Beginning they were Aborigines and multiplied from other common Stocks than what the Mosaical History imports And although their Traditions in America be mingled with some things fabulous yet they seem to favour this Conclusion Some of them acknowledge the Creation of all things by God and that He fixed certain Arrows in the ground and from thence the Original of Mankind came de Laet. de origine gent. Americanorum Observat 6. Many of them have a Tradition of a Flood at least in the Continent of America which dispeopled all the Countrey and that out of the Lake Tilocaca the great God created at several places the common Parents of Mankind ut videre est apud eundem pag. 115 105. or that certain Men leapt out of a Cave called Picare Campo or Tampo and were the first Parents of Mankind and therefore they hold the Tambi the most ancient of Mankind Besides if we could suppose that either ex industria or by accident some might pass the Seas from Africa Asia or Europe into America yet it is not easily conceptible how Beasts especially of prey should be transported into America through those large Seas after the Deluge neither is it possible to suppose that all the Beasts of America which are many of them wholly different in kind from those of Europe Asia or Africa should be conducted over the Seas to be preserved in the Ark and after be transported again thither and the improbability thereof is so much the greater because many of the perfect Animals found in America have none of the same kind in Europe Asia or Africa and è converso but are as it were appropriate to their proper Regions though some there are that are common to America and the other Countries on this side And therefore either the Flood was not universal or new Creations of Animals proper to America hapned there after the Flood I answer to these difficulties The Author of the Book called Praeadamitae hath set down certain Suppositions which though they salve the difficulties yet they cross the tenor of the Mosaical History viz. 1. That Moses in the History of the Creation of Man doth not set down the Original of Mankind but only the Original or common Parent of the Jewish Nation that Adam was not the first Man that was created but there were very many Ages of Men before him that peopled tho greater part of the World long before the Creation of Adam And consequently though Adam was the common Parent of the Inhabitants of Palestine and many of the Countries adjacent yet those that peopled the far greater part of the World especially the Parts of America were not descended from him 2. That the Flood in Noah's time though it drowned the Descendents from Adam and the Countries inhabited by them namely Palestine and some of the adjacent Countries yet it was no Universal Deluge but the far greater part of the World and the Inhabitants thereof were free from that Deluge and consequently that Noah and his three Sons were not the Capita familiarum of the whole Earth but only of those Families and Nations that were Inhabitants in Palestine and some of the adjacent Countries and consequently that many of the Countries of Europe Asia and Africa and the entire Continent and Islands of America were not overwhelmed with this Deluge though possibly they might have their particular Deluges as hapned in Greece and Thessaly under Deucalion and Ogyges and in favour of his Opinion alledgeth the long Computations of the Egyptians Babylonians and Chineses the vast Armies of Ninus Semiramis Zoroaster and others and the great extent of their Monarchies suddenly after the Flood which could not as he supposeth be so suddenly propagated from Noah and his three Sons But especially insists upon the greatness of the Continent of America and the Islands thereof the populousness and great store of Men and Animals which could not be in any tolerable probability transported from Countries divided by such great Seas from it And likewise he insists upon the Antiquity of the Egyptian Computations and upon that fond Reason of the Egyptian Priest in Plato's Timaeus That Egppt is the most ancient of the habitable World because neither subject to Total Inundations by reason it hath no Shoars nor to Conflagration because of the Inundation of Nilus That consequently Palestine and the Countries adjacent were only drowned but the upper Asia from whence the Dove fetched his Olive-branch was never thereby totally overwhelmed This is the principal Subject of his 4 th Book of what he calls his Systema Theologicum If there were no other fault in this Author there is this one that renders him inexcusable In that he in all places of his Book pretends to own and maintain the Truth and Sacred Authority of the Mosaical History and seems to maintain some of his Tenets by Scriptural Suffrage and yet substitutes such Assertions as any Man and much more the Ingenious Author himself could not cannot choose but see that if they were true would necessarily not only weaken but overthrow the Authority and Infallibility of the Sacred Scriptures at least where it seems to cross the Fabulous Traditions of the Egyptian and Babylonian Antiquity to which Fables he gives more credit than to the Holy Scriptures and submits the Authority of these to the Authority of those and while Judas like he seems to kiss these Sacred Oracles he perfidiously betrays their Authority and draws their Truth as much as he can into suspicion Such a Discourse had better become a plain professed Infidel and is so much the worse in that it is done slily and by invidious Insinuations sub Amici nomine If he durst have spoken out he would have told us roundly and plainly that the Eleven first Chapters of Genesis were but Fables That Genesis 3.20 where Eve is said to be the Mother of all living That Gen. 7.19 20. where it is said that all the high Hills that were under the whole Heavens were covered That Gen. 7.23 where it is said that every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the Ground both Man and Cattel and Creeping things and the Fowls of the Heaven and Noah only remained alive and those that were with him in the Ark That Gen. 10.32 where it is said that these were the Families of the Sons of Noah after their Generations in their Nations and by these were the Nations divided on the Earth after the Flood are not to be believed and are but meer Fictions This had become a Man of his Principles but he durst not speak out I shall not in this place undertake a particular Answer of all that this Man hath said it is besides my intention in this place to make so large an excursion and many others have done it to my hand only I may say thus much That a Man that gives so much cred it to the Egyptian Caldean and Grecian prodigious Traditions in derogation
first Production of Men what gradations were antecedent to it could not possibly be known to the first Parents of Mankind without Divine Revelation because it must needs be antecedent to their Being and therefore the particular Manner therefore could not upon a bare natural or moral account be any true Root or Foundation of such a Tradition as according to the Mosaical Hypothesis of the Origination of Mankind whereby we understand that Adam was created out of the Dust of the Ground and then had an Intellectual Soul put into him Adam might upon a natural account know that now he was and that before he was not and he might upon a rational account know that such a Production of such a Being as he found himself to be could never have been effected without the agency of a most powerful and wise Being which we call Almighty God And this Tradition both that he was made when before he was not and that he was created or made by Almighty God he might with as great evidence and certainty traditionally communicate to his Descendents as any other matter of fact or rational deduction But he could never know the manner of his own Production or the particular Preparations antecedent to such his Being without Revelation from God or some intelligent Being that saw or knew the antecedents to his Constitution neither could he without such Revelation or Discovery deliver the same over traditionally with any certainty of truth to his Descendents And consequently the general Tradition of his Origination hath a Rode of Credibility in it to such a Man as will believe that any matter of Fact may be true that he sees not though the particular manner of his Orgination is not with any certainty credible to him that either believes not there is any Divine Revelation or that believes not the particular Method propounded is in truth a Divine Revelation So that the general Tradition that Man had his Origination ex non genitis is a greater Evidence that it was true than that he was made out of Arrows stuck in the Ground or ex folliculis terrae innascentibus as some Philosophers 2. The Ground of this Perswasion hath sprung from such of the Philosophers and other considerate Men who upon a strict Enquiry and Examination have found it impossible that the successive Generations of Mankind could be Eternal and consequently Infinite and therefore have concluded with very great evidence of Reason that it must needs have some other Origination in some one Period of duration than what is now natural and common But then being destitute of Divine Revelation or at least not giving due credit thereunto and being greatly in the dark and not knowing well how to determin what that Method of the Origination of Mankind should be some took up one Fancy some another to salve the Phaenomenon according as their Imaginations led them And hence it was that some thought their Origination was not altogether unlike the spontaneous Production of Insects only these being Annual required no great contribution of Heavenly Influkes but that of the Production of Men or more perfect Animals Non sine magna coelestium corporum conjunctione sive mutatione Others again more soberly attributed it meerly to the Power and Wisdom of the glorious God Others to the efficiency of Angels whereof in the next Chapter And this Contemplation of such Philosophers and knowing Men coming abroad into the World the generality of Mankind subscribed to the truth of the grand Hypothesis it self namely That Mankind had at one time or other or by some means or other an Origination differing from the ordinary and natural method of Propagation now observed And finding that the same held a singular congruity to the nature of things and the general Conception and Reason of the Humane Understanding the generality of the World entertained and by Tradition transmitted this Hypothesis to their Posterity But finding the Philosophers and Wise Men so uncertain and disagreeing de modo and unable to give any satisfactory Resolution thereof every Nation and almost every Person took up what particular Hypothesis pleased them for the Method or Manner of such Origination and herein the Wantonness of Poets and the Crafts of their Heathenish Priests and Hierophants abundantly gratified the Fancies of the People with Superstructions and Inventions of their own And indeed it is observable that all those ancient Traditions of things that were truly done and so delivered over and received by Mankind as they have for the substance and main of them been preserved by the strength of this Tradition so where the Holy Scriptures have not been taught or known these Traditions have been admirably dressed by Sophistications and Superadditions introduced by the Phantasies of Poets or the deceits of Heathenish Priests or by the gradual corruptings of the Traditions themselves Thus the History of the Creation of the Flood of the Tower of Babel of Noah and his three Sons many of which are for the substance of them preserved among the Barbarous People of the East and West Indies at this day as appears by those that have written the Relation especially of the Americans as Acosta and De Laet have nevertheless been covered over with divers fabulous and devised Additions and Stories and so it happened also among the ancient Heathenish Writers as hath been at large demonstrated especially by Bochart in his Phaleg Now as touching the Opinion of the Learned Tribe which as before is shewn fell into two Parties The one holding the Eternal Successions of Mankind whereof in this Second Section The other holding a First Inception of Mankind Ex non genitis The latter Opinion far out-ballanceth the former both in the reasonableness thereof and the multitude and great Learning of those that so asserted it and should according to the propounded Method be here declared But because I intend in the next Section to examin the various Suppositions of those of the latter sort touching the Manner of the Origination of Man I shall reserve that Business to the next Section wherein I shall at once consider the Learned ancient Authors that hold the Origination of Mankind and shall also deliver and examin their several Suppositions touching the same SECT III. CAP. I. The Opinions of the more Learned part of Mankind Philosophers and other Writers touching Man's Origination I Have in the former Parts of this Enquiry shewed that there have been among Philosophers and other Heathen and some modern Writers Two great Opinions touching Man's Origination 1. Those that thought it indeed to be without any Origination but Eternal and this Opinion they took up principally upon two Reasons 1. Because the Medium or Clew by which they guided themselves was the common constant Method of Productions by successive Generations and they thought it more sutable to take their Measures and make their Conclusions consonant to the course of Nature which they saw and observed and judged to be always uniform
Revelation to Moses there was a Divine Manifestation thereof to the first created Man in that fulness of his first illuminated and perfect state of created Nature and from him that Tradition was derived and preserved in that Line of the Patriarchs in which the most important Divine Truths were conserved and traduced from Adam to Moses That which may illustrate my meaning in this preference of the revealed Light of the Holy Scriptures touching this matter above the Essays of a Philosophical Imagination may be this Suppose that Greece being unacquainted with the curiosity of Mechanical Engins though known in some remote Region of the World an excellent Artist had secretly brought and deposited in some Field or Forest some excellent Watch or Clock which had been so formed that the original of its Motion were hidden and involved in some close contrived piece of Mechanism that this Watch was so framed that the Motion thereof might have lasted a Year or some such time as might give a reasonable Period for Philosophical Conjectures concerning it and that in the plain Table there had not been only the description and indication of Hours but the configurations and indications of the various Phases of the Moon the Motion and Place of the Sun in the Ecliptick and divers other curious indications of Celestial Motions and that the Scholars of the several Schools of Epicurus of Aristotle of Plato and the rest of those Philosophical Sects had casually in their walk found this admirable Automaton what kind of work would there have been made by every Sect in giving an account of this Phaenomenon We should have had the Epicurean Sect have told the by-standers according to their pre-conceived Hypothesis that this was nothing else but an accidental concretion of Atoms that haply faln together had made up the Index the Wheels the Ballance and that being haply faln into this posture they were put into Motion Then the Cartesian falls in with him as to the main of their Supposition but tells him that he doth not sufficiently explicate how this Engin is put into Motion and therefore to furnish this Motion there is a certain Materia subtilis that pervades this Engin and the moveable parts consisting of certain globular Atoms apt for Motion they are thereby and by the mobility of the globular Atoms put into Motion A third finding fault with the two former because these Motions are so regular and do express the various Phaenomena of the distribution of Time and of the Heavenly Motions therefore it seems to him that this Engin and Motion also so analogical to the Motions of the Heavens was wrought by some admirable Conjunction of the Heavenly Bodies which formed this Instrument and its Motions in such an admirable correspondency to its own existence A fourth disliking the Suppositions of the three former tells the rest that he hath a more plain and evident Solution of the Phaenomenon namely the Universal Soul of the World or Spirit of Nature that formed so many sorts of Insects with so many Organs Faculties and such congruity of their whole Composition and such curious and various Motions as we may observe in them hath formed and set into Motion this admirable Automaton and regulated and ordered it with all these congruities we see in it Then steps in an Aristotelian and being dissatisfied with all the former Solutions tells them Gentlemen you are all mistaken your Solutions are inexplicable and unsatisfactory you have taken up certain precarious Hypotheses and being pre-possessed with these Creatures of your own Fancies and in love with them right or wrong you form all your Conceptions of things according to those fancied and pre-conceived Imaginations The short of the business is this Machina is eternal and so are all the Motions of it and in as much as a Circular Motion hath no beginning or end this Motion that you see both in the Wheels and Index and the successive indications of the Celestial Motions is eternal and without beginning And this is a ready and expedite way of solving the Phaenomenon without so much ado as you have made about it And while all the Masters were thus controversing the Solution of the Phaenomenon in the hearing of the Artist that made it and when they had all spent their philosophizing upon it the Artist that made this Engin and all this while listened to their admirable Fancies tells them Gentlemen you have discovered very much excellency of Invention touching this piece of Work that is before you but you are all miserably mistaken for it was I that made this Watch and brought it hither and I will shew you how I made it first I wrought the Spring and the Fusee and the Wheels and the Ballance and the Case and Table I fitted them one to another and placed these several Axes that are to direct the Motions of the Index to discover the Hour of the Day of the Figure that discovers the Phasis of the Moon and the other various Motions that you see and then I put it together and wound up the Spring which hath given all these Motions that to see in this curious piece of Work and that you may be sure I tell you true I will tell you the whole order and progress of my making disposing and ordering of this piece of Work the several materials of it the manner of the forming of every individual part of it and how long I was about it This plain and evident discovery renders all these excogitated Hypotheses of these Philosophical Enthusiasts vain and ridiculous without any great help of Rhetorical Flourishes or Logical Confutations And much of the same nature is that disparity of the Hypotheses of the Learned Philosophers in relation to the Origination of the World and Man after a great deal of dust raised and fanciful Explications and unintelligible Hypotheses The plain but Divine Narrative by the hand of Moses full of sence and congruity and clearness and reasonableness in it self doth at the same moment give us a true and clear discovery of this great Mystery and renders all the Essays of the generality of the Heathen Philosophers to be vain inevident and indeed inexplicable Theories the creatures of Phantasie and Imagination and nothing else 1. This therefore is the first Advantage of the Mosaical Hypothesis of the Origination of things above the Philosophical Theories touching the same the latter are inevident conjectural and indeed apparently false the former contains an Evidence of it self by its consonancy to the only manner that can be sufficient for such a Discovery and the plain evident and congruous relation of it 2. All the Philosophical Theories except that which carries the Origination of things up to Almighty God are full of infinite intanglements difficulties and inconsistencies that ever and anon break out and discover themselves whereby they are enforced by a continual substitution of new Suppositions to piece up and mend the breaches that arise upon such
fix bounds and banks and limits to our moveable unstable and unfixed Minds hath given us these Sacred Oracles both to enlighten and inform us and to fix and contain us within the bounds and limits of Truth and Sobriety 13. I have before touched something concerning a common Tradition that might obtain in the generality of Mankind concerning the Origination of the World and Man and here we may find a reasonable discovery of something touching the root of this Tradition namely the Holy Scriptures especially that of Genesis for we find very much among the ancient Heathen especially touching the Creation of the World the Observation of the Seventh Day the Flood Noah and his three Sons though by other Names and divers other things wherein though they mingle some of their own wild Notes yet they bear a great analogy to the Relations in the Scriptures and seem borrowed from them or from the Hebrews to whom that great Treasure of the Scriptures was committed And if a Man consider how many Opportunities there were for the communication of the Jewish Learning to the rest of Mankind even in the ancient times especially to the Egyptians with whom they long dwelt and with whom Solomon was joyned in affinity so the Babylonians and Chaldeans during their Captivity there to the Grecians by the intercourse they had with them after the breaking of the Persian Monarchy it will render it an easie Supposition that much of the Jewish Learning was derived to many of the learned Heathen though they oftentimes mingled with it some Conceptions of their own Plato and divers other Grecians borrowed much of their traditional knowledge from the Egyptians and they from the Hebrews Vide Selden de Jure Gentium c. lib. 1. cap. 2. 14. Since Man in his first Original is the Work of the most wise intelligent Being it is evident that Almighty God in this effection of Man did intend an end and scope of this Work an intelligent Agent acts ex intentione volitione and therefore proposeth in his Work an end or purpose in it and the designation of an end in working is the great perfection of an intelligent Agent Agents that are simply Natural or that are directed but by implanted Instincts act by a kind of necessity of Nature their activity and vigour putting it self forth not by choice or election but driven by the activity of their nature And although it is visible that all even the most necessary operations of unintelligent Causes in the World are directed unto certain excellent ends yet the election of and direction to these ends is not in those necessary and natural Causes themselves but is in that intelligent Efficient that intended and designed that end and endowed the natural Agent with those active Faculties or Powers which might be proper and serviceable to such ends and mancipated or bound to them certain Instincts and natural Motions subservient to those ends As in things that are artificial my Watch gives me an account of the Hour of the Day that is the end thereof but it is an end not designed or intended by the Watch but of the Artist that made it And although in sensible Creatures there seems to be an Image of Intelligence and they move more perfectly to their several ends of their several operations as in choice and eating of their food to preserve their individual nature in generation to preserve their specifical nature yet the truth is those designations of the ends of these operations and the furnishing them with instincts in order thereunto is due still to that Intelligent Being namely the glorious God which hath by his Wisdom determined these sensible Creatures to these ends and by these means in the first institution of their natures 15. And upon the same reason it follows That since Almighty God is the Maker and Efficient of Man it is not only reasonable and just but natural and in a manner necessary that the designation of Man to his end should belong to him that was his Efficient And therefore although the supreme intelligent Being that Efficient of Mankind hath made Man an intelligent Being endued him with Will whereby he is in a manner Dominus suarum actionum and a kind of Image of his Maker yet he is not the Lord and disposer of his own end for though Man be made an intelligent and free Agent and therefore in those actions that move from himself he hath the priviledge of an intelligent Agent and propounds his end to himself in those actions yet he was not the Efficient of himself and therefore cannot proportion to himself the end of his Being but that belongs only to that intelligent Efficient that gave him his Being and therefore that Efficient can only be the Propounder of that end which is commensurate to his Being 16. Since Almighty God is not only an Intelligent Agent but the highest most wise powerful and perfect Cause and since it seems to be most suitable to such a wise Being to proportionate the ends of his Works in some measure suitable to the worth and value of the Work And since Man is the work and effection of God and noblest work of his that we see in this inferior World we have just reason to conclude That Almighty God made Man for some end and for some such end as may bear a proportion to the nature condition and quality of the Work it self There seem to be but two ways to know the end that an intelligent Agent propounds in any action or work 1. The first is plain explicit and clear viz. When that Agent reveals and discovers what is the end he intends in the work he doth and thus it hath pleased the glorious God to acquaint us in the Holy Scriptures that his intent in making Man was his own Glory and to make Man a Vessel of everlasting Happiness But because in this place we are only making natural deductions from the effection of Man by God I shall refer the consideration of the former to its proper place 2. Therefore the second is by collection of natural and reasonable Consequences from the nature of the Efficient and the worth value or condition of the Effect and this medium though it be not so clear particular and explicit as the former yet it doth give us some account touching the nature and kind of the end that is probably propounded by the Efficient but touching the same in the next Chapter CAP. VIII A farther Enquiry touching the End of the Formation of Man so far as the same may be collected by Natural Light and Ratiocination VVE may easily observe in general in the Works of Nature and in every particular thereof three kinds of admirable Accommodations The first is the Accommodation of every thing to the common beauty and integrity of the Universe As in a curious piece of Landskip there are orderly interspersed Clouds and Trees and Flowers and Rivers and Houses and Arches and Ships and
incendium Hercules Amphitryonis filius Expeditio Argonautarum Bellum Trojanum Reditus Heraclidarum Ionica migratio and many other fine Stories that have furnished some of the Poetical Historians of after Ages But however Censorinus makes his Computation Inachus who was the first King of the Argives though he were about 375 years after the beginning of the Assyrian Monarchy and contemporary with Isaac yet he began his Reign about 100 years before the Ogygian Flood which hapned in the latter end of Phoroneus the Son of Inachus and second King of the Argives So that Inachus was about 100 years before the Ogygian Flood and about 1070 or 1080 years before the first Olympiad upon this account This then being as it seems the state of these Periods there seem two Nations of the Grecians that pretend to greatest Antiquity namely the Argivi and the Attici The former had their beginning with Inachus whether before or after the Ogygian Flood it will not be much of moment but at least within 1070 years before the first Olympiad which is the highest time that the Grecians pretend unto Touching the Attici the Grecian Memorials give us no higher Account than of Ogyges in whose time it is supposed the Ogygian Flood hapned in that part of Greece called Attica and takes its name from him namely Diluvium Ogygium Out of this Kingdom arose the Dynasty of the Athenians about 200 years after the Ogygian Flood wherein Cecrops was the first Governour contemporary with Moses he first set up the Worship of Jupiter as some report And so we have the Original of the Government of the Argives in Inachus of the Athenians in Cecrops It is true the Egyptian Priest under the name of Timaeus in Plato tells us a large Story of the Island of Atlantis far bigger than Asia and that although now that goodly Island be lost and swallowed up in the Sea yet the Athenians were a kind of Colony transplanted from that Island into Greece about 7000 years before Solon's time But this is one of those Poetical Fictions wherewith Plato plays mingling more serious things with it in the following part of his Discourse and the Story hath no footsteps of any evidence for it unless we shall suppose that Atlantis to be an Island that was before the Universal Deluge and destroyed by it 4. Concerning the Seres or Chineses a People whose Customs and Histories were strangers to Europe till of late times wherein some Travellers have lately given us some account of those great Periods both of their Histories and Government Vossius in that little Book de Aetate Mundi tells us by relation from others That by their Histories and Monuments their Empire hath lasted 4505 years in the year of Christ 1658 which reacheth some Ages beyond the Flood according to the Hebrew Account but according to the Septuagint the beginning thereof falls in the time of Phaleg 531 years after the Flood which he brings as an Argument for the Authority of the Septuagint But the truth is we are still strangers to the true state of Chronology of the Seres or Chineses what we have touching it is by broken relation of some few Travellers and what they had possibly may be gathered up from the vulgar Traditions of that People upon which little of sound conclusion can be made touching their Antiquity But be it true or not which we have from these Relations yet their longest Period gives them a Beginning and reacheth not so high as the pretended Epoch of the Babylonians or Egyptians much less is there any thing in them that gives any colour of Evidence of an Eternal Duration And thus I have gone through the Examination of those Kingdoms and Monarchies which pretend to greatest Antiquity the Babylonian or Assyrian the Egyptian the Grecian and the Seres or Chineses upon all which we may observe 1. That though many of them pretend to a very great Antiquity yet there are none that give us any sufficient Evidence of an Eternal Duration for what are those Periods of the Egyptians or Babylonians to Eternity Nay many of these Nations that pretend to the longest continuance as the Egyptians and Grecians yet disclaim an Eternal Succession pretend themselves to be Aborigines and to be the first People but yet not to be Eternal Indeed their vast continuance if admitted would seem to contradict the Authenticalness and Authority of the Mosaical History which contains a Relation of the Beginnings of Mankind within the compass of about 5660 Years according to the Hebrew Account and about 7240 Years according to the Septuagint but doth not so much as suppose an Eternity thereof 2. That notwithstanding these great pretensions of Antiquity yet upon a true examination their great pretended Antiquity is fabulous and the Origination of their Monarchies began some Ages after the general Deluge and so the truth of the Holy History concerning the Inception of Mankind and the Inception of all the Monarchies in the World after the Deluge that happened under Noah 1656 Years after the Creation of Mankind is not at all weakened by those Fabulous Antiquities of the Babylonians Egyptians or Grecians 3. That this Inception of the Notable Empires and Kingdoms of the World even of those that pretend greatest Antiquity and the termination of the uttermost Extent of the Histories of the Babylonians Egyptians and Grecians within the compass of the Extent of their pretended Monarchies is an Evidence against the Eternity of Mankind for had Mankind been Eternal they had infinite Ages since arrived to all the perfection of Political Government and to all those Means and Arts for the preserving the Memorials of things past as they have now attained unto there would have been no tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or obscurum among the Grecians but there would have been as fair Monuments and Historical Narratives of things past before the Olympiads or the Ogygian Flood which was not universal as after I shall conclude therefore with Lucretius lib. 5. Preterea si nulla fuit genitalis origo Terrai Coeli semperque aeterna fuerunt Cur supra bellum Thebanum funera Trojae Non alias alii quoque res cecinere Poetae Qui tot facta virum toties cecidere neque usquam Aeternis famae monumentis insita florent Verùm ut opinor habet novitatem summa recensque Natura est mundi neque pridem exordia cepit Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur Nunc etiam augescunt c. But yet this Consideration touching the Antiquity of Monarchies their Inception and the Narratives and Historical Monuments of things happening within the Periods of their Commencement and Continuances are not of that weight that we can lay the stress of this Hypothesis of the Inception of Mankind upon And therefore this Consideration must be taken with its allay I shall therefore fully set down those Instances that do give this Consideration its due abatement 1. It is no Consequence That
enim orbis parte accidit eo modo animaliae creari I have transcribed it at large as Eusebius did before me Lib. 1. Praepar because it contains a large and full Exposition of the Hypotheses of those Philosophers that thus suppose an Origination of Mankind and that by a spontaneous Production In these precedent Opinions of Anaximander Empedocles Epicurus and the Egyptians there is something that agrees with that Truth that I have asserted namely The Origination of Mankind ex non genitis And for this purpose these Instances are especially given by me But there is something that I shall in what follows impugn namely The Method or Manner of such Productions which according to these Mens Opinions is either purely Casual as Epicurus and his followers held or at least Natural and Necessary as Anaximander Empedocles and some of the loose passages of Aristotle seem to import viz. by some great Conjunction of the Heavenly Bodies and some great Natural Mutation in the Elementary World 5. I now come to the farther Examination of the Hypothesis of the Stoicks who also agree in this main Truth That Mankind had an Original ex non genitis and the Founder of that Sect hath given a rational and true Method thereof namely That this Origination was by the Power and Will of Almighty God But when those of this Sect came to give a more particular Explication of the Manner of this Production they seem to differ Tully was generally well inclined to the Stoical Sect yet sometimes he is a Stoick sometimes an Academick sometimes an Epicurean and indeed in some of his Discourses which he hath digested in Dialogues he seems to be every thing In his first Book de Legibus he hath this passage touching the Origination of Man Nam cum de natura omni quaeritur disputari solent nimirum ista perpetuis cursibus conversionibus coelestibus extitisse quandam materiam serendi generis humani quod sparsum in terras atque satum divino auctum sit animorum munere Nam quod aliquibus cohaerent homines è mortali genere sumserunt quae fragilia essent caduca animum esse ingeneratum à Deo ex quo verè vel agnatio nobis cum coelestibus vel genus vel stirps appellari potest Itaque ex tot generibus nullum est animal prater hominem quod habeat notitiam aliquam Dei de ipsÃsque hominibus nullagens est neque tam immansueta neque tam fera quae non etiam si ignoret qualem habere Deum deceat tamen habendum sciat Ex quo efficitur illud ut is agnoscat Deum qui unde ortus sit quasi recordetur ac noscat By this he supposeth that there might be as it were a Prosemination of the Humane Fabrick by the Conversion of the Heavens and then the same were stored with Souls immediately produced by Almighty God Seneca following the received Opinion of the Vicissitudes of the Destruction of the inferior World by Floods and Conflagrations and the Restitutions thereof by the Power of God though he seems to admit Eternal Vicissitudes of such Making and Unmaking and Restitutions of the inferior World in the latter end of his third Book of Natural Questions before cited Sect. II. Cap. 9. speaking of the Destruction of the World by Universal Floods Qua ratione inquis eadem qua conflagratio futura est utrumque fit cum Deo visum ordiri meliora vetera finire aqua ignis terrenis dominantur ex his ortus ex his interitus And in the end of that Book Nec ea semper licentia undis erit sed peracto exitio generis humani extinctisque pariter feris in quarum homines ingenia transierant iterum aquas terra sorbebit natura pelagus stare aut intra terminos suos furere coget rejectus è nostris sedibus in sua secreta pelletur Oceanus antiquus ordo revocabitur omne ex integro animal generabitur dabitúrque terris homo inscius scelerum melioribus auspiciis natus sed illis quoque innocentia non durabit nisi dum novi sunt And with this seems to accord the Judgment of Plutarch 2. Symposiac quaest 3. and out of him Macrob. in 7. Saturnal cap. ult where in the dissertation of that seeming ludicrous Question Ovúmne prius an Gallina the Disputant for the latter concludes Natura primum singula animalia perfecta formavit deinde perpetuam legem dedit ut continuaretur propagatione successio And Plutarch Probabile est primum ortum ex terra temporis perfectione absolutum fuisse nihÃlque indigentem hujusmodi instrumentis receptaculis vasis qualia nunc ob imbecillitatem natura parat machinatur parientibus This was the Sentence and Judgment of the Stoical Philosophers touching the Origination of perfect Animals and Men. Upon all which foregoing Discourse it should seem That the generality of the Learned World rather supposed an Origination than an Eternity of Mankind and this upon two great Motives 1. A Tradition which seems generally to have been derived unto Mankind from the first Parents thereof and so generally believed and entertained 2. A great congruity of Reason that attended this Hypothesis and an extrication thereby of the Minds of considering Men from infinite difficulties which the Supposition of Eternal Generations doth necessarily produce I should now come to those Philosophers and Learned Men of later Ages Avicen Cardan Pomponatius Cisalpinus Berogardus and others which nevertheless I shall referr to the next Chapter to be examined to another purpose CAP. II. Touching the various Methods of the Origination of Mankind HItherto I have endeavoured to shew those Evidences both of Reason and of Fact which seem to assert the Origination of Mankind and I have concluded with that last in the two precedent Chapters namely The Opinion and Perswasion of the Unlearned and Learned part of Mankind that have supposed such an Origination of Mankind the weight or authority of which rests in the consideration of those Means whereby this Opinion or Perswasion hath been ingenerated in Mankind For the Opinions or Perswasions of Men concerning especially a Matter of Fact have their weight or authority in argumentation from that Principle or Motive of such a Perswasion and this I have reduced to one or both of these 1. Some Tradition that hath been derived and derived in probability from the first Parents of Mankind that best knew their own Inception which hath since accordingly prevailed almost in all Places and Ages 2. The congruity of such a Supposition to Reason and the Solution of those Difficulties which must needs arise from an Eternal Succession of Mankind And this Motive of this Perswasion though it began with the more thinking and considering sort of Mankind yet from them hath been insinuated and derived unto the rest of Mankind and by them entertained as consonant to the common Reason of Humane Nature I have laid the weight of my reasoning touching the
of that very Scripture which this Man in Complement at least seems to venerate might have remembred That the Tradition of the Universal Flood hath obtained in all places even among the Americans themselves and that the Race of Mankind was thereby destroyed except some few that were preserved That the most severe and observing Sect of the Philosophers namely the Stoicks have constantly held vicissitudes of Destructions of Mankind by successive Deluges and Conflagrations and a new Peopling of the World successively by the Power of God That Aristotle himself insinuates those great Vicissitudes especially of Deluges in those Periodical great Winters which he supposeth to have hapned and for the future to happen in this lower World But of this hereafter And although this Author in his 8 th Chapter of his 4 th Book gives us a computation of a declivity of 600 Perches from the Fountain of Danubius until its fall into the Pontus Euxinus and supposeth the highest Mountains of Armenia whereof Ararat where the Ark rested was the highest doth not exceed the perpendicular height of one Mile above the plain of the Earth and therefore that an excess of 15 Cubits above Ararat would not reach the Head of Danubius or at least the upper Plains of the Upper Asia yet he might have remembred That though it were admitted that usually the heights of most Mountains do not exceed a Mile in perpendicular height above their Basis yet many Mountains are situate in the more elevated parts of the Earth and have the advantage thereby of the height of their Basis and possibly it will be found that the Basis of the Mountains of Armenia is situate in higher ground than the Fountain of Danubius or Euphrates So that an excess of 15 Cubits above their height must in all probability cover the Plain of the Upper Asia Again he might have remembred that Egypt that from the Authority of the Fable of the Egyptian Priest is favoured by him with an immunity from Inundation lyes much lower than the Plains of Palestine yea than the Superficies of the Red Sea it self And therefore the Water that naturally keeps its level neither without a Miracle can lose it which overflowed the whole Continent of Palestine even to 15 Cubits above its highest Mountains must of necessity overflow Egypt which Aristotle by impregnable Evidences concludes to be one of the lowest Countries in the World and the very Production and Accretion of the Slime of Nilus so that if the Flood covered Palestine nothing but a Miracle could protect Egypt from it The Author of the Dissertation De Aetate Mundi cap. 12. though he reprehend the Praeadamitae and confutes the extravagancy of their Opinion yet he seems to mince the Universality of the Flood Nullum itaque relinquitur dubium quin unum tantum fuerit diluvium idque universale cujus apud omnes penè gentes extat memoria Verùm hîc minime probo eorum sententiam qui totum terrae globum it a aquis tectum fuisse existimant ut nulla prorsus extaret ejus portio ad hoc efficiendum multa debuissent concurrere miracula Cum enim universae orbis aquae non sufficiant ad obruendam tam altè terram etiamsi omnia maria siccentur debuissent vel plures aquae creari vel dicendum cum aliquibus istam aquarum molem ex aliis coeli orbibus decidisse demum finito diluvio ad sedes suas revolasse Verùm hoc est piè nugari Deus non facit miracula sine causa Quid opus erat mergere terras ubi nec olim fuere homines ac ne nunc quidem sunt Stultum est putare ante diluvium adeò multiplicatum fuisse genius hominum ut omnes terrae angulos pervaserit c. Ut verò diluvii inundationem ultra orbis habitati termines producamus nulla jubet ratio imo prorsus absurdum est dicere ubi nulla hominum sedes illic etiam viguisse effectus poenae solis hominibus inflictae This indeed salves the necessity of drowning America and the greatest part of the New habitable World when it extends the Flood no farther than there were Mankind inhabiting and confines those Habitations possibly within the Circle of Syria and Mesopotamia And so all the Brutes that possibly in their first Creation were produced sparsim through all the parts of the habitable World as well in America as Asia or Europe were safe and untouched and all those Birds and Fowl that were within 40 or 50 Miles of the Circulus diluvii might easily preserve themselves by flight out of the extent of it yea and the Brutes and Birds which were out of that supposed narrow extent of Syria and Mesopotamia where the Flood prevailed might easily refurnish the same Continent after the subsiding of the Flood without the wonderful and difficult including of their kinds within the Ark for their preservation which if this Supposition hold seems a needless Institution and Miracle by the wise God Gen. 7.1 Therefore I confess I am no way satisfied with this Gratification of that Author to the Prae-Adamitae For first although I take this Flood to be somewhat more than Natural and a thing instituted by the Will of God yet do I not esteem it a thing purely Supernatural or Miraculous neither do I suppose those Waters created de novo nor sent out of the Orbs of Heaven to drown the Earth I do not think the Face of the Earth and Waters were altogether the same before the Universal Deluge and after but possibly the Face of the Earth was more even than now it is the Seas possibly more dilate and extended and not so deep as now the Waters possibly more than now and in those respects more capable of diffusion over the dry Land For though there be many great variations in process of time in the Sea and Land yet it seems that ad plurimum the Seas grow deeper and eat lower into the Earth and consequently more dry Land is daily acquired and the Seas grow narrower and deeper Now to deliver this Supposition of an Universal Deluge from those difficulties and that necessity of multiplication of Miracles which that Author hath substituted we are to consider 1. That we are not to make our estimate of the quantity of Waters meerly by the Superficies of the Sea but by its vast depth which in some places is unfathomable and by those vast subterraneous Receptacles of Water which pour themselves out in several great Ebullitions and Marine Springs Neither is it altogether improbable that the Waters of the Sea naturally tending downward and being of a fluid searching consistency might in process of time have worked themselves even almost to the Center of the Earth and there residing in great and vast quantities and possibly have in a manner undermined much of the appearing Continent of the Earth so that that which the Prophet speaketh may be true literally Psal 24.2 He hath founded it upon