Perfection but seeing they have not determin'd in any definite numbers what the length of every Age will be nor given us the summ of all we cannot draw any conclusion from this account as to the point in question before us But must proceed to the Jewish and Christian Oracles The Iews have a remarkable Prophecy which expresseth both the whole and the parts of the World's duration The World they say will stand Six Thousand Years Two Thousand before the Law Two Thousand under the Law and Two Thousand under the Messiah This Prophecy they derive from Elias but there were two of the Name Elias the Thesbite and Elias the Rabbin or Cabbalist and 't is suppos'd to belong immediately to the latter of these Yet this does not hinder in my opinion but that it might come originally from the former Elias and was preserv'd in the School of this Elias the Rabbin and first made publick by him Or he added it may be that division of the time into three parts and so got a Title to the whole I cannot easily imagine that a Doctor that liv'd two hundred years or thereabouts before Christ when Prophecy had ceas'd for some Ages amongst the Iews should take upon him to dictate a Prophecy about the duration of the World unless he had been supported by some antecedent Cabbalistical Tradition which being kept more secret before he took the liberty to make publick and so was reputed the Author of the Prophecy As many Philosophers amongst the Greeks were the reputed Authors of such doctrines as were much more ancient than themselves But they were the publishers of them in their Country or the revivers of them after a long silence and so by forgetful posterity got the honour of the first invention You will think it may be the time is too long and the distance too great betwixt Elias the Thesbite and this Elias the Rabbin for a Tradition to subsist all the while or be preserv'd with any competent integrity But it appears from S. Iude's Epistle that the Prophecies of Enoch who liv'd before the Floud relating to the day of judgment and the end of the World were extant in his time either in Writing or by Tradition And the distance betwixt Enoch and S. Iude was vastly greater than betwixt the two Elias's Nor was any fitter to be inspir'd with that knowledge or to tell the first news of that fatal period than the old Prophet Elias who is to come again and bring the alarum of the approaching Conflagration But however this conjecture may prove as to the original Author of this Prophecy the Prophecy it self concerning the Sexmillennial duration of the World is very much insisted upon by the Christian Fathers Which yet I believe is not so much for the bare Authority of the Tradition as because they thought it was founded in the History of the Six days Creation and the Sabbath succeeding as also in some other Typical precepts and usages in the Law of Moses But before we speak of that give me leave to name some of those Fathers to you that were of this judgment and supposed the great Sabbatism would succeed after the World had stood Six Thousand Years Of this opinion was S. Barnabas in his Catholick Epistle ch 15. Where he argues that the Creation will be ended in Six Thousand Years as it was finish'd in Six Days Every day according to the Sacred and mystical account being a Thousand Years Of the same judgment is S. Irenaeus both as to the conclusion and the reason of it He saith the History of the Creation in six days is a narration as to what is past and a Prophecy of what is to come As the Work was said to be consummated in six days and the Sabbath to be the seventh So the consummation of all things will be in Six Thousand Years and then the great Sabbatism to come on in the blessed reign of Christ. Hippolitus Martyr disciple of Irenaeus is of the same judgment as you may see in Photius ch 202. Lactantius in his Divine Institutions l. 7. c. 14. gives the very same account of the state and continuance of the World and the same proofs for it And so does S. Cyprian in his Exhortation to Martyrdom ch 11. S Ierome more than once declares himself of the same opinion and S. Austin tho' he wavers and was doubtful as to the Millennium or Reign of Christ upon Earth yet he receives this computation without hesitancy and upon the foremention'd grounds So Iohannes Damascenus de fide Orthodoxâ takes seven Millennaries for the entire space of the World from the Creation to the general Resurrection the Sabbatism being included And that this was a received and approv'd opinion in early times we may collect from the Author of the Questions and answers ad Orthodoxos in Iustin Martyr Who giving an answer to that enquiry about the six thousand-years term of the World says We may conjecture from many places of Scripture that those are in the right that say six thousand years is the time prefixt for the duration of this present frame of the World These Authors I have examin'd my self but there are many others brought in confirmation of this opinion as S. Hilary Anastasius Sinaita Sanctus Gaudentius Q. Iulius Hilarion Iunilius Africanus Isidorus Hispalensis Cassiodorus Gregorius Magnus and others which I leave to be examin'd by those that have curiosity and leisure to do it In the mean time it must be confest that many of these Fathers were under a mistake in one respect in that they generally thought the World was near an end in their time An errour which we need not take pains to confute now seeing we who live twelve hundred or fourteen hundred years after them find the World still in being and likely to continue so for some considerable time But it is easie to discern whence their mistake proceeded not from this Prophecy alone but because they reckon'd this Prophecy according to the Chronology of the Septuagint which setting back the beginning of the World many Ages beyond the Hebrew these six thousand years were very near expir'd in the time of those Fathers and that made them conclude that the World was very near an end We will make no reflections in this place upon that Chronology of the Septuagint lest it should too much interrupt the thred of our discourse But it is necessary to shew how the Fathers grounded this computation of Six Thousand Years upon Scripture 'T was chiefly as we suggested before upon the Hexameron or the Creation finish'd in Six Days and the Sabbath ensuing The Sabbath they said was a type of the Sabbatism that was to follow at the end of the World according to S. Paul to the Hebrews and then by analogy and consequence the six days preceding the Sabbath must note the space and duration of the World If therefore 〈◊〉 could discover how much a Day is reckon'd for in this mystical
impossible for the Ark to have liv'd upon the raging Abyss or for Noah and his Family to have been preserv'd if there had not been a miraculous hand of Providence to take care of them But 't is hard to separate and distinguish an ordinary and extraordinary Providence in all cases and to mark just how far one goes and where the other begins And writing a Theory of the Deluge here as we do we were to exhibit a Series of causes whereby it might be made intelligible or to shew the proximate Natural Causes of it wherein we follow the example both of Moses and S. Peter and with the same veneration of the Divine Power and Wisdom in the government of Nature by a constant ordinary Providence and an occasional extraordinary So much for the Theory of the Deluge and the second Section of this Discourse CHAP. IX The Second Part of this Discourse proving the same Theory from the Effects and present form of the Earth First by a general Scheme of what is most remarkable in this Globe and then by a more particular Induction beginning with an Account of Subterraneous Cavities and Subterraneous Waters WE have now finisht our explication of the Universal Deluge and given an account not only of the possibility of it but so far as our knowledge can reach of its Causes and of that form and structure of the Earth whereby the Old World was subject to that sort of Fate We have not beg'd any Principles or Suppositions for the proof of this but taking that common ground which both Moses and all Antiquity presents to us viz. That this Earth rose from a Chaos We have from that deduc'd by an easie train of consequences what the first Form of it would be and from that Form as from a nearer ground we have by a second train of consequences made it appear that at some time or other that first Earth would be subject to a dissolution and by that dissolution to a Deluge And thus far we have proceeded only by the intuition of Causes as is most proper to a Theory but for the satisfaction of those that require more sensible arguments and to compleat our proofs on either hand we will now argue from the Effects and from the present state of Nature and the present form of the Earth prove that it hath been broken and undergone such a dissolution as we have already describ'd and made the immediate occasion of the Deluge And that we may do this more perspicuously and distinctly we will lay down this Proposition to be prov'd viz. That the present form and structure of the Earth both as to the surface and as to the Interiour parts of it so far as they are known and accessible to us doth exactly answer to our Theory concerning the form and dissolution of the first Earth and cannot be explain'd upon any other Hypothesis yet known Oratours and Philosophers treat Nature after a very different manner Those represent her with all her graces and ornaments and if there be any thing that is not capable of that they dissemble it or pass it over slightly But Philosophers view Nature with a more impartial eye and without favour or prejudice give a just and free account how they find all the parts of the Universe some more some less perfect And as to this Earth in particular if I was to describe it as an Oratour I would suppose it a beautiful and regular Globe and not only so but that the whole Universe was made for its sake that it was the darling and favourite of Heaven that the Sun shin'd only to give it light to ripen its Fruit and make fresh its Flowers and that the great Concave of the Firmament and all the Stars in their several Orbs were design'd only for a spangled Cabinet to keep this Jewel in This Idea I would give of it as an Oratour But a Philosopher that overheard me would either think me in jest or very injudicious if I took the Earth for a body so regular in it self or so considerable if compar'd with the rest of the Universe This he would say is to make the great World like one of the Heathen Temples a beautiful and magnificent structure and of the richest materials yet built only for a little brute Idol a Dog or a Crocodile or some deformed Creature plac'd in a corner of it We must therefore be impartial where the Truth requires it and describe the Earth as it is really in it self and though it be handsome and regular enough to the eye in certain parts of it single tracts and single Regions yet if we consider the whole surface of it or the whole Exteriour Region 't is as a broken and confus'd heap of bodies plac'd in no order to one another nor with any correspondency or regularity of parts And such a body as the Moon appears to us when 't is look'd upon with a good Glass rude and ragged as it is also represented in the modern Maps of the Moon such a thing would the Earth appear if it was seen from the Moon They are both in my judgment the image or picture of a great Ruine and have the true aspect of a World lying in its rubbish Our Earth is first divided into Sea and Land without any regularity in the portions either of the one or the other In the Sea lie the Islands scatter'd like limbs torn from the rest of the body great Rocks stand rear'd up in the waters The Promontories and Capes shoot into the Sea and the Sinus's and Creeks on the other hand run as much into the Land and these without any order or uniformity Upon the other part of our Globe stand great heaps of Earth or stone which we call Mountains and if these were all plac'd together they would take up a very considerable part of the dry Land In the rest of it are lesser Hills Valleys Plains Lakes and Marishes Sands and Desarts c. and these also without any regular disposition Then the inside of the Earth or inward parts of it are generally broken or hollow especially about the Mountains and high Lands as also towards the shores of the Sea and among the Rocks How many Holes and Caverns and strange Subterraneous passages do we see in many Countries and how many more may we easily imagine that are unknown and unaccessible to us This is the pourtraicture of our Earth drawn without flattery and as oddly as it looks it will not be at all surprising to one that hath consider'd the foregoing Theory For 't is manifest enough that upon the dissolution of the first Earth and its fall into the Abyss this very face and posture of things which we have now describ'd or something extremely like it would immediately result The Sea would be open'd and the face of the Globe would be divided into Land and Water And according as the fragments fell some would make Islands or Rocks in the Sea others would
and forerunners of the last day as they usually are of all great changes and calamities The destruction of Ierusalem was a type of the destruction of the World and the Evangelists always mention Earth-quakes amongst the ominous Prodigies that were to attend it But these Earth-quakes we are speaking of at present are but the beginnings of sorrow and not to be compar'd with those that will follow afterwards when Nature is convulst in her last agony just as the flames are seizing on her Of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter These changes will happen as to the matter and form of the Earth before it is attack'd by the last fire There will be also another change as to the situation of it for that will be rectified and the Earth restor'd to the posture it had at first namely of a right aspect and conversion to the Sun But because I cannot determine at what time this restitution will be whether at the beginning middle or end of the Conflagration I will not presume to lay any stress upon it Plato seems to have imputed the Conflagration to this only which is so far true that the Revolution call'd The Great Year is this very Revolution or the return of the Earth and the Heavens to their first posture But tho' this may be contemporary with the last fire or some way concomitant yet it does not follow that it is the cause of it much less the only cause It may be an occasion of making the fire reach more easily towards the Poles when by this change of situation their long Nights and long Winters shall be taken away These new dispositions in our Earth which we expect before that great day may be look'd upon as extraordinary but not as Miraculous because they may proceed from Natural Causes But now in the last place we are to consider miraculous causes What influence they may have or what part they may bear in this great revolution of Nature By miraculous causes we understand either God's immediate Omnipotency or the Ministry of Angels and what may be perform'd by the latter is very improperly and undecently thrown upon the former 'T is a great step to Omnipotency and 't is hard to define what Miracles on this side Creation require an infinite power We are sure that the Angels are Ministring Spirits and ten thousand times ten thousand stand about the Throne of the Almighty to receive his commands and execute his judgments That perfect knowledge they have of the powers of nature and of conducting those powers to the best advantage by adjusting causes in a fit subordination one to another makes them capable of performing not only things far above our force but even above our imagination Besides they have a radical inherent power belonging to the excellency of their nature of determining the motions of matter within a far greater sphere than humane Souls can pretend to We can only command our spirits and determine their motions within the compass of our own Bodies but their activity and empire is of far greater extent and the outward World is much more subject to their dominion than to ours From these considerations it is reasonable to conclude that the generality of miracles may be and are perform'd by Angels It being less decorous to employ a Sovereign power where a subaltern is sufficient and when we hastily cast things upon God for quick dispatch we consult our own ease more than the honouor of our Maker I take it for granted here that what is done by an Angelical hand is truly providential and of divine administration and also justly bears the character of a miracle Whatsoever may be done by pure material causes or humane strength we account Natural and whatsoever is above these we call supernatural and miraculous Now what is supernatural and miraculous is either the effect of an Angelical power or of a Sovereign and Infinite power And we ought not to confound these two no more than Natural and Supernatural for there is a greater difference betwixt the highest Angelical power and Omnipotency than betwixt an Humane power and Angelical Therefore as the first Rule concerning miracles is this That we must not flie to miracles where Man and Nature are sufficient so the second Rule is this that we must not flie to a sovereign infinite power where an Angelical is sufficient And the reason in both Rules is the same namely because it argues a defect of Wisdom in all Oeconomiles to employ more and greater means than are sufficient Now to make application of this to our present purpose I think it reasonable and also sufficient to admit the ministery of Angels in the future Conflagration of the World If Nature will not lay violent hands upon her self or is not sufficient to work her own destruction Let us allow Destroying Angels to interest themselves in the work as the Executioners of the Divine Justice and Vengeance upon a degenerate World We have examples of this so frequently in Sacred History how the Angels have executed God's Judgments upon a Nation or a People that it cannot seem new or strange that in this last judgment which by all the Prophets is represented as the Great Day of the Lord the day of his Wrath and of his Fury the same Angels should bear their parts and conclude the last scene of that Tragedy which they had acted in all along We read of the Destroying Angel in Aegypt of Angels that presided at the destruction of Sodom which was a Type of the future destrution of the World Iude 7. and of Angels that will accompany our Saviour when he comes in flames of Fire Not we suppose to be Spectators only but Actors and Superintendants in this great Catastrophe This ministery of Angels may be either in ordering and conducting such Natural Causes as we have already given an account of or in adding new ones if occasion be I mean encreasing the quantity of Fire or of fiery materials in and about the Earth So as that Element shall be more abundant and more predominant and overbear all opposition that either Water or any other Body can make against it It is not material whether of these two Suppositions we follow provided we allow that the Conflagration is a work of Providence and not a pure Natural Fatality If it be necessary that there should be an augmentation made of Fiery Matter 't is not hard to conceive how that may be done either from the Heavens or from the Earth The Prophets sometimes speak of multiplying or strengthning the Light of the Sun and it may as easily be conceiv'd of his heat as of his light as if the Vial that was to be pour'd upon it and gave it a power to scorch men with fire had something of a Natural sence as well as Moral But there is another stream of Ethereal matter that flows from the Heavens and recruits the Central Fire with continual supplies
in true and lively colours we should scarce be able to attend to any thing else or ever divert our imagination from these two objects For what can more affect us than the greatest Glory that ever was visible upon Earth and at the same time the greatest Terror A God descending in the Head of an Army of Angels and a Burning World under his feet These are things truly above expression and not only so but so different and remote from our ordinary thoughts and conceptions that he that comes nearest to a true description of them shall be look'd upon as the most extravagant 'T is our unhappiness to be so much used to little trifling things in this life that when any thing great is represented to us it appears phantastical An Idea made by some contemplative or melancholy person I will not venture therefore without premising some grounds out of Scripture to say any thing concerning This Glorious Appearance As to the Burning of the World I think we have already laid a foundation sufficient to support the highest description that can be made of it But the coming of our Saviour being wholly out of the way of Natural Causes it is reasonable we should take all directions we can from Scripture that we may give a more fitting and just account of that Sacred Pomp. I need not mention those places of Scripture that prove the second coming of our Saviour in general or his return to the Earth again at the end of the World no Christian can doubt of this 't is so often repeated in those Sacred Writings But the manner and circumstances of this Coming or of this Appearance are the things we now enquire into And in the first place we may observe that Scripture tells us our Saviour will come in Flaming Fire and with an Host of mighty Angels so says S. Paul to the Thessalonians The Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven with mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Iesus Christ. In the second place our Saviour says himself The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels From which two places we may learn first that the appearance of our Saviour will be with flames of Fire Secondly With an Host of Angels Thirdly In the glory of his Father By which Glory of the Father I think is understood that Throne of Glory represented by Daniel for the Ancient of Days For our Saviour speaks here to the Iews and probably in a way intelligible to them And the Glory of the Father which they were most likely to understand would be either the Glory wherein God appeared at Mount Sinai upon the◠giving of the Law whereof the Apostle speaks largely to the Hebrews or that which Daniel represents Him in at the day of Judgment And this latter being more proper to the subject of our Saviour's discourse 't is more likely this expression refers to it Give me leave therefore to set down that description of the Glory of the Father upon his Throne from the Prophet Daniel ch 7. 9. And I beheld 〈◊〉 the Thrones were set and the Ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head like the pure wool His Throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him With this Throne of the Glory of the Father let us if you please compare the Throne of the Son of God as it was seen by S. Iohn in the Apocalypse ch 4. 2 c. And immediately I was in the Spirit and behold a throne was set in heaven and one sat on the Throne And he that fat was to look upon like a Iasper and a Sardine Stone and there was a Rain-bow round about the Throne in appearance like unto an Emerald And out of the Throne proceeded Lightnings and Thunderings and Voices c. and before the Throne was a Sea of glass like unto Crystal In those representations you have some beams of the Glory of the Father and of the Son which may be partly a direction to us in conceiving the 〈◊〉 of our Saviour's appearance Let us further observe if you please how external Nature will be affected at the sight of God or of this approaching Glory The Scripture often takes notice of this and in terms very high and eloquent The Psalmist seems to have lov'd that subject above others to set out the greatness of the day of the Lord and the consternation of all Nature at that time He throws about his thunder and lightning makes the Hills to melt like wax at the presence of the Lord and the very foundations of the Earth to tremble as you may see in the 18th Psalm and the 97. and the 104. and several others which are too long to be here inserted So the Prophet Habakkuk in his Prophetick Prayer Chap. 3d. hath many Ejaculations to the like purpose And the Prophet Nahum says The mountains quake at him and the hills melt and the Earth is burnt at his presence yea the world and all that dwell therein But more particularly as to the face of Nature just before the coming of our Saviour that may be best collected from the signs of his coming mention'd in the precedent Chapter Those all meeting together help to prepare and make ready a Theater fit for an angry God to come down upon The countenance of the Heavens will be dark and gloomy and a Veil drawn over the face of the Sun The Earth in a disposition every where to break into open flames The tops of the Mountains smoaking the Rivers dry Earthquakes in several places the Sea sunk and retir'd into its deepest Chanel and roaring as against some mighty storm These things will make the day dead and melancholy but the Night-Scenes will have more of horrour in them When the Blazing Stars appear like so many Furies with their lighted Torches threatning to set all on fire For I do not doubt but the Comets will bear a part in this Tragedy and have something extraordinary in them at that time either as to number or bigness or nearness to the Earth Besides the Air will be full of flaming Meteors of unusual forms and magnitudes Balls of fire rowling in the Skie and pointed lightnings darted against the Earth mixt with claps of thunder and unusual noises from the Clouds The Moon and the Stars will be confus'd and irregular both in their light and motions as if the whole frame of the Heavens was out of order and all the laws of Nature were broken or expir'd When all things are in this languishing or dying posture and the Inhabitants of the Earth under the fears of their last end The Heavens will open on a sudden and the Glory of
they are to be reduc'd it does not certainly appear This mixture of these two Races whatsoever they were gave it seems so great offence to God that he destroy'd that World upon it in a Deluge of Water It hath been matter of great difficulty to determine who these Sons of God were that fell in love with and married the daughters of men There are two conjectures that prevail most One that they were Angels and another that they were of the Posterity of Seth and distinguish'd from the rest by their Piety and the worship of the true God so that it was a great crime for them to mingle with the rest of mankind who are suppos'd to have been Idolaters Neither of these opinions is to me satisfactory For as to Angels Good Angels neither marry nor are given in marriage Matt. 22. 30. and bad Angels are not call'd the Sons of God Besides if Angels were capable of those mean pleasures we ought in reason to suppose that there are female Angels as well as male for surely those capacities are not in vain through a whole Species of Beings And if there be female Angels we cannot imagine but that they must be of a far more charming beauty than the dowdy daughters of men Then as to the line of Seth It does not appear that there was any such distinction of Idolaters and true Worshippers before the Flood or that there was any such thing as Idolatry at that time nor for some Ages after Besides it is not said that the Sons of God fell in love with the Daughters of Cain or of any degenerate race but with the Daughters of Adam which may be the Daughters of Seth as well as of any other These conjectures therefore seem to be shallow and ill-grounded But what the distinction was of those two orders remains yet very uncertain St. Paul to the Galatians Chap. 4. 21 22 c. makes a distinction also of a double Progeny that of Sarah and that of Hagar One was born according to the flesh after a natural manner and the other by the divine power or in vertue of the divine promise This distinction of a natural and supernatural origine and of a double progeny the one born to servitude the other to liberty represents very well either the manner of our present birth and of our future at the Resurrection Or that double progeny and double manner of birth which we suppose in the Future Earth 'T is true St. Paul applies this to the Law and the Gospel but Typical things you know have different aspects and completions which are not exclusive of one another and so it may be here But however this double race of Mankind in the Future Earth to explain the Doctrine of Gog and Magog is but a conjecture and does not pretend to be otherwise consider'd The last thing that remains to be consider'd and accounted for is the upshot and conclusion of all namely what will become of the Earth after the thousand years expir'd Or after the Day of Judgment past and the Saints translated into Heaven what will be the face of things here below There being nothing expresly reveal'd concerning this we must not expect a positive resolution of it And the difficulty is not peculiar to our hypothesis for though the Millennium and the final Judgment were concluded in the present Earth the Quaere would still remain What would become of this Earth after the Last Day So that all parties are equally concern'd and equally free to give their opinion What will be the last state and Consummation of this Earth Scripture I told you hath not defin'd this point and the Philosophers say very little concerning it The Stoicks indeed speak of the final resolution of all things into Fire or into Aether which is the purest and subtlest sort of fire So that the whole Globe or Mass of the Earth and all particular bodies will according to them be at last dissolv'd into a liquid flame Neither was this Doctrine first invented by the Stoicks Heraclitus taught it long before them and I take it to be as ancient as Orpheus himself who was the first Philosopher amongst the Greeks And he deriving his notions from the Barbarick Philosophers or the Sages of the East that School of Wisdom may be look'd upon as the true seminary of this Doctrine as it was of most other natural knowledge But this dissolution of the Earth into Fire may be understood two ways either that it will be dissolv'd into a loose name and so dissipated and lost as Lightning in the Air and vanish into nothing or that it will be dissolv'd into a fixt flame such as the Sun is or a fixt Star And I am of opinion that the Earth after the last Day of Judgment will be chang'd into the nature of a Sun or of a fixt Star and shine like them in the Firmament Being all melted down into a mass of Aethereal matter and enlightning a Sphere or Orb round about it I have no direct and demonstrative proof of this I confess But if Planets were once fixt Stars as I believe they were their revolution to the same state again in a great Circle of Time seems to be according to the methods of Providence which loves to recover what was lost or decay'd after certain periods and what was originally good and happy to make it so again All Nature at last being transform'd into a like glory with the Sons of God I will not tell you what foundation there is in Nature for this change or transformation from the interiour constitution of the Earth and the instances we have seen of new Stars appearing in the Heavens I should lead the English Reader too far out of his way to discourse of these things But if there be any passages or expressions in Scripture that countenance such a state of things after the day of Judgment it will not be improper to take notice of them That radiant and illustrious Ierusalem describ'd by St. Iohn Apoc. 21. ver 10 11 12 c. compos'd all of Gemms and bright materials clear and sparkling as a Star in the Firmament Who can give an account what that is Its foundations walls gates streets all the Body of it resplendent as light or fire What is there in Nature or in this Universe that bears any resemblance with such a Phaenomenon as this unless it be a Sun or a fixt Star Especially if we add and consider what follows That the City had no need of the Sun non of the Moon to shine in it And that there was no night there This can be no Terrestrial Body it must be a substance luminous in it self and a fountain of light as a fixt Star And upon such a change of the Earth or transformation as this would be brought to pass the saying that is written DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY Which indeed S. Paul seems to apply to our Bodies in particular 1
with the Hypothesis As to the present Form of the Earth we call all Nature to witness for us The Rocks and the Mountains the Hills and the Valleys the deep and wide Sea and the Caverns of the Ground Let these speak and tell their origine How the Body of the Earth came to be thus torn and mangled If this strange and irregular structure was not the effect of a ruine and of such a ruine as was universal over the face of the whole Globe But we have given such a full explication of this in the first part of the Theory from Chapt. the 9th to the end of that Treatise that we dare stand to the judgment of any that reads those four Chapters to determine if the Hypothesis does not answer all those Phaenomena easily and adequately The next Phaenomenon to be consider'd is the Deluge with its adjuncts This also is fully explain'd by our Hypothesis in the 2d 3d. and 6th Chapters of the first Book Where it is shewn that the Mosaical Deluge that is an universal Inundation of the whole Earth above the tops of the highest Mountains made by a breaking open of the Great Abyss for thus far Moses leads us is fully explain'd by this Hypothesis and cannot be conceiv'd in any other method hitherto propos'd There are no sources or stores of Water sufficient for such an effect that may be drawn upon the Earth and drawn off again but by supposing such an Abyss and such a Disruption of it as the Theory represents Lastly As to the Phaenomena of Paradise and the Ante-diluvian World we have set them down in order in the 2d Book and apply'd to each of them its proper explication from the same Hypothesis We have also given an account of that Character which Antiquity always assign'd to the first age of the World or the Golden Age as they call'd it namely Equality of Seasons throughout the Year or a perpetual Equinox We have also taken in all the adjuncts or concomitants of these States as they are mention'd in Scripture The Longevity of the Ante-diluvians and the declension of their age by degrees after the Flood As also that wonderful Phaenomenon the Rainbow which appear'd to Noah for a Sign that the Earth should never undergo a second Deluge And we have shewn wherein the force and propriety of that Sign consisted for confirming Noah's faith in the promise and in the divine veracity Thus far we have explain'd the past Phaenomena of the Natural World The rest are Futurities which still lie hid in their Causes and we cannot properly prove a Theory from effects that are not yet in being But so far as they are foretold in Scripture both as to substance and circumstance in prosecution of the same Principles we have ante dated their birth and shew'd how they will come to pass We may therefore I think reasonably conclude That this Theory has performed its task and answer'd its title having given an account of all the general changes of the Natural World as far as either Sacred History looks backwards or Sacred Prophecy looks forwards So far as the one tells us what is past in Nature and the other what is to come And if all this be nothing but an appearance of truth 't is a kind of fatality upon us to be deceiv'd SO much for Natural Evidence from the Causes or Effects We now proceed to Scripture which will make the greatest part of this Review The Sacred Basis upon which the whole Theory stands is the doctrine of S. Peter deliver'd in his Second Epistle and Third Chapter concerning the Triple Order and Succession of the Heavens and the Earth That comprehends the whole extent of our Theory which indeed is but a large Commentary upon S. Peter's Text. The Apostle sets out a threefold state of the Heavens and Earth with some general properties of each taken from their different Constitution and different Fate The Theory takes the same threefold state of the Heavens and the Earth and explains more partâ—cularly wherein their different Constitution consists and how under the conduct of Providence their different fate depends upon it Let us set down the Apostle's words with the occasion of them and their plain sence according to the most easie and natural explication Ver. 3. Knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts 4. And saying Where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth consisting of water and by water 6. Whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished 7. But the heavens and the earth that are now by the sâ—me word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men 10. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up 13. Nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness This is the whole Discourse so far as relates to our Subject S Peter you see had met with some that scoff'd at the future destruction of the World and the coming of our Saviour and they were men it seems that pretended to Philosophy and Argument and they use this argument for their opinion Seeing there hath been no change in Nature or in the World from the beginning to this time why should we think there will be any change for the future The Apostle answers to this That they willingly forget or are ignorant that there were Heavens of old and an Earth so and so constituted consisting of Water and by Water by reason whereof that World or those Heavens and that Earth perish'd in a Deluge of Water But saith he the Heavens and the Earth that are now are of another constitution fitted and reserved to another fate namely to perish by Fire And after these are perish'd there will be New Heavens and a New Earth according to God's promise This is an easie Paraphrase and the plain and genuine sence of the Apostle's discourse and no body I think would ever look after any other sence if this did not carry them out of their usual road and point to conclusions which they did not fancy This sence you see hits the objections directly or the Cavil which these scoffers made and tells them that they vainly pretend that there hath been no change in the World since the beginning for there was one sort of Heavens and Earth before the Flood and another sort now the first having been destroy'd at the Deluge So that the Apostle's argument stands upon this Foundation That there
G. Kneller Eques Pinxit R White Sculpsit Eâ—â—ies Authâ—ris The Sacred Theory of the EARTH THE THEORY OF THE EARTH Containing an Account OF THE Original of the Earth AND OF ALL THE GENERAL CHANGES Which it hath already undergone OR IS TO UNDERGO Till the CONSUMMATION of all Things THE TWO FIRST BOOKS Concerning The DELVGE AND Concerning PARADISE The Third Edition review'd by the Author LONDON Printed by R. N. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1697. TO THE KING'S MOST Excellent Majesty SIR NEW found Lands and Countreys accrew to the Prince whose Subject makes the first Discovery And having retriev'd a World that had been lost for some thousands of Years out of the Memory of Man and the Records of Time I thought it my Duty to lay it at Your Majesty's Feet 'T will not enlarge Your Dominions 't is past and gone nor dare I say it will enlarge Your Thoughts But I hope it may gratifie Your Princely curiosity to read the Description of it and see the Fate that attended it We have still the broken Materials of that first World and walk upon its Ruines while it stood there was the Seat of Paradise and the Scenes of the Golden Age when it fell it made the Deluge And this â—â—shapen Earth we now inhabit is the Form it was found in when the Waters had retir'd and the dry Land appear'd These things Sir I propose and presume to prove in the following Treatise which I willingly submit to Your Majesty's Iudgment and Censure being very well satisfied that if I had sought a Patron in all the List of Kings Your Contemporaries Or in the Roll of Your Nobles of either Order I could not have found a more competent Iudge in a Speculatitn of this Nature Your Majesty's Sagacity and happy Genius for Natural History for Observations and Remarks upon the Earth the Heavens and the Sea is a better preparation for Inquiries of this kind than all the dead Learning of the Schools Sir This Theory in the full extent of it is to reach to the last Period of the Earth and the End of all things But this first Volume takes in only so much as is already past from the Origin of the Earth to this present time and state of Nature To describe in like manner the Changes and Revolutions of Nature that are to come and see thorough all succeeding Ages will require a steddy and attentive Eye and a retreat from the noise of the World Especially so to connect the parts and present them all under one view that we may see as in a Mirrour the several faces of Nature from First to Last throughout all the Circle of Successions Your Majesty having been pleas'd to give encouragement to this Translation I humbly present it to Your Gracious Acceptance And 't is our Interest as well as Duty in Disquisitions of this Nature to Address our selves to Your Majesty as the Defender of our Philosophick Liberties against those that would usurp upon the Fundamental privilege and Birth-right of Mankind The Free use of Reason Your Majesty hath always appear'd the Royal Patron of Learning and the Sciences and 't is suitable to the Greatness of a Princely Spirit to favour and promote whatsoever tends to the enlargement of Humane Knowledge and the improvement of Humane Nature To be Good and Gracious and a Lover of Knowledge are methinks two of the most amiable things in this World And that Your Majesty may always bear that Character in present and future Ages and after a long and prosperous Reign enjoy a blessed Immortality is the constant Prayer of Your MAJESTY'S Most Humble and most Obedient Subject THOMAS BVRNET PREFACE TO THE READER HAVING given an account of this whole Work in the first Chapter and of the method of either Book whereof this Volume consists in their proper places there remains not much to be said here to the Reader This Theory of the Earth may be call'd Sacred because it is not the common Physiology of the Earth or of the Bodies that compose it but respects only the great Turns of Fate and the Revolutions of our Natural World such as are taken notice of in the Sacred Writings and are truly the Hinges upon which the Providence of this Earth moves or whereby it opens and shuts the several successive Scenes whereof it is made up This English Edition is the same in substance with the Latin though I confess 't is not so properly a Translation as a new Composition upon the same ground there being several additional Chapters in it and several new-moulded As every Science requires a peculiar Genius so likewise there is a Genius peculiarly improper for every one and as to Philosophy which is the Contemplation of the works of Nature and the Providence that governs them there is no temper or Genius in my mind so improper for it as that which we call a mean and narrow Spirit and which the Greeks call Littleness of Soul This is a defect in the first make of some Mens minds which can scarce ever be corrected afterwards either by Learning or Age. And as Souls that are made little and incapacious cannot enlarge their thoughts to take in any great compass of Times or things so what is beyond their compass or above their reach they are apt to look upon as Fantastical or at least would willingly have it pass for such in the World Now as there is nothing so great so large so immense as the works of Nature and the methods of Providence men of this complexion must needs be very unfit for the contemplation of them Who would set a purblind Man at the top of the Mast to discover Land or upon an high Tower to draw a Landskip of the Country round about for the same reason short-sighted minds are unfit to make Philosophers whose proper business it is to discover and describe in comprehensive Theories the Phaenomena of the World and the Causes of them This original disease of the Mind is seldom cur'd by Learning which cures many others Like a fault in the first Stamina of the Body it cannot easily be rectified afterwards 'T is a great mistake to think that every sort of Learning makes a Man a competent Judge of Natural Speculations We see unhappy examples to the contrary amongst the Christian Fathers and particularly in S. Austin who was unquestionably a Man of Parts and Learning but interposing in a controversie where his Talent did not lie show'd his zeal against the Antipodes to very ill purpose though he drew his Reasons partly from Scripture And if within a few Years or in the next Generation it should prove as certain and demonstrable that the Earth is mov'd as it is now that there are Antipodes those that have been zealous against it and ingag'd the Scripture in the Controversie would have the same reason to repent of their forwardness that S. Austin would have now if he was alive 'T
which proceeded from their opening For as Moses had ascrib'd the Deluge to the opening of these two so when it was to cease he saith these two were shut up as they were really put into such a condition both of them that they could not continue the Deluge any longer nor over be the occasion of a second and therefore in that sence and as to that effect were for ever shut up Some may possibly make that also an Objection against us that Moses mentions and supposes the Mountains at the Deluge for he saith the waters reached fifteen Cubits above the tops of them whereas we suppose the Ante-diluvian Earth to have had a plain and uniform surface without any inequality of Hills and Valleys But this is easily answer'd 't was in the height of the Deluge that Moses mention'd the Mountains and we suppose them to have risen then or more towards the beginning of it when the Earth was broke and these Mountains continuing still upon the face of the Earth Moses might very well take them for a standard to measure and express to Posterity the height of the waters though they were not upon the Earth when the Deluge begun Neither is there any mention made as is observ'd by some of Mountains in Scripture or of Rain till the time of the Deluge We have now finisht our account of Noah's Flood both generally and particularly and I have not wittingly omitted or conceal'd any difficulty that occur'd to me either from the History or from abstract reason Our Theory so far as I know hath the consent and authority of both And how far it agrees and is demonstrable from natural observation or from the form and Phaenomena of this Earth as it lies at present shall be the subject of the remaining part of this First Book In the mean time I do not know any thing more to be added in this part unless it be to conclude with an Advertisement to prevent any mistake or misconstruction as if this Theory by explaining the Deluge in a natural way in a great measure or by natural causes did detract from the power of God by which that great judgment was brought upon the World in a Providential and miraculous manner To satisfie all reasonable and intelligent persons in this particular I answer and declare first That we are far from excluding Divine Providence either ordinary or extraordinary from the causes and conduct of the Deluge I know a Sparrow doth not fall to the ground without the will of our Heavenly Father much less doth the great World fall in pieces without his good pleasure and superintendency In him all things live move and have their being Things that have Life and Thought have it from him he is the Fountain of both Things that have motion only without Thought have it also from him And what hath only naked Being without Thought or Motion owe still that Being to him And these are not only deriv'd from God at first but every moment continued and conserv'd by him So intimate and universal is the dependance of all things upon the Divine Will and Power In the second place they are guilty in my Judgment of a great Error or indiscretion that oppose the course of Nature to Providence St. Paul says Act. 14. 17. God hath not left us without witness in that he gives us Rain from Heaven yet Rains proceed from natural causes and fall upon the Sea as well as upon the Land In like manner our Saviour makes those things instances of Divine Providence which yet come to pass in an ordinary course of Nature In that part of his excellent Sermon upon the Mount that concerns Providence He bids them Consider the Lilies how they grow they toil not neither do they spin and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these He bids them also consider the Ravens they neither sow nor reap neither have they Store-house nor Barn and God feedeth them The Lilies grow and the Ravens are fed according to the ordinary course of Nature and yet they are justly made arguments of Providence by our Saviour nor are these things less Providential because constant and regular on the contrary such a disposition or establishment of second causes as will in the best order and for a long succession produce the most regular effects assisted only with the ordinary concourse of the first cause is a greater argument of wisdom and contrivance than such a disposition of causes as will not in so good an order or for so long a time produce regular effects without an extraordinary concourse and interposition of the First cause This I think is clear to every man's judgment We think him a better Artist that makes a Clock that strikes regularly at every hour from the Springs and Wheels which he puts in the work than he that hath so made his Clock that he must put his finger to it every hour to make it strike And if one should contrive a piece of Clock-work so that it should beat all the hours and make all its motions regularly for such a time and that time being come upon a signal given or a Spring toucht it should of its own accord fall all to pieces would not this be look'd upon as a piece of greater Art than if the Workman came at that time prefixt and with a great Hammer beat it into pieces I use these comparisons to convince us that it is no detraction from Divine Providence that the course of Nature is exact and regular and that even in its greatest changes and revolutions it should still conspire and be prepar'd to answer the ends and purposes of the Divine Will in reference to the Moral World This seems to me to â—e the great Art of Divine Providence so to adjust the two Worlds Humane and Natural Material and Intellectual as seeing thorough the possibilities and futuritions of each according to the first state and circumstances he puts them under they should all along correspond and fit one another and especially in their great Crises and Periods Thirdly Besides the ordinary Providence of God in the ordinary course of Nature there is doubtless an extraordinary Providence that doth attend the greater Scenes and the greater revolutions of Nature This methinks besides all other proof from the Effects is very rational and necessary in it self for it would be a limitation of the Divine Power and Will so to be bound up to second causes as never to use upon occasion an extraordinary influence or direction And 't is manifest taking any Systeme of Natural causes if the best possible that there may be more and greater things done if to this upon certain occasions you joyn an extraordinary conduct And as we have taken notice before that there was an extraordinary Providence in the formation or composition of the first Earth so I believe there was also in the dissolution of it And I think it had been
make Mountains or Plains upon the Land and the Earth would generally be full of Caverns and hollownesse especially in the Mountainous parts of it And we see the resemblance and imitation of this in lesser ruines when a Mountain sinks and falls into Subterraneous water or which is more obvious when the Arch of a Bridge is broken and falls into the water if the water under it be not so deep as to overflow and cover all its parts you may see there the image of all these things in little Continents and Islands and Rocks under water And in the parts that stand above the water you see Mountains and Precipices and Plains and most of the varieties that we see and admire in the parts of the Earth What need we then seek any further for the Explication of these things Let us suppose this Arch of the Bridge as the great Arch of the Earth which once it had and the water under it as the Abyss and the parts of this ruine to represent the parts of the Earth There will be scarce any difference but of lesser and greater the same things appearing in both But we have naturally that weakness or prejudice that we think great things are not to be explain'd from easie and familiar instances We think there must be something difficult and operose in the explication of them or else we are not satisfied whether it is that we are asham'd to see our ignorance and admiration to have been so groundless or whether we fancy there must be a proportion between the difficulty of the explication and the greatness of the thing explain'd but that is a very false Judgment for let things be never so great if they be simple their explication must be simple and easie And on the contrary some things that are mean common and ordinary may depend upon causes very difficult to find out for the difficulty of explaining an effect doth not depend upon its greatness or littleness but upon the simplicity or composition of its causes And the effects and Phaenomena we are here to explain though great yet depending upon causes very simple you must not wonder if the Explication when found out be familiar and very intelligible And this is so intelligible and so easily deducible from the forementioned causes that a Man born blind or brought up all his life in a Cave that had never seen the face of the Earth nor ever heard any description of it more than that it was a great Globe having this Theory propos'd to him or being instructed what the form of the first Earth was how it stood over the waters and then how it was broke and fell into them he would easily of his own accord foretel what changes would arise upon this dissolution and what the new form of the Earth would be As in the first place he would tell you that this second Earth would be distinguish'd and checker'd into Land and Water for the Orb which fell being greater than the circumference it fell upon all the fragments could not fall flat and lie drown'd under water and those that stood above would make the dry Land or habitable part of the Earth Then in the second place he would plainly discern that these fragments that made the dry Land could not lie all plain and smooth and equal but some would be higher and some lower some in one posture and some in another and consequently would make Mountains Hills Valleys and Plains and all other varieties we have in the situation of the parts of the Earth And lastly a blind man would easily divine that such a great ruine could not happen but there would be a great many holes and cavities amongst the parts of it a great many intervals and empty places in the rubbish as I may so say for this we see happens in all ruines more or less and where the fragments are great and hard 't is not possible they should be so adjusted in their fall but that they would lie hollow in many places and many unfill'd spaces would be intercepted amongst them some gaping in the surface of the Earth and others hid within so as this would give occasion to all sorts of fractures and cavities either in the skin of the Earth or within its body And these Cavities that I may add that in the last place would be often fill'd with Subterraneous waters at least at such a depth for the foundations of the Earth standing now within the waters so high as those waters reach'd they would more or less propagate themselves every way Thus far our Blind man could tell us what the New World would be or the form of the Earth upon the great dissolution and we find his reasonings and inferences very true these are the chief lineaments and features of our Earth which appear indeed very irregular and very inaccountable when they are lookt upon naked in themselves but if we look upon them through this Theory we see as in a glass all the reasons and causes of them There are different Genius's of Men and different conceptions and every one is to be allow'd their liberty as to things of this nature I confess for my own part when I observe how easily and naturally this Hypothesis doth apply it self to the general face of this Earth hits and falls in so luckily and surprizingly with all the odd postures of iâ—s parts I cannot without violence bear off my mind from fully assenting to it And the more odd and extravagant as I may so say and the more diversify'd the effects and appearances are to which an Hypothesis is to be apply'd if it answers them all and with exactness it comes the nearer to a moral certitude and infallibility As a Lock that consists of a great deal of workmanship many Wards and many odd pieces and contrivances if you find a Key that answers to them all and opens it readily 't is a thousand to one that 't is the true Key and was made for that purpose An eminent Philosopher of this Age Monsteur des Cartes hath made use of the like Hypothesis to explain the irregular form of the present Earth though he never dream'd of the Deluge nor thought that first Orb built over the Abyss to have been any more than a transient crust and not a real habitable World that lasted for more than sixteen hundred years as we suppose it to have been And though he hath in my opinion in the formation of that first Orb and upon the dissolution of it committed some great oversights whereof we have given an account in the Latin Treatise however he saw a necessity of such a thing and of the disruption of it to bring the Earth into that form and posture wherein we now find it Thus far we have spoken in general concerning the agreement and congruity of our supposition with the present face of the Earth and the easie account it gives of the causes of it And
the Waters But thus much for the Subterraneous communication of Seas and Lakes And thus much in general concerning Subterraneous Cavities and concerning the hollow and broken frame of the Earth If I had now Magick enough to show you at one view all the inside of the Earth which we have imperfectly describ'd if we could go under the roots of the Mountains and into the sides of the broken rocks or could dive into the Earth with one of those Rivers that sink under ground and follow its course and all its windings till it rise again or led us to the Sea we should have a much stronger and more effectual Idea of the broken form of the Earth than any we can excite by these faint descriptions collected from Reason The Ancients I remember us'd to represent these hollow Caves and Subterraneous Regions in the nature of a World under-ground and suppos'd it inhabited by the Nymphs especially the Nymphs of the waters and the Sea-Goddesses so Orpheus sung of old and in imitation of him Virgil hath made a description of those Regions feigning the Nymph Cyrene to send for her son to come down to her and make her a visit in those shades where mortals were not admitted Duc age duc ad nos fas illi limina Divûm Tangere ait Simul alta jubet discedere latè Flumina quà juvenis gressus inferret at illum Curvata in montis faciem circumstitit unda AccepÃtque sinu vasto misÃtque sub amnem Iámque domum â—mirans Genetricis humida regna Speluncisque lacos clausos lucósque sonantes Ibat ingenti motu stupâ—factus aquarum Omnia sub magnâ labentia slumina terrâ Spectabat diversa locis PhasÃmque Licúmque c. Et Thalami matris pendentia pumice tecta c. Come lead the Youth below bring him to me The Gods are pleas'd our Mansions he should see Streight she commands the floods to make him way They open their wide bosom and obey Soft is the path and easie is his tread A watry Arch hends o'er his dewy head And as he goes he wonders and looks round To see this new-found Kingdom under ground The silent Lakes in hollow Caves he sees And on their banks an echoing grove of Trees The fall of waters 'mongst the Rocks below He hears and sees the Rivers how they flow All the great Rivers of the Earth are there Prepar'd as in a womb by Nature's care Last to his mother's bed-chamber he 's brought Where the high roof with Pumice-stone is wrought c. If we now could open the Earth as this Nymph did the Water and go down into the bosom of it see all the dark Chambers and Apartments there how ill contriv'd and how ill kept so many holes and corners some fill'd with smoak and fire some with water and some with vapours and mouldy Air how like a ruine it lies gaping and torn in the parts of it we should not easily believe that God created it into this form immediately out of nothing It would have cost no more to have made things in better order nay it had been more easie and more simple and accordingly we are assured that all things were made at first in Beauty and proportion And if we consider Nature and the manner of the first formation of the Earth 't is evident that there could be no such holes and Caverns nor broken pieces made then in the body of it for the grosser parts of the Chaos falling down towards the Center they would there compose a mass of Earth uniform and compact the water swimming above it and this first mass under the water could have no Caverns or vacuities in it for if it had had any the Earthy parts while the mass was liquid or semi-liquid would have sunk into them and fill'd them up expelling the Air or Water that was there And when afterwards there came to be a crust or new Earth form'd upon the face of the Waters there could be no Cavities no dens no fragments in it no more than in the other And for the same general reason that is passing from a liquid form into a concrete or solid leasurely and by degrees it would flow and settle together in an entire mass There being nothing broken nor any thing hard to bear the parts off from one another or to intercept any empty spaces between them 'T is manifest then that the Earth could not be in this Cavernous form originally by any work of Nature nor by any immediate action of God seeing there is neither use nor beauty in this kind of construction Do we not then as reasonably as aptly ascribe it to that desolation that was brought upon the Earth in the general Deluge When its outward frame was dissolv'd and fell into the great Abyss How easily doth this answer all that we have observ'd concerning the Subterraneous Regions That hollow and broken posture of things under ground all those Caves and holes and blind recesses that are otherwise so inaccountable say but that they are a Ruine and you have in one word explain'd them all For there is no sort of Cavities interior or exterior great or little open or shut wet or dry of what form or fashion soever but we might reasonably expect them in a ruine of that nature And as for the Subterraneous waters seeing the Earth fell into the Abyss the pillars and foundations of the present exteriour Earth must stand immers'd in water and therefore at such a depth from the surface every where there must be water found if the soil be of a nature to admit it 'T is true all Subterraneous waters do not proceed from this original for many of them are the effects of Rains and melted Snows sunk into the Earth but that in digging any where you constantly come to water at length even in the most solid ground this cannot proceed from these Rains or Snows but must come from below and from a cause as general as the effect is which can be no other in my judgment than this that the roots of the exteriour Earth stand within the old Abyss whereof as a great part lies open in the Sea so the rest lies hid and cover'd among the fragments of the Earth sometimes dispers'd and only moistning the parts as our bloud lies in the flesh and in the habit of the body sometimes in greater or lesser masses as the bloud in our Vessels And this I take to be the true account of Subterraneous waters as distinguish'd from Fountains and Rivers and from the matter and causes of them Thus much we have spoke to give a general Idea of the inward parts of the Earth and an easie Explication of them by our Hypothesis which whether it be true or no if you compare it impartially with Nature you will confess at least that all these things are just in such a form and posture as if it was true CHAP. X. Concerning the Chanel of the
Chanels of the other Hemisphere This indeed would in some measure answer the Notion which several of the Ancient Fathers make use of that the Rivers of Paradise were trajected out of the other Hemisphere into this by Subterraneous passages But I confess I could never see it possible how such a trajection could be made nor how they could have any motion being arriv'd in another Hemisphere and therefore I am apt to believe that doctrine amongst the Ancients arose from an intanglement in their principles They suppos'd generally that Paradise was in the other Hemisphere as we shall have occasion to show hereafter and yet they believ'd that Tigris Euphrates Nile and Gunges were the Rivers of Paradise or came out of it and these two opinions they could not reconcile or make out but by supposing that these four Rivers had their Fountain-heads in the other Hemisphere and by some wonderful trajection broke out again here This was the expedient they found out to make their opinions consistent one with another but this is a method to me altogether unconceivable and for my part I do not love to be led our of my depth leaning only upon Antiquity How there could be any such communication either above ground or under-ground betwixt the two Hemispheres does not appear and therefore we must still suppose the Torrid Zone to have been the Barrier betwixt them which nothing could pass either way We have now examin'd and determin'd the state of the Air and of the Waters in the Primitive Earth by the light and consequences of reason and we must not wonder to find them different from the present order of Nature what things are said of them or relating to them in Holy Writ do testifie or imply as much and it will be worth our time to make some reflection upon those passages for our further confirmation Moses tells us that the Rainbow was set in the Clouds after the Deluge those Heavens then that never had a Rain-bow before were certainly of a constitution very different from ours And S. Peter doth formally and expresly tell us that the Old Heavens or the Ante-diluvian Heavens had a different constitution from ours and particularly that they were compos'd or constituted of Water which Philosophy of the Apostle's may be easily understood if we attend to two things first that the Heavens he speaks of were not the Starry Heavens but the Aereal Heavens or the Regions of our Air where the Meteors are Secondly That there were no Meteors in those Regions or in those Heavens till the Deluge but watery Meteors and therefore he says they consisted of Water And this shows the foundation upon which that description is made how coherently the Apostle argues and answers the objection there propos'd how justly also he distinguisheth the first Heavens from the present Heavens or rather opposeth them one to another because as those were constituted of Water and watery Meteors only so the present Heavens he saith have treasures of Fire fiery Exhalations and Meteors and a disposition to become the Executioners of the Divine wrath and decrees in the final Conflagration of the Earth This minds me also of the Celestial Waters or the Waters above the Firmaments which Scripture sometimes mentions and which methinks cannot be explain'd so fitly and emphatically upon any supposition as this of ours Those who place them above the Starry Heavens seem neither to understand Astronomy nor Philosophy and on the other hand if nothing be understood by them but the Clouds and the middle Region of the Air as it is at present methinks that was no such eminent and remarkable thing as to deserve a particular commemoration by Moses in his six days work but if we understand them not as they are now but as they were then the only Source of Waters or the only Source of Waters upon that Earth for they had not one drop of Water but what was Celestial this gives it a new force and Emphasis Besides the whole middle Region having no other sort of Meteors but them That made it still the greater singularity and more worthy commemoration As for the Rivers of Paradise there is nothing said concerning their Source or their issue that is either contrary to this or that is not agreeable to the general account we have given of the Waters and Rivers of the first Earth They are not said to rise from any Mountain but from a great River or a kind of Lake in Eden according to the custom of the Rivers of that Earth And as for their end and issue Moses doth not say that they disburthen'd themselves into this or that Sea as they usually do in the description of great Rivers but rather implies that they spent themselves in compassing and watering certain Countries which falls in again very easily with our Hypothesis But I say this rather to comply with the opinions of others than of my own judgment For I think that suggestion about the Supercoelestial Waters made by Moses was not so much according to the strict nature and speciality of Causes as for the ease and profit of the People in their belief and acknowledgment of Providence for so great a benefit by what Causes soever it was brought to pass But to return to the Rainbow which we mention'd before and is not to be past over so slightly This we say is a Creature of the modern World and was not seen nor known before the Flood Moses Gen. 9. 12 13. plainly intimates as much or rather directly affirms it for he says The Bow was set in the Clouds after the Deluge as a confirmation of the promise or Covenant which God made with Noah that he would drown the World no more with Water And how could it be a sign of this or given as a pledge and confirmation of such a promise if it was in the Clouds before and with no regard to this promise and stood there it may be when the World was going to be drown'd This would have been but cold comfort to Noah to have had such a pledge of the Divine Veracity You 'll say it may be that it was not a sign or pledge that signified naturally but voluntarily only and by Divine Institution I am of opinion I confess that it signifi'd naturally and by connexion with the effect importing thus much that the state of Nature was chang'd from what it was before and so chang'd that the Earth was no more in a condition to perish by Water But however let us grant that it signified only by institution to make it significant in this sence it must be something new otherwise it could not signifie any new thing or be the confirmation of a new promise If God Almighty had said to Noah I make a promise to you and to all living Creatures that the World shall never be destroy'd by Water again and for confirmation of this Behold I set the Sun in the firmament Would this have been any
infer and conclude that the Civil World then as well as the Natural had a very different face and aspect from what it hath now for of these Heads Food and Cloathing Building and Traffick with that train of Arts Trades and Manufactures that attend them the Civil Order of things is in a great measure constituted and compounded These make the business of life the several occupations of Men the noise and hurry of the World These fill our Cities and our Fairs and our Havens and Ports yet all these fine things are but the effects of indigency and necessitousness and were for the most part needless and unknown in that first state of Nature The Ancients have told us the same things in effect but telling us them without their grounds which they themselves did not know they lookt like Poetical stories and pleasant fictions and with most Men past for no better We have shewn them in another light with their Reasons and Causes deduc'd from the state of the Natural World which is the Basis upon which they stand and this doth not only give them a just and full credibility but also lays a foundation for after-thoughts and further deductions when they meet with minds dispos'd to pursue Speculations of this Nature As for Laws Government natural Religion Military and Judicial affaiâ—â— with all their Equipage which make an higher order of things in the Civil and Moral World to calculate these upon the grounds given would be more difficult and more uncertain neither do they at all belong to the present Theory But from what we have already observ'd we may be able to make a better judgment of those Traditional accounts which the Ancients have left us concerning these things in the early Ages of the World and the Primitive state of Nature No doubt in these as in all other particulars there was a great easiness and simplicity in comparison of what is now we are in a more pompous forc'd and artificial method which partly the change of Nature and partly the Vices and Vanities of Men have introduc'd and establisht But these things with many more ought to be the subject of a Philosophick History of the World which we mention'd before This is a short and general Scheme of the Primaeval World compar'd with the Modern yet these things did not equally run through all the parts and Ages of it there was a declension and degeneracy both Natural and Moral by degrees and especially towards the latter end but the principal form of Nature remaining till the Deluge and the dissolution of that Heavens and Earth till then also this Civil frame of things would stand in a great measure And though such a state of Nature and of Mankind when 't is propos'd crudely and without its grounds appear fabulous or imaginary yet 't is really in it self a state not only possible but more easie and natural than what the World is in at present And if one of the old Ante-diluvian Patriarchs should rise from the dead he would be more surpris'd to see our World in that posture it is than we can be by the story and description of his As an Indian hath more reason to wonder at the European modes than we have to wonder at their plain manner of living 'T is we that have left the tract of Nature that are wrought and screw'd up into artifices that have disguis'd our selves and 't is in our World that the Scenes are chang'd and become more strange and Fantastical I will conclude this Discourse with an easie remark and without any particular Application of it 'T is a strange power that custom hath upon weak and little Spirits whose thoughts reach no further than their Senses and what they have seen and been us'd to they make the Standard and Measure of Nature of Reason and of all Decorum Neither are there any sort of Men more positive and tenacicus of their petty opinions than they are nor more censorious even to bitterness and malice And 't is generally so that those that have the least evidence for the truth of their beloved opinions are most peevish and impatient in the defence of them This sort of Men are the last that will be made Wise Men if ever they be for they have the worst of diseases that accompany ignorance and do not so much as know themselves to be sick CHAP. VII The place of Paradise cannot be determin'd from the Theory only nor from Scripture only What the sence of Antiquity was concerning it both as to the Iews and Heathens and especially as to the Christian Fathers That they generally plac'd it out of this Continent in the Southern Hemisphere WE have now prepar'd our work for the last finishing stroaks describ'd the first Earth and compar'd it with the present and not only the two Earths but in a good measure the whole State and Oeconomy of those two Worlds It remains only to determine the place of Paradise in that Primaeval Earth I say in that Primaeval Earth for we have driven the point so far already that the seat of it could not be in the present Earth whose Form Site and Air are so dispos'd as could not consist with the first and most indispensable properties of Paradise And accordingly we see with what ill success our modern Authors have rang'd over the Earth to find a fit spot of ground to plant Paradise in some would set it on the top of an high Mountain that it might have good Air and fair weather as being above the Clouds and the middle Region but then they were at a loss for Water which made a great part of the pleasure and beauty of that place Others therefore would seat it in a Plain or in a River-Island that they might have Water enough but then it would be subject to the injuries of the Air and foul weather at the seasons of the Year from which both Reason and all Authority have exempted Paradise 'T is like seeking a perfect beauty in a mortal Body there are so many things requir'd to it as to complexion Features Proportions and Air that they never meet all together in one person neither can all the properties of a Terrestrial Paradise ever meet together in one place though never so well chosen in this present Earth But in the Primaeval Earth which we have describ'd 't is easie to find a Seat that had all those beauties and conveniences We have every where through the temperate Climates a clear and constant Air a fruitful Soil pleasant Waters and all the general characters of Paradise so that the trouble will be rather in that competition what part of Region to pitch upon in particular But to come as near it as we can we must remember in the first place how that Earth was divided into two Hemispheres distant and separated from one another not by an imaginary line but by a real boundary that could not be past so as the first inquiry will
or in the execution in the preparation to them or in the finishing of them Wherefore in my judgment if any be of this perswasion it cannot be so much the effect of their understanding as of their disposition and inclination and in moral things mens opinions do as often spring from the one as from the other For my part I do generally distinguish of two sorts of opinions in all men Inclination-opinions and Reason'd-opinions Opinions that grow upon Mens Complexions and Opinions that are the results of their Reason and I meet with very few that are of a temperament so equal or a constitution so even pois'd but that they incline to one sett of Opinions rather than another antecedently to all proofs of Reason And when they have espous'd their opinions from that secret sympathy then they find out as good Reasons as they can to maintain them and say nay think sometimes that 't was for the sake of those Reasons that they first imbrac'd them We may commonly distinguish these Inclination-opinions from the Rational because we find them accompanied with more Heat than Light a great deal of eagerness and impatience in defending of them and but slender arguments One might give instances of this both in Sects of Religion and Philosophy in Platonists Stoicks and Epicureans that are so by their temper more than their reason but to our purpose it will be sufficient to instance in one hearty Epicurean Lucretius who is manifestly such more from his inclination and the bent of his Spirit than from the force of Argument For though his suppositions be very precarious and his reasonings all along very slight he will many times strut and triumph as if he had wrested the Thunder out of Iove's right hand and a Mathematician is not more confident of his demonstration than he seems to be of the truth of his shallow Philosophy From such a principle of natural Complexion as this I allow a man may be Atheistical but never from the calm dictate of his Reason yet he may be as confident and as tenacious of his Conclusion as if he had a clear and distinct evidence for it For I take it to be a true Maxim in Humane Nature that A strong inclination with a little evidence is equivalent to a strong evidence And therefore we are not to be surprisâ—d if we find Men confident in their opinions many times far beyond the degree of their evidence seeing there are other things besides evidence that incline the Will to one Conclusion rather than another And as I have instanc'd in Natural Complexion so Interest hath the same effect upon Humane Nature because it always begets an inclination to those opinions that favour our interest and a disinclination to the contrary And this principle may be another ingredient and secret perswasive to Atheism for when men have run themselves so deep into Vice and Immorality that they expect no benefit from a God 't is in a manner necessary to their quiet and the ease of their mind that they should fansie there is none for they are afraid if there be a God that he will not stand neuter and let them alone in another World This I say is necessary to the quiet of their mind unless they can attain that great Art which many labour after of non-reflection or an unthinking faculty as to God and a World to come but to return to our Argument after this short digression And as that regular diversity which we see in the forms of Nature and especially in the Bodies of Animals could not be from any blind principle either of Necessity or of Chance So in the last place that Subordination which we see in the parts of Nature and subserviency to one another the less Noble to the more Noble the Inanimate to the Animate and all things upon Earth unto Man must needs have been the effect of some Being higher than Matter that did wisely dispose all things so at first and doth still conserve them in the same order If Man had been born into the World and a numerous host of Creatures without any provision or accommodation made for their subsistence and conveniences we might have suspected that they had come by Chance and therefore were so ill provided for but which of them can complain through their various Kinds and Orders what is there awanting They are all fitted to their several Elements and their ways of living Birds Beasts and Fishes both by the form and shape of their Bodies the manner of their covering and the quality of their food Besides They are instructed in little Arts and Instincts for their conservation and not only for their proper conservation but also to find a way to make and bring up young ones and leave behind them a Posterity And all this in so fit a method and by such a pretty train of actions as is really admirable Man is the Master of all and of him a double care is taken that he should neither want what Nature can afford nor what Art can supply He could not be provided of all conveniences by Nature only especially to secure him against the inâ—uries of the Air but in recompence Nature hath provided materials for all those Arts which she see would be needful in Humane Life as Building Cloathing Navigation Agriculture c. That so Mankind might have both wherewithal to answer their occasions and also to imploy their time and exercise their ingenuity This Oeconomy of Nature as I may call it or well ordering of the great Family of living Creatures is an argument both of Goodness and of Wisdom and is every way far above the powers of brute Matter All regular administration we ascribe to conduct and judgment If an Army of Men be well provided for in things necessary both for Food Cloaths Arms Lodging Security and Defence so as nothing is awanting in so great a multitude we suppose it the effect of care and forecast in those persons that had the charge of it they took their measures at first computed and proportion'd one thing to another made good regulations and gave orders for convenient supplies And can we suppose the great Army of Creatures upon Earth manag'd and provided for with less fore-thought and Providence nay with none at all by meer Chance This is to recede from all rules and analogy of Reason only to serve a turn and gratifie an unreasonable humour To conclude this Argument There are two general Heads of things if I recollect aright which we make the marks and characters of Wisdom and Reason Works of Art and the Conduct of affairs or direction of means to an end and wheresoever we meet either with regular material works or a regular ordination of affairs we think we have a good title and warrant to derive them from an intelligent Author Now these two being found in the Natural World and that in an eminent degree the one in the Frame of it and the other in the
nothing that I know of in Antiquity Sacred or prophane that gives a joynt testimony with it And those that set up these Pillars do not seem to me to have understood the Nature of the Deluge or Conflagration if they thought a Pillar either of Brick or Stone would be secure in those great dissolutions of the Earth But we have pursued this doctrine high enough without the help of these ante-diluvian Antiquities Namely to the earliest people and the first appearances of Wisdom after the Flood So that I think we may justly look upon it as the doctrine of Noah and of his immediate posterity And as that is the highest source of learning to the present World so we should endeavour to carry our Philosophical Traditions to that Original for I cannot perswade my self but that they had amongst them even in those early days the main strokes or conclusions of the best Philosophy or if I may so say a form of sound doctrine concerning Nature and Providence Of which matter if you will allow me a short digression I will speak my thoughts in a few words In those First Ages of the World after the Flood when Noah and his Children peopled the Earth again as he gave them Precepts of Morality and Piety for the conduct of their Manners which are usually call'd Praecepta Noachidarum the Precepts of Noah frequently mention'd both by the Jews and Christians So also he deliver'd to them at least if we judge aright certain Maxims or Conclusions about Providence the state of Nature and the fate of the World And these in proportion may be call'd Dogmata Noachidarum the Doctrines of Noah and his Children Which made a System of Philosophy or secret knowledge amongst them deliver'd by Tradition from Father to Son but especially preserv'd amongst their Priests and Sacred Persons or such others as were addicted to Contemplation This I take to be more ancient than Moses himself or the Iewish Nation But it would lead me too far out of my way to set down in this place the reasons of my judgment Let it be sufficient to have pointed only at this Fountain head of knowledge and so return to our Argument We have heard as it were a Cry of Fire throughout all Antiquity and throughout all the People of the Earth But those alarums are sometimes false or make a greater noise than the thing deserves For my part I never trust Antiquity barely upon its own account but always require a second witness either from Nature or from Scripture What the voice of Nature is we shall hear all along in the following Treatise Let us then examine at present what testimony the Prophets and Apostles give to this ancient doctrine of the Conflagration of the World The Prophets see the World a-fire at a distance and more imperfectly as a brightness in the Heavens rather than a burning flame but S. Peter describes it as if he had been standing by and seen the Heavens and Earth in a red fire heard the cracking flames and the tumbling Mountains 2 Pet. 3. 10. In the day of the Lord The Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat The Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Then after a pious Ejaculation he adds Ver. 12. Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat This is as lively as a Man could express it if he had the dreadful spectacle before his Eyes S. Peter had before taught the same doctrine ver 5 6 7. but in a more Philosophick way describing the double fate of the World by Water and Fire with relation to the Nature and Constitution of either World past or present The Heavens and the Earth were of old consisting of water and by water whereby the World that then was being overflow'd with water perish'd But the Heavens and the Earth which are now by the same Word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of Iudgment and perdition of ungodly or Atheistical men This testimony of S. Peter being full direct and explicit will give light and strength to several other passages of Scripture where the same thing is exprest obscurely or by allusion As when S. Paul says The fire shall try every man's work in that day And our Saviour says The tares shall be burnt in the fire at the end of the World Accordingly it is said both by the Apostles and Prophets that God will come to judgment in Fire S. Paul to the Thessalonians promiseth the persecuted Righteous rest and ease When the Lord shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God c. And so to the Hebrews S. Paul says that for wilful Apostates there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sin but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries or enemies of God And in the 12th Chapter he alludes to the same thing when after he had spoken of shaking the Heavens and the Earth once more he exhorteth as S. Peter does upon the same occasion to reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming Fire In like manner the Prophets when they speak of destroying the wicked and the Enemies of God and Christ at the end of the World represent it as a destruction by Fire Psalm the 11th 6. Upon the wicked the Lord shall rain coals fire and brimstone and a burning tempest This shall be the portion of their Cup. And Psal. 50. 3. Our God shall come and will not be slow A fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him And in the beginning of those two triumphal Psalms the sixty-eighth and ninety-seventh we see plain allusions to this coming of the Lord in fire The other Prophets speak in the same style of a fiery indignation against the wicked in the day of the Lord As in Isaiah 66. 15. For behold the Lord will come with fire and with his Chariots like a whirl-wind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire And in Daniel c. 7. 9 10. The Ancient of days is plac'd upon his Seat of Judgment cover'd in flames I beheld till the Thrones were set and the Ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head like the pure wool His Throne was like the fiery flame his wheels as burning fire A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him Thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him The judgment was set and the Books were opened The Prophet Malachy c. 4. 1. describes the Day of the Lord to the same effect and in like colours Behold the Day cometh that shall burn as an Oven and all
question is not at present about the existence of this fire but the eruption of it and the effect of that Eruption which cannot be in my judgment such a Conflagration as is describ'd in Scripture This Central Fire must be enclos'd in a shell of great strength and firmness for being of it self the lightest and most active of all Bodies it would not be detained in that lowest prison without a strong guard upon it 'T is true we can make no certain judgment of what thickness this shell is but if we suppose this fire to have a twentieth part of the semidiameter of the Earth on either side the centre for its sphere which seems to be a fair allowance there would still remain nineteen parts for our safeguard and security And these nineteen parts of the semidiameter of the Earth will make 3268 miles for a partition-wall betwixt us and this Central Fire Who wou'd be afraid of an Enemy lock'd up in so strong a prison But you 'l say it may be tho' the Central Fire at the beginning of the World might have no more room or space than what is mentioned yet being of that activity that it is and corrosive nature it may in the space of some thousands of years have eaten deep into the sides of its prison and so come nearer to the surface of the Earth by some hundreds or thousands of miles than it was at first This would be a material exception if it could be made out But what Phaenomenon is there in Nature that proves this How does it appear by any observation that the Central Fire gains ground upon us Or is increased in quantity or come nearer to the surface of the Earth I know nothing that can be offered in proof of this and if there be no appearance of a change nor any sensible effect of it 't is an argument there is none or none considerable If the quantity of that fire was considerably increas'd it must needs besides other effects have made the Body of the Earth considerably lighter The Earth having by this conversion of its own substance into fire lost so much of its heaviest matter and got so much of the lightest and most active Element in stead of it and in both these respects its gravity would be manifestly lessen'd Which if it really was in any considerable degree it would discover it self by some change either as to the motion of the Earth or as to its place or station in the Heavens But there being no external change observable in this or any other respect 't is reasonable to presume that there is no considerable inward change or no great consumption of its inward parts and substance and consequently no great increase of the Central Fire But if we should admit both an encrease and eruption of this fire it would not have that effect which is pretended It might cause some confusion and disorder in those parts of the Earth where it broke out but it would not make an universal Conflagration such as is represented to us in Scripture Let us suppose the Earth to be open or burst in any place under the Pole for instance or under the Aequator and let it gape as low as the Central Fire At this chasm or rupture we suppose the fire would gush out and what then would be the consequence of this when it came to the surface of the Earth It would either be dissipated and lost in the air or fly still higher towards the Heavens in a mass of flame But what execution in the mean time would it do upon the Body of the Earth 'T is but like a flash of lightning or a flame issuing out of a pit that dies presently Besides this Central Fire is of that subtilty and tenuity that it is not able to inflame gross Bodies no morethan those Meteors we call Lambent Fires inflame the bodies to which they stick Lastly in explaining the manner of the Conflagration we must have regard principally to Scripture for the explications given there are more to the purpose than all that the Philosophers have said upon that subject Now as we noted before 't is manifest in Scripture that after the Conflagration there will be a Restauration New Heavens and a New Earth 'T is the express doctrine of S. Peter besides other Prophets We must therefore suppose the Earth reduc'd to such a Chaos by this last fire as will lay the foundation of a new World Which can never be if the inward frame of it be broke the Central Fire exhausted and the exterior region suck'd into those central vacuities This must needs make it lose its former poise and libration and it will thereupon be thrown into some other part of the Universe as the useless shell of a broken Granado or as a dead carkass and unprofitable matter These reasons may be sufficient why we should not depend upon those pretended causes of the Conflagration The Suns advance towards the Earth or such a rupture of the Earth as will let out the Central Fire These Causes I hope will appear superfluous when we shall have given an account of the Conflagration without them But young Philosophers like young Soldiers think they are never sufficiently armed and often take more weapons than they can make use of when they come to fight Not that we altogether reject the influence of the Sun or of the Central Fire especially the latter For in that great estuation of Nature the Body of the Earth will be much open'd and relaxated and when the pores are enlarg'd the steams of that fire will sweat out more plentifully into all its parts but still without any rupture in the vessels or in the skin And whereas these Authors suppose the very Veins burst and the vital blood to gush out as at openflood gates we only allow a more copious perspiration and think that sufficient for all purposes in this case CHAP. VII The true bounds of the Last Fire and how far it is fatal The natural Causes and Materials of it cast into three ranks First such as are exterior and visible upon the Earth where the Volcano's of the Earth and their effects are consider'd Secondly such materials as are within the Earth Thirdly such as are in the Air. AS we have in the preceding Chapter laid aside those Causes of the Conflagration which we thought too great and cumbersome so now we must in like manner examine the Effect and reduce that to its just measures and proportions that there may be nothing lest superfluous on either side Then by comparing the real powers with the work they are to do boâ—h being stated within their due bounds we may the better judge how they are proportion'd to one another We noted before that the Conflagration had nothing to do with the Stars and superiour Heavens but was wholly confin'd to this Sublunary World And this Deluge of Fire will have much what the same bounds that the Deluge of
since the memory of man there have always been subterraneous fires in Italy And the Romans did not preserve their Vestal fire with more constancy than Nature hath done her fiery Mountains in some part or other of that Territory Let us then suppose when the fatal time draws near all these Burning Mountains to be fill'd and replenish'd with fit materials for such a design and when our Saviour appears in the Clouds with an Host of Angels that they all begin to play as Fire-works at the Triumphal Entry of a Prince Let Vesuvius Aetna Strongyle and all the Vulcanian Islands break out into flames and by the Earth-quakes which then will rage let us suppose new Eruptions or new Mountains open'd in the Apennines and near to Rome and to vomit out fire in the same manner as the old Volcano's Then let the sulphureous ground take fire and seeing the Soil of that Country in several places is so full of brimstone that the steams and smoke of it visibly rise out of the Earth we may reasonably suppose that it will burn openly and be inflam'd at that time Lastly the Lightnings of the Air and the flaming streams of the melting Skies will mingle and joyn with these burnings of the Earth And these three Causes meeting together as they cannot but make a dreadful Scene so they will easily destroy and consume whatsoever lies within the compass of their fury Thus you may suppose the beginning of the General Fire And it will be carried on by like causes tho' in lesser degrees in other parts of the Earth But as to Rome there is still in my opinion a more dreadful fate that will attend it namely to be absorpt or swallowed up in a Lake of fire and brimstone after the manner of Sodom and Gomorrha This in my judgment will be the fare and final conclusion of Mystical Babylon to sink as a great Milstone into the Sea and never to appear more Hear what the Prophet says A mighty Angel took up a stone like a great Milstone and cast it into the Sea saying thus with violence shall that great City Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all Simply to be burnt does not at all answer to this description of its perishing by sinking like a Milstone into the Sea and never appearing more nor of not having its place ever more found that is leaving no remains or marks of it A City that is only burnt cannot be said to fall like a Milstone into the Sea or that it can never more be found For after the burning of a City the ruines stand and its place is well known Wherefore in both respects besides this exteriour burning there must be an absorption of this Mystical Babylon the Seat of the Beast and thereupon a total disappearance of it This also agrees with the suddenness of the judgment which is a repeated character of it Chap. 18. 8 10 17 19. Now what kind of absorption this will be into what and in what manner we may learn from what St. Iohn says afterwards ch 19. 20. The Beast and the false Prophets were cast alive into a Lake of fire and brimstone You must not imagine that they were bound hand and foot and so thrown headlong into this Lake but they were swallowed up alive they and theirs as Corah and his company Or to use a plainer example after the manner of Sodom and Gomorrha which perisht by fire and at the same time sunk into a Dead Sea or a Lake of brimstone This was a lively type of the fate of Rome or Mystical Babylon and 't is fit it should resemble Sodom as well in its punishment as in its crimes Neither is it a hard thing to conceive how such an absorption may come to pass That being a thing so usual in Earth-quakes and Earth-quakes being so frequent in that Region And lastly that this should be after the manner of Sodom turn'd into a Lake of fire will not be at all strange if we consider that there will be many subterraneous Lakes of fire at that time when the bowels of the Earth begin to melt and the Mountains spew out streams of liquid fire The ground therefore being hollow and rotten in those parts when it comes to be shaken with a mighty Earth-quake the foundations will sink and the whole frame fall into an Abyss of fire below as a Milstone into the Sea And this will give occasion to that Cry Babylon the Great is fallen is fallen and shall never more be found This seems to be a probable account according to Scripture and reason of the beginning of the general fire and of the particular fate of Rome But it may be propos'd here as an objection against this Hypothesis that the Mediterranean Sea lying all along the Coast of Italy must needs be a sufficient guard to that Country against the invasion of fire or at least must needs extinguish it before it can do much mischief there or propagate it self into other Countreys I thought we had in a good measure prevented this objection before by showing how the Ocean would be diminish'd before the Conflagration and especially the Arms and Sinus's of the Ocean and of these none would be more subject to this diminution than the Mediterranean For receiving its supplies from the Ocean and the Black Sea if these came to sink in their chanels they would not rise so high as to be capable to flow into the Mediterranean at either end And these supplies being cut off it would soon empty it self so far partly by evaporation and partly by subterraneous passages as to shrink from all its shores and become only a standing Pool of water in the middle of the Chanel Nay 't is possible by flouds of fire descending from the many Volcano's upon its shores it might it self be converted into a Lake of fire and rather help than obstruct the progress of the Conflagration It may indeed be made a question whether this fiery Vengeance upon the seat of Antichrist will not precede the general Conflagration at some distance of time as a fore-runner and forewarner to the World that the rest of the People may have space to repent And particularly the Iews being Spectators of this Tragedy and of the miraculous appearance of our Saviour may see the hand of God in it and be convinc'd of the truth and divine authority of the Christian Religion I say this supposition would leave room for these and some other prophetick Scenes which we know not well where to place But seeing The Day of the Lord is represented in Scripture as one entire thing without interruption or discontinuation and that it is to begin with the destruction of Antichrist we have warrant enough to pursue the rest of the Conflagration from this beginning and introduction Let us then suppose the same preparations made in the other parts of the Earth to continue the Fire for the Conflagration of the World
requires much Learning Art or Science to be Master of it But a love and thirst after Truth freedom of Iudgment and a resignation of our Understanding to clear Evidence let it carry us which way it will An honest English Reader that looks only at the Sence as it lies before him and neither considers nor cares whether it be New or Old so it be true may be a more competent Iudge than a great Scholar fall of his own Notions and puff'd up with the opinion of his mighty knowledge For such men think they cannot in honour own any thing to be true which they did not know before To be taught any new knowledge is to confess their former ignorance and that lessens them in their own opinion and as they think in the opinion of the World which are both uneasie reflections to them Neither must we depend upon age only for soundness of Iudgment Men in discovering and owning truth seldom change their Opinions after threescore especially if they be leading Opinions It is then too late we think to begin the World again and as we grow old the Heart contracts and cannot open wide enough to take in a great thought The Spheres of mens Understandings are as different as Prospects upon the Earth Some stand upon a Rock or a Mountain and see far round about Others are in an hollow or in a Cave and have no prospect at all Some men consider nothing but what is present to their Senses Others extend their thoughts both to what is past and what is future And yet the fairest prospect in this Life is not to be compar'd to the least we shall have in another 〈◊〉 clearest day here is â—â—irty and hazy We see not far and what we do see is in a had light But when we have got better Bodies in the first Resurrection whereof we are going to Treat better Senses and a better Understanding a clearer light and an higher station our Horizon will be enlarg'd every way both as to the Natural World and as to the Intellecual Two of the greatest Speculations that we are capable of in this Life are in my Opinion The REVOLUTION OF WORLDS and the REVOLUTION OF SOULS one for the Material World and the other for the Intellectual Toward the former of these Our Theory is an Essay and in this our Planet which I hope to conduct into a Fix'd Star before I have done with it we give an instance of what may be in other Planets 'T is true we took our rise no higher than the Chaos because that was a known principle and we were not willing to amuse the Reader with too many strange Stories as that I am sure would have been thought one TO HAVE brought this Earth from a Fix'd Star and then carried it up again into the same Sphere Which yet I believe is the true circle of Natural Providence As to the Revolution of Souls the footsteps of that Speculation are more obscure than of the former For tho' we are assur'd by Scripture that all good Souls will at length have Celestial Bodies yet that this is a returning to a Primitive State or to what they had at their first Creation that Scripture has not acquainted us with It tells us indeed that Angels fell from their Primitive Celestial Glory and consequently we might be capable of a lapse as well as they if we had been in that high condition with them But that we ever were there is not declared to us by any revelation Reason and Morality would indeed suggest to us that an innocent Soul fresh and pure from the hands of its Maker could not be immediately cast into Prison before it had by any act of its own Will or any use of its own Understanding committed either error or sin I call this Body a Prison both because it is a confinement and restraint upon our best Faculties and Capacities and is also the seat of diseases and loathsomness and as prisons use to do commonly tends more to debauch mens Natures than to improve them But tho' we cannot certainly tell under what circumstances humane Souls were plac'd at first yet all Antiquity agrees Oriental and Occidental concerning their pre existence in general in respect of these mortal Bodies And our Saviour never reproaches or corrects the Jews when they speak upon that supposition Luk. 9. 18 19. Joh. 9. 2. Besides it seems to me beyond all controversie that the Soul of the Messiah did exist before the Incarnation and voluntarily descended from Heaven to take upon it a Mortal Body And tho' it does not appear that all humane Souls were at first plac'd in Glory yet from the example of our Saviour we see something greater in them Namely a capacity to be united to the Godhead And what is possible to one is possible to more But these thoughts are too high for us while we find our selves united to nothing but diseased bodies and houses of clay The greatest fault we can commit in such Speculations is to be over-positive and Dogmatical To be inquisitive into the ways of Providence and the works of God is so far from being a fault that it is our greatest perfection We cultivate the highest principles and best inclinations of our Nature while we are thus employ'd and 't is littleness or secularity of Spirit that is the greatest Enemy to Contemplation Those that would have a true contempt of this World must suffer the Soul to be sometimes upon the Wing and to raise her self above the sight of this little dark Point which we now inhabit Give her a large and free prospect of the immensity of God's works and of his inexhausted wisdom and goodness if you would make her Great and Good As the warm Philosopher says Give me a Soul so great so high Let her dimensions stretch the Skie That comprehends within a thought The whole extent 'twixt God and Nought And from the World's first birth and date Its Life and Death can calculate With all th' adventures that shall pass To ev'ry Atome of the Mass. But let her be as GOOD as GREAT Her highest Throne a Mercy-Seat Soft and dissolving like a Cloud Losing her self in doing good A Cloud that leaves its place above Rather than dry and useless move Falls in a showre upon the Earth And gives ten thousand Seeds a birth Hangs on the Flow'rs and infant Plants Sucks not their Sweets but feeds their Wants So let this mighty Mind diffuse All that 's her own to others use And free from private ends retain Nothing of SELF but a bare Name THE THEORY OF THE EARTH BOOK IV. Concerning the new Heavens and new Earth AND Concerning the Consummation of all things CHAP. I. THE INTRODVCTION That the World will not be annihilated in the last Fire That we are to expect according to Scripture and the Christian Doctrine New Heavens and a New Earth when these are dissolv'd or burnt up WE are now so far advanc'd
Old Testament As to the Apocalypse Babylon the seat of Antichrist is represented there as destroy'd by Fire Chap. 18. 8 18. Chap. 14. 11. Chap. 19. 3 20. And in Daniel when the Beast is destroy'd Chap. 7. 11. His body was given to the burning flame Then as to the other Prophets they do not you know speak of Antichrist or the Beast in terms but under the Types of Babylon Tyre and such like and these places or Princes are represented by them as to be destroy'd by fire Isa. 13. 19. Ier. 51. 25. Ezek. 28. 18. So much for this third Argument The fourth Argument is this The Future Kingdom of Christ will not be till the day of Judgment and the Resurrection But that will not be till the end of the World Therefore neither the Kingdom of Christ. By the day of Judgment here I do not mean the final and universal Judgment Nor by the Resurrection the final and universal Resurrection for these will not be till after the Millennium But we understand here the first day of Judgment and the first Resurrection which will be at the end of this present World according as S. Iohn does distinguish them in the 20th Chap. of the Apocalypse Now that the Millennium will not be till the day of Judgment in this sence we have both the Testimonies of Daniel and of S. Iohn Daniel in the 7th Chap. supposes the Beast to rule till judgment shall sit and then they shall take away his dominion and it shall be given to the people of the Saints of the most High S. Iohn makes an explicite declaration of both these in his 20th Chap. of the Apocalypse which is the great Directory in this point of the Millennium He says there were Thrones set as for a Judicature Then there was a Resurrection from the Dead and those that rise reigned with Christ a Thousand years Here 's a Judicial Session a Resurrection and the reign of Christ joyned together There is also another passage in S. Iohn that joyns the judgment of the Dead with the Kingdom of Christ. 'T is in the 11th Chap. under the seventh Trumpet The words are these ver 15. And the seventh Angel sounded and there were great voices in heaven saying the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever And the four and twenty Elders c. And the nations were angry and thy wrath is come and the time of the Dead that they should be judged and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the Prophets and to the Saints and them that fear thy name Here are two things plainly express'd and link'd together The judging of the Dead and the Kingdom of Christ wherein the Prophets and Saints are rewarded Now as the judging of the Dead is not in this life so neither is the reward of the Prophets and Saints in this life as we are taught sufficiently in the Gospel and by the Apostles Mat. 19. 28. 1 Thess. 1. 7. 2 Tim. 4. 8. 1 Pet. 1. 7. and Ch. 5. 4. Therefore the Reign and Kingdom of Christ which is joyned with these two cannot be in this life or before the end of the world And as a further testimony and confirmation of this we may observe that S. Paul to Timothy hath joyn'd together these three things The appearance of Christ the Reign of Christ and the judging of the Dead I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom 2 Tim. 4. 1. This might also be prov'd from the order extent and progress of the Prophecies of the Apocalypse whereof some are such as reach to the end of the World and yet must be accomplish'd before the Millennium begin as the Vials Others are so far already advanc'd towards the end of the World as to leave no room for a thousand years reign as the Trumpets But because every one hath his own interpretation of these Prophecies and it would be tedious here to prove any single Hypothesis in contradistinction to all the rest we will therefore leave this remark to have more or less effect according to the minds it falls upon And proceed to our fifth Argument Fifthly The Ierusalem-state is the same with the Millennial state But the New Ierusalem state will not be till the end of the World or till after the Conflagration Therefore neither the Millennium That the Ierusalem-state is the same with the Millennium is agreed upon I think by all Millenaries Ancient and Modern Iustin Martyr Irenaeus and Tertullian speak of it in that sence and so do the later Authors so far as I have observ'd And St. Iohn seems to give them good authority for it In the 20th Chap. of the Apocalypse he says the Camp of the Saints and the Beloved City were besieg'd by Satan and his Gigantick crew at the end of the Millennium That Beloved City is the New Ierusalem and you see it is the same with the Camp of the Saints or at least contemporary with it Besides the Marriage of the Lamb was in or at the appearance of the New Jerusalem for that was the Spouse of the Lamb Apoc. 21. 2. Now this Spouse was ready and this Marriage was said to be come at the destruction of Babylon which was the beginning of the Millennium Chap. 18. 7. Therefore the New Jerusalem run all along with the Millennium and was indeed the same thing under another name Lastly What is this New Jerusalem if it be not the same with the Millennial state It is promis'd as a reward to the sufferers for Christ Apoc. 3. 12. and you see its wonderful priviledges Ch. 21. 3 4. and yet it is not Heaven and eternal Life for it is said to come down from God out of Heaven Ch. 21. 2. and Ch. 3. 12. It can therefore be nothing but the glorious Kingdom of Christ upon Earth where the Saints shall reign with him a Thousand Years Now as to the second part of our Argument that the New Jerusalem will not come down from Heaven till the end of the World of this S. Iohn seems to give us a plain proof or demonstration for he places the New Jerusalem in the New Heavens and New Earth which cannot be till after the Conflagration Let us hear his words Apoc. 21. 1 2. And I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea And I Iohn saw the Holy City New Ierusalem coming down from God out of Heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband When the New Earth was made he sees the New Jerusalem coming down upon it and this Renovation of the Earth not being till the Conflagration The New Jerusalem could not be till then neither The Prophet Isaiah had long before said the same thing though not in
World will have no Dissolution for being a work so beautiful and noble the goodness of God he says will always preserve it It is most reasonable to understand this of the Great Universe for in our Earth Plato himself admits such dissolutions as are made by general Delugâ—s and Conflagrations and we contend for no other So likewise in other Authors if they speak of the immortality of the World you must observe what World they apply it to and whether to the Matter or the Form of it and if you remember that our Discourse proceeds only upon the Sublunary World and the Dissolution of its form you will find little in antiquity contrary to this doctrine I always except Aristotle who allow'd of no Providence in this inferiour World and some Pythagoreans falsly so call'd being either fictitious Authors or Apostates from the doctrine of their Master These being excepted upon a view of the rest you will find very few dissenters from this general doctrine Plato's argument against the dissolution of the World from the goodness and wisdom of God wou'd not be altogether unreasonable tho' apply'd to this Earth if it was so to be dissolv'd as never to be restor'd again But we expect New Heavens and a New Earth upon the dissolution of these Better in all respects more commodious and more beautiful And the several perfections of the Divine Nature Wisdom Power Goodness Justice Sanctity cannot be so well display'd and exemplifi'd in any one single state of Nature as in a succession of States fitted to receive one another according to the dispositions of the Moral World and the order of Divine Providence Wherefore Plato's argument from the Divine Attributes all things consider'd doth rather prove a succession of Worlds than that one single World should remain the same throughout all ages without change or variation Next to the Platonists the Stoicks were most considerable in matters relating to Morality and Providence And their opinion in this case is well known they being lookt upon by the Moderns as the principal authors of the doctrine of the Conflagration Nor is it less known that the School of Democraâ—us and Epicurus made all their Worlds subject to dissolution and by a new concourse of Atomes restor'd them again Lastly The Ionick Philosophers who had Thales for their Master and were the first Naturalists amongst the Greeks taught the same doctrine We have indeed but an imperfect account left us of this Sect and 't is great pity for as it was one of the most ancient so it seems to have been one of the most considerable amongst the Greeks for Natural Philosophy In those remains which Diogenes Laertius hath preserv'd of Anaxagoras Anaximenes Archelaus c. All great men in their time we find that they treated much of the Origin of the World and had many extraordinary Notions about it which come lame and defective to us The doctrine of their Founder Thales which made all things to consist of Water seems to have a great resemblance to the doctrine of Moses and S. Peter about the constitution of the First Heavens and Earth But there is little in Laertius what their opinion was about the Dissolution of the World Other Authors inform us more of that Stobaeus joyns them with Leucippus and the Epicureans Simplicius with Heraclitus and the Stoicks in this doctrine about the corruptibility of the World So that all the Schools of the Greek Philosophers as we noted before were unanimous in this point excepting the Peripaâ—eticks whose Master Aristotle had neither modesty enough to follow the doctrine of his Predecessors nor wit enough to invent any thing better Besides these Sects of Philosophers there were Theologers amongst the Greeks more ancient than these Sects and more mystical Aristotle often distinguisheth the Naturalists and the Theologues Such were Orpheus and his followers who had more of the Ancient Oriental Learning than the succeeding Philosophers But they writ their Philosophy or Theology rather Mythologically and Poetitically in Parables and Allegories that needed an interpretation All these Theologers supposed the Earth to rise from a Chaos and as they said that Love was the principle at first that united the loose and severed Elements and formed them into an Habitable World So they supposed that if Strife or Contention prevail'd that would again dissolve and disunite them and reduce things into a Chaos Such as the Earth will be in upon the Conflagration And it further appears that both these Orders of the Learned in Greece suppos'd this present frame of Nature might perish by their doctrine of Periodical Revolutions or of the Renovation of the World after certain periods of time which was a doctrine common amongst the learned Greeks and received by them from the ancient Barbarick Nations As will appear more at large in the following Book Ch. 3. In the mean time we may observe that Origen in answering Celsus about the point of the Resurrection tells him That Doctrine ought not to appear so strange or ridiculous to him seeing their own Authors did believe and teach the Renovation of the World after certain Ages or Periods And the truth is this Renovation of the World rightly stated is the same thing with the First Resurrection of the Christians And as to the Second and general Resurrection when the Righteous shall have Celestial Bodies 't is well known that the Platonists and Pythagoreans cloath'd the Soul with a Celestial Body or in their Language an Ethereal Vehicle as her last Beatitude or Glorification So that Origen might very justly tell his adversary he had no reason to ridicule the Christian Doctrine of the Resurrection seeing their own Authors had the main strokes of it in their Traditionary Learning I will only add one remark more before we leave this Subject to prevent a mistake in the word Immortal or Immortality when applyed to the World As I told you before the equivocation that was in that term World it being us'd sometimes for the whole Universe sometimes for this inferiour part of it where we live so likewise we must observe that when this Inferiour World is said to be Immortal by the Philosophers as sometimes it is that commonly is not meant of any single state of Nature or any single World but of a succession of Worlds consequent one upon another As a family may be said immortal not in any single person but in a succession of Heirs So as many times when the Ancients mention the immortality of the World they do not thereby exclude the Dissolution or Renovation of it but suppose a vicissitude or series of World succeeding one another This observation is not mine but was long since made by Simplicius Stobaeus and others who tell us in what sense some of those Philosophers who allowed the World to be perishable did yet affirm it to be immortal namely by successive renovations Thus much is sufficient to shew the sence and judgment of Antiquity as
to the chargeableness or perpetuity of the World But Ancient Learning is like Ancient Medals more esteemed for their rarity than their real use unless the Authority of a Prince make them currant So neither will these Testimonies be of any great effect unless they be made good and valuable by the Authority of Scripture We must therefore add the Testimonies of the Prophets and Apostles to these of the Greeks and Barbarians that the evidence may be full and undeniable That the Heavens and the Earth will perish or be chang'd into another form is sometimes plainly exprest sometimes suppos'd and alluded to in Scripture The Prophet David's testimony is express both for the beginning and ending of the World in the 102. Psalm Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the Earth and the heavens are the work of thy hands They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old like a garment as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy Years shall have no end The Prophet Esay's testimony is no less express to the same purpose Lift up your Eyes to the heavens and look upon the Earth beneath for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke and the Earth shall was old like a garment and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner These Texts are plain and explicite and in allusion to this day of the Lord and this destruction of the World the same Prophet often useth phrases that relate to it As the Concussion of the Heavens and the Earth The shaking of the foundations of the World The dissolution of the Host of Heaven And our Sacred Writers have expressions of the like force and relating to the same effect As the Hills melting like wax at the presence of the Lord Psal. 97. 5. Shattering once more all the parts of the Creation Hagg. 2. 6. Overturning the mountains and making the pillars of the Earth to tremble Job 9. 5 6. If you reflect upon the explication given of the Deluge in the first part of this Theory and attend to the manner of the Conflagration as it will be explain'd in the sequel of this Discourse you will see the justness and fitness of these expressions That they are not Poetical Hyperboles or random expressions of great and terrible things in general but a true account of what hath been or will be at that great day of the Lord. 'T is true the Prophets sometimes use such-like expressions figuratively for commotions in States and Kingdoms but that is only by way of Metaphor and accommodation the true basis they stand upon is that ruine overthrow and dissolution of the Natural World which was once at the Deluge and will be again after another manner at the general Conflagration As to the New Testament our Saviour says Heaven and Earth shall pass away but his words shall not pass away Matth. 24. 35. S. Paul says the Scheme of this World the fashion form and composition of it passeth away 1 Cor. 7. 31. And when mention is made of New Heavens and a New Earth which both the Prophet Isaiah and the Apostles S. Peter and S. Iohn mention 't is plainly imply'd that the old ones will be dissolv'd The same thing is also imply'd when our Saviour speaks of a Renascency or Regeneration Matt. 19. 28. and S. Peter of a Restitution of all things Act. 3. 21. For what is now must be abolish'd before any former order of things can be restor'd or reduc'd In a word If there was nothing in Scripture concerning this subject but that discourse of S. Peter's in his 2d Epistle and 3d. Chapter concerning the triple order and succession of the Heavens and the Earth past present and to come that alone wou'd be a conviction and demonstration to me that this present World will be dissolv'd You will say it may be in the last place we want still the testimony of Natural Reason and Philosophy to make the evidence compleat I answer 't is enough if They be silent and have nothing to say to the contrary Here are witnesses Humane and Divine and if none appear against them we have no reason to refuse their testimony or to distrust it Philosophy will very readily yield to this Doctrine that All material compositions are dissolvable and she will not wonder to see that die which she had seen born I mean this Terrestrial World She stood upon the Chaos and see it rowâ— it self with difficulty and after many struglings into the form of an habitable Earth And that form she see broken down again at the Deluge and can as little hope or expect now as then that it should be everlasting and immutable There would be nothing great or considerable in this Inferiour World if there were not such revolutions of Nature The Seasons of the Year and the fresh Productions of the Spring are pretty in their way But when the Great Year comes about with a new order of all things in the Heavens and on the Earth and a new dress of Nature throughout all her Regions far more goodly and beautiful than the fairest Spring This gives a new Life to the Creation and shows the greatness of its Author Besides These Fatal Catastrophes are always a punishment to degenerate Mankind that are overwhelm'd in the ruines of these perishing Worlds And to make Nature her self execute the Divine Vengeance against Rebellious Creatures argues both the Power and Wisdom of that Providence that governs all things here below These things Reason and Philosophy approve of but if you further require that they should shew a Necessity of this future destruction of the World from Natural Causes with the time and all other circumstances of this effect your demands are unreasonable seeing these things do not depend solely upon Nature But if you will content your self to know what dispositions there are in Nature towards such a change how it may begin proceed and be consummate under the conduct of Providence be pleased to read the following Discourse for your further satisfaction CHAP. III. That the World will be destroy'd by Fire is the doctrine of the Ancients especially of the Stoicks That the same doctrine is more ancient than the Greeks and deriv'd from the Barbarick Philosophy and That probably from Noah the Father of all Traditionary Learning The same doctrine expresly authoriz'd by Revelation and inroll'd into the Sacred Canon THAT the present World or the present frame of Nature will be destroy'd we have already shewn In what manner this destruction will be by what force or what kind of fate must be our next enquiry The Philosophers have always spoken of Fire and Water those two unruly Elements as the only Causes that can destroy the World and work our ruine and accordingly they say all the great and fatal Revolutions of Nature either past or to come depend upon the violence of these Two when