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
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
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
the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he created and make it do service upon their authority For some of them bear us in hand that it denotes Creation in a rigorous sense that is the making of a thing out of nothing Agreeable to which is the holy Writer's notion of Creation where he says that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear Meaning as we read elsewhere that they were made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of nothing Which apply to the making of the Earth as we very well may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the SPIRIT 's word concerning it and it could not possibly be made out of a Sun or Star as the new philosophy would have it For then say those Doctors a more proper word should have express'd its production viz 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imports the making of a thing out of praeexistent matter Some slight ground for this seems to be laid in Scripture and that in Moses's Cosmopoeia too For it is said Gen. 2. 3. That GOD rested from all his work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he Created to make Where unless we allow a distinct signification to the two words implying that he made some things out of nothing and others out of prepared matter we must charge the HOLY GHOST with indecent Tautology Though if we consider again that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used promiscuously to express GOD's making of things ex praejacente materia out of extant matter as well as out of nothing and that in the very story of the Creation we may well suspect that there was too much niceness in the Masters rather than such respective significations to be strictly and continually appropriated to the words Only as many as did thus criticize have thereby fairly given their suffrage for that truth which we contend for That when GOD created the Earth according to Moses's narrative he educ'd it directly out of nothing And so it cannot have a fire at the Center of it because it issu'd forth into being in Des-Cartes's way 8. Being unawares fallen upon that expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he created to make in reverence to the Seventy I cannot but take one short step out of the way to vindicate their translation of it They render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he began to make As if the work of Creation had not then been consummate But that could not be their meaning For whereas we read in the beginning of the Chapter the Heavens and the Earth and all the Host of them were finished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they were compleated They could only mean therefore that GOD rested from all his work which at any time in the six precedent days He had BEGVN to make And so their sense is sound and true though they keep not close to the â—â—teral strictness of the Original And that they thought the Creation was wholly perfected before the seventh day is apparent from that liberty they took in translating the beginning of the second verse of the same Chapter which perhaps is more culpable For whereas the Hebrew says GOD had ended his work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the seventh day departing quite from the proper signification of the word they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the sixth day As if they feared they should offend by stretching the work of Creation too far in case they had turned it GOD had ended his work on the seventh day Here was more than abundans cautela too much caution used Especially if Aben Ezra's Maxime be authentic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The finishing of a work or consummation of it is not the work it self I have noted this the rather as containing in it a full consent with what has been said touching the Creation's being perfected in Six days For it makes it evident that the LXX Interpreters were throughly perswaded of this Truth And not only so but forward to assert and resolved to maintain it even to an over acted care and blameable Scrupulosity 9. And here it will not be amiss to reflect a little upon one notion of the Theory 's which countenances the late production of the Earth or its rising long after the World was made perhaps out of a Sun or Star as the Scheme in the English Theory before the Title Page plainly insinuates And that is The limiting of Moses's Story of the Creation to this lower World to the Earth that is to say and the Aereal Heavens and such things as were formed out of the Chaos Thus in one place it confines it First that must be noted that Moses did not describe the first production of matter and the rise of the universal World but the formation of our World that is of our Earth and our Heaven out of their Chaos And presently after But the Subject of Moses's Genesis is the Chaos and that most confus'd and Earthly and the things made out of this Chaos and related to it as a center those properly belong to the Mosaic World And by and by We may not surmise therefore that when we and our World was made entire nature must needs be made at the same time And then again Certain it is that Moses's World does not comprehend all the Regions of the Vniverse nor all the orders of things but those parts of Nature which could be made of the Earthly Chaos But then to say nothing of Light or the Vehicle of it neither of which were made out of the Chaos let me ask What did GOD mean when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LET THERE BE LIGHTS I do not ask what those Lights were that 's evident enough Nor where they were placed for they were far above the Aiery Heaven and so in the sense of the Theory could not belong to the Earthly World But the question is What ALMIGHTY GOD intended by LET THERE BE LIGHTS The Theory hints the meaning and effect thereof to be no more than that those heavenly parts of the Universe were then first made conspicuous or began to illighten the Earth and declares it demonstrable That Moses is so to be understood as he has limited him But then I must continue the enquiry What does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LET THERE BE signify in other places of the same Chapter where it occurrs so often why it infallibly implys the production of those things to which it does respectively relate It imports God's commanding or willing their existence and their immediate emergency into being in obedience to his powerful Will or Mandate This is obvious even to slightest notice Thus when GOD said Let there be light it follows immediately and there was Light When GOD said Let there be a firmament it follows and GOD made a Firmament When GOD said Let the waters be gathered together into one place that so there might be dry
it but hold it was consumed by Tempest Accidental Lightnings that is from Thunder-clouds above kindled subterraneous Fires about it the ground whereon that City was built being of a very bituminous substance But they who shall peruse the sad Story of the Calamity and well observe the special hand that GOD is noted to have in it and also seriously consider the solemn Dialogue betwixt HIM and Abraham about it and the wonderful deliverance of righteous Lot from it must certainly be of another Judgment than to think it proceeded from nothing but Lightnings in the Air and Sulphureousness in the Earth and that it was the simple effect of a meer natural Causality And truly that one expression The LORD rained upon Sodom Brimstone and Fire from the LORD out of Heaven does plainly intimate that it was Miraculous Others bear us in hand that there was nothing extraordinary in the destruction of Pharaoh and his mighty Army but that they were drowned by pure oversight and the common course of those famed Waters Entring the Bay that is when the Flood was withdrawn and the Waters at an Ebb they marched too far and carelessly continued too long therein even till the retired Sea returning upon them in an impetuous Tide swallowed up the King and his Host in an Instant A likely supposition when we are told expressly from the Mouth of GOD That he divided the Red Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Parts or Segments Psal. 136. 13. Where the Iewish Tradition is That the Sea was divided into Twelve Cuts according to the number of the Twelve Tribes and so every Tribe passed through the Channel in a Lane by it self But however that be nice and humorous as is their other conceit that seventy two Angels just assisted in the Miracle because the Nineteenth Twentieth and One and Twentieth Verses of the Fourteenth of Exodus do each of them contain so many Letters yet that the Red Sea was actually parted asunder is clear from GOD's Command to Moses at the Sixteenth Verse of that Chapter Lift thou up thy Rod and stâ—etch out thine hand over the Sea and DIVIDE it And accordingly it is said at the One and Twentieth Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Waters were DIVIDED So divided that as we read in the following Verse they were a Wall to them on their right hand and on their left Which expression to them that consider the situation of the Red Sea and the course of journeying the Israelites were then in does plainly discover that the Waters at their passing through them were perfectly divided Else they could not have had them on both hands of them at once at leaâ—t not as a Wall to them And that the Waters of that Sea were as much divided as Waters could be is farther manifest from what occurs in the Story of Israels passage over Iordan Where it is said That the Waters of that River which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap and those that came down towards the Sea of the Plain failed and were cut off Josh. 3. 16. So that if the Waters of the Red Sea were but â—erved thus they could not possibly be more really divided And that they were thus served is plain from the Testimony of the HOLY GHOST Iosh. 4. 23. The LORD your GOD dried up the Waters of Jordan from before you until ye were passed over as the LORD your GOD did to the Red Sea Nor is it improbable by the way that proud Chenâ—res that Egyptian Monarch who at last was overwhelmed with the Waters of this Sea might derive his obstinacy the occasion of his ruine from what we are now speaking of I mean from his setting Philosophy too high He might be strongly opinion'd that Moses's Works were no Wonders at all no more than what Nature her self could do if manag'd by Philosophers And then Iannes and Iambres and the Magical Crew Pharaoh's Philosophers pretending imitation of the Man of GOD by their Juggling Tricks might confirm the Tyrant in his mistaken thoughts and convince him that he made a right Judgment of things when he believed them to be of an ordinary strain and placed them to the Accounts of Nature and Philosophy Or if Moses in some matters out-did the Philosophers of the haughty King yet this he might conclude the result of his Breeding For knowing he was brought up in his Royal Court he could not but be sensible he had singular Advantages and in case he improved them as he had reason to think he did might well outstrip his notablest Antagonists upon the score of his Education And truly as Philo informs us That he attain'd to the top of Philosophy so Scripture assures us That he was Learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians Which Wisdom the same Philo gives a particular Account of in his life of Moses And therefore Pharaoh might justly take him to be morâ— skilful than any of his Philosophers and yet presume that the Works wherein he excell'd all his artful Men were not owing to Divine Power but to some knack he had of ordering Nature more dexterously than they could do And thus the prejudice once sprung up might be deeply rooted in the Prince's Mind And therefore though he felt as well as saw the mighty Prodigies for they were sorely afflictive as well as stupendious yet he stouted it out a long time against them Nor would he at last have buckled to release the Hebrews had not frightful Death shown it self on the Tragical Stage and also come up so near him as to strike his First-born and Heir apparent to the Crown And the same thing is attested by Origen of the Egyptians in general thus far That they did not look upon Moses as doing the strange things he did by power from above Thô says he they do not absolutely deny the Wonders wrought by Moses yet they declare they were done by delusion and not by Divine strength And the Sorcerers or Magi taught them as much says the learned Iew that wrote Moses his Life And therefore when his Rod was turned into a Serpent and the Multitude of Spectators among whom was the King himself and his Princes were struck at once with amazement â—nd fear insomuch that they fled the same Writer brings in the Sophisters and Magicians speaking thus Why are you affrighted we are not ignorant of such things but use the like Art our selves in publick Intimating they thought Moses wrought the Miracle by pure Legerdemain or Magical Craft wherein they were versed Which is also farther insinuated by that Proverbial Taunt wherewith they flouted the renowned Heroe as we find it in the Talmud Thou bringest Straw into Afra that being a place in Egypt where Straw abounded Meaning it was vain for him to play Hocus-Pocus Tricks or to practise Inchantment in a Land so stockt with the same already Nor can I pass by those sawcy Reflections that lewd Celsus makes in favour of
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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-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
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
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
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
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