thereof was laid and the morning Stars sang c. And therefore when the Theory would put a difference in respect of time betwixt the foregoing 4 5 and 6 th Verses and those last set down so as to make the Questions in the former Verses proceed upon the Form and construction oâ— the first Earth and those in the latter upon the demolition of that Earth the opening of the Abyâ—s and the present state of both what it says is gratis diâ—tum and the distinction groundless Yea it seems not only to be applied without grounds but with force and violence for the Context intimates no such matter but rather the contrary It runs on in a direct series of Queries without giving the least hint that any of the Particulars touching which they are made were of later date than others And that the first set of them relate to things as ancient as the Primitive Earth's Production the Theory owns and therefore why should not the other too To which add when the Sea brake forth at the time of the disruption it could not be said to issue as out of a Womb so properly as out of its House where it had dwelt above Sixteen hundred Years for a Womb is the place where a thing is conceived and brought into being which before was not But these Waters were preexistent to the inclosure of the Abyss the Womb which held them yea against the order of Nature they were contributive to the being of it as they were the basis whereon the First Earth was built So that the place of the Abyss falls in but ill with the notion of a Womb in reference to these Waters And consequently they could as ill be said to issue from thence as out of a Womb. And then the Darkness at the Disruption was not so thick nor so much a garment or swadling band to the Sea as darkness was at the Creation Yea the truth is it could then be no garment or swadling band at all for the Sea but only for the Flood For by that time the tumultuary Waters of the Deluge were quietly retired into the decreed place and became a Sea the Sky was cleared up and the darkness gone Nor could it so properly be said to be shut up with Doors and to have Bars set upon it then as to be infranchized or set at liberty For those Doors and Bars which shut it up and made it fast in a closer state before the Disruption were then all broken down and thrown open for ever and it was put into a condition of far greater freedom than it formerly had its present settlement being perfectly a state of enlargement to it But now turn the words to the sense of the Old Hypothesis and besides that they keep time exactly with the Context how patly do they fall in with it For when on the First Day GOD together with the Earth made the Water of the Sea as it brake forth into being as if it had issued out of a Womb indeed because it just then gushed out of the Womb of nothing into Existence and as he then made the Cloud the garment thereof and thick darkness a swadling band for it in a fuller sense for darkness was then upon the face of the deep Gen. 1. 1. and that darkness for certain most thick there being then neither Sun nor Light so on the Third Day when he brake up Chanels for it he might well call them His decreed place and declare that he had beset it with Bars and Doors because by his command the Waters were gathered off the surface of the Earth where was their first and naturâ—â— situation and shut up in such Receptacles and with such a confinement as they would never have withdrawn into of themselves but would always have remained in their original diffusion over the whole Terrestrial Globe And that this shutting up of the Sea in its decreed place was a thing done in the beginning and not at the time of the Flood is evident Prov. 8. 29. where GOD's giving his Decree to the Sea that it should not pass his commandment and his appointing the foundations of the Earth are made to be Sâ—nchronals But from the last Verse of the Quotation Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther and here shall thy proud waves be stayed an objection is raised against the usual exposition of the Place For that sentence shews saith the Theory that it cannot be understood of the first disposiâ—ion of the Waters as they were before the Flood for their proud waves broke those bounds whatsoever they were when they overâ—lowed the Earth in the Deluge I answer If they did so yet that argues not but the words may speak the disposition of the Waters before the Flood according to the common interpretation of them for that Inundation was by GOD's special appointment And when he assigned to the Waters the place of their abode he did not intend to fortifie them in it against his own Omnipotence or to devest himself of his Sovereign Prerogative of calling them forth when he pleased And when they passed the bounds he set them so long as they did it not by any force of their own but meerly by his powerful order or providential act this their Eruption and spreading Overflow cannot be lookt upon as a breach of that Law or those Limits he prescribed them It was only the marvellous effect of an extraordinary Cause and a particular Exception of GOD's own making to the general and standing Rule of his Providence Just as Enoch's or Elijah's Translation was to the universal and irrevocable Sentence of Death That may be one answer in defence of the ancient Hypothesis But then to the Theorist I may give in this for another The proud Waves of the Sea did never pass their bounds to make the Deluge The great Deep or the Fountains then broken up had no relation to the Sea I confess this implies that the Flood is to be explained by a new Hypothesis but if we can but bring in such a one as may be as justifiable as the Theory's is which we shall endeavour to do we need not concern our selves farther about it The last place is Prov. 8. 27 28. When he prepared the Heavens I was there when he set a compass upon the face of the Deep when he established the Clouds above when he strengthned the fountains of the Abyss Whence is inferred So there was in the beginning of the World a Sphere Orb or Arch set round the Abyss which is presumed to be no other than the first habitable Earth But this is a sense far fetcht to serve the turn of an Hypothesis when there is a nearer at hand will do much better For by the Compass set upon the face of the Depth is meant no more than those bounds wherewith GOD encompassed not the Theory's Abyss but the open Waters The HOLY GHOST who is the best Interpreter of his own Writings expounds it so
loss they would have been at for Pâ—ey how could they have seen to direct their Motions having no manner of Light at any time to guide them So that upon occasion they must have râ—n at tilt upon one another and being inclosed between two Earths would have been in danger of stranding themselves both above and below Secondly It would have been a place as close as it was dark And therefore what shift should they have made for Air I think I may say for Breath For as for Whales and other Fishes that have Lungs Pliny says It is fully resolved by all Writers that they breathe And his Opinion it is That all Water-creatures do the same after their manner In proof of which he offers several Arguments not to be despised As their Panting Yawning Hearing Smelling c. To which add their Dying upon being frozen up for any time Or if they be alive their greedy flying to any little hole made in the Ice whereat the Air enters But in the Abyss they could have had neither Air nor Breath and so for lack of the same must all have been smothered Lastly It would have been a place as Cold as it was dark and close For the same Cover of Earth of unknown thickness that would have hindred Light and Air from piercing into the Abyss must have kept out the Suns cherishing and benign Warmth too So that could they have struggled with and overcome the two first Inconveniences yet here they would have met with a Third insuperable Could they have lived without Light and Breath yet they could not have multiplied without the Influence of Heaven The want of that would have chil'd and quench'd the desires of Procreation in them and rendered them impotent that way Thus Winter we see is no season for Production of Fishes as being destitute of that quickning power and encouragement which the Presence of the Sun affords 4. Farther yet That there were Seas in the Beginning even on the Third Day we are taught Gen. 1. 10. GOD called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas And why should they not be such Seas as we have now For we have no more grounds to think or say That the Waters there mentioned were an invisible potential or proleptic Sea than we have to imagine or affirm that the dry Land there spoken of was an invisible potential or proleptic Earth And that there were open Seas then may be argued from the Waters we read of under the firmament Gen. 1. 6 7. And GOD said Let there be a firmament in the midst of the Waters and let it divide the waters from the waters And GOD made the firmament and divided THE WATERS WHICH WERE VNDER THE FIRMAMENT from the waters which were above the Firmament But had there been none but River-waters in the first World and not such an open and huge Collection of Waters as we now see the Firmament could not so properly have been said to divide the waters from the waters For then it must rather have been in the midst betwixt the Earth and the Waters and so must have divided the Earth from the Waters the Earth which was under the Firmament from the Waters above it For as for the River-waters they would have been too inconsiderable to have had the Partition made by the Firmament predicated of them in exclusion of the Earth or in preference to it It would have been as if the KING should have said Let a Wall be built betwixt the Thames and the Conduits of London to part them without taking any notice at all of the City which is infinitely more remarkable than the Conduits are But therefore the Theory presents us with a new Notion of the Firmament and makes it to be quite another thing than what it has always been said to be namely That Cortex or Outward Region of Earth spread and founded upon the Abyss And so the Waters of the Abyss under that Earth must be the Waters under the Firmament I cite but two Paragraphs to this purpose Any one at the first view might be able to guess that this exterior frame which GOD establisht upon the Abyss is to be understood by that Firmament which GOD is said to have establisht between the Waters below and above Gen. 1. 6. 7. And again As to the Firmament between the waters it was a remarkable Phaenomenon of the first Earth or rather the first habitable Orb it self which every way encompassed and shut up the Abyss and so divided the Waters above from those below But this truly is so far from giving any satisfaction that it will rather bring the whole Hypothesis to confusion I mean while thus it runs against Scripture again and that most directly and shamefully For the Firmamentum interaqueum Firmament that divided the Waters was so far from being a Frame or an Orb of Earth or the first habitable Earth that as the DIVINEST SPIRIT tells us it was that wherein the Fowls were to fly which yet were to fly above the Earth Gen. 1. 20. Yea in that very Verse it is said to be the Firmament of Heaven And by GOD himself is stiled Heaven GOD called the Firmament Heaven ver 8. Even that very Firmament which divided the Waters as we learn from the two foregoing Verses And therefore the waters under the Firmament in the seventh Verse are said in the ninth Verse to be the waters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Heavens I confess the Theorist twits us for understanding by the Firmament what we commonly do calling it an Vnphilosophic thing But I forbear to retort It is enough to shew that the advantage lies so much on our side and that the ingenious Philosopher is so utterly lost in his Notion And since to make the Earth before the Flood to be this Firmament is so impossible as being manifestly repugnant to the Truth of GOD what remains but that it should be that diaphanous Expansum stretched out betwixt us and the Clouds which as it is constituted of Air chiefly so it is the place wherein Fowls do fly according as Providence was pleased to appoint And to seal up this for a certain truth it is known that the Hebrews have no other word whereby to express Air but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven or Firmament Only whereas this Aereous Expansion extends from hence to the cloudy Regions where are the Wates above the Firmament and therefore are called Waters above the Heavens we must note that there is another Firmament mention'd by Moses I mean that Expanse of indefinite vastness wherein the Celestial Lights are fixed for as we read Gen. 1. 17. GOD set them in the Firmament of Heaven But then this Aereous space we speak of being the true Firmament this proves there were open Seas at first Else as was said before this Firmament must have divided the Waters from the Earth whose
be more clear or express They prevailed fifteen Cubits and no more Fifteen Cubits upward that is upon the Earth Upon which they are said to prevail greatly and to prevail exceedingly in the two foregoing Verses that is upon the highest parts of its common surface And thus our Supposition stands supported by Divine Authority as being founded upon Scripture That tells us as plainly as it can speak that the Waters prevailed but fifteen Cubits upon the Earth The cited Text as a certain Plumb-line shows them to have been no deeper where the Earth bosoms out and is most prominent And so it puts an useful key into our hands to help us to unlock the mystery of the Deluge and to free the Doctrine of it from great difficulties and inconveniencies which have run Men it seems upon irrational and unintelligible means and methods of explaining it 4. Before we lay down any other Arguments in confirmation of the Hypothesis let us try if the light of Scripture which shows the Depth of the Flood so plainly will not also discover to us more clearly than yet has been done what those Fountains of the great Deep were which at the time of the Flood were cleaved or broken up And truly this it seems to do very notably giving us to understand that they were but certain Caverns Such Caverns I mean as were contained in Rocks and Mountains And so the breaking up of the Fountains of Tehom Rabbah or the great Deep which the Theory insists so much upon was no more than the breaking up of such Caverns This is evident from Psal. 78. 15. Where it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He clave the Rocks the Rock Rephidim and the Rock in Cadesh and gave them drink 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Abyssis magnis in the great Deeps That is he gave them that for drink which was in those great Deeps till he fetcht it out of them And what great Deeps could they be but great deep Caverns in the Rocks and the better to evince that the breaking open of the Fountains of the great deep Gen. 7. 11. and the cleaving of those Rocks in the Wilderness Psal. 78. 15. were in effect but the same thing the same Hebrew words are used in both places But though these Caverns be called Deeps we must not take them for profound places that went down into the Earth below the common surface of it on the contrary they were situate above it And therefore the Waters issuing out of them came running down So we find in the next verse of the same Psalm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He caused them to run down And Wisd. 11. 4. the Water is said to be given de petra altissima from a most high Rock And Gejerus upon that place in the 78 th Psalm does not only observe that GOD made the Waters to descend ex petra praeeminente out of a very high Rock but also notes the reason why he did so ut origo aquarum omnibus pateret that the source of the Waters might appear to all We cannot but remember likewise that this water is said 1 Cor. 10. 4. to follow the Israelites Which speaks it to have had a fall from an elevated Situation And indeed if it had not it could not so well have run along with their Camp perhaps to Cadesh where we next find them at a want for Water Though if the Rock in Rephidim did supply them all-a-long in their intermediate marches and stages we must needs conclude there were extraordinary accessions of Water into the great Deeps or Caverns of it out of which it flowed with so very plentiful and lasting Streams The least that can be imagined is That they were so framed as to draw abundance of Vapours into themselves which being dissolved in the Vaults within from thence gushed out in a continued Torrent Not unlike to the Waters in Tenariff which every day pour down from a most high mountain being generated I conceive of great store of Vapours which gather in some large hollownesses of the same and through secret passages ascend to its Top. For on it there stands a certain Tree continually covered with a Misty Cloud which every day melting at Noon discharges it self so copiously as to serve the whole Island on which there never yet fell a showre save that one which was forty days long I have set down the high situation of these Caverns or Fountains as forestalling an Objection that might thus be made If the great Deeps whose Waters help'd to raise the Flood were no other than Caverns the Waters they afforded would contribute nothing to that use for as soon as they had come out others would have run into their places immediately and so they had as good have kept in still But now these Caverns being of an eminent or raised site the Waters they yielded towards the Flood might help to swell it to its due pitch according as we have set it without any kind of danger or indeed possibility either of their own returning or of others running into their room In case it be urged that Caverns especially Caverns so high situate cannot properly be called great DEEPS I answer The HOLY GHOST has been pleased to give them that name and his authority is not to be disputed So we find him styling the Red Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Deep as big a name as can be given to the vastest profoundest Ocean now and a bigger than was given to the whole Mass of Waters at first it being called but the Deep simply which yet for a Sea was neither Great nor Deep Though those Caverns which were opened at the Flood might well be as Deep as they were Great measuring their Depths from above downward towards the surface of the Earth And whereas the Psalmist speaks of the great DEEPS as of many and Moses of the great DEEP as but of one this does not argue but the same thing might be meant by both For as in Scripture a Plural word is sometimes but of a Singular signification thus the Ark is said to rest upon the Mountains of Ararat when it could rest but upon one single Mountain so a Singular word does sometimes carry the force of a Plural one with it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Quail is put for the numberless multitude of them Exod. 16. 13. And therefore the different Numbers used by the Holy Writers in this Case need not set them at variance or imply that they intended different things And then tho' Moses speaks of the great Deep singularly as but of one yet he speaks of all the Fountains of that Deep as of many which makes the Expression somewhat more parallel to the Psalmist's great Deeps And then though the Psalmist puts the Substantive DEEPS in the Plural Number yet he puts GREAT the Adjective in the Singular and so goes as far to meet Moses as I may say as Moses comes to
come down so fast and in so great abundance as easily to have overpowered the thin Oily Scum on which they fell and being a little soaked in it and incorporate with it have weighed it down in Flakes to the bottom of the Waters upon the top of which it could no longer float as being overloaded with the heaviness of the imbodied Earth And truly the flowing of the Waters with a strong head now this way and their returning by and by with as much force the contrary way must needs put them into such restless agitations and cross commotions as would have much promoted the diving of the Flakes aforesaid Nor are we to measure the motion of the Chaotic Waters from the present great Seas For however they may be less discomposed by Tides yet nature then was in other circumstances according to the Theory than it is now and those Waters might be moved at another rate than these are For our present Earth was at that time all dispersed in the Air. And the thicker and fuller the Air was the stronger pressure would the Moon make upon that and that again upon the Superficies of the Waters and consequently the higher must the Tides rise and the more violent must they be And then the Theory makes another motion in the Chaotick Waters necessary namely A Defluxion of them from the Aequator towards the Sides or Poles of the liquid Globe in order to the forming it and consequently the Earth to be raised on it into an Oval Figure And this motion might create a new disturbance in that Element Yea not only so but it might moreover be fatal to the rise of the Earth For the watry Globe was to grow oblong by the slowing down of the Waters to the sides they are the words of the Theory and the disburthening the middle parts about the Aequator But then when these Waters did thus recede or discharge themselves from about the Aequator or middle of the Globe and flow down to the sides of it how easily might the Oily Matter have followed their course Yea perhaps how necessary was it for it to do so While the uppermost Waters thereabouts being most hurried and most at liberty would have fallen back and carried that away with them But then if the upper Waters thus drew off and the Oily substance slid away upon them what foundation could the Earth have had in those middle parts we speak of Especially if these Waters continued their course for any time as it was needful they should to bring about the effect mentioned For so vast a body of Waters as that of the Abyss could not by this means of a perfectly round be made into an oval or oblong Figure on a sudden 3. But in reference to this matter there is a Douâ—t made by the Theorist which must be considered and removed Otherwise most of what has been said touching the instability and fluctuation of these Waters will be vain and groundless The Doubt is Whether the Moon were then in our neighbourhood And truly I had almost said he might next have questioned whether the Sun were then in our Heaven there being in the Story of the Creation no better evidence for the one than for the other I confess the suggestion as wild as it is would have done the Arcadians a great kindness For they used to boast of what was always a Riddle and nonsense to the Wife their being more ancient than Iupiter and the Moon So says Ovid Ante Jovem Genitum Terras habuisse feruntur Arcades Lunâ Gens prior illa fuit But the service it might have done them as to this arrogant brag will by no means countervail that dammage which it does to the person who raises the Doubt For it involves him in the guilt of unhappy temerity towards the Holy Writings Yet the Theorist does not only start this Scruple but argues for it thus Her presence seems to have been less needful when there were no long Winter-nights nor the great Pool of the Sea to move or govern Too bold an affront to Scripture That says expresly That GOD made TWO great Lights and both upon the Fourth Day Gen. 1. 16. The Theorist suspects he made but One. And truly let him but allow Two to be made and the Moon of necessity must be come into our Neighbourhood because she alone could be a Great light in the neighbouring Heaven to make up the Sun Two There is no bringing any Star into the Number For though the smallest of them be a truer and greater Light than the Moon yet no one of them was ever a great Light in this lower World and GOD created more than Two such Besides Scripture says That when GOD made two great Lights he set them both of them both of them then on the same day in the Firmament of the Heaven to give light upon the Earth And must not both of them then be in our neighbourhood at that time And lastly It says That as GOD made the greater of these Lights to rule the Day so he made the lesser to rule the Night And when did the lesser begin to rule the Night Why just when the greater began to rule the Day For as to the Dates of those their respective Offices we find no difference Yet the Theorist declares That the presence of the Moon and consequently her rule then was not so needful because there were no long Winter-nights Whereas the Moon was no more made to shine only in long Winter-nights than the Sun was to shine only in long Summer-days And which is more as there were no long Winter-nights then so there were no short Summer ones neither So that set but the one against the other and the presence of the Moon may seem to have been as needful then in regard of the length of Nights as it is now Upon the whole matter therefore there are no good grounds for this piece of Scepticism And to what has been said concerning it we need add but this Whereas it is argued that there might be no Moon upon the account that there were no long Winter-nights nor great Pool of the Sea to move or govern we being assured that there was a Moon may much better invert the reason and retorting the force of the Argument conclude that there must be long Winter-nights and the great Pool of the Sea because that Planet was present to rule the one and also to move or govern the other Though Possibly the shutting her out of our neighbourhood might be warily done and with prospect of her malignant influence in the case before us namely That she might not incommode or hinder the rearing of the Earth upon the Waters of the Chaos For truly had she been so near a Neighbour at first as she is now she might have been an injurious one as to that Affair She might have kept those Waters in such Motions as would have dissipated their Oily Covering
and so have put by the Primitive Earth by marring the Basis whereon it should have stood Yet when all is said I would have this Exception lookt upon as propounded in way of Quaery Whether the unsettledness of the Chaotic Waters would not have hindred the Production of the first Earth rather than as a positively assertory Objection as if it must necessarily have done it 4. And here I cannot but remark the exceeding precariousness of the Theorist's Hypothesis in reference to the Chaos and the Formation of the Earth out of it For that that Mass which consisted of and was then first dissolved into the simplest elementary Bodies in the World should cast forth one Body I mean Liquor which in its purest na-natural state could contain so much Oiliness in it That this Oily matter should rise just when it did so as to be sit to receive the Earthly Particles in their fall out of the Air whereas had they come down sooner they had been drowned in the Water That this Oiliness should be of just such a quantity as was sufficient for use just enough that is to mix with those Particles and to make them into a good Soil whereas if it had been more it would have overflowed them and made the Earth useless as a greazy clod if less it would not have imbib'd them but they must have lien loose above in a fine and dry powder that would have rendred the Earth barren as an heap of Dust. That the Waters also should be of a due Proportion just sufficient that is to make a temporary Deluge and then to retire into the Deep and make a durable Sea whereas had there been much less the Earth upon its Disruption could not have been drowned and had there been much more it must have been quite swallowed up for ever That all these things should be thus is altogether precarious and not to be admitted but upon better evidence than on their behalf is given in For here any one will be of the Theorist's Judgment as he has declared it That things of moment such as he treats of are not to stand upon weak and tottering dubious and conjectural Grounds but to be founded upon SOME CLEAR AND INVINCIBLE EVIDENCE But then he who talks at this rate ought when he writes of such momentous things to make them out very clearly and evidently Else by what he says more in the same paragraph he proclaims himself guilty of a rash attempt even of tampering where he ought not to meddle and of striving to enter at that Door where GOD and Nature have both agreed to shut him out For did they think good to let him in it should be by such a way as is certain he tells us and wherein he should walk with the aforesaid evidence on his side Now this I say being his declared Judgment the Phaenomena's above-mentioned should have been more fully explained and made out and also more throughly confirmed and made good 5. But besides those there is another behind which if lookt into will not only be found as Precarious as any of the rest but also Vnphilosophical And that is The descent of the Terrestrial Particles out of the Air which constituted the Praediluvian Earth For of those particles the Theory will have that Earth to be made Which were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or kind of excrementitious Sediment that the Body of the Air threw out when it purified it self But that such a prodigious quantity of gross and feculent substance should then lodge in that part of the Chaos which was so light and volatile at the same time as to mount above other Bodies and also keep it self upon the wing and play in open places might justly be questioned For if such a vast deal of drossy stuff were mixed with the Aereal matter then whatever natural disposition through levity it might have to mount up that one would think should have so pinioned its Wings as to have kept it down at least from rising very high and have been so heavy a clog upon it as to have spoiled its playing in open places at least its playing up so far as the Moon Yet that the Theory allows it to have done so is evident For it supposeth them to have showred down not only from the middle Regions but from the whole capacity or extent of those vast spaces betwixt the Moon and us A supposition that is not only precarious but also seems I say to be somewhat Vnphilosophical For though upon the Theory's account it was necessary these Particles should fill such vast spaces that so the Air might be able to contain enough of them and also have room enough wherein to move and by motion to purge it self and cast them out yet how will the Phaenomenon fall in with a smooth Philosophic Explication For in short either the Bounds of the Chaos and the Sphaere of its gravity as I may call it did extend as high as the Moon or they did not If they did not how came these Particles there Especially in such plenty as to descend from thence in showers Yea how could they come down at all Let Philosophy make it out In case the Bounds of the Chaos and the Sphere of its gravity did reach so high as the Moon then why did not she come tumbling down with those Particles or rather sooner than they as being much heavier Let Philosophy give an account of that For I think we have proved she was then in our neighbourhood though it seems there might be more reason for that Doubt than we were at first aware of 6. And as this Assertion is not very consistent with Philosophy in it self so in the Consequence of it it is against Scripture That assures us That Light was the Product of the first day And as it was made then so it was made visible in these inferiour Regions But this could not be in case the Earth were formed according to The Theory the Air would have been so full of terrestrial Dregs For it then contained enough of such Dregs to compose an Earthly Orb of above one and twenty Thousand Miles in Perimeter and of a depth or thickness we know not how great And such unspeakable measures of Earth in the Air must needs fill it with darkness yea with such a spissitude and opacity as would utterly have spoiled the Pellucidness of it for a considerable height above the Chaos at least For the coarsest and heaviest of the floating Particles setling continually towards the Chaos and the nearer they approached it drawing still into a narrower compass by reason the spaces out of which they descended were much larger than those into which they gathered the mighty throng of them they being crowded together as close as their gravity could squeez them in their fall would have made a Ring of such darkness about the Chaos as would have been like to that which once plagued Egypt It would have been palpable
them were to be â—ound at the rate we have them And truly the perpetual absence of them must needs have made the Air more severely nipping in the Frigid Zones then than it is now Especially they being shot out so far from the Sun by virtue of the oblong figure of the first Earth For even as the Earth is now of a Globular make the Rains might have fallen in the Frigid Zones for ten Degrees latitude or six hundred Miles together and yet on the one side have been five Degrees distant from the Poles themselves and on the other side have been seventy five Degrees distant from the Sun in the Aequinox which is as far to half a Degree as he is ever remov'd from us But then if we add better than fourteen Degrees more to each Pole upon accompt of the Earth's Oâ—iformity the Rains must be removed a great way farther from the Sun still perhaps the whole fourteen Degrees into Climates most horridly cold and freezing And though there would have been constant Day about the very Poles yet in this Oval Earth there would have been as much Night in the presumed rainy Regions as in any other part of it whatever For so we may observe that those rays of the Sun which fell upon that Earth suppose at k and l whereabouts according to the Hydrographic Scheme in the Theory we may imagine the Rainy Regions were could not illighten the opposite side of it at m and n till such time as those points were turned to him which they could not be sooner than the point f where it must have been of the biggest circumference measuring it in way of Longitude Indeed it must be owned that it is not the Sun's distance in Winter which does only or chiefly make our Climate so cold but the oblique falling of his beams on the Earth So that instead of his retreating Southward forty seven Degrees the whole space between the Tropics were he at the time of his entring into Cancer when he is nearest to us but elevated directly as many Degrees or removed only perpendicularly from us our Winter if any would be very moderate because his beams would be reflected in the same Angles as before But his recession from us being in way of latitude or declination â—is Rays must fall the more obliquely upon the Earth From which kind of incidence it comes to pass that they rebound in obtuse Angles and the heat which should be caused by more direct reverberations is impaired As also many of his beams are reflected by the Atmosphaere another way and come not at us at all But then the Sun being farther distant from the rainy Regions in the praediluvian Earth his beams must have fallen more obliquely upon them still and so the cold must have been greater there because his influence was less And therefore what can be thought but that the Dewy Rains if any could have been in those parts should either in falling have been turned into Hails or if they fell in Water have been frozen into Ice And so instead of streaming along and refreshing the Earth they must have stood congeled into Mountains Especially if we consider that extremely cold hanging Mists must have always incircled those Regions above and so have shut out that sorry kind of influence which might have been derived from the so remote and feeble Sun It may a little inforce what has been said that all who have held with the Theorist the Torrid Zone was uninhabitable by reason of heat ever believed that the Frigid ones were so through extremity of cold as Aristotle Cicero Strabo Mela Pliny and others To which add That several Navigators attempting to find out a nearer course to China have been frozen to death Yet they failed nothing so far Northward as the rainy Regions in the Oval Earth must have lain Though without question they chose the most seasonable time for the Enterprize I mean when the Sun was on this side of the Aequator where now he may advance though he could not do so says the Theory before the Flood twenty three Degrees and an half which on Earth we reckon about fourteen hundred Miles Nor is what Mercator remembers touching Novâ— Zembla impertinent to the Case Here the Air is very sharp and the Cold most vehement and intolerable And again their Tents are covered with Whales skins the Cold being continually very sharp in these parts Their drink the Geographer goes on is warm blood of wild Beasts or else Ice water there are no Rivers or Springs because the violence of the Cold does so shut up the Earth that Springs of waters cannot break forth And where Rivers cannot flow out of the Earth for Forst surely they cannot fall down from Heaven Yet this Island is extended but form the Seventieth to the Seventy sixth Degree of Northern Latitude or thereabouts Speed also informs us that the Isles of Shetland in the Deucalidonian Sea are ever covered with Ice and Snow Yet Ptolomy placeth them but in the Sixty third Degree of Latitude which is a good way on this side of the Arctic Circle Heylin also says of Island that it is a damnable cold Country And Blaeu reports of the Frigid Zones Perpetuum istic horridumque est frigus There is perpetual and horrid Cold. Lastly the Theorist himself so far agrees with us as to own that the Frigid Zones in the first Earth were uninhabitable and that by reason of Cold as well as Moisture CHAP. VI. 1. Another Exception against the Hypothesis it would have drowned the world though Man had not sinned 2 Or though Mankind had been never so penitent 3. Which would have reflected upon Providence and imboldened the Atheist 1. WE are taught from above That GOD brought in the Flood upon the World of the VNGODLY That is it was a Judicial act of His and a just revenge which he took upon the impious They had grievously offended and provoked His MAJESTY by very great and epidemical Sins For as we read in the Sixth of Genesis the wickedness of Man was great and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and all flesh had corrupted his way before him Whereupon the HOLY GHOST speaking of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of Men declares that he was grieved at the heart to see this And such was the grief he conceived that He repented He made Man And so vehemently did He repent of making him that He resolved to destroy him again And not only him but most of his fellow creatures with him made in good measure for his use and benefit And not only them but the Earth it self in some sense which had been the scene of his vanity and unrighteousness And at length He decrees and proclaims aloud that the Instrument of this fearful general destruction should be a Deluge of water Gen. 6. 17. So that nothing can be more clear than that the Flood
and recompences of it being not so frequently dispensed and the Eternal ones not so fully revealed the Divine favour was more commonly measured and expressed to Men by temporal and outward Blessings and deliverances And therefore that He abhorred such inequitable Dealings he was pleased to evidence by the contrary Procedure For when He consumed that accursed Town he saved just Lot by the Ministery of Angels Nor could He endure that Nâ—ah should perish being righteous but took particular care for his wonderfull preservation when the whole World besides Him and his Family was drowned But then so much less reason there is to admit this Hypothesis for that it makes the Earth at first of such a Form and puts Nature into such a Frame as would have involv'd Mankind in most horrid Destruction And not only so but moreover makes Providence accessary to their Perdition yea the principal and sole Contriver of it by making the place of their Habitation a perfect Trap to vast multitudes of them whereby without a Miracle they must certainly have been taken and quite undone had they been never so pure or never so penitent Should it be suggested that GOD foresaw the impiety and incorrigibleness of Men and so in way of just judgment ordered Nature and timed the Earth's Dissolution accordingly this would give little satisfaction to the Atheist the silencing of whose Cavils the Theory seems to aim at For he would take it at best but for a smooth Evasion or a slim Subterfuge or for a sorry kind of Fetch to help the Hypothesis at a dead lift Nor need we doubt but a Lucian or an Hobbs would raise as considerable Objections against this New way of explaining the Flood as against the Old one And would insist as tenaciously upon that Particular now mentioned and cavil as much and as justly at it as at the difficulty or unsolvableness of any single Phaenomenon in the way of its usual Explication CHAP. VII 1. Saint Peter's words alledged in favour of the Hypothesis inapplicable to that Purpose 2. Wherein the stress of them seems to lie 3. Seven other Allegations out of Scripture of no Force 4. As being Figurative and so not Argumentative 5. Which Tycho Brache not minding it gave occasion to his Systeme 1. TO countenance the Formation and Structure of the Earth aforesaid the Ingenious Theorist has call'd in several Divine Authorities And it being attempted to authenticate the Hypothesis by Allegations of that nature it is but necessary that we take notice of them and show their invalidity The first is cited out of the Second Epistle of S. Peter and runs thus For this they are willingly ignorant of that by the Word of GOD the Heavens were of old and the Earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the World that then was being overâ—lowed with water perisht But the Heavens and the Earth that are now by the same word are kept in store reserv'd unto fire against the day of judgment Where it is thought the Apostle doth plainly intimate some difference that was between the Old World and our present World in their form or constitution by reason of which difference that was subject to perish by a deluge as this is subject to perish by conâ—lagration To wind his words into a favourable compliance with this sense some specious offers are made But instead of applying answers to each of them in Particular we may shorten our work by obviating them with one general Observation touching the Paragraph which is this There is a Clause in it that will by no means suffer it to be interpreted the Theorist's way Namely this they are willingly ignorant of And of what were they thus ignorant Why of the Nature of the first Heavens and Earth and of the alterations that befel them at the time of the Flood So we are assured The Apostle tells them that they are willingly ignorant of the first constitution of the Heavens and the Earth and of that change and dissolution which happen'd to them in the Deluge But if St. Peter meant these things I dare boldly say that his charge was too smart and heavy upon the Men yea false and unreasonable For though ignorant of the things they might well be yet how could they be WILLINGLY ignorant of them Must not that be hard to make out Let us try but as to one of the mentioned heads the FORM of the Earth By what means should they have come to the knowledge of that though they would never so fain have done it GOD had not reveled it nor had Man apprehended it And how then could their ignorance in the case be wilfull In what Books was this Form of the Earth recorded Or what lively Tokens or Monuments were there of it Whence should they have gathered it Or where should they have met with Intelligence concerning it To say that Hills and Valleys and Mountains and Rocks that the Clifts of the Sea and its Deeps and Chanels that the rugged and broken Surface of the Ground or any thing of that nature might have informed them of it would be but wild and extravagant talk For besides that these Scoffers whom the Apostle reproves had no reason to believe that the aforesaid Phaenomenaes were marks or Footsteps of a ruinated Earth so if by chance they had phansied them such they might still have been far from a right Idaea of its supposed primitive frame A man may view and review an heap of Rubbish which was once an house very long and often and yet be never the more able at last to pronounce what Model the Fabric was of In like manner the most curious Surveys and reiterated observations of things in that confused posture wherein the Earth presents them to the eye could never have led those the Apostle disputes against into a right apprehension of this its Figure which the Theory makes it of before the Flood Had there been fair Indications of such a Form why did they not direct Men into an earlier Discovery thereof For touching it we find not one word in Antiquity Yet Mountains and Rocks and the like Deformities in Nature as we are taught to think them were altogether as visible ever since the Deluge as they are now And when none of the most searching prying minds none of the most busy intelligent Speculators were ever so quick-sighted as to decry this Form of the Earth from the aforesaid imagined Irregularities or any other hints or Characters of it it was certainly a thing too obscure to fall under the notice of those Heretical Mockers deservedly reprehended by the HOLY GHOST But then how could He rebuke them for being wilfully ignorant of it it being so very dark a Mystery Even by the Theorist's own confession this Doctrine was always abstruse and such as the Wisest Philosophers did never hit upon They never knew of a Paradisiacal Earth themselves nor did they ever speak any thing of
it to others And when it was thus secret and hidden from all learned Men why should the HOLY SPIRIT I say tax these Scorners with wilfull ignorance for not understanding it Who however they might abound with conceited knowledge as the name Gnostics which they arrogated to themselves imports were but piâ—iful Sciolists The Theory also affirms that Paradise and the Vniversal Flood were by length of time and the changed face of nature so much obscured that if holy Story had not minded us of them we should not only not have known them but never have thought of them And if the Flood had been utterly buried out of mind and might never have come into the thoughts of Men if Scripture had not kept it in memory then what hope of understanding that it was occasioned by such a form or Fabric of the Earth as the Theory has invented unless the same Scripture minds us of that also But because it does not how could the Persons whom S. Peter reproves be wilfully ignorant of the Phaenomenon Wilfull Ignorance is that which GOD blames and which is really faulty upon our account which we carelessly rest in when we might come out of When Men might have means of knowledge but will not seek them or when they actually have them but will not use them but in the midst of proper helps to science sit down and chuse to acquiesce in Ignorance this is wilfull and affected But these were not the circumstances of those whom we find to have been Objects of the Apostolical Censure They were so far from standing fair for acquaintance with this structure of the Earth or from being in a probable way to the knowledge of it that they were next door to an utter impossibility of ever attaining it supposing it had been real For their Minds were set I may say with a contrary Biass and it was morally necessary that they should be drawn the other way For the whole World was of that Judgment it is of now and which these Mockers were of then and why should they differ from all people then alive or that ever lived It hath been generally thought or presum'd says the Theory that the World before the Flood was of the same Form or Constitution with the present World And how could they help swimming with the general Stream Yea which is more the Opinion was as Strong as it was general and stood very firmly in Mens apprehensions they thinking it built upon Scripture Grounds For that speaks of Seas created in the beginning and of Mountains covered with Water in the Deluge And all agreeing that the Seas mentioned by Moses were no other than those which are now extant and that the Mountains so covered were praeexistent to the Flood the present face of things which is presumed of good use to evince the Earth was of another Form once became a great Argument to perswade these Scorners that it was always of the Form which it now bears and a means to fix them in that Perswasion And when their condition was such as to be destitute of the knowledge of the Form of the Earth and the most likely means they had to help them to it would rather have run them upon the contrary belief and rivetted them fast in it there could be no reason why they should be charged with Wilfull ignorance of the thing And if they could not upon just grounds be charged with Wilfull ignorance of the Form of the Earth then neither with the like ignorance of the Constitution of the Heavens and of the Change and Dissolution that happened to either they being things as much in the dark and as far removed out of the way of their notice Let us but just point at each of them The whole Superficies of the Terrestrial Globe was entire and continued smooth and even regular and level No Lake nor Sea no Rock nor Island no Hill nor Dale was any where upon it But as the Earth was made of two distinct Orbs so betwixt its outward Orb of an Oval figure and that within was the great Body of the Waters lodg'd and shut up so close as to hold no commerce with the open Air. Such in gross was the Form and constitution of the first Earth The Sun piercing through the outward Orb of the Earth drew up chiefly about the Middle parts of it great quantities of Vapours out of the Abyss Which Vapours directing their Courses in the Air from the Aequinoctial to the Polar Regions they were there condensed into Rains to furnish the World with Rivers But these streams of Exhalations flowing continually through the Aereal Regions made them exceeding watry And such in general was the Form or Constitution of the Heavens The Sun moving always in the Aequinoctial the Earth grew extremely dry about the Aequator and full of Chaps which rendred it more weak and brittle in its exterior Orb. Which Orb being fill'd with Vapours within raised by the penetrating heat of the Sun was still more apt to be blown up and broken At length being able to hold no longer it flew in pieces and down it fell into the Deep beneath sinking till it rested on the Orb below Such in short was the Earth's Dissolution By the fall of that into the Waters under it they were forced violently to fly up aloft and surging and raging in a tumultuous manner the great and fatal Deluge was caused Hence also Seas and Lakes arose while the watry Element abating of its fury quietly retired into such hollownesses as were ready to receive it And whereas the external Orb of Earth was so much bigger than that within as to contain the whole Mass of Water in its Cavity and so could not possibly surround and sit close to the inward lesser one in an orbicular fashion about it but several of its parts in several places were fain to stand erect inclining c. these various Prominencies of different sizes shapes and situations made Mountains and Rocks of all sorts But the Outward Earth being thus dissolved and fallen as low into the Waters as it could it was no more liable to a general Flood but was certainly put past that danger for ever And thus Its Form and Constitution was altered Now the Sun also running a new course about the Earth by reason she had changed her old Position and the Abyss being disordered by the Disruption of the Earth and its falling into it Vapours could no longer be drawn out from thence as they used to be nor fill the Aereal channels with store of Exhalations And so they growing dry the watry Complexion of the Heavens perish'd and Their Constitution was changed also Such in brief so far as we are concern'd to note at present was the Form and Constitution of the Heavens and the Earth and such the changes they both underwent as the Theory teaches If therefore the Parties S. Peter reproves were blamed for not knowing the first constitution of
in being but only an Abyss Should it be answered that the Abyss is here called Seas by a Prolepsis I rejoin Those Seas must then be called Floods by another Proleâ—sis And so the advantage will be cast on our side For in respect of the present form of the Earth the words may be expounded most naturally without a Figure but in reference to the other form they must not only be strained up to a Figure but that Figure must be twice made use of And which is very considerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred Floods does signify Rivers and so the LXX and Vulgar do both render it And though that sense falls in most properly with the present form of the Earth as it is every where extended by Rivers yet it can by no means hold with its first form supposing it established upon the Abyss for in that allowing there were Floods there could be no Rivers As to the next place Psal. 136. 6. Who stretched out the Earth above the Waters We need say no more than has been said already It may as well be read juxta aquas by the waters as super aquas above the waters The Third plaâ—e is Psal. 33. 7. He gathered the waters of the Sea as in a Bagg He layeth up the Abysses in Storehouses Which says the Theory answers very fitly and naturally to the place and disposition of the Abyss which it had before the Deluge inclosed within the Vault of the Earth as in a Bagg or in a Store-house But I say it sutes the present form of the Earth as well as it does the first only this difference The Bagg and Stâ—re-houses supposed to be in the first Earth were shut but in this they are open Yea it sutes it much better upon two accounts For in the Earth as it is now there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many Treasuries or Storehouses of Waters according to the Text which has the word in the Plural Number Whereas in the first Earth there could be but one before the disruption And then the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred as in a Bâ—g should be rendred as on an heap as it is in the English The Theory indeed faults that Reddition as not making a true sense But in all likelihood our Translators were in the right for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly is an heap And though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a Bag yet as Buxtorf notes where it is written without Aleph it is not found in that signification but signifies an heap And so says Fagius and the same says Masius And therefore Schindler renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this very place tanquam â—umulum as an heap And so does Bithnor adding That whereas the Targum and LXX render it a Bag it was because they read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 coming of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 motion and so being quasi rei motae in unum congregatio the gathering of a thing moved into one he will have to signifie an heap And whereas the Theory alleges That the Vulgate Septuagint c. render the word in a Bag or by Terms equivalent yet granting that to be the only proper Reddition it would make nothing at all to the Theorist's purpose another place of Scripture plainly defeats it For Psal. 78. 13. we read in the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in the Vulgar statuit aquas quasi in utre He set the Waters as in a Bag. Which not only makes the forecited Clause of the 33. Psalm to be no manner of evidence of the Seas being inclosed at first but moreover makes it a Proof of the clean contrary For it speaks of the Red-Sea and says it was in a Bag as much as the fore-quoted Text can possibly be made to say that the Abyss or Proleptic Sea was so and yet at the same time it was not only open as other Seas are now but much more open than ever For it speaks of it at that very time when Israel passed through it as the same Verse testifies And whereas the Theorist notes that the Oriental Versions and Paraphrase render the word as he does in a Bag I may affirm that the Targum Syriac Arabic c. render it so in the place I have alleged But how little their Authorities will countenance his Exposition of the Psalmist's words which he cites and how little that Exposition will help his Hypothesis of the form of the Earth may appear from the Psalmist's words that I have cited Which if they had been considered might have damped that thought which concludes the Paragraph belonging to that place of Scripture we have now spoken to The thought is thus expressed by the Theory I think it cannot but be acknowledged that those Passages which we have instanced in are more fairly and aptly understood of the ancient form of the Sea or the Abyss as it was enclosed within the Earth than of the present form of it in an open Chanel But then that Passage in Psal. 78. 13. being parallel to Psal. 33. 7. so far as we are concerned in it must be acknowledged to be most fairly and aptly understood of the Red Seas being enclosed within the Earth when Moses and the Hebrews marched through it and could that be The next place is Iob 26. 7. He stretcheth out the North over the empty places and hangeth the Earth upon nothing The same is as true of the South also but the good Man living in this Hemisphere the North was the nearer and more obvious of the two And what could be morâ— agreeable to the present Earth For it having no visible sensible thing under it or about it to shoar it up or support it it may very well seem in common apprehension and be said in the vulgar way of speaking to be stretcht out upon emptiness and hanged upon nothing And so the Sun stood still upon Gibeon and the Moon in the Valley of Ajalon though the places were without the Tropic And however Iob in this Expression might accommodate himself to the ordinary Phancy and speech of Men while he represents the Earth as extended and pendent over an immense vacuity yet to cry quit with the Theory which makes an illiterate Apostle a profound Philosopher let me say in the truth of the Notion he was a perfect Platonist For in this matter whensoever he lived he fully agrees with Plato's Doctrine For he also conceived the Earth to â—e hanged upon nothing as having no other Prop to sustain it but it s own figure and equiponderancy by which it swims evenly in the Element about it In testimony of this and so of the mutual concent betwixt Iob and him let this Passage out of his Phaedo speak I am perswaded that if the Earth be but in the midst of the Heavens it needs not the air nor any other help of the like nature to keep
least tendency towards jetting out or flying off from the whole but by the Laws of gravity were all impregnated with the contrary determination a nitency inward or downward towards the Central Point And then Secondly It was Liquid also and so of a yielding temper or consistency Ready to give way to the lightest pressures and by a forward pliantness to fall into that Figure into which the circumâ—luent Air would fashion it For that Element alone or a thinner than that but by moving and gently gliding upon it might easily smooth it into perfect evenness provided it did but encompass it around and so was capable of slicking it by a general levigation And therefore Thirdly It swam in such a fluid Element as did so environ it grasping it on all sides with a soft compression So that during its fluitation in that surrounding and gently constringent Medium it could not but be of a truly Globular Form Which admitted the Primitive Earth must needs be so too and not Oval as being cast upon this Globous Mould But to this it is opposed That the Liquid Mass whereon the first Earth was built was not quiescent So it might yea it must have been truly spherical And the Theory it self owns as much I nothing doubt but amass of Water will naturally make it self into a spherical Figure about its own centre if so be it rests immovable and quiet But then it adds But in case it be turned swiftly about its Center by that agitation it will necessarily make it self oblong and become of a Figure somewhat Oval just as when Waters are pusht forward in a Vessel or in some part of a Sea or Lake are driven by a Wind toward the Shores we see the Waves stretch themselves out long-ways In answer to which let it be confessed That the Liquid Mass on which the Earth was raised was rolled about and that very swiftly upon its own Centre Yet that by vertue of its gyration it should be shaped into an Oval fashion was not at all necessary nor will the Instances brought in prove it was so there being no parity or just proportion betwixt the several Cases For for Waters to be forced an end by the external violence of Winds where the impression propelling them is superficial and their motion progressive is a different thing from their circumrotation in one entire Moles where they turn only with a natural and most even Course carrying the ambient body whereby they are â—ircumscribed and helpt to keep their Figure round along with them For thus we see that notwithstanding the Earth turns so swiftly that every point in its circumference under the Aequator moves at the rate of fifteen Degrees nine hundred Miles an hour yet the finest Sand upon the surface of the Earth or the lightest Dust upon the tops of the Mountains is never dissipated or disturbed in the least by this whisking circumvolution Whence we may gather the case being much the same that the whirling Globe of Water was so far from a necessity of growing oblong by its rotation that that very thing might contribute to preserving it in a Globular Forâ— But therefore let us hear what the Theory says further and more distinctly yet touching the Cause of the Oval Figure of that Mass of Water which was the basis of the primitive Earth It speaks it fully in these words Nor is the reason of this Figure obscure in a Globe of Water which is moved circularly for the Mass of Water being much more agitated under the Aequator than the Waters towards the Poles where it passed through lesser circles those parts which were most moved endeavouring to recede from the Centre of their motion when they could not quite spring up and fly away because of the Air which lay upon them on every side nor yet could fall back again as being checked and resisted by that Air they were unable so free themselves any other way than by flowing down to the sides for Waters being pent do flow that way where they find easiest passage and from that flowing down of the Waters to the sides and disburthening of the middle parts about the Aequator the Globe of Water might become somewhat oblong So that the Cause of the Oval Figure in the Chaotic Waters seems in short to be this Their discharging themselves defluendo ad latera by flowing down to the sides or Poles of the Globe upon their swelling or rising up by means of their rapid circular motion about the Aequator But granting the Waters did swell and rise thereabouts which yet would admit of dispute against this piece of the Theory's Hypothesis it may be thus excepted Either the Waters did flow down to the sides or Poles of the Globe till it became Oval or they did not If they did not flow down so long the Hypothesis fails and the watry Mass could never be Oval If they did flow down so long then they must flow down till they flowed down upwards Pardon the absurdity of the Expression the absurdity of the thing occasions it For the Polar parts of the watry Mass as it became Oval were the highest being most distant from the Centre And yet from the Aequator they did defluere ad latera flow down to the Sides or Poles Which that they might do it was absolutely necessary that the parts about the Aequator should be highest else the Waters in flowing to the Poles would have been so far from flowing down that contrary to their natures they must have risen up above their Source And yet as absolutely necessary again it was that the Polar parts should be highest at last otherwise the watry Mass could never have been made of an Oval Figure And yet if it were made into that Figure by the Waters flowing down as the Theory says from about the Aequator to the sides or Polar parts then a third thing will be as necessary as either of the two mentioned namely That the Waters as was said before should flow down upwards So that it is as unlikely that the Mass of Waters was ever of an Oval Form as it is unlikely that a Contradiction should be true or that the Element of Water should of it self perform a motion which is beyond its power by being above or against its nature I say of it self for however there might be violence that of the circular motion in making it to swell about the Aequator yet when once it was risen there it was left to it self as I may say all farther force was taken off it and it might follow the duct of its own Principles of Gravity and Fluidity And accordingly it is said by the Theory se liberare to free it self from that force which it suffered in receding from its Center or rising up under the Aequator defluendo by falling off or flowing down a proper expression of the true natural motion of Water But then if the place it fell or flowed to
was higher than that it fell or flowed from as in this case it must prove before the watry Globe by Defluxion of its Water could be made Oval it is evident that the Water by a natural motion or of it self did perform a course against its nature For when it flowed down or is said to do so and according to its own nature ought to have done so in reality and according to the reason of the thing it flowed up Nor indeed could it possibly do otherwise to produce the great effect pretended unless it were possible for an Oval body to be highest in its middle parts And then truly but upon no other terms the watry Globe might become oblong ex illo defluxu aquarum ad latera exoneratione partium mediarum from that flowing down of the Waters to the sides which the Theory mentions and the disburthening of the middle parts of it Now if the watry Mass upon which the ingenious Theorist founds the first Earth could not be made Oval in the way he has invented then neither could that Earth be of an Oval Figure it being bound to put on the same shape which the Water had 2. Very improbable it is also that the first Earth should be Oval considering its Position or Direction in its Annual Motion For that was such as could not well consist with its Oval Figure In it its Poles are said to have pointed always to the Poles of the Ecliptic and so it would have been directed not unlike to Ships swimming side-ways Now put a Ship which is an Oval body into the smoothest stream imaginable and lay it cross that stream and see how long it will keep in that Position Will it always hold it No nor for any considerable while but by degrees will quickly wind and fall in to swim long-ways with it and continue mostly in that posture as suiting best with its own shape and the course of the Waters And truly that an Oviform Earth should lie cross-ways in the aâ—thereal Chanel and be carried round the Sun for Sixteen hundred years together and not change its site in compliance with the tendency or stream of it seems very strange if not impossible Especially when that Earth was thin comparatively and hollow like a Shell and so more light and ready to verge or be drawn aside from its supposed primitive situation The Present Earth though generally allowed to be of a spherical Figure and also of a solid composure throughout unless at its Centre and likewise according to the French Philosophy to be held by a particular hand of Nature in its inclining posture which must be more easie to be kept by a round Earth in the Medium which carries it than a Right Position by an oblong one is yet subject to wallowings in its Annual Motion And how then can it be thought that the First Earth which was oblong and had not that hand to hold it steady could preserve its axis in a constant parallelism to the axis of the Ecliptic till the time of the Flood It would rather have turned end-ways in the Celestial Stream and have stood for the most part in that direction as best agreeing with its own Form and the vehicular Current wherein it floated And so its axis by force of the aethereal matter being wrought into a coincidence with the Plain of the Ecliptic and the Ecliptic like a Colure passing through its Poles while its Poles would have lookt East and West and its Diurnal revolutions have gone North and South it would have brought such a confusion into the Heavens and Earth at once as is not easie to be expressed 3. And that the First Earth was not Oval methinks may in some measure be gathered from the Roundness or Sphericalness of the Present Earth For this Terraqueous Body on which we dwell is of a Spherical Fashion So Anaximander thought and also Pythagoras Parmenides and others of old as well as all of later days And as much is fairly inferrible from several things As First From its Conical Shadow Which Figure Zeno almost Two thousand Years since noted the Shadow of the Earth to be of And a common Argument for the Proof of it is fetcht from the Moon For in whatever place she has at any time entered into an Eclipse or emerged out of the same and whatever part of the Earth during any of her Eclipses has been turned to her still it has been observed that the Shadow cast by the Earth upon her Discus was always Circular which argues the Earth it self to be Globular And that it is so may be inferred Secondly From the Place of the Waters For were it Oval they would not fail to retire out of the Seas near the Poles and running down towards the Aequator of the Earth which would be the lowest part of it settle themselves around it in the middle Regions thereof But instead of this we see the Waters are so far from drawing off from the Northern Seas about the Pole that they abound most and are deepest there nor do we know of any thing but vast and deep Waters about the South-Pole neither Whereas I say were the Earth Oval and so the Poles of it highest the Waters must necessarily have settled about the midst of the Earth there being the lowest place and so the properest for their Situation And so the Sea in Figure would have resembled an Hoop or as a liquid Zone would have encompassed the Earth and divided it into two Hemispheres in the same manner that some worthy Ancients conceived it did for want of better Skill in Geography Thirdly If the Earth were Oval Navigation towards the Poles beyond such a Latitude as bounds the Sphericity of the Earth would be extreamly difficult if not impossible For then in such a course Ships must steer up hill and climb as it were all the way they swim as sailing in a perfect ascent But where would be Winds strong enough to heave them up such watry steepness Or in case they had sufficient strength to do it yet would not the Vessels rather pitch into and run under the Waters that bear against them than drive up upon their rising surface And let but the blustring Gales which push them upward cease and would they not forthwith stop Yea immediately tack about and being left to themselves settle down towards the Aequator again But we hearing of no such difficult sailing up the Polar Seas nor such retiring of Ships down to the Aequinoctial ones have still more reason to believe that the Earth and Water make a True Globe And grant that these Arguments will not perfectly demonstrate the Earth to be Spherical yet they being of more force to prove it is so than any ever brought to prove it otherwise we have reason to acquiesce in the received Opinion 4. But to this it may be answered In case the Earth be Round or Spherical now this is no good evidence that it
up from under that Tract between them the ground must there sink down in proportion to â—ill up the emptied space beneath and so fall lower down than the rest of the Earth And for the same reason or others like it many places in the Sea may be exceeding deep and seem to go down into a perfect Abyss as it were or a bottomless profundity And we must note that though but only part of the Earth be Mountainous yet little or none of it is exactly level as being every where heaved up by the forementioned Causes more or less And therefore the smoothest Plains that appear to the eye to be very even are not really so Only this we may observe concerning them That when Horse-men travel over them the Ground being struck with the Feet of the Beasts yields a kind of Sound Which shews that the Earth in those Plains is much in that Posture into which the Sun and Vapours did at first raise it loose that is and porous and somewhat hollow Whereas amongst Hills and Dales it yields no such noise when beaten with such Tramplings And the reason is clear because it being â—lung up and fallen down and altered and transposed by eructations and sinkings it has so been driven closer and made more compact And then as to Maritime Hills or those near the Sea when the Ground was crushed down by the hand of OMNIPOTENCE to make a Receptacle for the Water it is easie to conceive how they should fly up at the sides of Seas or not far from them As also how Hills should be highest in those Countries about which Seas are deepest For the Ground in the adjacent or not far distant Seas being sunk very low and forced to give way very much it might well crowd out and thrust up a great height about the Shores or in the adjoyning Regions Nor is it to be thought that when so great a part of the surface of the Earth was pressed down that the Ground should struggle out at the Brinks of the Ocean only and in some considerable distance from the Shores much of it would recoil from under the compression in thâ— Sea it self and fly up irregularly in innumerable places where it could best do it And hence might come Banks in the Sea stretcht out as Mountains are on the Land to extraordinary lengths As also Rocks and Flats and Shelves without number Nor must this be omitted That all the Mountains of the Earth if raised according to this Conjecture will have no reason to hold proportion in bulk to the Cavity of the Ocean A thing which the common Hypothesis of their Formation implys and which lies as a main Objection against it For thus the In-land Mountains would not be made out of the Sea at all Nor would the whole quantity of Earth which at first filled up the Cavity of the Sea be cast out into the Maritime Hills but most of it be squeezed and forced down deeper into the bowels of the Earth Thus also Islands might be made to take a short step out of the way we are in I mean such as are not of the largest size whether they be distant from all Continents as the Canaries Azores Hesperides and others in the Atlantic Ocean or such as lie in whole Fries by the Main-lands-side as they do in several places of the World Though many of this latter sort might be raised out of Mud or Dirt descending in great plenty out of Rivers So were the Echinades in the Ionian Sea just before the mouth of the River Achelous Or else they might be made by the flowing of the Waters into the Sea when they were first drawn off the surface of the Earth For then they running furiously down into the Pit which Providence had fitted and appointed for them might wear away the ground about the Verge thereof and eating into its Superficies by the violence of their course might divide it into a multitude of little Apartments which afterward when the Sea was filled might be petty Islands about its Coasts as the Philippines for instance and others in the Oriental Seas which stand in whole Sholes even thousands of them together against China and India Whirlepools also by the same means might be made in the Sea as well as chanels for Rivers underground by land for the Earth being pressed down deep in some places and thereby forced to ascend in others kind of arched Vaults might so be formed Which leading out of one Sea or one part of a Sea into another the waters flowing through them cause those voragines or Gulfs at the top where they enter their subterraneous Pipes or Passages Many of which Gulfs are so strong that they suck in and swallow up whatever comes into them But to return we need no more wonder at the Greatness or Number of Mountains made in this method on the Earth than at the Granâ—â—losity or ruggedness in the rind of an Orange And as the Mountains in truth bear no more proportion to the Earth's Dimensions than those little pimples do to the fruit we speak of so they and In-land Mountains both may proceed from Causes not altogether unlike Though now those Causes as to the Earth are so debilitated and wasted that they are unable to produce the like Effects Particularly that slatuous Moisture wherewith at first it did abound and might be put into it on purpose to make it heave in general into necessary inequalities and in places to ascend into mighty Hills is spent and gone And we have no more reason to expect that the Earth should ordinarily send forth Mountains now than that a dead ripe Orange pluckt off the Tree should break out into such Wheals or Wens as we see upon some 5. One argument for Mountains in the first World is yet behind which shall end this Chapter There were METALS in the World And these as all know are now found at the Roots of Mountains And they being the places whence they are digged now it is a shrewd presumption they ever lodg'd in the same Indeed the very generating them in the exterior Region of the Earth does necessarily suppose cavities in it And Cavities under-ground do as necessarily infer inequalities above it And here the Theory will receive another wound perhaps an incurable one in its Hypothesis I mean where it makes the Antediluvian Earth all smooth and even without Mountains all solid to the Abyss without caves or holes But therefore to shun this great inconvenience it fairly consents to the abolishing of Metals out of the first state of Nature Some moreover add to what has been said that in the first nature there were no Minerals or Metals who according to our Hypothesis I think want not their Reasons But this is out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire For thus the Fidelity of Moses is assaulted and another intolerable affront put upon the HOLY GHOST For do not both inform us That the City Enoch
an abundance of Waters into it self and swells not with them For though the Stream of Volga which is thought to afford Waters enough in a Years time to drown the whole Earth continually discharges it self into the Caspian Sea it is never the fuller And therefore the Theory need not have instanced in that Sea as a distinct and separate Sea by it self Especially when it allows it to have communication with the Ocean by Subterraneous passages whereby it is really though not visibly joined to it and in some sense but one with it And then as for other Gulfs and Lakes that are distinct as to themselves and divided from the Ocean how inconsiderable are they in proportion to it But as so many Buckets-full to a large Pool Yet should the Waters run out of some huge Pool and settle together elsewhere as it might truly be said of them then that they are gathered together into one place though many Buckets-full should lodge in Plashes by the way so the Waters in general may rightly be affirmed by Mases to be gathered together into one place though a Multitude of small Receptacles and the Caspian larger than the rest remain apart 7. But a Third Objection is yet to be removed for I am willing to encounter all that are Material which is this If the Earth had Open Seas at first dividing it into Continents and Islands and interlacing and environing them as now they do how could the several parts thereof so separate be peopled with Men and stockt with Beasts Or to use the words of the Theory The propagating or conveying of Men and Animals into so many separate Worlds would be difficult to explain I answer First It is as difficult to make out how the Earth should be peopled before the Flood though the surface of it had been entire I mean upon account of that Torrid Zone which the Theory supposeth to have been in it Secondly Islands at first might be nothing so numerous as they are since But as many of them were founded as I may say after the Earth so many of them may be of later date than the Deluge Which factitious or upstart Isles came into being Three ways Some were produced of an abundance of Filth rolling down the Streams of Rivers and running into the Sea and settling there So were the Echinades spoken of before Concerning whose Production therefore Ovid makes the River out of which they came to speak thus Fluctus nosterque marisque Continuam deduxit humum pariterque revellit In totidem mediis quòd cernis Echinadas undis Others were thrust up in some Seas and appeared on a sudden Of this sort was Rhodos in the Carpathian Sea an hundred and twenty Miles in compass one of the ancient Academies of the Roman Monarchy Delos in the Archipelago one of the Fifty three Cyâ—lades Remarkable for the Temple of Apollo for most excellent Brass and for the Fountain Inopus which as Pliny affirms rises and falls as the Nile does and at the same times with it Alone hard by Cyzicum and betwen Lebedus and Teon Two Cities of Ionia Anaphe one of the Twelve Sporades I think or at least not far off them as lying near to Melos one of the chief of them Thera called also Calliste where Callimachus the Poet was born and whence they went who built Cyrene It appeared first in the fourth year of the hundred and thirty fifth Olympiad as Pliny relates and from it was the Ilet Therasia broken off Hiera the same with Automate which appeared about an hundred and thirty years after even in our time says the same Pliny upon the Eighth day before the Ides of July when M. Junius Syllanus and Lucius Balbus were Consuls Other Islands again have been made by Disjunction from the Main-land As some have been joined to Continents and become one with them as Aethusa in the Lybian Sea to Mundus Zephyria to Halicarnassus in Caria Narthecusa to Parthenius a Promontory of Arcadla Hybanda to Ionia and the like so some on the contrary have been ravished or rent away from the firm Land Thus Prochyta an Island in the Tuscan Sea was raised not far from Pâ—â—â—oli While a great Mountain in Inarime falling by an Earthquake poured forth that abundance of Earth of which it was composed And so it carries the account of its Original in its name as Delos also above mentioned does Cyprus a noted Island in the Mediterranean was divided from Syria says Pliny whence it is now distant at least an hundred Miles Sicily from Italy Euboea from Boeotia Besbycus from Bithynia And as some have thought Britain from France And truly if Syria and Cyprus which are now so remote from one another were once united this makes it the more probable that England and France might time out of mind have been joined by an Isthmus or neck of Land Thirdly It may be answered That as Islands at first were not so numerous so the bigger of them might not lie so far off from Continents as now they do the Earth being since much eaten away by Waters and so the distance betwixt them made much wider Or if they did lie so far from the Main-land yet the Inhabitants of such Lands might advance into the distant Isles by the help of some rude kind of Boats made of hollow Trees or the like Or if any were such out-liers as that they did not designedly make towards them or accidentally hit upon them we may without inconvenience grant them never to have been inhabited And so we read of that African Island St. Thomas in the Aâ—lantic Ocean under the Aequinoctial that at its first discovery though since the Flood it was unpeopled and had nothing in it but Woods Lastly I answer As to the grand Continents of the Earth Europe Africa and Asia which are three of them have known Inlets by Lands into one another And for ought we can tell there may be Inlets out of Asia into America in the Northern parts of them But however we are sure it is but a narrow Strait that separates the Kingdom of Anian from Tartary And who can say but that before the Flood and perhaps for a good while after it theâ—â— might be some Neck of Land coupling both together and affording an easie Passage out of the one into the other which may be since washt down or swallowed up For as the Earth does sometimes gain strangely upon the Water witness the City of Antioch to say nothing of Aegypt the Bay of Ambrasia the Flats of Teuthrania and the now Meadowy level where Maeander runs once belonging to Neptune's Empire which at first says Pliny stood upon the Sea coast but even in his time became an hundred and twenty five Miles distant from it so the Sea otherwhiles prevailes as much against the Land Thus the Atlantis a vast Continent bigger than Libya and all Asia says Plato by a terrible Earthquake lasting a day and a
meet him And lastly the Septuagint and Vulgar both do render the Psalmist's DEEPS in the Singular Number Deep as if it were no matter whether Number were used Should it be urged farther yet that no such Deeps or Caverns are found in the Earth now adays and therefore it may be questioned whether there ever were any or no It might be answered Though there are many of them yet they may be of no easie discovery as being inclosed with very thick Walls and shut up within vastest and highest Mountains or Rocks And truly so closely and strongly were they immur'd in the Prediluvian State that had not ALMIGHTY GOD broken them up by his own Power as he did those in Rephidim they might have continued entire and undiscerned to this very day Though when by Omnipotence these mighty Cisterns of Nature were let go and their Waters run out in a great measure no wonder at all that the sides of many of them should cave in making the Mountains or Rocks whereunto they belonged very rough and craggy and deformed things and scattering huge Stones and such heaps of Rubbish whereabouts they fell as might imitate the Ruines of a dissolved World and show not only the Scars of a broken-fac'd Earth but moreover as one would think the very Entrails of it strangely burst out and as it were torn and mangled all to pieces And as a little marvel it is again that the Crowns of several high Rocks and Hills sinking right down into the Caverns beneath them and being not able to fill them up should leave huge Pans on their Tops respectively While innumerable others yet that were broached and well nigh drawn off at the Flood have for many Ages stood dry and gaping and have been Dens for wild Beasts and sometimes Refuges and sometimes it may be Habitations for Men as being of very considerable Capacities Of this sort 't is like was that Cave in Engedi which was able to receive David and his Six hundred Men and for ought we know might have held as many more For these are said to remain in the sides of the Cave and were so well hidden that King Saul who was there at the same time perceived not one of them And that there were store of such Caves in Palestine into which in time of Invasion by Enemies c. the Inhabitants of the Country used to retire even by whole Villages or Towns at once is very well known Iosephus makes mention of some of these Caves in high Rocks and Mountains which being possessed by Robbers King Herod was fain to let down armed Souldiers an unspeakable depth into them in Chests with Iron Chains to fight the Wretches in those their Fastnesses Strabo likewise reports That towards Arabiae and Iturea there are steep Mountains famous for deep Caves one of which is able to receive Four thousand Men. Nor is it to be doubted but that in all rocky and mountainous Regions there are plenty of most capacious Caverns The Theory it self allows them to be more common in such places than elsewhere Should any go on to object That the Waters issuing out of these Caverns upon their Disruption would have made but a slender contribution towards raising the mighty Universal Deluge I answer First They contributed as much to that purpose as Divine Providence thought fit and necessary Secondly They increased the Waters which ran down the Mountains at the time of the Flood and so did service in hindring both Men and other Creatures from ascending those Mountains which might be the chief work they were designed to do Thirdly Scripture it self lays the main of the Flood upon the Rain-waters ascribing it mostly to them For so GOD declares Gen. 7. 4. Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the Earth forty days and forty nights and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from of the face of the Earth Where the great Deluge which was to destroy the then Animal World is owned as proceeding from the forty days Rain Intimating that the Waters of it were to rise mainly from them and as for those flowing out of the Fountains of the Deep they were not to be of equal quantity or use And indeed had they been so they would have swelled the Flood to too high a pitch And therefore though they made but the least part of that fatal Deluge yet so long as they did what was proper and needful and what the great GOD intended they should do that was sufficient If Lastly it be objected How could Waters come into these Caverns I answer By a very natural and easie way even the same way that Springs do now rise and flow out of Rocks and Mountains For great Mountains having great Caverns in them upon the account of their Origination as being heaved up by the force of that flatuous fermentive moisture turn'd into vapours wherewith the Earth at first abounded how easily would those Caverns be filled with vapours by the influence of the Sun and then those vapours condensed into Water by the coldness of those Caverns For what were the great Mountainous Caverns but as it were the Heads of vast Stills as much disposed by Nature to condense Vapours as the other are by Art Yea as cold Water or wet Cloths are applied to the Heads of artificial Stills to help forward their work So huge quantities of Snow which outwardly and continually cover the higher parts of some Mountains might have the like effect on Caverns within Now these Vapours being thus changed into Waters the Particles of that would certainly be too gross to sink down into the Earth again through the little Pores by which they ascended or were drawn up out of it So that unless it could find ways whereby to run forth and discharge it self at places in the nature of Springs there it was bound to stay till Providence should release it from its close imprisonment which it did miraculously at the time of the Flood by breaking up the Caverns or great Deeps that contain'd it and suffering a very great deal of it to run out So that still the great Deep Caverns of the Mountains may very well pass for the Fountains of Moses 's Tehom Rabbah And that which helps to encourage not to say and confirm the Notion is That no one of the several things which have been understood to be that great Deep can fill up the Character of it so fairly and at the same time answer the ends and uses of it in respect of the Deluge so fully as these Caverns Not the Open Sea for as it could not properly be broke open as being open already so the Waters of that were by no means sufficient to make such a Flood as Noah's has been all-a-long reputed Or in case they had been sufficient yet being drawn out of the Sea to drown the Earth what Waters should have filled the Sea again Or if it stood empty what should
have hindred the same Waters from running back into it Not the Waters in the Bowels of the Earth for if they were there in such plenty as 't is confest there is room enough for them as to have been able to have made a much greater Flood than Noah's yet then against their nature they must have risen above their Source and being so risen they must have stood so long as the Flood lasted in a miraculous opposition to their own nature inclining them to retire from whence they came Not the Supercelestial Waters for then the breaking up of the Fountains of the great Deep and the opening of the Windows of Heaven must be one and the same thing Whereas by Moses they are very plainly and carefully distinguisht Not the inclosed Abyss for then besides that the whole Hypothesis so improbable must be allowed the forty days Rain would have been utterly needless Because then the falling of the Earth into the Abyss being the breaking up of the Fountains of the great Deep it must have fallen in the very first day that Noah went into the Ark because on that very day all the Fountains of the great Deep were broken up Gen. 7. 11. And if by the Earth's falling into the Abyss the World were drowned the first day that Noah entered the Ark as of necessity it must have been if the Earth were dissolved and fell that day to what purpose should it after that rain for forty days together And whereas it is said Gen. 8. 2. That the Fountains of the Deep were stopped the Earth broken down into the Abyss was never made up again nor the Abyss it self covered but remains still as open as ever To which Particular Heads let me add but one more which has a kind of general Relation to them all If either the open Sea or the Waters within the Earth or the Waters above the Heavens or the Abyss under the Earth had been the great Deep meant by Mosâ—s none of them had any true or proper Fountains in them And so what will become of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Fountains of the great Deep But now supposing that the Caverns in the Mountains were this great Deep how surprizingly do all these things fall in with them For First They are called great Deeps by the HOLY GHOST as has been noted Psal. 78. Secondly They were capable of being cleaved or broke open as being fast shut up Thirdly They were able to afford a competent quantity of Water even as much as it was necessary they should yield Fourthly The Water that came forth of them could never return into them more Fifthly The breaking them up must be quite another thing than opening the Windows of Heaven Sixthly They might all be broke up the same day that Noah took into the Ark. Seventhly The Rain which fell in the forty days would still have been as needful as ever Eighthly They were stopped again as strictly and literally as they were broken up Lastly They were as true and distinct Fountains as any in the World So that if they were not the real Fountains of the Mosaic Tehom Rabbah one would think they might well have been so 5. But let us now pass as it is time we should to a Second Ground upon which we build the probability of our Hypothesis above specified namely That the Flood was but fifteen Cubits higher than the highest parts of the surface of the Earth And that Ground is this Supposing that to have been the true height of the Flood it will not only be possible but very easie to find Water enough for it without recourse to such Inventions as have been and justly may be disgustful not only to nice and squeamish but to the best and soundest Philosophic Judgments For thus in the First place we need not call in the Theory's assistance an Hypothesis how ingenious soever in the contrivance and contexture of it guilty of unjustifiable absurdities Nor Secondly need we fly to a New Creation of Water to gain a sufficient quantity of it An Expedient that sounds harshly in the Ears of many And that not only because they are of Opinion that GOD finisht the work of Creation in the first six days But because he has expresly declared That the true and only Causes of the Deluge were these Two The breaking up of all the Fountains of the great Deep and the opening of the Windows of Heaven To which may be added That the Creation of so vast a quantity of Water as should have surmounted the highest Hills would certainly have inferred either an enlargement of the whole Universe to receive it and so a Dislocation and consequently a disorder of its parts respectively or else a Penetration of the Dimensions of Bodies while so much new matter should have sprung into being more than ever existed and yet have been confined to the same space of aboad that was before fill'd up in its whole capacity Nor need we Thirdly to fetch Waters from the Supercelestial Regions Where if the Heavens be Fluid how could they have kept from falling down so long And if they be Solid how could they possibly have descended at last For in their descent they must have bored their way through several Orbs as hard as Crystal and how thick we know not Besides these Waters must have been lodg'd either below the Stars or above them If below them they would have hid them from our sight The Sun himself cannot be seen through a watry Cloud how much less the Stars through a watry Ocean Nor will it help to say the Element of Water above is more fine and transparent than the Waters below For were it as thin as an ordinary Mist still it would hide the Sun's Face from us though it might transmit his light In case they were plac'd above the Stars they must have been delug'd before the Earth could have been so as intercepting them in their fall Nor could they have slid off the Stars again dropping down to the Earth unless that were the Center of the Universe which is hard to prove yea most absurd to think Nor will it be necessary in the Fourth place to suppose the Mass of Air or greatest part of it was changed into Water to make the Deluge A change which some will by no means admit of as being not hitherto proved by Experiment Yet I cannot but own that the best Philosophers have thought it fecible and also believed it to be actually done The Egyptians conceived Manethus and Hecataeus both attest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Rains were made by the version of Air. Plato was of the same Opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Air being thickned and condensed made Clouds and Mists And so was Philo. For besides that he affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it varies and runs through all manner of mutations He says expresly in another Place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That Air being
it but hold it was consumed by Tempest Accidental Lightnings that is from Thunder-clouds above kindled subterraneous Fires about it the ground whereon that City was built being of a very bituminous substance But they who shall peruse the sad Story of the Calamity and well observe the special hand that GOD is noted to have in it and also seriously consider the solemn Dialogue betwixt HIM and Abraham about it and the wonderful deliverance of righteous Lot from it must certainly be of another Judgment than to think it proceeded from nothing but Lightnings in the Air and Sulphureousness in the Earth and that it was the simple effect of a meer natural Causality And truly that one expression The LORD rained upon Sodom Brimstone and Fire from the LORD out of Heaven does plainly intimate that it was Miraculous Others bear us in hand that there was nothing extraordinary in the destruction of Pharaoh and his mighty Army but that they were drowned by pure oversight and the common course of those famed Waters Entring the Bay that is when the Flood was withdrawn and the Waters at an Ebb they marched too far and carelessly continued too long therein even till the retired Sea returning upon them in an impetuous Tide swallowed up the King and his Host in an Instant A likely supposition when we are told expressly from the Mouth of GOD That he divided the Red Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Parts or Segments Psal. 136. 13. Where the Iewish Tradition is That the Sea was divided into Twelve Cuts according to the number of the Twelve Tribes and so every Tribe passed through the Channel in a Lane by it self But however that be nice and humorous as is their other conceit that seventy two Angels just assisted in the Miracle because the Nineteenth Twentieth and One and Twentieth Verses of the Fourteenth of Exodus do each of them contain so many Letters yet that the Red Sea was actually parted asunder is clear from GOD's Command to Moses at the Sixteenth Verse of that Chapter Lift thou up thy Rod and stâ—etch out thine hand over the Sea and DIVIDE it And accordingly it is said at the One and Twentieth Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Waters were DIVIDED So divided that as we read in the following Verse they were a Wall to them on their right hand and on their left Which expression to them that consider the situation of the Red Sea and the course of journeying the Israelites were then in does plainly discover that the Waters at their passing through them were perfectly divided Else they could not have had them on both hands of them at once at leaâ—t not as a Wall to them And that the Waters of that Sea were as much divided as Waters could be is farther manifest from what occurs in the Story of Israels passage over Iordan Where it is said That the Waters of that River which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap and those that came down towards the Sea of the Plain failed and were cut off Josh. 3. 16. So that if the Waters of the Red Sea were but â—erved thus they could not possibly be more really divided And that they were thus served is plain from the Testimony of the HOLY GHOST Iosh. 4. 23. The LORD your GOD dried up the Waters of Jordan from before you until ye were passed over as the LORD your GOD did to the Red Sea Nor is it improbable by the way that proud Chenâ—res that Egyptian Monarch who at last was overwhelmed with the Waters of this Sea might derive his obstinacy the occasion of his ruine from what we are now speaking of I mean from his setting Philosophy too high He might be strongly opinion'd that Moses's Works were no Wonders at all no more than what Nature her self could do if manag'd by Philosophers And then Iannes and Iambres and the Magical Crew Pharaoh's Philosophers pretending imitation of the Man of GOD by their Juggling Tricks might confirm the Tyrant in his mistaken thoughts and convince him that he made a right Judgment of things when he believed them to be of an ordinary strain and placed them to the Accounts of Nature and Philosophy Or if Moses in some matters out-did the Philosophers of the haughty King yet this he might conclude the result of his Breeding For knowing he was brought up in his Royal Court he could not but be sensible he had singular Advantages and in case he improved them as he had reason to think he did might well outstrip his notablest Antagonists upon the score of his Education And truly as Philo informs us That he attain'd to the top of Philosophy so Scripture assures us That he was Learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians Which Wisdom the same Philo gives a particular Account of in his life of Moses And therefore Pharaoh might justly take him to be morâ— skilful than any of his Philosophers and yet presume that the Works wherein he excell'd all his artful Men were not owing to Divine Power but to some knack he had of ordering Nature more dexterously than they could do And thus the prejudice once sprung up might be deeply rooted in the Prince's Mind And therefore though he felt as well as saw the mighty Prodigies for they were sorely afflictive as well as stupendious yet he stouted it out a long time against them Nor would he at last have buckled to release the Hebrews had not frightful Death shown it self on the Tragical Stage and also come up so near him as to strike his First-born and Heir apparent to the Crown And the same thing is attested by Origen of the Egyptians in general thus far That they did not look upon Moses as doing the strange things he did by power from above Thô says he they do not absolutely deny the Wonders wrought by Moses yet they declare they were done by delusion and not by Divine strength And the Sorcerers or Magi taught them as much says the learned Iew that wrote Moses his Life And therefore when his Rod was turned into a Serpent and the Multitude of Spectators among whom was the King himself and his Princes were struck at once with amazement â—nd fear insomuch that they fled the same Writer brings in the Sophisters and Magicians speaking thus Why are you affrighted we are not ignorant of such things but use the like Art our selves in publick Intimating they thought Moses wrought the Miracle by pure Legerdemain or Magical Craft wherein they were versed Which is also farther insinuated by that Proverbial Taunt wherewith they flouted the renowned Heroe as we find it in the Talmud Thou bringest Straw into Afra that being a place in Egypt where Straw abounded Meaning it was vain for him to play Hocus-Pocus Tricks or to practise Inchantment in a Land so stockt with the same already Nor can I pass by those sawcy Reflections that lewd Celsus makes in favour of
land and Seas it follows It was so When GOD said Let the Earth bring forth Grass c. it follows and the Earth brought forth Grass c. When GOD said Let the Waters bring forth abundantly it follows the Waters brought forth abundantly When God said Let the Earth bring forth the living creature after his king and Cattel c. it follows And GOD made the Beast of the Earth after his kind and Cattel c. And when the Divine and Omnipotent Fiat did all-along carry such energy with it as thus to produce other things as in the series of the Story can it in reason be thought to do less when GOD pronounced LET THERE BE LIGHTS To make this one Fiat differ in sense from the rest would be to depart from the Rules of a just Exposition Yet unless we force such a difference into it it must signify more than the bare appearance of lights upon the clearing up of the Chaos and the Sky that is it must signify those lights were just then created And this is farther evident thus in that GOD takes notice express notice of the use of these Luminaries and therein particularly provides for the conspicuity and Radiancy of them Let them be FOR lights in the firmament of the Heaven to GIVE LIGHT VPON THE EARTH So that when he said LET THERE BE LIGHTS if he did not mean more than their becoming conspicâ—ous and shining out upon the Earth the two expressions must be perfectly tautological And yet if he intended any thing else what could it be but their Creation at that time Especially when it follows hereupon And GOD made two great lights and the Stars also And therefore that the work of Creation which Moses treats of reaches farther than what belongs to the Earthly World and resulted from the Chaos is not to be doubted For he does not only mention the making of the Lights in the Firmament things as different from the terrestrial World as they are distant from the same but describes them as fully in reation to their uses and ends and so seems to handle them as profesâ—edly as any piece of the lower Creation whatever In case it be objected that the Stars give little light upon the Earth which is a thing Moses ascribes to the Luminaries in Heaven I answer If they served not so eminently to that use yet to the other he mentions they were very serviceable and indispensibly necessary For how could time have been measured out and divided into Years and Months as it was in the First World without their help especially if there were no Moon And so I demand in the Second place What does Moses mean by the Host of the Heavens being finished Thus THE HEAVENS were FINISHED and all the HOST of them If he meant only the Host of the Heavens belonging to the Earth what was the Host of those Heavens As for the Air it helped to constitute them to make the very Heavens themselves As for Clouds Rain Hail Snow and the like Meteors there could be none says the Theory As for the Moon it might not then be in the Earth's Neighbourhood As for that watry exhalation which abounded in the aereal Heaven it was but one single thing and so answers not the import of the Word HOST it being of a plural signification And what other Host should belong to these Heavens except the Fowls but then though in Scripture they be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Septuagint and in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fowls of Heaven yet I do not remember that they are any where called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the HOST of Heaven That phrase in Holy Writ does usually I think continually referr either to the Angels or else to the Lights of Heaven And of the latter of those at least it must here be understood But then none of these Luminaries being formed out of the Chaos and all of them but one placed in remote or superiour Heavens hence it is evident that the Story of the Creation is not to be restrained to the Terrestrial World For that Moses did not only speak of them but of their being created then is manifest from the words before us The HEAVENS and the EARTH were FINISHED and all the HOST of THEM where if by the Earth and its Host being FINISHED We are to understand their being CREATED at that time as we certainly must then are we bound to understand that the Heavens and their Host were so too because the same thing is equally predicated of both It may be worth the while also to remark that Passage in the 148. Psalm Where the inspired Man desiring that GOD might be glorified by means of the Celestial Luminaries crys out Praise ye him sun and moon praise him all ye stars For he commanded and they were created Whence it is evident that when GOD commanded Let there be lights this was not a command whereby they appeared only but whereby they were created and the Moon with the rest was then commanded into being I might also make a Third demand What is meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 breath of life which GOD breathed into Man No less than his very Soul So says Buxtorf and others the Hebrews by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understand the rational and immortal Soul and therefore they swear by it And when GOD created man did he not create this Soul of his And so did not the work of Creation which Moses writes of comprehend more than those parts of Nature which were made of the Earthly Chaos It may be not will Platonists say at least this instance is no good Proof of it For GOD might not create the Souls of Adam and Eve just then but send them down from a state of Preexistence But then not to ingage in a new Controversie I reply in short If the humane Souls came into their Bodies out of a state of Preexistence then when they descended they were either pure from sin or they were not If they were not pure then how did GOD create Man in his own Image Gen. 1. 27. Or how did he make Adam uâ—right Eccles. 7. 29. Where the Rectitude spoken of must be of a moral nature because as the Context shows it is opposed to moral obliquity or perverseness If they were pure how could the infinitely gracious BEING whose name and so his nature is MERCIFUL who delighteth in mercy and whose mercy is over all his works deal so unkindly with his own most dear and spotless creatures as to thrust them down or suffer them to fall out of a state of Aethereal light and happiness into a state of darkness and stupid silence out of which according to Platonism they must come to be incarnate and so slide into a condition more forlorn still Truly if the goodness and wisdom of Heaven so decreed
nearer to the first World that there were Mountains before the Deluge And such another piece of confused Forgery out of sacred Story corrupted occurs in Clemens Alexandrinus He took it out of Plato and it speaks of a Flood to come But then again when the GODS drown the Earth purging it with Waters the Herdmen and Shepherds shall be saved on the Mountains while they that are with us in Cities are carried by Torrents into the Sea And that this was a Fragment or lame kind of Excerption out of the Holy Oracles the Father himself signifies For he presently indites the Greek Philosophers of Pilfering and draws up this smart Charge against them That they were a Pack of ingrateful Thieves who filched 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief of their Opinions from Moses and the Prophets And if this Flood had not been greatly mistaken as to time and so the Story of it set with its face the wrong way it would have looked directly upon what we are asserting and given countenance to it For then the Flood here mentioned must have been that of Noah and the Mountains of refuge for the Herdmen and Shepherds must have been extant in the First World It is well known also that many of the Learned Ancients have taught that Paradise was situate upon high Mountains And according to that Doctrine there must be Mountains at the very first And however some eminent Writers are of Opinion That the Mountains were neither so many nor great before as since the Deluge yet none I think ever excluded them wholly till then And I durst appeal to the Theorist himself if ever he met with any that held the Earth was without an open Sea Yet as many as suppose such a Sea in Nature suppose Mountains too and â—tis necessary they should as himself confesseth The Consequence of which will be That no Authority is to be brought or heard against the being of Mountains before the Flood but such as is express against open Seas And then I presume we may search long enough before we find one I will only add that Traditional Story which is told of Adam namely how that after his Fall and when he repented of his sin he bewailed it for several hundreds of Years upon the Mountains of India Another plain intimation that there were Mountains in the beginning of the World 4. Nor is it hard to conceive how they should be made then as well in-land ones as others And that in such a way to humour Philosophy as Nature might have a considerable stroke in the Work For though it be not for us exactly to understand the manner of GOD's Proceedings in this Case whose ways in forming the Mountains as well as in other things are past finding out and for Men to offer at a clear and certain Explication of their Rise would be arrogant presumption as if the Nut-shell of their Phancy could contain the Ocean of the Divine Methods yet with humblest Adoration of the ALMIGHTY's Infinite Power and Wisdom and acknowledgment that he could and 't is like did produce them another way I will venture to guess he might do it thus But I only hint what it would require a large Discourse to make out and confirm in every Particular The Earth when it was first created lay under Water as the infallible Word informs us till the Third Day and on that Day the Waters were gathered into one place The Alveus that is or Hollow of the Sea being prepared by GOD's pressing down the Ground suppose lower there than it was in other places the Waters fell violently into that Cavity And as they were carried thither in a Natural Course while by the force of their Weight they rolled downward so they were help'd by a Power supernatural 't is like by the Influence of that Blessed SPIRIT who moved upon them when they were first brought forth Otherwise perhaps they could not have been so drained off the Earth in one Day as that the dry Land should have appeared Now the Earth by this Collection of the Waters into one place being freed from the load and pressure of them and laid open to the Sun the Moisture within it by the heat of his Beams might quickly be turned into Vapours And these Vapours being still increased by the continued rarefying warmth from above at length they wanted space wherein to expand or dilate themselves And at last not enduring the conâ—inements they felt by degrees heaved up the Earth above somewhat after the manner that Leaven does Dough when it is laid by a Fire but much more forcibly and unevenly And lifting it up thus in numberless places and in several Quantities and into various Figures Mountains were made of all shapes and sizes Thus we may conceive the In-land ones were produced which in some Countries were more and in some fewer in some bigger and in some lesser in some higher and in some lower in some again earlier and in some later according as the Nature of the Soil the Vapours under it and the Sun above it contributed and concurred to the raising of them And how a Ridge or Chain of Hills might be blown up at once as well as one single one how Mountains should be hollow at the Roots and in their higher parts and full of Caverns how in time they might be dried hardened and turned into Stone in a great measure how some of them through their weight and hollowness might break and fall and in their hideous Fragments and disorderly Postures represent the ruines of an Earth sunk into an Abyss and others might be eaten and worn away by Time and Weather especially by that Weather in time of the Flood and so become rough and craggy and surprizingly horrid and frightful things will be obvious or at least intelligible to thinking and Philosophic Minds And that Mountains might be brought forth thus at first or raised in the way we speak of will seem more likely still in case we consider how Hills oftentimes have been thrown up by Earthquakes where though the Causes were not the same they were very like them or analogous to them The Earth also at first was most disposed or liable to these Effects I mean to have Mountains made out of it For then the Soil being destin'd and prepar'd to be the common Seminium Seed-plat and Nursery â—f all sorts of Vegetables and of some living Creatures was soft and light and unctuous and so of a very yielding Nature The Pores of it also were then close shut up as having never been opened by Sun or Winds By which means the Vapours imprisoned in it having no manner of vent when they became strong enough by their daily increase might easily cast up huge quantities of Ground thereby to free themselves and get loose from under them Nor need we wonder that sometimes a Valley betwixt two Hills should be lower than the common surface of the Earth For the matter of those Hills being spewed
was built and the Ark prepared before the Flood But how cloud either be done without Iron Tools Some Barbarous people I have been told do strange Feats in way of Architecture by sharp stones But the Theory allows not so much as greater loose stones or rough Pâ—bbles in the primitive Earth So that if they had not Instruments of Iron the Men of that Age could never have compassed the Works aforesaid Yet all such Instruments are positively excluded by the Theory in these words Nor were there of old Instruments belonging to War or BVILDINGS Nor need we wonder there should not when there were no Materials whereof they could be made Nor could there be such Materials when the World afforded neither Mines nor Metals Nor could the World afford either of them when it was not possible the Earth should yield them And that it was not possible for the Earth to yield them the Theory again does implicitly affirm where it says that the first World was wholly artificial and that the furniture or provision of things which it had was not of such as were bred but of such as were made But the worst is still behind Tubal-Cain as Heaven assures us was an Instructer of every Artificer in Brass and Iron Gen. 4. 22. Yet the Theorist professeth and that in the second publication of his Hypothesis after he had time to consider well as for subterraneous things Metals and Minerals I believe they had none in the first Earth and the happier they no Gold nor Silver nor Courser Metalls But then how Tubal-Cain could learn his Trade himself and teach it unto others must be a Riddle too hard for Oedipus to untie Or else which is the very truth this Assertion of the Theory must be notoriously false and not only â—latly but loudly contradictory to the most express Word of the Infallible GOD. This alone should all that has been said besides fail is enough to blow up and finally to explode this New Hypothesis of the Earth's Formation I mean as it shews its great incongruity not only to Scripture but also to Philosophy For had the Earth been originally framed as that teacheth it was then grant there could have been a Metallic Region in that part of it under the Water yet that Metals or Matter for any one of them should ever have ascended through the Abyss into the upper Crust of the First Earth would have been utterly impossible And therefore that egregious Philosopher Des-Cartes makes this the reason why Metals are not found in all places of the Earth quia per aquas evehi non possunt because they cannot be carried or drawn up through the subterraneous Waters Princ. part 4. § 73. CHAP. XI 1. That there were open Seas before the Flood made evident from Scripture 2. Such Seas necessary then as Receptacles for Great Fishes 3. The Abyss being no fit place for them 4. A farther Confirmation of open Seas 5. An Objection against them answered 6. Another Objection answered 7. A Third answered 1. HE that from the Clifts about it or in sailing through it beholds and contemplates the Watry Ocean That views it so far as eyes and thoughts can reach in the stateliness of its Depth and wide Expansion That considers what vast and numberless Rivers it continually drinks up and yet is never the fuller for all these Accessions How far it extends its ceruleous Arms and how much it disgorges at Millions of Mouths and yet is never the emptier for all its profusions That sees its incessant and unwearied Motions and how it ebbs and flows with haughty and incontrollable Reciprocations That observes how it surges with every Wind and surlily swells upon every Storm and lifting up tumid scornful Waves foams as angry at its Disturbance That marks how it frets and rages in a Tempest and rolls it self up into liquid Mountains as if it thrâ—atned to mingle Floods with the Clouds or in a pang of Indignation to quâ—nch the Stars or wash down those Lights hanged out by Heaven He that gazeth on the spatious Seas or revolves such thoughts as these of it in his mind would be amazed to think that so immense an Element was once lockt up in a Vault under Ground and wonder where the Earth should have Cellerage to hold it He would scarce believe that so proud and strong and furious a Monster could be kept in Chains or was ever so tame as to be coop'd up contentedly in a subterraneous Cave He would hardly be perswaded that it could be made to hide its head in an hole beneath and to lie quiet and still in a nightsom Dungeon where for many Ages it never saw the Sun But how odd and uncoâ—th soever it may seem yet thus it was says this Hypothesis The same Primary Assertion of it that says The Exterior face of the first Earth was smooth and uniform without Mountains says also it was without a Sea All that prodigious Mass of Waters which Imagination as comprehensive as it is knows not well how to measure was once shut up in an invisible Cell and being clapt under Hatches lay incognito as long as the first World stood Not a Drop of it appeared all that while but what strained forth by evaporation or transpired through the Pores of the thick skin'd Earth when by the heat of the Sun it was put into a sweat As for the main Body of the Waters they lurked and hid themselves in a secret Groâ—â—o nor could they be brought to quit their latent Dwellings or to look forth of their close and dark Retirements till the Roof of their Lodgings fâ—ll in upon them and justled them out of their Mansions to make room for it self But against this there lies the usual Exception namely That it fights with the Holy Scripture For that informs us That when GOD made Adam he gave him Dominion over the fish of the Sea But according to this Assertion of the Theory Adam never saw the Sea nor one Fish in it all his life long though it lasted well nigh a thousand Years and so impossible it was that he should have or exercise such a Dominion And it is farther considerable That Adam's Dominion over the Sea was not only granted him by Patent from Heaven but moreover was part of GOD's Image which was stamped on him Whereinsoever the whole did consist this I say seems to have been part of the Impress For GOD said Let us make Man in our Image after our likeness and let him have dominion â—ver the fish of the sea Gen. 1. 26. And so to shut up the Sea within the Earth till the Flood is to deny to Men a part of that Empire wherewith their Maker was pleased to invest them and to deprive them of a piece of his glorious Image which he put upon them For none could share fully in the one or the other but they who lived after the general Deluge If it be said That Men
at length were made Lords of the Seas as soon that is as they were open and had power over the Fish therein and so the word spoken by their Creator was sufficiently verified and the Prerogative promised amply conferred I answer First The Divine Word was never made good to Adam nor was that high Prerogative bestowed on him Yet he being the Head of Mankind had reason to be instated in all the Privileges of Humane Nature which GOD annexed to it or settled upon it as such Secondly Adam's Off-spring as many as lived and died before the â—lood did no more partake of this Priviledge than he himself Thirdly The Rule or Dominion over Seas and Fish intended for Adam and his Posterity was immediately conveyed to them Even at the same time that Dominion was given to them over Fowle and Cattle and Creeping things And therefore we find it transferred by the same Act and in the very same form of Donation Only Dominion over the Sea was First mentioned which is no sign that it was Last to be attained The Royal Charter by which they claim and hold the Prerogative testifies as much it runs as followeth And GOD said Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the Sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth Gen. 1. 26. And again ver 28. have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth So that admit nothing of GOD's Similitude imprinted upon Man did consist in this Dominion yet let any judge whether GOD did not intend hereby to pass unto Men as full a Dominion over the Fish as over other Creatures As also whether they were presently to have and exercise this Dominion or to be suspended from it for above sixteen hundred Years That they had Dominion over the Fowl and over the Cattle and over the Creeping things from the beginning I dare say the Theorist himself will not deny And how then can he bar them from it over the Fish till after the Flood especially it being the first thing in order in the Sacred Grant Which Clause had they been kept from the benefit of it so long would not only have been quite eluded but miserably inverted For then insâ—ead of Mankindâ—s having Dominion over the Sea that would have had Dominion and a most Tyrannical one too over them Insomuch that the very first time they should have seen it it would have drowned them all even a whole World of them save eight Persons 2. And that there should be open Seas even from the Creation seems very necessary upon the Fishes account For when GOD gave them the Blessing of Multiplication endued them that is with Appetite of Generation and Power of Propagating their kinds respectively he commanded them to fill not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Deep or Abyss but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Waters in the SEAS And therefore Seas there must be in the beginning of things else Fishes could not have replenish'd them with their Breed And indeed some kind of Fishes there were that could be no where conveniently but in Seas as being too big for Rivers For on the same day that other Fishes were made GOD created huge Whales also passing the same Benediction upon them as he did upon those I confess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does signifie other Creatures as well as Whales but the word denoting them amongst the rest that will be enough for our purpose For Animals they were of so vast Dimensions that where could they harbour but in spacious Seas Aelian reckons up several sorts of them as the Leo Libella Pardalis Physalus Pristes and Maltha Which last he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Creature hard to be conquered To which he adds the Aries most mischievous and dangerous to be seen For when he appears a far off he troubles the Sea and makes it tempestuous But then he notes withal that these Fishes come not near to Shores or Shallows but keep constantly in the Deeps And the same Author remembers that Theocles speaks of Whales 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bigger than Galleys of three banks of Oars on a side And that Onesicritus and Orthagoras wrote of Whales about India half a Furlong long and of proportionable breadth and so very strong that oftentimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they puffed with their Snouts they would spout up the Water at such a rate that the unexperienced would take the Seas to be tossed with Whirl-winds Nor need we wonder at the excessive size of these Whales when Pliny gives account that King Iuba in Books sent to Claudius Caesar touching the History of Arabia makes mention of some that were six hundred Feet long and three hundred and sixty broad And the same Pliny speaks of Balaenae in the Indian Ocean as long as four Acres of Ground Mercator also in his Description of Island besides other huge Fishes tells of the Royder and hundred and thirty Ells long And of a great kind of Whale seldom seen like an Island for magnitude rather than a Fish As also of the Stantus Valur which when it shows it self seems an Island for bigness and overturns Ships with its Fins Now where could Fishes of such prodigious greatness move and multiply but in vast and open Seas Am I a Sea or a Whale said Iob. He put them together as having special Relation to one another And truly if in the beginning there were such monstrous Whales there must be Seas answerable to them And that the Whales at first created were as large as any we need not question For as it became the ALMIGHTY to send forth them in their full perfection as well as other Creatures so to convince us that he did so he bestowed the Epithet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon them calling them GREAT Whales Gen. 1. 21. So that could there have been Rivers or Lakes in the first Earth sutable to other Fishes yet these mighty ones would have been too big for them 3. What remains therefore but that the only place of aboad which according to this new Hypothesis can be allowed these Bulky Creatures though it does not allot it to them must be the subterraneous Abyss And then the Waters in that Abyss how improperly soever must be the Waters in the Seas wherein they were to live and multiply according to the Divine Blessing and appointment But that Abyss though of a meet capaciousness could by no means have been a fit Dwelling for them upon several accounts For First It would have been a place exceeding Dark full of perpetual and blackest Midnight Neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars could ever have lookt into it or darted so much as one bright Beam into the Pitchy Recesses of it So that besides the
surface bating a few Rivulets would have been entire under it but could not so properly have divided the Waters above the Firmament from the Waters under it because the Waters under the Firmament would have been in no united Body and of no join'd or continuous Superficies but to grant what the Theory supposeth dispersed in Rivers running on the Earth which would have been one huge unbroken Continent Yea and in a considerable Tract of Ground around this Earth there would not have been so much as one Rill of Water neither even according to the Theory it self allowing its Hydrography 5. But here we meet with Opposition upon several Accounts As first if Open Seas were the Waters under the Firmament in the primitive State of things then the Clouds must be the Waters above the Firmament But against this it is objected thus If nothing be understood by the Celestial Waters or Waters above the Firmament but the Clouds and the middle Region of the Air as it is at present methinks that was no such eminent and remarkable thing as to deserve a particular Commemoration by Moses in his six days work To which I take leave to answer That the Clouds how contemptible soever they may seem are no whit unworthy to be specified or remembred by that famous Writer in his Cosmopoeia or Story of the Worlds Creation And this will appear if we rightly consider but Two things concerning them Their Dimensions and their Vsefulness First Look to their Dimensions Who can tell what vast and mighty things they are To what length and breadth do they stretch out themselves and how do they cover whole Kingdoms at once with their shady Canopies And then they are of answerable thickness too So that interposing betwixt the Sun and us they oftentimes turn day into night almost by intercepting his light Which in the Holy Philosophy as an act of Providence is thus ascribed to GOD. With clouds he covereth the light and commandeth it by that which cometh betwixt Iob 36. 32. Sometimes they mount up and fly aloft as if they forgat or disdain'd the meanness of their Origin and scorn'd to be thought of earthly extraction Sometimes again they sink and stoop so low as if they repented of their former proud aspirings and did remorseful humble Penance for their high presumption And though I may not say they weep to expiate their arrogance or kiss the Earth with bedewed Cheeks in token of their Penitence yet they often prostrate in the Dust and sweep the very lowest grounds of all with their misty foggy trains One while they are spread thin and single over us another while they are doubled trebled and strangely pil'd up or whelm'd one upon another or else built with Stories as it were and made into several Concamerations And therefore they are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His that is GOD's Chambers Psal. 104. 3 13. Now they look like Ridges of Hills in our Horizon anon like a Row or Chain of Rocks and by and by they hang like pendulous Mountains or swim like floating Islands in the Aiery Ocean Here they pour down abundance of Rain and there as much Hail in one place they scatter Sleet in another deep Snow and that for many hundreds of Leagues together To say nothing of those glorious things the Rain-bow Parelia's Paraselenes c. Thunder also is from the Clouds And yet it is a thing so very considerable that GOD himself calls it his VOICE in the Psalms yea his Mighty VOICE and also his Glorious or Majestic VOICE So much Power and Glory and Majesty is there in it that it strikes awe and terror into the hearts of the best as well as of the greatest And certainly the righteous being bold as a Lion it was a greater sign of its Dreadfulness that a good Man's Heart should tremble and be moved out of its place at this VOICE of GOD's excellency Iob 37. than that the Roman Emperor should run under his Bed Thus the Clouds appear to be strangely capacious Vessels or Store-Houses rather of Meteor Provisions And yet which is admirable when they are never so large and never so thick never so full and never so heavy and as one would think should load the Air with inconceivable gravitation yet they do not fall down and crush us to pieces or bury us alive under Mountains of Ice No they bear up as lightly and drive on as swiftly through the yielding Sky as if they had no kind of weightiness in them And to whatsoever Philosophy may impute this as to their being always in Motion their being turgid with Vapours to the thickconsistency of the Air under them or the like the thing is really and greatly to be wondered at And therefore Pliny considering it was struck with Admiration and cry'd out as in a pang of rapture or surprize quid mirabilius aquis in coelo stantibus What is more wonderful than the Waters standing in the Air And well might he think it a marvellous Phaenomenon when the Ballancings of the Clouds are said by the ALMIGHTY to be his own works and not only so but the wondrous works of him as he is perfect in knowledge Job 37. 16. In which regard the Etymology of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heavens is not unfitly fetcht from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be astonish'd and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Waters Quòd stupendo modo aquae illic suspensae haereant Because Waters hang there in an astonishing manner says Buxtorf But why then should they be thought so despicable by the Theorist as to be unworthy of a particular commemoration by Moses They cannot be so if in the Second place we consider their Vsefulness They are so far from being wholly Superfluous or purely Ornamental things that they are highly beneficial or Vseful Three ways That is to say For the Earth For Mercy and For Correction The Distinction is Iob's and therefore so authentic that we need not scruple to go upon it First They are Vseful for the Earth As they contribute greatly to the Preservation of it to preserving it in a good and verdant State If the same Great GOD whose Powerful Goodness brought the World into being and fixt it in a Regular and Curious Order did not by a wise and gracious manutenency exerted chiefly in a well contrived Disposition and Concatenation of things linkt to one another by a continued Chain of just Connexion and dependence hold them fast together they would soon shatter and dissolve into saddest Confusion For though the Machin of the Universe be as august as it is immense yet were it not for the accurate Symmetry of its parts so skilfully fitted and connected amongst themselves and for the mutual support which one piece derives and affords to another by means of that necessary and elegant contexture which runs through the whole habit or Compages thereof it would immediately fall asunder and rush into an heap of irreparable Ruines
preterintentional and undesigned changes as we may call them is over-ruled by a power superior to her own and also joined with such Wisdom as orders her much better than she could do her self Lastly We may presume that this Person would certainly have all his Grounds to be watered That the one might be fruitful as well as the other and all of them recompence the impartial care with a general Fructification And here the Clouds are not at all defective but act their part in this necessary scene most unexceptionably For they spread out their melting dripping Wings even far and near and oblige the whole Earth where it needs not to say where it has no want with their most free and universal Disbursements And truly were it not for their Waters so copiously shed down on the Earth how miserable would the Condition of Mankind be But then when things are so well and happily ordered as that a blessing so needful is made so general and is every where so common and easie to be had what a bright beam of Conviction as to the Being of a DEITY darts forth and shines down from the blackest Clouds For who but the Great GOD could have stretcht out such Fountains in the Spatious Skies and for the needs of Men throughout the World have invented so adequate and incomparable Supplies Nor indeed are they Instruments of Common mercy only but vehicles oft times of Special secular Blessing and Prosperity to some Persons So it appears by Eliphaz's Advertisement who tells us That GOD giveth rain upon the earth and sâ—ndeth waters upon the fields to set up on high those that be low Iob 5. 10 11. Thus we have seen how beneficial Rain from the Clouds is as to the Earth In which respect when GOD pleases to send it 't is said to come for HIS Earth as above noted We have also seen how beneficial it is to Men in watering their Possessions and that in so singular a way as the wisest could never have projected a better In which regard it is said to come for mercy And so it does most signally not only as it fills Men with Temporal good things for the use of their Bodies but moreover as it is or may be a means of Spiritual Mercy to their Souls in ministring an Universal Argument to Mankind of the greatest Truth and most necessary to be believed of any in the World But then in the Third place to pursue and fill up the Holy Man's Distinction it is Vseful for Correction As GOD is infinitely Good in Himself so He alone is able to bring good out of evil That 's an Extract which none but the ALMIGHTY by a most Divine Chymistry peculiar to his MAJESTY is able to make And this he frequently does for those in whose pure Affections he dwells and rules All things work together for good to them that love GOD Rom. 8. 28. But then there is another piece of his Character as true That He will render recompence to his enemies and visit iniquities upon them that hate him And as he has numberless ways of doing this so he often effects it by changing things that are of necessary use into fatal influence Whereby he makes what is naâ—urally good for Men to be unto them judicially an occasion of falling Most evident is this in the Instance of Rain So needful is it that we cannot subsist without it Yet this very thing GOD turns when he pleases into an heavy Rod and by making it unseasonable or else excessive chasteneth his People sorely with it Yea he imploys it not only as a Rod to chastise his Servants but sometimes as a Sword to cut off his Adversaries and an Instrument of Vengeance to sweep away the ungodly in whole sholes or multitudes This was never so tragically apparent as in Noah's Flood when a great part of that generall destructive but deserved Blow which fell upon Mankind was given by this Weapon For by the Waters of Rain in conjunction with other Waters a period was put to the first sinful World by a very just though lamentable Catastrophe And when the Clouds and their Rains or the waters above the firmament were so very considerable in themselves and withal so very useful in way of Preservation to the Earth and in way of Mercy and Iudgment as reaching out GOD's favour and severity to the World Why should they not be worthy and highly worthy of Moses's notice in his Divine Cosmology The Holy Psalmist who we are sure spake by the same Spirit that Moses did looks upon the Clouds as mighty eminent and remarkable things For as he makes them to be GOD's Chariot Psal. 104. 3. So in another place he makes them notable Evidences of his Magnificence and Power His worship and strength is in the clouds 6. But against the Existence of open Seas at first it is farther objected thus Nor are the Waters gathered all into the same place for besides many salt Lakes and some gulfs of the Sea perhaps heretofore impervious the Caspian Sea which is of the same origin and antiquity with the great Ocean is far separate from it To take off which I answer That Moses does not say Let ALL the Waters be gathered into one place Though if he had the word ALL in Scripture is usually taken in a restrained sense to signifie but a Major part and so here it might have meant but the greater quantity of Waters To give Proof of this out of the Writings of Moses He tells us That ALL the servants of Pharaoh went up with Joseph to bury his Father Yet we cannot think that the Court was quite empty at that time and the King left wholly without Attendants And therefore ALL there must denote but a great many So he delivered it as a Law to Israel Three times in a year shall ALL thy males appear before the LORD thy GOD in the place which he shall chuse And yet we know that some of them at those times must be decrepit and some sick and some unclean and so unable to take such a Journey and unfit to make such an appearance And therefore by ALL here can be intended but many neither even as many as were capable of the performance or qualified for it And thus indeed ALL the Waters were gathered into one place That is the great quantity or main Body of them was so as they were incorporate and united in the Ocean Which whereever it diffuseth and insinuateth it self about the Earth is but one continued piece of Water and so fills one continued space with its huge moles I speak of a partial and sometimes a secret continuity for it is not always open visible and entire And that the Caspian Sea is a part of the great Sea and holds a secret commerce with it under ground as the dead Sea or Lake Asphaltites is presumed to do with the Mediterranean is clear from hence that it receives such
nostri mercatores peregrini referunt The large foundations of which huge mass are to be seen and it is called by the inhabitants of the Country the City of Cain as our Merchants and Strangers do report It is also avowed by Pomponius Mela to whom I give more credit in these things that the City of Jopa was built before the Flood over which Cephas was King whose name with his Brother Phineas together with the grounds and principles of their Religion was found graven upon certain Altars of Stone And it is not impossible that the ruines of the other City called Enoch by Annius might be seen though founded in the first Age. Solinus also witnesseth concerning Joppa that it was oppidum antiquissimum orbe toto utpote ante inundationem terrarum conditum the most ancient Town in the whole World as being built before the Flood upon the Earth Now if things were thus that is to say if a Pillar of Seth's erecting whereon was ingraved the rules of Science was standing after the Flood in the Country of Lycia If the City Enoch was so far from being ruined by the Deluge that it was not defaced If Ioppa was so far from being swallowed up or made an heap of Rubbish that the Altars in it were plainly discernible and standing in such order that the Inscriptions upon them were legible then most certainly the Earth's Dissolution and Fall into the Deep could not cause the Flood For them suppose that the Ground had fallen but a Mile or a Mile and a quarter downward which we must grant it did at least according to the heighth of the present Mountains set at ten Furlongs when carefully measured by Xenagoras of old and it would have given such a terrible jar or jounce as would have shattered the abovesaid Structures all down and laid them flat upon the Earth if not sunk them into it And that which would have made it more difficult for them to have continued standing was their Situation For Enoch is said to be built about the Mountains of Libanus But then about the Mountains the Waters would have been most irresistably violent had the Flood proceeded from the Earth's Dissolution So we are assured by the Theory The pressure of a great mass of Earth falling into the Abyss could not but impel the Water with so much strength as would carry it up to a great height in the Air and to the top of any thing that lay in its way any eminency or high fragment whatsoever and then rowling back again it would sweep down with it whatsoever it rusht upon Woods Buildings Living-creatures and carry them all headlong into the great Gulf. So that Enoch being situate about the Mountain Libanus the very force of the Waters alone perhaps might have born it down And then as to Ioppa I have some where read That it is oppidum monte situm too a Town situate on an Hill Or if it be not for certain it stands just upon the brink of the Mediterranean Sea and so could never have escaped being overturn'd For besides that it must have been shaken with the general fall of the Ground it was placed just where the mighty Fragment which dived into the Mediterranean or made the bottom of it was riven off and so at the time of its hideous splitting off the poor City must needs have suffered a very dismal Concussion And the like may be said in a good measure of the Pillar of Seth it standing not far from the Sea neither I know the very Being is questioned of Seth's Pillar c. But what some doubt others believe and having all Antiquity as the cited Historian says on our side we have ventured to put in this piece of Exception among others Valeat quantum valere potest 7. Lastly Had the Dissolution of the Earth been the Cause of the Deluge it would have made GOD's Covenant with Noah a very vain and trifling thing Soon after the Flood was dried up it pleased the great GOD to make an explicit and gracious Covenant with that Patriarch himself and his Children and in behalf of all Living Creatures then in being or afterward to exist that the World should be drown'd no more with such a general Deluge And this Covenant he was pleased to ratifie with a remarkable Sign that of the Rainbow which was to be a lasting token of remembrance to HIM as well as a Pledge of assurance to us So we find Gen. 9 from the 8 th verse to the 17 th And GOD spake unto Noah and to his sons with him saying And I behold I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you and with every living creature that is with you of the fowl of the cattle and of every beast of the earth with you from all that go out of the Ark to every beast of the earth And I will establish my covenant with you neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by thâ— waters of a flood neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth And GOD said This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature which is with you for perpetual generations I do set my bow in the cloud and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud And I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh And the bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the evelasting covenant between GOD and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth And GOD said unto Noah This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth Now if the Earth had been drowned the Theory's way what need of all this Then it had been but GOD's telling Noah how the Flood came and that would have made him and all his Posterity both sensible and secure enough at once that such another Flood could never happen Yea that scarce need to have been told him neither inasmuch as the thing would have been throughly apparent to them that lived in both the Worlds from the great changes they must have observed and so the Covenant would have been vain and useless Yea which is worse it would have been perfect Mockery and Collusion because then the Earth could not have been capable of or liable to such another Deluge So that GOD's covenanting not to drown it any more would have been as if he should have covenanted that a thing impossible should not be done that the Fire should not freeze or the Sun shine darkness For as neither Sun nor Fire can do such things so long
would have melted a great pace too and contributed to the dreadful Torrents we speak of And then the Waters of the Great Deep being no other as we suppose than such as flowed out of the Caverns of high Rocks and Mountains when the power of Heaven had broke them up these also would have augmented the mighty Deâ—luxions and made them more violent and irresistable And this was one main end of GOD's breaking up those Fountains even to increase the Downfals of Water off the Mountains and to make them so copious and fierce as that Men might not be able to ascend the Mountains And truly for them to have fled to the Mountains to be saved from the Flood down which such impetuous Streams came rolling and roaring in most hedious sort would have been like plunging themselves into the Sea to prevent drowning And truly if any Houses Towns or Cities stood so high upon Mountains as to be above the Water-mark of the Flood yet the aforesaid Downfals of Water would have ruined them all Or if any could have supported themselves by their great strength the Inhabitants would still have been drowned in them Which might be one main Reason why GOD appointed Noah to build an Ark and not an House or a Castle upon any high Mountains to save himself and such other Creatures as were to be preserved 7. A Fifth Objection may be drawn from the likelihood of some other Animals escaping the Flood That is such as lived within the Earth in the upper and undrowned parts of the Mountains For however they could not get up on the Hills or if they had been upon them could not have harboured there but must have been washed down into the common Gulf that swallow'd all yet having their aboad under ground and perhaps a good depth under it too they might be secure in their subterraneous Dwellings For though the Waters fell in great plenty and with as great violence yet shedding off the Mountains apace and hasting downward swiftly they could not soak so far into the Earth as to incommode much less destroy the Creatures there lodg'd and so well intrencht and fortified against them The Consequence would be no less than that Moses must faulter in what he relates That every living substance was destroyed Gen. 7. 23. I answer Where the Historian tells this that every living substance was destroyed he immediately puts a restriction or plain limitation upon it adding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was upon the face of the ground So that if any creatures were so deep under ground as to continue alive and safe notwithstanding the Deluge this would be no contradiction or repugnancy to the Inspired Writer For still every living substance might be destroyed which was upon the face of the Ground and that was as much as he affirmed Lest that Answer should not satisfie let me put in another The Waters falling so plentifully and violently on the Mountains where they could not soak in and drown the Creatures earthed in them by their continued beating and running upon the Ground for forty days together they did either so settle it that it squeezed them to death or else so stop up the pores of it that they were smothered 8. A Sixth Objection may be taken from the Quantity of Waters as like to exceed very much some may imagine even so as to surmount our supposed limit For they that issued from the Fountains of the Great Deeps joined with those that fell in the forty days must needs have raised a Flood much higher than fifteen Cubits above the Plain of the Earth But the answer says No. For besides the huge deal of Water which the Earth drank up especially in its sandy Regions before its thirst could be quenched and the vast deal that sank into its invisible hollownesses before they could be filled and the abundance that was absorpt by its numberless pits and capacious valleys before they could be replenisht and the Water brought to a level And besides how much it then took up to raise the Flood one Cubit around the Globe as well upon the Sea as dry Land and how much more to raise a second Cubit than the first the higher circumference being still the larger and how much more to raise a third Cubit than the Second and so on till the fifteen Cubits were full Besides all this I say the Rains by which the Deluge was chiâ—fly caused might not descend at any extraordinary rate of violence For however about the Mountains they might be monstrous and intolerable yet every where else they might be quite otherwise and the immensity and destructiveness of the Waters they raised may be imputed to the generality and duration of them rather than to their excessive greatness We are told indeed Gen. 7. 11. That the cataracts or windows of heaven were opened Yet that might betoken nothing extraordinary in the Rains save their continuance For Mal. 3. 10. GOD promiseth his People as a signal mercy to open 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the cataracts or windows of heaven for them And what does the Expression there import Why no more than that he would send such moderate Rains as should make their grounds fruitful So says Lyra GOD opened the Cataracts of Heaven by giving rains and dews convenient to make the ground fruitful And if the opening of the cataracts of heaven implys but an ordinary descent or moderate downfal of gentle fructifying Rains and Dews then notwithstanding these Cataracts were opened at the Flood the Rains might then in most places distill with a wonted gentleness and moderation Which granted there would be no danger of their swelling the Flood above that height to which our Supposition limits it And though according to Marsennus's account forty days Rain might raise the Waters an hundred and fifty Feet yet who can tell whether the Rains fell so fast in those forty days as they did at the time and place when and where he made his Experiment and Calculation Others I am sure are of the mind and Osiander for one that they were only sufficient to set the Ark afloat And they quote that Passage for it Gen. 7. 17. The flood was forty days upon the Earth and the waters increased and bare up the Ark and it was lifted up above the Earth 9. A Seventh Objection may be made from the Raven which Noah sent out of the Ark Gen. 8. 7. It is there said That that Raven went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth Whence some conclude That he was forced to return into the Ark again and again still as he went out because by reason of the Waters there was no convenient place of abode for him abroad And consequently they infer That the Waters which were so high then could not but cover the tops of the Mountains when they were at their full height To this it might be answered First That if the Raven did return this does
not argue that the Waters were then at such a mighty height and so that they had been higher than the loftiest Hills because it is said That he went to and fro that is to and from the Ark as our Objectors would have it until the waters were dried up So that his returning was not occasioned by the excess of Waters not suffering him to remain at large nor does it prove them to have been so excessive as they would make them For even when they were abated and so abated that the tops of the Mountains were seen ver 5. where he might have had both rest and prey still according to the Hebrew Phrase he was going and returning from and to the Ark. Yea he continued to do thus all-a-long even untill the waters were dried up from off the earth Which makes it plain that as the excess of the Waters could not be the cause of his returning to the Ark so his continual returning could not argue the Waters to be so excessive inasmuch as he never ceased returning till the Waters were quite dried up But Secondly I answer The Raven in likelihood returned not at all And therefore the Vulgar is positive in the case egrediebatur non revertebatur he went out and did not return And so is the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Bochart says That if the Negation be taken out of the Original Text there will be no sense in it And therefore he thinks that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 putting the Future Tense for the Praeterperfect And then the Raven for certain did never return to Noah And the Arabian Proverb intimates as much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he stays as long as Noah 's Crow To which the Latin one is near akin Corvus nuncius Or Corvum misimus So that the Objection against us will at last be a piece of an Argument for us So far that is as the Raven 's not coming home again after he was sent out shows the Waters were low and that he had Food enough to live upon and Room enough to fly up and down in from place to place which might be that going and returning of his mentioned ver 7. Indeed the Dove which was sent out after found no rest for the sole of her foot and therefore she returned to Noah into the ark verse 9. And no wonder For though the Waters were much abated yet still they were on the face of the whole earth covering its Superficies in most places And the Dove being a more nice and tender Creature than the Crow might want proper Food and a warm Roost and for the sake of these be glad to fly back to the Ark where it had found both And therefore the second time that it was sent forth it returned not till the evening that is till the coolness of the approaching night made it sensible of the want of a convenient Lodging And for the same reasons especially it being a tamish Bird it might perhaps have come back to Noah when he sent it out last only the Earth and Air being now grown more dry and warm and pleasant probably it was tempted to fly so far from the Ark as not to be able to find the way to it again Yet it s not returning might be really to Noah what he took it to be a sign that the Waters were dried up 10. An Eighth Objection may be the Danger the Ark would have been in of being stav'd or wrackt For if during the Flood the tops of the great Hills had been all above Water how easily might the Ark have run aground and have been broken and shattered all to pieces It may be answered thus The great Deluge from the Beginning to the End of it was in great measure a miraculous work Yea even where GOD was pleased to make Nature his Instrument He took her as I may say into his own hand and wielded her by his own Omnipotent Arm and so inabled her to do what in her own way and by her own strength she could never have effected Look into the inspired Story and what a great deal of miracle shall we see in the very Praelusories or preparatives to that mighty Inundation Thus as GOD preacquainted the Patriarch Noah with his design of bringing it in so he ordered him to build an Ark against it came to save himself and his Family from that fearful ruine which was to attend it He directed him of what Timber to make it and of what Dimensions how to frame it without and to fashion it within and the whole Vessel seems to have been all of his wise contriving Such Creatures also as were to be kept alive for future propagation he appointed Noah to admit into this Ark inclining them at the same time to come in their several species and offer themselves to him For as the Father says Noah did not catch them and put them in but when they came and went in he suffered them to do so And thus much he will have signified Gen. 6. 20. Two of every sort shall come unto thee Non scilicet hominis actu sed Dei nutu Not by the diligence of man that is to say but by the disposition of GOD. And as he injoined Noah to receive these Animals into the Ark and harbour them there so likewise to provide sustenance for them instructing him as to the quality and quantity of the same So says the same Father What wonder if that wise and righteous man who also was divinely taught what was agreâ—able to every creature did procure and lay up sutable nourishment to every kind And to the end he might have all in a due readiness against the time GOD gave him a weeks notice just before the irruption of the fatal Waters Gen. 7. 4. And lastly when the good Man and his Relatives entred the Ark whose Cargo was such as no single Ship nor the mightiest Fleet could ever boast of though the Sea it navigated was as wonderful as its Lading the LORD himself is said to shut them in Gen. 7. 16. That is by the Ministry of his Holy Angels And when the ALMIGHTY was thus miraculously ingag'd in ordering the Preparatives to the Flood we may be sure it was no less concern'd in bringing in the Flood it self And therefore GOD openly proclaims it to be his own Fact and challenges and appropriates it to himself alone as peculiarly belonging to his Providential Efficience Gen. 6. 17. and 7. 4. And St. Peter expresly declares That GOD brought in the flood upon the world 2 Pet. 2. 5. Where upon view of the Context it will appear that the Apostle makes the bringing in of the Flood to be as much GOD's Work as ever it was to cast the sinning Angels down to Hell to save Noah to burn Sodom or to deliver Lot all which were undeniably immediate and miraculous Acts of his And truly that the Windows of Heaven should be
the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he created and make it do service upon their authority For some of them bear us in hand that it denotes Creation in a rigorous sense that is the making of a thing out of nothing Agreeable to which is the holy Writer's notion of Creation where he says that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear Meaning as we read elsewhere that they were made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of nothing Which apply to the making of the Earth as we very well may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the SPIRIT 's word concerning it and it could not possibly be made out of a Sun or Star as the new philosophy would have it For then say those Doctors a more proper word should have express'd its production viz 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imports the making of a thing out of praeexistent matter Some slight ground for this seems to be laid in Scripture and that in Moses's Cosmopoeia too For it is said Gen. 2. 3. That GOD rested from all his work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he Created to make Where unless we allow a distinct signification to the two words implying that he made some things out of nothing and others out of prepared matter we must charge the HOLY GHOST with indecent Tautology Though if we consider again that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used promiscuously to express GOD's making of things ex praejacente materia out of extant matter as well as out of nothing and that in the very story of the Creation we may well suspect that there was too much niceness in the Masters rather than such respective significations to be strictly and continually appropriated to the words Only as many as did thus criticize have thereby fairly given their suffrage for that truth which we contend for That when GOD created the Earth according to Moses's narrative he educ'd it directly out of nothing And so it cannot have a fire at the Center of it because it issu'd forth into being in Des-Cartes's way 8. Being unawares fallen upon that expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he created to make in reverence to the Seventy I cannot but take one short step out of the way to vindicate their translation of it They render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he began to make As if the work of Creation had not then been consummate But that could not be their meaning For whereas we read in the beginning of the Chapter the Heavens and the Earth and all the Host of them were finished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they were compleated They could only mean therefore that GOD rested from all his work which at any time in the six precedent days He had BEGVN to make And so their sense is sound and true though they keep not close to the â—â—teral strictness of the Original And that they thought the Creation was wholly perfected before the seventh day is apparent from that liberty they took in translating the beginning of the second verse of the same Chapter which perhaps is more culpable For whereas the Hebrew says GOD had ended his work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the seventh day departing quite from the proper signification of the word they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the sixth day As if they feared they should offend by stretching the work of Creation too far in case they had turned it GOD had ended his work on the seventh day Here was more than abundans cautela too much caution used Especially if Aben Ezra's Maxime be authentic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The finishing of a work or consummation of it is not the work it self I have noted this the rather as containing in it a full consent with what has been said touching the Creation's being perfected in Six days For it makes it evident that the LXX Interpreters were throughly perswaded of this Truth And not only so but forward to assert and resolved to maintain it even to an over acted care and blameable Scrupulosity 9. And here it will not be amiss to reflect a little upon one notion of the Theory 's which countenances the late production of the Earth or its rising long after the World was made perhaps out of a Sun or Star as the Scheme in the English Theory before the Title Page plainly insinuates And that is The limiting of Moses's Story of the Creation to this lower World to the Earth that is to say and the Aereal Heavens and such things as were formed out of the Chaos Thus in one place it confines it First that must be noted that Moses did not describe the first production of matter and the rise of the universal World but the formation of our World that is of our Earth and our Heaven out of their Chaos And presently after But the Subject of Moses's Genesis is the Chaos and that most confus'd and Earthly and the things made out of this Chaos and related to it as a center those properly belong to the Mosaic World And by and by We may not surmise therefore that when we and our World was made entire nature must needs be made at the same time And then again Certain it is that Moses's World does not comprehend all the Regions of the Vniverse nor all the orders of things but those parts of Nature which could be made of the Earthly Chaos But then to say nothing of Light or the Vehicle of it neither of which were made out of the Chaos let me ask What did GOD mean when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LET THERE BE LIGHTS I do not ask what those Lights were that 's evident enough Nor where they were placed for they were far above the Aiery Heaven and so in the sense of the Theory could not belong to the Earthly World But the question is What ALMIGHTY GOD intended by LET THERE BE LIGHTS The Theory hints the meaning and effect thereof to be no more than that those heavenly parts of the Universe were then first made conspicuous or began to illighten the Earth and declares it demonstrable That Moses is so to be understood as he has limited him But then I must continue the enquiry What does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LET THERE BE signify in other places of the same Chapter where it occurrs so often why it infallibly implys the production of those things to which it does respectively relate It imports God's commanding or willing their existence and their immediate emergency into being in obedience to his powerful Will or Mandate This is obvious even to slightest notice Thus when GOD said Let there be light it follows immediately and there was Light When GOD said Let there be a firmament it follows and GOD made a Firmament When GOD said Let the waters be gathered together into one place that so there might be dry