as Erasmus calls them for these later being incomparably the greater number and many of them Men of great parts and really exceeding many of the mystae in giving accounts of several Phaenomena of Nature and in other parts of Learning think it derogating from their honour that any Men should pretend to understand some mystery in Learning which they do not and therefore commonly brand them with Ostentation Enthusiasm or perhaps somewhat worse not considering that tho God gives great parts to some Men yet he commonly limits them to certain Sciences and does not extend them to all Knowables and tho the others in their defence sing with the Poet Invidus annoso qui famam derogat aevo Qui vates ad vera vocat Yet they commonly Sing to the Deaf Some Writers indeed keep a decorum in the matter as it may be said of Cartes who though a Man of unquestionable Parts in an outward demonstrative way yet finding himself at a loss in divine Mysteries says thus I had a Reverence for our Divinity and desir'd as much as no Man more to be capacitated for Eternal Happiness but having certainly inform'd my self that the way which leads to it lies open to the learned no more than to the unlearned and that the Truths reveal'd from God exceed the reach of Man's understanding I fear'd I should incur the Crime of Rashness if I brought them under the scrutiny of my weak Reason and whoever have the hardiness to take knowledge of them and interpret them seem'd to me to stand in need of a peculiar Grace of God for this purpose and ought to be plac'd in a rank above common Man I would not be so understood all this while as though I pretended my self a Master in Symbolical Learning for I think there is but one of a Town and two of a Tribe that so are yet I may pretend my self a Scholar in such a Classis of it that I see a multitude of Errours introduc'd into Natural and Civil History through the ignorance of it How many Relations invented as meer Symbols have Pliny Solinus and others polite Writers indeed but unacquainted in mystical Learning recorded as plain historical Truths They being Collectors and transcribing from the Works of those they did not understand And we find that Pliny ridicul'd himself by endeavouring to ridicule the Magi for having the Mole in great Veneration he little knowing what that subterraneous Animal symboliz'd To conclude concerning this mystical Learning of the Ancients we find that Pliny though an opposer of it as vain and of no effect found himself oblig'd to own that the highest Renown and Glory of Learning from all Antiquity and in all continued times was from that Knowledge and it 's certain that those of the Ancients who were skill'd in it could thereby perform things far transcending the ability and comprehension of others They had an Institution amongst them whereby they could bring the Mind of Man to its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and make it exert it self beyond the Elements of this World as those who were initiated among the Jews and had seen the rending of the Veil which carried the Types of the four Elements as all the Prophets had saw those Elements pass away and thereby became partakers of divine Mysteries The Ars Amatoria and Obstetricia of Socrates in which it appears that Virgil Theocritus and others were egregiously skill'd contains this Institution it being for courting and impregnating the Mind and at length for helping it to bring forth for as to that illiterate and idle Imputation of their abusive love of Boys Boys may talk of it and as the learned Dr. Henry More has intimated in several parts of his Works a certain dispensation of this kind is made use of now and then though sparingly amongst us and I doubt not but himself was initiated thereby And if I might here use freedom of Speech I must say that let a Mans Parts be never so great otherwise whoever shall undertake to write of the Points consider'd by the Author in his Theory without being well seen in this grand Theorem of the Ancients I must look upon him in a like Circumstance with a Pilot who should undertake a Voyage round the Globe without his Compass In fine if the learned Author of the Theory who has occasion'd me to write this Postscript relating to it as well as my other Considerations on it proposes it as meerly Symbolical I think it might aptly enough serve that way and that by a full consideration of it we may be carried round in a fetch upon external Nature till a time of Revelation comes for which we must wait Gods pleasure keeping us in the mean time to the Institutions of our spiritual Guides and indeed methinks the very ingenious Emblem which he has prefixt to his Book seems to intimate some such meaning in him He there sets forth seven states of the World with the divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Messiah setting one foot on the Chaodical the other on the Astral state of it Now these seven states of the World aptly symbolize the seven states of mans Life At first the mind of Man is a Chaos an inform Being a Tabula Rasa as is represented by the Chaos in the first Figure As he proceeds towards Youth things go on pretty smoothly with him as is Typified by the smooth
by Providence after the rest of Beings were completed But as what Moses has said of the Creation by most Christian Writers is understood of the whole System of Beings as well coelestial as terrestrial so we find when the antient Gentils speak of the Rise of things from a Chaos they mean the same Hesiod and Ovid and others that write of the Chaos are plain that the Heavens rose from it as well as the Earth And we know the Hermetick Philosophers who are lookt upon by some to be much more antient than Moses but certainly of great Antiquity tell us of a Cohabitation there was of Superiors and Inferiors in the Chaos and that upon the Separation of it the Superiors retir'd to their coelestial Abode Aristophanes also whom the Author admires above the rest plainly says in his Cosmogonia that the Chaos was before the Earth the Air and the Heavens Moreover when the Author says the Theogonia of the Antients was the same with their Cosmogonia and their Cosmogonia the same with their Geogonia it would be absurd to understand those Genealogies of the terrestrial Bodies exclusively to the coelestial For those Gentils being infected with Polytheism and making the chief Parts and Portions of the World Gods it 's manifest that they did not only make the chief parts of the Earth so they being known to have ador'd the whole Host of Heaven So again as to the Dissolution of the World by Fire we find the Antients generally understood it of the Heavens as well as of the Earth Hierom in his Comment on the 15th of Isaiah says Quae quidem Philosophorum mundi opinio est omnia quae cernimus igni peritura Seneca delivering the Opinion of the Stoicks says Sydera syderibus incurrent omni flagrante materiâ uno igne quicquid nunc ex disposito lucet ardebit Lucan says Communis mundo superest rogus ossibus astra Misturus and he expresses himself to the same purpose elsewhere Ovid from the Oracles of the Sibyls says Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus Quo mare quo tellus correptáque regia coeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laboret The Sybils Verses are as follows Tunc ardens fluvius coelo manabit ab alto Igneus atque locos consumet funditus omnes Terrámque oceanúmque ingentem caerula ponti Stagnáque tum fluvios fontes Ditémque severum Caelestémque Polum caeli quoque lumina in unum Fluxa ruent formâ deletâ prorsus eorum Then from high Heaven vast streams of Fire shall flow Those Flames consuming all things here below The Earth the mighty Ocean the blue Main Lakes Rivers Fountains and what Dis does claim And Heaven it self whose Lights shall flow in one And Stars shall fall their Form destroy'd and gone So again it 's a common Opinion amongst Christian Divines that the Heavens will be destroy'd by Fire as well as the Earth Dr. Hakewill in his Apology says it seems to him the most likely opinion and most agreeable to Scripture and Reason that the whole World with all the parts thereof only Men Angels and Devils and the third Heavens the Mansion House of the Saints and Angels and the Place and Instruments appointed for the tormenting of the Damn'd excepted shall be totally and finally dissolv'd and annihilated which he proves by many forcible Arguments refuting the contrary Opinion and mentioning many learned Men of his thinking he has so far evinc'd it that it is not solidly answerable to whose Book for brevity sake I must remit the Reader So Salmeron on that passage of S. Peter 2.3 says Loquitur ergo hoc in loco de veris coelis de quibus David dixit Initio tu Domine terram fundasti Opera manuum tuarum sunt coeli ipsi peribunt nimirum per ignem ubi ostendit veros coelos veram terram verè peritura And beneath Quòd autem quidam ex patribus interpretabantur non de supremis veris coelis sed de aereis aqueis esse intelligendum ratione ipsius Textus revincuntur nam imprimis ostendimus nunquam coelorum nomine in plurali numero aereos elementares coelos accipi deinde post coelos nominatos subdit elementa verò calore solventur infra elementa ignis ardore tabescent quod aerem aquam sphaeram ignis spectare videtur Non possunt ergo per coelos accipi illa tria elementa cum bis coelos ab elementis contra distinguat Again Esay 34.4 it 's said All the Host of Heaven shall be dissolv'd and the Heavens shall be roul'd together as a scrole and all their Host shall fall down as the Leaf falls from the Vine and as a falling Fig from a Fig-tree Which words S. John Apoc. 6.13 seems to have borrowed from the Prophet And so I look upon the following Verses of Juvencus to be writ according to a Prophetick Truth Immortale nihil mundi compage tenetur Non orbis non regna hominum non aurea Roma Non mare non tellus non ignea sydera Coeli Nam statuit Genitor rerum irrevocabile tempus Quo cunctum torrens rapiet flamma ultima mundum I shall only add that those who by their insight in Symbolical Learning reach the mystical sense of the Prophets well know that what is symboliz'd by the Heavens will pass away in the day of the mystical Conflagration as well as what is symboliz'd by the Earth whence unless the whole shall be symbolically evacuated so that the Conflagration shall not concern external nature I shall ever believe that the one will be concern'd in it as well as the other homo cum dormierit non resurget dum non erunt Coeli And not to rest in mystery where I may be plain the mystical Conflagration is known to be the Baptism by Fire and the Spirit whence I conceive some Sects of Christians almost from the first times of Christianity as the Jacobites Aethiopians Copts Isini c. instead of baptizing with Water were wont to have their Children burnt by their Priests in the Cheeks or Foreheads with an Iron according to that Matth. 3. He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and Fire Now when God is pleas'd to send that Baptism not only Sense symboliz'd by the Earth but Reason also symboliz'd by the Heavens passes away and is absorp'd in the Spirit and carryed above itself the Spirit being as much exalted above Reason as Reason is above Sense and this is a truth own'd by all Divines though none I conceive can apprehend how the thing is transacted but those to whom God has vouchsafed that Baptism they being brought into that State of mind which made S. Paul say Omnia mihi in Aenigmate facta sunt Nothing being able to perceive the ways of the Spirit but the Spirit and hence we find after the Apostles receiv'd it they were censur'd by the People of being intoxicated with