instituted and statuminated Nature is his Law and his Institution and the connexion of natural Effects to their natural Causes is his Institution his Law his Order And therefore we do neither deny a Law of Nature or a connexion between natural Causes and Effects but that which we justly blame in these Men that pretend themselves to be the great Priests of Nature and admirers and adorers of it is 1. That they do not sufficiently consider and observe that this which they and we call Nature and the Law of Nature and the Power of Nature is no other but the wise instituted Law of the most wise powerful and intelligent Being as really and truly as an Edict of Trajan or Justinian was a Law of Trajan or Justinian Sic parvis magna and 2. That they do not warily distinguish between that first Law in rebus constituendis and this second Law of Nature in rebus constitutis but inconsiderately misapply that Law and Rule and Method which is ordinary and regular constituted and fitted and accommodate to Nature already setled as if the same were and ought to be necessarily the Rule and Law in the first formation and setling of things which is an Errour that proceeds from the over-much fixing of our Minds to that which in the present course of things is obvious to Sense and not adverting that the first Constitution and Order of things is not in Reason or Nature manageable by such a Law which is most excellently adequated and proportioned to things fully setled Therefore besides that Law which the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness hath fixed in Nature fully statuminated we must also suppose a Law and Order of the Divine Wisdom not rigorously bound either to second Causes or present stated Methods in the first production of things And this the due Consideration of the different nature of the state of things in fieri and in facto esse will easily perswade that the most wise God that hath established a fixed regular ordinary Law in things already setled which he rarely departs from yet used another kind of order namely the regiment of his own Will and Wisdom and if I may with humility speak it a dictatorian power more accommodate to the first production of things And thus much for the comparison between the Mosaical and Philosophical Theories touching things and the great advantage and preference of the former as most suitable to the true nature state and reason of things And now I draw towards a conclusion of this long Discourse and shall therefore in the last place give an account of those Consectaries Consequences and Corollaries which are evidently deducible from this Consideration of the Origination of Mankind by the immediate Efficiency of this Supreme Intelligent Being Almighty God and indeed principally for the sake of these Consequences and Corollaries hath all been written that precedes in this Book and it is the Scope End and Use of the whole Book which I shall absolve in the next Chapter CAP. VII A Collection of certain evident and profitable Consequences from this Consideration That the first Individuals of Humane Nature had their Original from a Great Powerful Wise Intelligent Being I Now come to that upon which I had my Eye from the first Line that was written touching this Subject namely the Consequences and Illations that arise from this great Truth contained in these Conclusions 1. That Mankind had an Original of his Being ex non genitis 2. That this Origination of Mankind was neither casual nor meerly natural 3. That the Efficient of Man's Origination was and is an Intelligent Efficient of an incomparable Wisdom and Power First therefore we have here a most evident sensible and clear conviction of a Deity and a confirmation of Natural Religion which consists principally in the acknowledging of Almighty God to be a most perfect Eternal Being of infinite Wisdom Goodness and Power and a due habitude of Mind Life and Practice arising from that Principle It hath been commonly observed that the particular or instituted Religions since the Creation have had their Proofs by Miracles which were as it were the Credentials to subdue the Minds of Men to assent to it Thus the instituted Religion of the Jews given by the hand of Moses was confirmed by the great Miracles done by God by the hand of Moses in Egypt and in the Wilderness and the Christian Religion had its Confirmation by the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles who did wonderful things beyond the reach and power of created Agents or Activities which were therefore Miracles such as were governing of the Winds and Seas healing of the Sick by a touch or word raising the Dead c. But it is farther said That Almighty God never used Miracles to evidence the truth of his own Existence Power Wisdom Goodness or for the establishing of Natural Religion or the confuting of Atheism But I take it that there are really as many Miracles for the evincing of the truth of Natural Religion viz. the Existing of Almighty God as there are Works in Nature For although it be a great truth that the Laws of Nature as the Positions of the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies their Motion Light Influence Regularity Position propagation of Vegetables Animals Men and the whole Oeconomy of the Universe is by the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness setled in a regular course so that now we call things Natural and Works and Laws and Order of Nature and being so setled and fixed cease to be Miracles yet in their first Institution and Constitution they were all or many Miracles Works exceeding the activity of any created or natural power and accordingly ought to be valued and really are so and it is nothing else but their commonness and our inadvertence and gross negligence that hinders the actual estimate of them as great and wonderful Miracles As I have often said if at this moment all the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies should cease or there should be a general stop of the Propagation of Animals Vegetables or Men if Mens Reason should generally fail them and for the most part they should become like Brutes if the Light of the Sun were darkned or the great Luminous or Planetary Bodies should bulge and fall foul one upon the other or that disorder or confusion should generally fall upon the Works of Nature and break that excellent Order that now obtains among them we should be full of admiration of such a Change and account them Miraculous And the reason is because the sense of the Change is at present incumbent upon us and we cannot choose but take notice of them as strong unusual miraculous Prodigies When all this while Natures course holds regularly the Wonder and Miracle is ten times greater in the state of things as they now stand than it would be in such a discomposure of Nature The Motion and Light and Position and Order of the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies is a greater
MATHE HALE Miles Capitalis Iustic de Banco Regis Ano 1677 For W. Shrowsbery at The Sign of The Bible In Duck Lane F. H. van Hâ—ue Sculp THE Primitive Origination OF MANKIND CONSIDERED AND EXAMINED According to The Light of Nature WRITTEN By the Honourable Sir MATTHEW HALE KNIGHT Late CHIEF JUSTICE of His MAJESTIES Court of KING'S BENCH LONDON Printed by WILLIAM GODBID for WILLIAM SHROWSBERY at the Sign of the Bible in Duke-Lane MDCLXXVII TO THE READER THE subject Matter of this Book is a free Disquisition according to the Light of Nature and Natural Reason touching the Primitive Origination of Mankind consisting principally of these Parts and Assertions I. That according to the Light of Nature and Natural Reason the Mundus aspectabilis was not Eternal but had a Beginning II. That if there could be any imaginable doubt thereof yet by the necessary Evidence of Natural Light it doth appear that Mankind had a beginning and that the successive Generations of Men were in their Original Ex non genitis III. That this Truth is evident by Reason and Arguments demonstrative or at least little less than apodeictical IV. That there are Moral Evidences of the truth of this Assertion which are herein particularly expended and examined and how far forth they are concludent and how far not which I have impartially delivered V. That those great Philosophers that asserted this Origination of Mankind Ex non genitis both ancient and modern that rendred it by Hypotheses different from that of Moses were mistaken Wherein the several Hypotheses of Aristotle Plato Empedocles Epicurus Avicen Cardanus Cisalpinus Beregardus and others are examined and the absurdity and impossibility thereof detected VI. That the Mosaical System as well of the Creation of Man as of the World in general abstractively considered without relation to the Divine Inspiration of the Writer is highly consonant to Reason and upon a bare rational account highly preferrible before the Sentiments of those Philosphers that either thought Mankind Eternal or substituted Hypotheses of his first Production different from the Mosaical VII I have concluded the whole with certain Corollaries and Deductions necessarily flowing from the things thus asserted as well touching the Existence the Wisdom Power Providence of Almighty God as touching both the Duty and Happiness of Mankind Though this may seem a laborious Work to little purpose since the generality of Christians among whom I write do generally believe this Truth of the Origination of the World and Mankind as it is delivered in the Holy Scriptures and thus to write in proof of a Truth generally received doth rather create Doubts in Mens Minds of what they already believe than any way advantage or confirm their belief I Answer 1. That for my part I think Atheism so unreasonable a thing so abhorrent to the Light of Nature and Sentiments of Conscience that I cannot think there is so much speculative Atheism abroad in the World as many good Men fear and suspect But if there be but one quarter of that Atheism in the World I do not know any better Cure of it or Preservative against it next to the Grace of God than the due Consideration of the Origination of Mankind 2. Again though the Creation of Man be generally acknowledged by Jews and Christians yet we must likewise consider that many take it up only as a part of their Education and not upon any serious deep Conviction of the truth of it and had such Men but an Education in such a Place or Country where it is not believed or where it is doubted they would be at least sceptical and doubtful in the belief of it 3. The best of Men and soundest believers of Divine Revelations may be better confirmed by the accession and suffrage even of Natural Evidences of the Verities they already believe but howsoever it better enables them to convince such Gainsayers as will be governed in their Judgments by no other Light than the Light of Nature and Reason and many such there may be met withal in the World And upon that account my whole Discourse is bottomed upon Natural and Moral Evidences suited to these Mens Principles or Motives by which they are guided and governed yea when I make use of the Sacred and Infallible Scriptures I do use them abstractively from their Divine and Infallible Authority and only as Moral Evidences of the Truth I assert for any Man may easily foresee that an Atheistical Spirit that denies or questions the truth of the Fact therein delivered will not be convinced by the Infallibility of that Scripture which delivers that for a Truth which he denies or questions This whole Book as thou now seest it was written by me some Years since and hath lain ever since in my Chest and surely therein should have lain still but only for Three Reasons 1. Because that some Writings of mine have without my privity come abroad in Print which I never intended and this might have had the same fate if not in my Life time yet after my Death 2. Because possibly there hath some more care been used by me in the Digesting and Writing hereof than of some others that have gone abroad in publick 3. That although I could never be brought to value the Writings of mine that are published as worthy of the publick view yet I find them well accepted by many which encouraged me to let this Book come abroad under my own Name wherein I used more care than in those lesser Tractates although I have not yet confidence enough to say that this may deserve any great acceptation though there be many things in it which may not please yet I do think there be many things useful and such as will not displease Judicious Readers If there be any Faults or Mistakes in Quotations in Syntax in Translations in Transcriptions or if there by any Errours as possibly there may be in my Deductives Inferences or Applications or if the Language be in some places either improper or obscure or if the Expressions or Words which we sometimes use be not so full so significant or proper or delivered from Amphibologies yet I must desire the Reader to take this Apology for it 1. It was written at leisure and broken times and with great intervals and many times hastily as my busie and important Employment of another nature known to the World would give me leave which must needs make such Breaks and Chasms and Incoherences that possibly a continued uninterrupted series of writing would have prevented and carried on the Discourse with a more equal Thred 2. A long indisposition of Health hath much hindred and interrupted me in a strict revising and amending of what possibly might have been requisite to be done 3. A Man whose scope and intent and drift is at some one thing and hath his Eye and Design fixed upon it many times is not so solicitous nor so curious nor so exact in the choice of
temperate Climates is more transparent and beautiful 2. There is no Animal hath any Organ of equal use to the Arm and Hand of a Man that Organum organorum an Organ accommodate to all the useful motions operations arts and uses of his life Man is born without any offensive or defensive weapons like to those of other Animals but by the usefulness and accommodation of this Organ and his Intellective faculty he maketh weapons and useth them he forgeth and mouldeth Metals builds Houses and Ships makes his Cloaths and Ornaments and exerciseth all Arts for use and ornament 3. There is no Creature that I know of hath the like structure of his Leg and Foot the former being only two to support his Body have greater and larger Muscles than any Animal of no greater proportionable bigness and the latter being the Basis of those Pillars are admirably fitted by their length and figure for his gressus progressivus 4. Since the Brain is the great Organ of Intellection in Man and of Imagination in Brutes which are the two noblest Faculties of either Nature it will not be amiss to examine the differences between the Brain of either and the Nerves proceeding from either wherein none that I know hath given more light than Doctor Willis in his Anatomy of the Head all therefore that I shall do herein shall be to gather up the most of those observable differences that lye dispersed in that Book 1. The humane Brain is in proportion to the Body much greater and larger than the Brains of Brutes having regard to the size and proportion of their Bodies and fuller of anfractus or sinuations and so more capable of greater diversity of employments and uses in the Perceptive Faculties 2. There are in the Brain certain portions called protuberantia annularis nates testes and that in those Brutes wherein this protuberantia annularis is largest in proportion those Brutes are of greatest sagacity and subtilty as Foxes Apes c. that though in Man those prominences called nates and testes are the least yet the protuberantia annularis is greater in proportion in Man than in any Animal the structure of this Organ being fitted to a greater degree of natural sagacity 3. That whereas in Brutes the only communication of the Brain with the Heart is by the nervus paris vagi derived from the Cerebellum and spreading its branches into the Muscle of the Heart in Man there is not only the same communication of that Nerve but a ramification of the nervus intercostalis is also inserted into the Muscle of the Heart whereby a greater communication between the Brain and Heart is maintained in Man than in Brutes 4. That other ramifications of this nervus intercostalis are derived into the Chest and Diaphragma whereby principally that peculiar affection of Laughter is excited more appropriate to Man together also those others of Sternutation and other natural actions common to Men and Beasts are excited but not from the like communication of that Nerve in Brutes And thus much shall serve to be spoken of the peculiarities of the Humane Body though what I before said touching the Faculties of the Animal Nature in Man must also be remembred touching the organical parts of his Body There is no Organ in the Brutal Body subservient to the Animal Faculties which is not found in the Humane Body with such variations and additions as render them more curious perfect useful and admirably accommodate to his Animal Life and Faculties But of this more fully hereafter 3. I shall now subjoin a Consideration of Man in his whole Compositum consisting of both his essential parts of Body and Soul and of the aggregation of the Faculties and Organs belonging to either so far forth as they evidence his appropriate and specifical Excellency above the Animal Nature The appropriate or specifical acts of the humane compositum are the capacity and faculty of instituted Signs expressive of the inward conceptions of the Mind which are of two kinds 1. Audible 2. Visible Signs The Audible Signs are instituted Speech or Language the formal nature whereof consists in two things 1. Articulate Voice 2. The accommodation of the Articulate Voice to the rendring or expressing of the inward thoughts or intentions of the Mind And herein is the great preference of the language of Man above that of Brutes or Birds who though they have audible signs that express something of their Imaginations or Appetites yet they extremely differ from humane speech 1. They are but short and transient like Interjections in speech whereby though they express the sudden motions of their Phantasie Appetite or Passions yet they carry not with them any distinct series or long train of their Imaginations they are short and sudden somewhat like Sighs or Ejulations in Man 2. They are not articulate nor orderly but short natural and broken 3. When Birds especially by the fabrick of their Tongue and Palate are taught to use articulate words yet they understand not their import nor do render any conceptions of their Phantasie by them nor can answer a question by them but use them insignificantly as the Organ or Pipe renders the Tune which it understands not And by the help of significant and articulate speech one Man expresseth the notions or conceptions of his Mind to another instructs another mutual commerce and society is maintained which could never be without instituted signs And this Act of instituted signs especially those of Speech or Language proceeds from the entire compositum the Mind instituting the signs and communicating its notions and desires by it and the Palate Larinx Tongue and Lips forming the Voice according to such institution whereunto they are most admirably accommodated by their Apertures Nerves and Muscles 2. The instituted visible Signs are Writings Gestures Tears Motions of the Eye Mouth and Face which were long to enumerate By means of writing former Ages transmit the Memorials of ancient times and things to posterity Men understand the sentiments purposes and desires of one another though absent and the living converse with those ancient Philosophers and others that are long since dead And now in this composition of the humane Nature we have these things observable 1. That in this contexture of the Humane Body and Intellectual Soul we have a Creature made up that is nexus utriusque mundi intellectualis scilicet corporei The next Range of Beings above him are the pure and immaterial Intelligences the next below him is the sensible Nature Man is as it were the Comes limitaneus of each Nature participating of both And we may observe that in the process of Natural Beings there seem some to be Creatures placed as it were in the Confines of several Provinces and participating something of either as in things that have life and that have not there is placed the Minerals between the inanimate and vegetable Province participating something analogical to either Between the vegetable
eternal but must be done gradually and successively and from one degree of bigness to another and since that augmentation could never be of an infinite procedure but being successive we must come to the beginning of that increase within the measure of such a portion of time as we now find sufficient for such a production or increase it may be two or three hundred years which being but a finite duration can never be eternal And this necessary Supposition of a successive alteration or increase utterly destroys the possibility of an eternal duration in any thing capable of such alterations 1. Because it necessarily supposeth somewhat precedent to that state wherein it is namely a precedent alteration of it whereby it is now become what it now is and what before it was not so that it had somewhat before its present state which stateth it to be what it now is namely that alteration or augmentation which so preceded its present state and consequently that present state wherein it is could not be eternal for it had somewhat before it 2. Because that very alteration that anteceded that state which it hath cannot possibly be eternal but must be perfected within a certain portion of time destined to it and consequently must have beginning within the compass of a determinate time and cannot be eternally moving to its accomplishment And as this Instance gives the impossibility of an eternal Existence in any thing essentially alterable or corruptible so it would be possibly more conspicuous in the Contemplation of the Humane Nature If we should suppose a Man to have been eternal Was that Man ever an Embryo a Child a Youth a ripe Aged Man Did he grow from a smaller stature to a greater had he vicissitudes of temperaments and distempers did he eat digest c. If he did not then those eternal Men were not of the same Make with the Men that are now but quite another thing which we know not what it was or where to find it But if he had all those changes he could not be eternal he should be eternally a Child and eternally a Man eternally young and eternally old yea eternally living and yet eternally dead for all these must fall within the compass of Eternity 2. But let us now consider how the Case falls out in relation to alterations and corruptions occasioned ab extrinseco and we shall find 1. That as the World is framed and as those that suppose it eternal must suppose it to have been always so framed there must necessarily be incessant mutations alterations generations and corruptions by the invasion and juxta-position of contrary Natures Agents Patients Qualities Motions the Earth naturally dry is moistned by the vicinity of the Water and again dryed by the heat of the Sun the Earth obstructs the fluidity of the Water by mingling its grosser parts with it all things as it were in continual motion and agitation and mutual preying as it were one upon another which as necessarily occasioneth mutations alterations generations and corruptions as the very intrinsecal dissolubility of the natures of mixt Bodies 2. And as we find this now so we must suppose that this hath been always so since the World had a being unless we shall suppose as I have often said another kind of World than what we see And although we are not acquainted with the state of things out of or beyond this sublunary World in which we see this vicissitude of alterations yet whether there may not be some such mutations in the Ethereal World we know not but there may be such though we cannot certainly know them 3. And yet it is most certain that it is impossible that any thing that is capable of these mutations and changes can be eternally under them but must of necessity if it were eternal consist in such a state of fixedness and permanency that were not obnoxious to these changes 4. And since it is not possible for the inferior World at least to be de facto one moment of time without these changes and variations alterations generations and corruptions which as before are not at all consistent with an eternal duration à parte ante of that that is so subject to changes we have just reason to deny and disesteem this imaginary Eternity can belong at least to the sublunary World The late Author of a Book De Aetate Mundi hath given us an Instance herein that if it would hold we need not go farther namely That the great Rocks in the Sea are yet many of them eminently visible to this day and yet daily experience shews us that those Rocks are gradually diminished by the beating of the Sea against them which had they been so dealt with from Eternity though they lost but one grain in a million of millions of years they would not have been but would have been consumed an indefinite time long since elapsed But the Supposition fails because it may be that these Rocks have at least vicissitudes of increase and diminution by the very alluvion of the Sea or which seems far more easily supposed that the Earth and Seas might notwithstanding have been eternal but yet the Sea might not have kept the same Channel where these Rocks now are from eternity but gained it in time the Ancients telling us that the great Atlantick Sea was for the most part of it anciently a Continent or at least a great Island as big as Europe and Asia and after swallowed up and corroded into that vast Sea called the Atlantick Ocean leaving behind it only those reliques now called the Canary Islands I will therefore take my Instance in some other things 1. It is evident that divers Minerals are bred in the Earth from an earthy consistence by the heat of the Sun and other concurrent causes successively as may appear to any man's observation touching Coals Rocks especially of Stone which from a sandy kind of Earth gradually concoct into Free-stone when they were before Earth as may be seen in many Quarries by those pieces of unconcocted Earth not yet perfectly digested into Stone If the Body of the Earth were eternal either these concretions were also as eternal as the Earth gradually and successively digested into these concretions or else the Earth must have had an eternal permanency in that state of simple natural Earth without any such concretions or alterations in it If we shall say the latter we make the Earth another thing than what in truth it now is which by the aid of the Sun hath these concretions and alterations even by a kind of necessity of Nature wrought in it And besides if in that portion of eternal duration wherein the Earth and Sun were in that very same natural state wherein they now are the one active piercing and digestive by its heat the other passive receptive and stored with materials for such a production What should hinder but that there should be such production gradually and successively
whom Bochart upon very probable reasons supposeth to be Gedeon called Jerubbaal and having set up an Ephod in his City might be supposed a Priest and from the intercourse between them the Idol Baal-berith was brought from Berith the City of Sancuniathon into Judea Touching the Egyptians they pretended to the greatest antiquity both of Government and Learning the latter they principally derived from Hermes stiled by some Mercurius Trismegistus and by the Egyptians Thoth the Phenicians made claim to this man as theirs attributed to him the Invention of Letters of Navigation of the Virtues of Herbs Euseb lib. 1. Praeparat sect 10. de Phoenicum Theologia he is supposed more ancient than Moses but we have nothing authentick existing which he wrote The ancientest Historian of the Affairs of Egypt was Manethes the Egyptian Priest who lived about or as some think before the time of Alexander he carries up the Res Aegyptiacas to an excessive Antiquity and yet with great particularity and pretended certainty some account him fabulous because he carries up the Egyptian Dynasties before the Flood yea and long before the Creation others assert the probability of the Egyptian Dynasties to over-reach the universal Flood but salve that prodigious excess of their numerous Years by reducing them to Months or Anni Lunares which were anciently so accounted among the Egyptians The Egyptians have had other Writers of their Histories but of a later date as Ptolemeus Mendesius mentioned sometimes by Eusebius and those Arabick Historians mentioned by Kircher in that Book that delivers the History of the succession of their Dynasties Lastly I come to the Jewish History begun by Moses and continued down in a clear succession and series of times till their return from the Babylonish Captivity and this History hath a just prelation above all the Writings of other Historians in these ensuing respects 1. It hath the greatest and most particular certainty and far beyond any of the Historians before mentioned it contains the certain Periods of Times Names Men Places Actions and all Circumstances requirable in a History to inform it is not involved in Mystical expressions or Mythologies but is plain familiar and intelligible 2. It hath the greatest evidence of Truth that can be expected by a reasonable man namely Evidence from it self the particularity and circumstances of the things it relates Evidence from the ancientest Heathen Authors especially Sancuniathon Berosus and Abydenus before mentioned Evidence from the several parts thereof the Book of one Age bearing witness to another as the Books of Joshua to those of Moses the Books of Kings to those of Moses and Joshua though written in several Ages Evidentia rei or facti there cannot be greater Evidence than the Regiment of a People for so many Ages according to the Laws given and recorded by their first Historian Moses and the enjoyment of their Possessions according to the distribution of their next Historian Joshua 3. It is no broken Piece or Historical Fragment but it is carried down from the beginning of Time to all the ensuing Ages of the Jewish State without any chasma or interval 4. It hath the evidence of the highest credibility that any thing of that nature is capable of That the Books of Moses especially which are the Caput Historiae Judaicae were written by that Man Moses and that he lived in that Age wherein he is supposed to write 1. The constant uninterrupted Tradition of that Kingdom and Nation from it first coalition even to this day 2. The attestation of all the succeding Writers of that Historical Series of the Jewish Affairs 3. The inviolable Observation of those Laws given by Moses and recorded in that History as of the Laws given by him 4. The Suffrage of all Heathen Authors both modern and ancient that have occasion to mention the concerns of that People 5. It is a History that contains matters of far greater moment and antiquity than any other Writers but such as in probability made their Collections out of it namely of the Transactions from the first Creation of the World until the Universal Flood and from thence to the time of him that first wrote it namely Moses 6. It is a History that was really written by Moses who was far more ancient than all the Heathen Writers above mentioned excepting only Trismegistus of whose Writings we have nothing extant and more ancient than most of those Things or Notes recorded by those most ancient Heathen Writers which for the most part filled their Books He wrote 540 years before Homer 200 years before Sancuniathon according to Bochart's account 300 years before the Expedition of the Argonauts 350 years before the Trojan War and a considerable time before the Apotheoses or Inaugurations of many of the Heathenish Deities So that as the Matter of his History so the Time of his writing is far more ancient than the writing of the most ancient Heathen Historians that are at all extent Much of this I shall have occasion to resume and enlarge in the ensuing Chapters yet this was necessary in this place The Inference that is made from hence is That probably if the World of Mankind had been Eternal or if it had any such vast distance from its Beginning as some suppose we should have had Historical Monuments and Writings long before the Age of Moses But for all this I must needs say this Consideration singly I say singly taken and weighed maketh not much against an eternal or at least a vaster Epocha of the first Origination of Man than is ordinarily supposed I shall therefore set down those allays that make against the strength of the consequence drawn from this Topick 1. It is evident that the use of Letters and Writing were far more ancient than the time of Moses the Egyptians and Phenicians carry up the original of the invention thereof to Mercurius Trismegistus which is supposed long before Moses And although Cadmus is supposed to have brought the use of Letters out of Phoenicia into Greece some time after the Age of Moses according to Polydore Virgil lib. 1. cap. 6. out of Pliny Herodotus and others yet it appears by what is before mentioned that there were in Phoenicia very ancient written Volumes called Volumina Ammonaeorum long before the time of Sancuniathon And if we believe the Tradition of Josephus the Pillars of Seth were extant in his time and according to Tertullian some Fragments of the Writings of Enoch were traditionally extant in his time But howsoever Moses if he be the Author of the History of Job whom some think to be contemporary at least with Jacob mentions Books and Writings to have been common things in the time of Job Job 19.23 Josephus lib. 1. cap. 3. Tertull. de Habitu Mulierum 2. Surely if Writing were so ancient it is probable that many Histories might be before the time of Moses which were lost in succession of time as it must be agreed that most of
Beginning of the Assyrian Kingdom under Ninus was 631 years after the Flood and one Age after the Confusion of Languages in the time of Phaleg But which way soever we take yet we find a Beginning of the Assyrian Empire though they that suppose it 440 years before Belus thrust the Deluge and the Creation farther back than the Jewish Account 2. The Authority of the Holy Scripture by the Pen of Moses gives us the Original of the Babylonian or Assyrian Monarchy in Nimrod which possibly may be the Name in Hebrew of Belus the first Founder of it And here I do not take advantage of the Divine Authority of the Sacred Scripture but make use of it only as a History and singly upon that account hath greater evidence of its truth than any Heathen Historian whatsoever 1. The Writer thereof was most certainly nearer the times of the first Foundation of that Monarchy by above 800 years than any other Historian that gives us the account of the Assyrian and Babylonian Monarchy which is a great advantage in point of evidence touching the truth of any Historical Relation Again 2. He was not very far distant from the Place or Seat of that Monarchy the Wilderness and Palestine being not far distant from Assyria 3. He was descended from him that was the native of that Country namely Abraham who was born and lived many years in the Caldean Country and doubtless did bring along with him and transmit to his Posterity a fair Tradition of that Empire being contemporary with Peleg in whose time the famous dissipation of Mankind and distinction of Languages hapned 4. He was educated in Egypt the people whereof were greatly learned especially in Chronological Computations 5. The coherence and synchronism of all the parts of the Mosaical Chronology especially after the Flood bears a most singular testimony to the truth of his History and Computation for although he draws not down the lineal Descendents of Ham and Japhet down to his time but only mentions their Children and Grand-children for two or three Generations at most yet he draws down the lineal Pedigree from Sem in the Sacred Line down to his very Age together with their Births and Ages which are a great evidence of the probability of the rest of his Account So that if we take the History of Moses upon a bare Moral account abstracted from the Authority of Divine Revelation he hath greater evidence of the truth of what he relates than any Historian whatsoever that takes upon him the narrative of the Antiquity of Kingdoms or Empires the ancientest of which Historians were above 1000 years later than Moses But this I shall have occasion farther to improve hereafter The Objections against this late Original of the Assyrian or Babylonian Monarchy for it had its successive translation into these denominations are principally these 1. That it appears by the Account of ancient Historians that the Caldeans in whom the Assyrian Monarchy began and ended at the Taking of Babylon by Alexander had preserved Astronomical Calculations for about 400000 years thus Diodorus Siculus lib. 3. cap. 8. Quadringenta tria annorum millia usque ad ascensum Alexandri numerant and Tully in his second Book de Divinatione mentions the number to be greater Quadringenta septuaginta millia annorum in periclitandis experiendisque Pueris quicunque essent nati Babylonios posuisse 2. That it seems impossible that if their Monarchy began but in Nimrod or so short a time after the Universal Deluge that in the time of Ninus by some supposed the first by some the second King of the Assyrians or Babylonians the Empire could have grown so populous as to build that vast City of Babylon and that of Nineveh whose state and magnificence and amplitude were of incredible greatness or that his Widow Semiramis could at once bring into the field against Zoroastres an Army of 1700000 Foot-men 500000 Horse-men 100000 Chariots 2000 Ships as Diodorus Siculus out of Ctesias l. 3. cap. 5. And therefore as well Mankind as the Empire of Assyria must have had a longer continuance to have set out such an Army than the succession of an Empire for two or three Governours at most or the successions or propagations of Mankind within so short a time as this is supposed to succeed the Universal Deluge could afford To the first I answer 1. That some will have these Years to be but Months which they suppose to be accounted Years by the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians But as we have no certain evidence that they used to account a Month a Year but if we had yet that reduction will not serve for that number of Lunar Months reduced to Solar Years will arise to above 40000 Years which will over-reach the Creation of Mankind 2. Therefore we may with the same Tully and Diodorus Siculus pronounce it to be an incredible and fabulous Account warranted by no credible evidence but meerly their own fancy or imposture that because they held the World eternal would gratifie their people with a succession of an incredible Antiquity And it appears to be fabulous 1. For that in all this time they would probably have gotten the perfect Theory of the Planetary Motions and Positions which it is plain they did not if we believe the same Author for they were at a loss touching the true discoveries and periods of the Eclipses especially of the Sun 2. For that Calisthenes who was very curious in searching the famous Periods of the Babylonian or Caldean Celestial Observations at the very time when they pretended so great an Antiquity namely at the Taking of Babylon by Alexander upon a strict enquiry found their Astronomical Observations not to be above 1903 years old which he accordingly reported to Aristotle that employed him specially in that Enquiry as Simplicius reports in his Commentaries upon the Book of Aristotle de Caelo The prodigious Accounts therefore of the Caldeans of the Times past deserve as little credit as their Predictions of things to come who as the same Tully there observes flattered both Caesar and Pompey with long Lives and happy and peaceable Death both which fell out in the success to both extremely contrary 2. I come to the second Objection namely That it seems altogether impossible that the General Flood should put a period to all former Governments and indeed to the whole Race of Mankind except eight persons and yet that from these in so short a time such vast and powerful Monarchies especially as that of the Babylonian or Syrian should arise To which I answer 1. That if we should admit the Computation of the Seventy now much magnified by Vossius and others it would easily deliver us from that difficulty for whereas the Hebrew Computation gives the Universal Flood to be but 1656 years after the Creation of Mankind the Septuagint gives it to be 2262 years and whereas the Hebrew Account gives us about 300 years from the Flood to
the Birth of Abraham and consequently about 104 and according to some only 58 years from the Flood to the beginning of Ninus the Son of Belus the Septuagint gives us from the Flood to the Birth of Abraham 1132 years and consequently the beginning of Ninus though admitted to have been about 250 years before the Birth of Abraham would yet have hapned near 800 years after the Flood which would not only give a competent time for Mankind to grow to that great multitude that is supposed but would satisfie those preceding thirteen Kings in Babylon that are supposed to have worn out 440 years before 〈◊〉 the beginning of Belus the Father of Ninus 2. But the Objection needs not that help neither doth enforce us to desert the Hebrew Account to satisfie that or the like Objections For considering the long Life of the Ancients that lived within 300 years after the Flood and consequently their coexistence with those that descended from them we may without the help of a miraculous fertility find that in 104 years Mankind descended from Noah and his three Sons and their Wives might arise to a stupendious multitude by that Arithmetical Progression that would be found in their Generations I shall not need to set down the process of the Computation or the product it is excellently done to my hand by Temporarius in his second Book Chronologicarum demonstrationum and out of him by Petavius his Doctrina temporum lib. 10. and out of both by Kircherus in the first Book of his first Tome of his Oedipus Aegyptiacus where he undertakes that in the progress of 200 years after the Flood the multitude of the coexisting People might be so great that if they were cast into a square Battalia allowing to every person but one square foot of ground the side of that Square would be 372 Astronomical miles or 25 Heavenly degrees And thus far touching the Original of the Assyrian Caldean or Babylonian Monarchy 2. Touching the Egyptians they maintained the Origination of Mankind and that the same was not Eternal as it seems by Diodorus Siculus in his second Book for they supposed in respect of the fruitfulness of their soil and the convenience of their situation that the first Original of Mankind was among them and that the Egyptians were the ancientest People in the World But though they admitted the Origination of Man yet they pretended to a very great antiquity of their Nation and Government and because they would exceed all others they suppose their first Governours were Gods Diodorus tells us that in the 180 th Olympiad they pretended a succession of Government of 33000 years whereof the first 18000 years they were governed by Gods and Heroes and the last 15000 years by Men. Manetho that wrote the History of the Egyptians about the beginning of the Grecian Monarchy under Alexander with very great pretence hath carried up their Government to an incredible distance before the Creation of Mankind for he digested the successive Governments of the Egyptians into 32 Dynasties and to each Dynasty a great number of Governours and Years whereof 15 exceeded the time of the Flood and therefore are omitted by Africanus and others that yet are fond of the credit of Manetho the other 17 Dynasties are supposed to be extended unto the beginning of the Grecian Empire for about 1694 years after the Flood But 1. This Account even of Diodorus Siculus is very uncertain for it appears by Censorinus de die Natali cap. 19. that the ancient Egyptian year was bimestris and after that trimestris and after that in latter time of 13 months and 5 days And some tell us that yet their most ancient year was but one month namely one revolution of the Moon through the Zodiack which if it should be admitted may shorten their Account of 33000 years to 3600 years or thereabout But yet this Answer serves not for in all probability their years continued to be 365 days ever since the time of the Jewish Exody at least which will carry up the Account far beyond the Creation of Man though their former years should be supposed menstrui or bimestres Therefore it seems either a plain Imposture of Manetho out of an emulation of the pretended Antiquity of the Babylonian Monarchy or at least a very plain mistake by reckoning all these 32 Dynasties or Principatus successivè when it seems they were all contemporary and that after Mene which is supposed the first Head of these Dynasties the Regiment of Egypt was divided into several Principalities and each had his Dynasty but the particular Regiment of each several Principality Mene being the Head to them all which is so well evinced by Vossius in his little Tract de Aetate Mundi out of Eratosthenes contemporary with Manetho Herodotus and others that nothing can be added to it or reasonably objected against it though Kircherus in the first Book of his Egyptian Antiquities endeavours to carry on the 17 last Dynasties in continued succession from Cham to the dissolution of the Egyptian Monarchy by Alexander and supposeth the first 15 Dynasties to have incurred before the Flood and the traditional memory thereof derived down by Cham to his Posterity But of this also more hereafter Touching the Grecians it is true the Grecian Monarchy had its known Epocha in Alexander about the 114 th Olympiad but they were a People long before though divided into smaller Kingdoms or States but the Memorials of the Babylonians and Egyptians were far more ancient than those of Greece which derived much of its Learning from the Egyptians Censorinus in his golden Book de die Natali gives us out of Varro a threefold Period of the Grecian Histories or Monuments or Times Cap. 21. namely 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or incognitum from the first Origination of Mankind if it had an Original ad cataclysmum priorem or the Ogygian Flood 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fabulosum from the Ogygian Flood to the first Olympiad 3. Historicum from the first Olympiad until his time For the first of these times Sive semper fuit sive habuit initium certè quot annorum sit non potest comprehendi for the second Non planè quidem scitur sed creditur esse annos circiter mille sexcentos though he reduceth it by his account to a shorter time namely 400 years from the Ogygian Flood to Inachus and from him to the first Olympiad according to some 400 according to others 395 407 or 417 I shall not trouble my self with the curious enquiry into the number or the different Account of Chronologers touching it But within the compass of this tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Periodus fabulosa hapned many of those Relations of the Greeks namely the Age of Prometheus the Flood of Deucalion shortly after the beginning of the Dynasty of the Athenians in the time of Cretopus King of the Argives Incendium Idae Cadmus and Europa Ganymedis raptus Phaetontis
incendium Hercules Amphitryonis filius Expeditio Argonautarum Bellum Trojanum Reditus Heraclidarum Ionica migratio and many other fine Stories that have furnished some of the Poetical Historians of after Ages But however Censorinus makes his Computation Inachus who was the first King of the Argives though he were about 375 years after the beginning of the Assyrian Monarchy and contemporary with Isaac yet he began his Reign about 100 years before the Ogygian Flood which hapned in the latter end of Phoroneus the Son of Inachus and second King of the Argives So that Inachus was about 100 years before the Ogygian Flood and about 1070 or 1080 years before the first Olympiad upon this account This then being as it seems the state of these Periods there seem two Nations of the Grecians that pretend to greatest Antiquity namely the Argivi and the Attici The former had their beginning with Inachus whether before or after the Ogygian Flood it will not be much of moment but at least within 1070 years before the first Olympiad which is the highest time that the Grecians pretend unto Touching the Attici the Grecian Memorials give us no higher Account than of Ogyges in whose time it is supposed the Ogygian Flood hapned in that part of Greece called Attica and takes its name from him namely Diluvium Ogygium Out of this Kingdom arose the Dynasty of the Athenians about 200 years after the Ogygian Flood wherein Cecrops was the first Governour contemporary with Moses he first set up the Worship of Jupiter as some report And so we have the Original of the Government of the Argives in Inachus of the Athenians in Cecrops It is true the Egyptian Priest under the name of Timaeus in Plato tells us a large Story of the Island of Atlantis far bigger than Asia and that although now that goodly Island be lost and swallowed up in the Sea yet the Athenians were a kind of Colony transplanted from that Island into Greece about 7000 years before Solon's time But this is one of those Poetical Fictions wherewith Plato plays mingling more serious things with it in the following part of his Discourse and the Story hath no footsteps of any evidence for it unless we shall suppose that Atlantis to be an Island that was before the Universal Deluge and destroyed by it 4. Concerning the Seres or Chineses a People whose Customs and Histories were strangers to Europe till of late times wherein some Travellers have lately given us some account of those great Periods both of their Histories and Government Vossius in that little Book de Aetate Mundi tells us by relation from others That by their Histories and Monuments their Empire hath lasted 4505 years in the year of Christ 1658 which reacheth some Ages beyond the Flood according to the Hebrew Account but according to the Septuagint the beginning thereof falls in the time of Phaleg 531 years after the Flood which he brings as an Argument for the Authority of the Septuagint But the truth is we are still strangers to the true state of Chronology of the Seres or Chineses what we have touching it is by broken relation of some few Travellers and what they had possibly may be gathered up from the vulgar Traditions of that People upon which little of sound conclusion can be made touching their Antiquity But be it true or not which we have from these Relations yet their longest Period gives them a Beginning and reacheth not so high as the pretended Epoch of the Babylonians or Egyptians much less is there any thing in them that gives any colour of Evidence of an Eternal Duration And thus I have gone through the Examination of those Kingdoms and Monarchies which pretend to greatest Antiquity the Babylonian or Assyrian the Egyptian the Grecian and the Seres or Chineses upon all which we may observe 1. That though many of them pretend to a very great Antiquity yet there are none that give us any sufficient Evidence of an Eternal Duration for what are those Periods of the Egyptians or Babylonians to Eternity Nay many of these Nations that pretend to the longest continuance as the Egyptians and Grecians yet disclaim an Eternal Succession pretend themselves to be Aborigines and to be the first People but yet not to be Eternal Indeed their vast continuance if admitted would seem to contradict the Authenticalness and Authority of the Mosaical History which contains a Relation of the Beginnings of Mankind within the compass of about 5660 Years according to the Hebrew Account and about 7240 Years according to the Septuagint but doth not so much as suppose an Eternity thereof 2. That notwithstanding these great pretensions of Antiquity yet upon a true examination their great pretended Antiquity is fabulous and the Origination of their Monarchies began some Ages after the general Deluge and so the truth of the Holy History concerning the Inception of Mankind and the Inception of all the Monarchies in the World after the Deluge that happened under Noah 1656 Years after the Creation of Mankind is not at all weakened by those Fabulous Antiquities of the Babylonians Egyptians or Grecians 3. That this Inception of the Notable Empires and Kingdoms of the World even of those that pretend greatest Antiquity and the termination of the uttermost Extent of the Histories of the Babylonians Egyptians and Grecians within the compass of the Extent of their pretended Monarchies is an Evidence against the Eternity of Mankind for had Mankind been Eternal they had infinite Ages since arrived to all the perfection of Political Government and to all those Means and Arts for the preserving the Memorials of things past as they have now attained unto there would have been no tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or obscurum among the Grecians but there would have been as fair Monuments and Historical Narratives of things past before the Olympiads or the Ogygian Flood which was not universal as after I shall conclude therefore with Lucretius lib. 5. Preterea si nulla fuit genitalis origo Terrai Coeli semperque aeterna fuerunt Cur supra bellum Thebanum funera Trojae Non alias alii quoque res cecinere Poetae Qui tot facta virum toties cecidere neque usquam Aeternis famae monumentis insita florent Verùm ut opinor habet novitatem summa recensque Natura est mundi neque pridem exordia cepit Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur Nunc etiam augescunt c. But yet this Consideration touching the Antiquity of Monarchies their Inception and the Narratives and Historical Monuments of things happening within the Periods of their Commencement and Continuances are not of that weight that we can lay the stress of this Hypothesis of the Inception of Mankind upon And therefore this Consideration must be taken with its allay I shall therefore fully set down those Instances that do give this Consideration its due abatement 1. It is no Consequence That
the condition of Greece the Learned Part of the World after their subjugation by the Turks and this possibly may be the condition of China in a few years after the great Irruption and Devastation by the Tartars wherein possibly if an Age or two hence the state of things should be judged according to the present appearance it would be looked upon as if it had never been the habitation of those Curious Arts which some time dwelt there and possibly the setting on foot some of those very Arts that were once well known in those parts would be looked upon as the Natales of those Arts or the first Inchoation of them Wars and Desolations having obliterated the Monuments of their former practices which yet nevertheless would be in truth but the reviving of those Arts which were long before practised though intermitted and interrupted by the vicissitudes of Wars And upon the same account are those alterations that have hapned in the condition and state of People by other accidents as Inundations Epidemical Diseases Corruption of the Air in some Parts and Continents either by some eruption of pernicious Vapours or other Inclemency of the Heavens Plato in his third Book de Legibus in the beginning though he suppose an interminate Beginning of Mankind and that there were successively Cities Laws and Arts yet he supposeth that upon these and the like Occurrences those that escaped these common Calamities betook themselves to the Mountains kept Sheep and preserved the Species of Mankind but most of those Arts and Sciences which formerly were common became disused and forgotten among them But after Mankind multiplying they descended into the Vallies and by degrees mutual conversation the necessity of their condition and the due consideration of things did gradually revive those Arts which Men had formerly lost by long intermission For such is the indoles of the Humane Nature where it is not strangely over-grown with Barbarousness that it will by a kind of Natural Sagacity discover things especially necessary for the use of Humane Life and Society as Husbandry Laws Government Architecture Clothing and the like as Bees or Ants provide for their common habitation and supply Upon all which it may seem that we are over-hasty when we conclude That because Arts or Sciences do perchance discover themselves first to our view in such Places or Ages that therefore this was their first and primitive production or that they were never before For it may very reasonably be that those or the like Arts might have been either in other places and by a kind of migration or circulation be transmitted to those new places either by Armies or Colonies deduced hither or that even among the same People or Nation these Arts were sometimes flourishing though possibly having received some intermission by great Accidents and Occurrences they again do repullulare and revive upon the opportunity of Peace Trade Commerce and Popular Increase Nay many times it comes to pass as is before observed That when People are multiplied so that their places grow strait and narrow and their supplies not proportionable to their number necessity and exigence it gives an edge to their Industry and Invention and produceth new Discoveries of things that were either not known before or forgotten And even this one thing hath advanced the Dutch to that eminence of Manufacture Industry and Arts that they exceed the rest of the World therein We may have an Instance of this Circulation of Arts even in this Kingdom of England in that which is our great Manufacture namely Woollen Cloth It appears very plainly by those ancient Gilds that were settled in England for this Manufacture as at Lincoln York Oxford and divers other Cities that in the time of H. 2. and R. 1. this Kingdom greatly flourished in that Art but by the troublesom Wars in the time of King John H. 3. and also in the times of E. 1. and E. 2. this Manufacture was wholly lost and all our Trade ran out in Wools Wool-fells and Leather carried out in specie and the Manufacture during those Warly times held its course in France the Netherlands and the Hans Towns but by the Wisdom and peaceable times of E. 3. and his fair treating of forein Artists which he invited and entertained in this Kingdom he regained that Art hither again which for near one hundred Years had been for the most part intermitted which hath hitherto continued to the great Wealth and Benefit of this Kingdom So that we are not to conclude every new appearance of any Art or Science is the first production of it but as they say of the River Tigris and some others they sink into the ground and keep a subterranean course it may be 40 or 50 miles and then break out above ground again which is not so much a new River as the continuation and new appearance of the old So many times it falls out with Arts and Sciences though they have their non-appearances for some Ages and then seem first to discover themselves where before they were not known it is not so much the first production of the Art as a transition or at least a restitution of what possibly was either before in another or in the same Country or People And thus some tell us that Guns and Printing though but lately discovered in Europe yet were of far ancienter use in China So that notwithstanding this Consideration of the late Invention of Arts or Discoveries of things Natural or Artificial Mankind might have had an infinite succession or at least such a continuance as surmounts all those Accounts which the most prodigal Computations have given and that Saying of the Wise Man may be verified Ecclesiast 1.9 The thing that hath been is that which shall be and that which hath been done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the Sun Is there any thing whereof it may be said See this is new It hath been already of old time before I shall here add a farther Consideration because it hath a cognation with the Subject of this Chapter There seems to be very probable Conjectures made touching the Origination of Mankind because there seems to be one Radical Language from which all others have their derivation though some carry in them more some less Memorials of their Original as they were more or less remote in their Inception The Languages of the World may be aptly enough divided into the Primo primae the Primo secundae and the Secundo secundae The Language which I call Primo primae must needs be but one if the Original of Mankind were but two common Parents of either Sex as the Holy Scriptures teach us and this one Language they must needs learn either from a conformation of Voices by the Angels such might that vocal Language be between Almighty God by the ministration of Angels and Adam whereof we read in the first and second Chapters of Genesis or it
Race and Progeny of Gods which swelled into great Numbers Pedigrees and Genealogies of Gods and Heroes Theogonia which filled the superiour World as Men filled the inferiour World by successive Generations And those Authors that have given us an account of the Apotheoses the Inauguration of the Heathenish Deities and their successions are many especially Diodorus Siculus in his first six Books Eusebius in his first and second Book De Praeparatione Evangelii out of the Ancient Monuments of the Phenicians Egyptians and Grecians and Clemens Alexandrinus in lib. 1. Stromat who gives us an account of the Apotheoses of Bacchus Hercules Aesculapius Isis Ceres Serapis Apis and others many of them if not all having their being and translation into Deities after the time of Moses and from the various Denominations of those Heathenish Deities some had one Name among the Egyptians another among the Phenicians another among the Syrians another among the Grecians though possibly the Persons themselves were for the most part the same Secondly By carrying up the Original of most of the Ancient Deities of the Heathens and resolving them into Noah and his Sons and Descendents deducing by very probable Arguments that Noah was Saturn Chronos c. that Japhet was Neptune Ham Jupiter Shem Pluto Canaan Mercury Nimrod Bacchus Magog Prometheus vid. Bochart in Phaleg l. 1. Vossius de Idololatriae origine progressu l. 1. and others that have followed those Learned and Ingenious Authors But this Inference of the Recentness of Mankind from the Recentness of these Apotheoses and Origination of Gentile Deities seems also too weak to bear up this Supposition of the Novitas humani generis 1. Because although possibly some of their Heathenish Deities might have been of a late Edition yet there might be many more that might be ancienter who either were antiquated and forgotten or they were translated to other Names and Successors it faring with Idol Gods as it doth with Words or Languages Cecidere cadéntque Quae jam sunt in honore vocabula The lust of Mens Fancies in Propagation of Deities was endless and unsatiable We are told out of Varro that there were no less than thirty thousand Heathenish Gods and Deities of all sorts which were known in his time and how many more there might be whose Names and Worship were long before that time antiquated we cannot easily conjecture only in all probability they were far more than those that survived And therefore possibly there might be a Race and Succession of Apotheoses long antecedent to those whose Originals we have given us in Ancient Histories We see how easily the Roman Calendar swells with new Consecrations of Saints and to what a multitude they have grown within less than the compass of one thousand Years and possibly had the World continued many thousand years before it is supposed to have began there might have been an interminate succession of imaginary Deities though many or most of their Names are now unknown or the times of their Consecrations forgotten 2. But yet farther if we should suppose that this course of Idolatry began even shortly after the time of Noah and his three Sons yet it is granted of all hands that the World had stood above 1600 Years before the invention of this kind of Idolatry So that ex confesso this was not the first Religion in the World neither did this Religion tread upon the Heels of the Origination of Mankind if Mankind was and was 1600 Years before those Deities were found out and so this Religion cannot pretend to be coeval with Mankind nor give us any sufficient Indication of the Recentness of Mankind 3. But yet farther it is very apparent that this Veneration of Men Consecrated into Deities was not the ancientest Idolatry much less the ancientest Religion of the World The Worshipping of the Host of Heaven the Sun Moon and Stars was an Idolatry that way far more ancient than this of the Heathen Gods made of Men and this is an Evidence of the antecedency of that Idolatry of the Stars and Heavenly Bodies in as much as when these new consecrated Deities were made they did as it were incorporate and affix them to that more ancient Idolatry transferring the Names of most of their Gods to the Heavenly Bodies or Asterisms as Saturn to the Star of Saturn Mars Venus Mercury Jupiter to the several Planetary Bodies and to the Sun and Moon a prodigious number of Deities as to the Sun Phoebus Apollo Osyris Horus and many more to the Moon Diana Hecate Venus Astarte and many others So that although we should allow the first Origination of those Heathenish Deities to have been when Historians give us an account and not before yet the Idolatry performed to the Heavenly or Elementary Bodies the Sun Moon Stars Fire Aether c. might have had a long practice among Men before the Invention of these later Deities 4. But yet farther in as much as Truth is certainly more ancient than Errour we have reason to think that even before the ancientest Form of Idolatrous Worship in the World even that of the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies there was a True Worship of the True GOD which might continue many Ages before any sort of Idolatry prevailed in the World So that it would be too rash to conclude That because many of the Heathenish Deities had their known Original that therefore no other Religion anteceded it or that that Religion soon followed the Origination of Mankind 5. Besides all this there seems in the World or at least it is very possible to suppose certain vicissitudes or relations not only in Arts and Sciences as is before observed but even in the Religions professed which may obtain successively both in Places and Ages according to several vicissitudes We see that in the Country of Palestine shortly after the Flood Idolatry obtained among the Canaanites and the descendents of Ham after that the Knowledge and Worship of the True GOD among the Israelites for many Ages and after that a degeneration of the greatest part thereof to Idolatry again in the Country of the Ten Tribes and in a great part among the other Two Tribes after that a Reformation and Restitution of the true Worship of God in the return from the Captivity until Christ came then the most sound and perfect Religion namely Christianity obtained for some time then the return of Paganism under persecuting Roman Emperours then the prevalence again of the Christian Religion under Constantine and some that succeeded him then Popish Superstition after that Turcism and Mahumetanism especially in the parts of Greece Palestine Egypt and other parts of Asia and Africa Thus various Professions of Religion have had various Vicissitudes Revolutions and successive Alterations in Places and Ages Albertus Magnus as I remember with somewhat too much curiosity and somewhat transported with too much fancifulness towards the Influences of the Heavenly Motions and Astrological Calculations supposeth that Religion hath
before they were born and many other Historians for a much longer time and we give them credit and certainly such an Occurrence of such remark as the Universal Flood and the Re-peopling of the World must needs be fresh in memory for such a Period of about 800 Years especially considering that the Peopling of the World was a gradual and successive business that must needs preserve its Memory even upon its own account for it was still current and many were concerned in it in the preservation of the laying the first Foundations of their States and Republicks 3. As the Period or distance of time was not great so if we consider the longevity of Mens Lives in those times the Period was not much longer than three Generations and so the Tradition of things might be preserved fresh and certain unto the time of Moses without any great difficulty For Shem that was an Eye-witness of the Flood was contemporary with Abraham Abraham was contemporary with Jacob Cohath the Son of Levi was contemporary with Jacob and with Amram the Father of Moses and Son of Cohath So that the Tradition of the Flood and all that succeeded might be handed from Shem to Abraham from Abraham to Jacob from Jacob to Cohath from him to Amram and from him to Moses 4. Besides all this without any more Hands in the delivery of it over it appears that Abraham Isaac Jacob were great Men had great Families and Wealth were Men of great Note and Observation for their Learning and Knowledge Men that had great Expectations having a Promise of that Land to be given to their Posterity and although they kept Sheep and Cattel according to the custom of those Eastern Countries yet they were great Princes and Men of excellent Education doubtless Abraham instructed his Son in all the Knowledge that he had received by Tradition from his Ancestors the like did Isaac and after him Jacob. And therefore it might very reasonably be thought that the Traditions of former things were kept fresh and pure in this Line of Men. And though we have no Writings extant ancienter than Moses yet probably in his time there might be Books or at least Monuments and Inscriptions of things done before his time which might preserve the Memory of things past as well as our Books do now For it is not to be doubted but Writing was much ancienter than Moses his time Job speaks of Writing as a thing in use in his time Job 19.23 24. and Josephus tells us of certain Pillars erected by Seth wherein the Monuments of Learning and History were preserved Joseph l. 1. Antiquitat cap. 2. and Moses mentions Books written by others either before or in his time I very well know that Moses had a greater means to know all those things that to a Jew or a Christian are of greater weight than all these namely the Infallible Conduct Revelation and Inspiration of the Divine Spirit But the truth is we are faln into an Age of many Christians in Name and Profession that yet think it below them to believe upon that account without some farther Evidence that may satisfie their Reason I have therefore subjoyned these and the following Considerations to make it appear That upon the bare account of Moral Evidence more is to be said for the truth of the History of Moses than may be said for the truth of any other History of things transacted before the life of the Historiographer 2. Again we usually allow such an Historian to be worthy of belief even in those things whereof we have no other Evidence than the Credit of the Historian if we find many things delivered by him to have so great an Evidence of Truth that they cannot well be doubted by any reasonable Man I will admit that Moses delivers many things that were antecedent to him and can have now no other Evidence than the Credit Prudence and Fidelity of the Historian himself as touching the Derivation of the Nations of the Earth from the several Sons of Noah and though possibly when he wrote there was a vigorous and authentical Tradition or other authentick Evidence of the Truth of them which it may be is now so lost that we have no other Evidence thereof but the bare Relation of Moses this I do for the present admit though in the sequel it will appear that there are other concurrent or collateral Evidences that assert and attest it yet it is plain that the same Moses writes many things that have so undoubted and so solid a Tradition asserting it that no Man can doubt it that will not first deny his own Reason As for instance Can there be any doubt but that the Family of the Israelites were derived from Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the 12 Patriarchs that they were brought out of Egypt under the Conduct of Moses that they lived in the Wilderness forty Years and were there miraculously fed by Quails and Manna since this was written in that very Time and Age that could and would have contradicted it if false Can there be any doubt but the History of his making the Ark and the Tabernacle were true since both continued for many hundred Years after Can there be any doubt of the History of the Fiery Serpents and the Cure of their Biting by the Brazen Serpent which continued in the Wilderness until the time of Hezekiah which was many hundred Years after with an unquestionable Tradition of the reason of its Making Can there be any doubt whether he divided the Land of Canaan in such manner as is set down in his life time namely to the two Tribes and a half on the farther side of Jordan and his Prescripts for the future dividing of the rest since it was enjoyed according to those Prescripts for many hundreds of Years after and part of it until the coming of Christ Can there be any doubt that he gave those Laws Moral Judicial and Ceremonial recorded by him since those very Laws have been for the space of near two thousand Years the very Rule and Model by which the Sacred and Civil Concerns of that People were always ruled and governed and that in contemplation of the same Law that was given by the Hand of Moses and so recorded in his Books of Exodus Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy I say we have not greater Evidence that there was such a Man as Alfred Edward the Confessor or William the Conqueror or that there were such Laws of the Confessor such a Survey of England called Doomsday made by William the Conqueror such an Abbey founded by him in Memory of his Victory in Sussex called Abbatia de Bello such Laws made by H. 1. as are transcribed in the Red Book of the Exchequer under that name such a Charter of King John made at Reningmead or such a Charter as Magna Charta made by King H. 3. than we have that there were such Laws such Distributions of the Land of Canaan and such
things done in Egypt and the Wilderness as are recorded by Moses The Moral Evidence that ariseth from this Consideration is this That since in these things that are capable of an incomparable Evidence of Credibility in respect of the time wherein they were done though very ancient and exceeding the Age of any other Author we find such indisputable Evidence of Truth we have reason to give credit to the same Author relating the Derivation and Beginning of Nations from the Sons of Noah though in respect of the greater Antiquity thereof we have not any other concurrent Testimony but that of Moses And the rather though we have not those other Evidences thereof yet Moses might have as unquestionable Evidences of the things transacted between his time and the Flood which at the greatest Account was not above 1600 Years but by the Jewish Account about 800 Years before his time as we now have of those things which were transacted in the time of Moses which is above twice 1600 Years distant from our time 3. Besides the Relation of the Traduction of the several Nations of the World from the Sons of Noah delivered by Moses in that short Pedigree or Extract Gen. 10. we have very many probable Evidences of the consent of all succeeding Ages to that Genealogy of the World as 1. The common Tradition of those Ages that succeeded shortly after Moses which commonly esteemed them so descended 2. The Analogy of their several Names of the Countries wherein Moses supposed the first Fathers fixed as Canaan Misraim or Egypt Chittim Assur or Assyria and infinite more of this kind which are not needful here to be remembred since Bochart and those that have transcribed out of him give us abundant Instances Neither is it reasonable to object against this that which is before observed in relation to other Allusions of this kind namely That those Denominations of Places might not be so much from the Roots of those Nations or Families or from the Captains or Governors that gave Names to those Countries they conquered because the Historian Moses gives us in express terms the reason of the Denomination to be from the very Parental Roots of those People or Families and 2. Because those Heads of Countries or Nations who were nearer to Moses time gave the Denomination to the Countries which in effect they peopled as Edomites to the Posterity of Edom Moabites and Ammonites to the Posterity of the two Sons of Lot Madian to the Posterity of Abraham by Keturah and many more And we have as great reason to suppose that these grew and increased into great Nations in the time of Moses since the People of Israel who descended from a later Stock than any of these within the space of little more than 200 Years increased into so great a People that in their going out of Egypt their Males of above 20 Years old amounted to 600000 whereof use will be made hereafter The late Discovery of the vast Continent of America and Islands adjacent which appears to be as populous with Men and as well stored with Cattel almost as any part of Europe Asia or Africa hath occasioned some difficulty and dispute touching the Traduction of all Mankind from the two common Parents supposed of all Mankind namely Adam and Eve but principally concerning the storing of the World with Men and Cattel from those that the Sacred History tells us were preserved in the Ark. And the Objection runs thus It seems apparent by all Geographical Descriptions of this lower World that the whole Continent of America and the adjacent Isles thereof are no way contiguous to any parts of Asia Europe or Africa but disjoyned from the same by huge and vast Oceans divided from the Western Coasts of Europe and Africa by the vast Atlantick Ocean from the North parts of Europe by the great Frozen Seas lying between it and Greenland which seems to be the Northern Coast of America from the North-east part of Asia Tartary and Cathay by the Fretum Anian from the East parts of China and the Philippine Islands by the Oceanus Pacificus of above 2000 Leagues breadth and is divided from the great lately discovered Island del Fogo by the Straits of Magellan and that Island again divided from the uttermost Southern Continent if any be by a great Sea which though not formerly known to the Europeans and Asiaticks being divided from Asia and Africa by the great Indian Ocean yet hath been lately discovered by Le Maire It is also evident that this vast Continent and the greatest part of the Islands near adjacent to it are well stored with Men and Beasts of all sorts Laetius in his Disquisition touching the Original of the Americans in his 8 th Observation gives us an account of above thirty Millions of Americans destroyed by the Spaniards in those Parts of America that they have usurped to their own Dominion which is not the hundredth part of that great Continent The Inhabitants of this Continent as they greatly differ among themselves so they extremely differ from the Asiaticks Europeans and Africans in their Language and Customs they recognize no Original from these Parts it is true they have some resemblance of the Scythians or Tartars in some of their barbarous Customs and some Words they have which seem to carry a congruity with Words of other Nations But these are but slender Evidences to prove their Traduction from Asia Africa or Europe especially since no Monument is extant that gives an account of their Traduction or Migration thither and the rather because it was a World wholly unknown to the Europeans Africans and Asiaticks till the Discovery thereof made by Americus Vesputius and Christopher Columbus which is but of late time Again Acosta tells us in his 4 th Book Cap. 36. there are divers perfect Animals of divers kinds in America which have none of the same kind in Europe Asia or Africa as their Pacos Guanacos and Indian Sheep and on the other side many species of Birds and Beasts in these Countries which are not found in America And upon these Premisses they thus argue That since by all Circumstances it is apparent that America hath been very long inhabited and possibly as long as any other Continent in the World and since it is of all hands agreed that the supposed common Parents of the rest of Mankind Adam Noah and his three Sons had their Habitations in some Parts of Asia and since we have no probable Evidence that any of their Descendents traduced the first Colonies of the American Plantations into America being so divided from the rest of the World the access thither so difficult and Navigation the only means of such a Migration being of a far later perfection than what could answer such a Population of so great a Continent That consequently the Americans derive not their Original either from Adam or at least not from Noah but either had an Eternal Succession or if they had a
the Continent of Asia about Japan or Cathay so that a Land-passage might be out of Asia into Groenland and thence into America But this is only conjectured and not fully discovered to be so But however the Case now stands with the three known Parts of the World in relation to its contiguity with the Continent of America it is not impossible but in that long tract of 4000 Years at least which hath hapned since the Universal Deluge there hath been great alterations in the situations of the Sea and Earth possibly there might be anciently Necks of Land that maintained passage and communication by Land between the two Continents Many Instances of this kind are remembred by Pliny not only of the great Atlantick Island mentioned by the Egyptian Priest in Plato's Timaeus of a great bigness almost contiguous to the Western parts of Spain and Africa yet wholly swallowed up by that Ocean to which it hath given its Name of the Atlantick Ocean which if true might for ought we know afford a Passage from Africa to America by Land before that Submersion but also many more Instances of the like Variations thus he reports that Sicily was anciently divided from Italy Cyprus from Syria Euboea from Boetia Vide Plin. l. 2. cap. 88 89 90 91. Strabo also in his first Book seems to referr the Straits or Apertures of the Euxin and Mediterranean Seas to the like separations made by the force of the Sea and attributes those great Floods and Inundations to the elevation and subsiding of the Moles terrestris in these words Restat ut causam adscribamus solo sive quod mari subest sive quod inundatur potius tamen ei quod mari subest hoc enim multo est mobilius quod ob humiditatem celerius mutari possit Spiritus enim hujusmodi omnium rerum causa ibi est copiosior Sed sicuti dixi causa horum efficiens accidentium est quod eadem sola alias attolluntur alias subsidunt and he resembles the ordinary Elevations and Depressions whereby the ordinary Fluxes and Refluxes are made to the Exspiration and Respiration of Animals but those greater and extraordinary Elevations and Depressions of the Earth to the greater Accidents Nam diluvia terraemotus eruptiones flatuum tumores subiti terrae in mari latentis mare quoque extollunt subsidentésque in se eaedem terrae faciunt ut mare dimittatur And it is no new or feigned Observation That as the Volcans in the Land as Aetna and Vesuvius raise up those great Protuberances which seem Natural Mountains so the like Volcans or Fiery Eruptions happen sometimes in the Land subjected to the Sea whereby great quantities of Earth together with Fire are thrown up and grow into Islands De quibus videsis Strabonem Plinium in locis citatis And if we may give credit to the Conjectures of Verstegan the Countries of England and France were formerly conjoyned and after separated by the Irruption of the Sea between Dover and Calais And therefore although it may be that at this day there is no Land-passage from this Elder World unto that of America yet within the tract of 4000 Years such there might have been whereby both Men and Beasts especially from about Tartary or China might pass or between Norway or Finland and the Northern part of the American Continent But we need not go so far from home nor resort to the Ages of ancient times for the evincing the great Changes that have been between the Sea and Lands sometimes by tempestuous Winds sometimes by Earthquakes sometimes and that most commonly by the working of the Sea by casting up Silt and Sand and by exaggerations thereby wrought elegantly described by Ovid 15. Metamorph. Vidi ego quod fuerat quondam solidissima tellus Esse fretum vidi factas ex aequore terras Et procul à pelago conchae jacuere marinae Et vetus inventa est in montibus anchora summis Quódque fuit campus vallem decursus aquarum Fecit eluvie mons est deductus in aequor Eque paludosa siccis humus aret arenis The Instances of latter Discoveries which make evident this various state of the Globe of Earth and Water thus described by the Poet are among others those that follow 1. Some Towns that were anciently Havens and Ports where Ships did ride are now by exaggeration of Sand between those Towns and the Sea converted into firm Land 2 3 4 Miles distant from the Sea such was S t Omer in Flanders Old Rumney in Kent Rye in Suffolk vide Mr. Dugdale his History of Draining pag. 173. and the Authors there cited by him 2. some whole Countries as well as the Egyptian Delta recovered to be dry Land partly by the exaggeration of Sand by the Sea or the out-falls of great Rivers thus the whole Country of Holland seems to be an Accretion partly by the Sea partly by the River Rhine Dugdale ibid. p. 12. 3. Some great Continents and Tracts of Ground were anciently firm Land and full of great Woods that could not have less time than 500 Years continuance and yet were afterwards reduced again into the Dominion of the Ocean and after all that re-reduced into firm Land leaving the infallible Signatures of these several Changes though the precise times thereof exceed the Memory of any Men alive Instances whereof are as follow In the great Level near Thorny several Trees of Oak and Firr some severed from their Roots others joyned to their Roots which stand in firm Earth below the Moor and in all probability have lain there hundreds of Years till covered by the inundation of the fresh and salt Waters and the Silt and Moorish Earth exaggerated upon them and the like monuments of great Trees buried in great quantities in the Isle of Axholm about 3 Foot and some 5 Foot under ground whereof there are multitudes some Oaks of 5 Yards in compass Firr-Trees of 30 Foot long Vide Dugd. ubi supra pag. 141 171. Mr. Ray in his Ingenious Observations upon his Travels in the Netherlands c. pag. 6. gives us the like account of great quantities of subterraneous Woods lying 10 and 20 Ells below the Superficies of the Ground prostrate towards the East which are supposed to be anciently thrown down by the irruption of the Sea and strong Western Winds which yet now and for all the time of the Memory of Man or History extant are firm Land namely Bruges in Flanders But that one Instance is instar omnium remembred by Mr. Dugdale ubi supra pag. 172 but of known and notorious truth the Sceleton of a great Sea-fish above 20 Foot long found in the Downs or Uplands of Cammington in Huntingdonshire very far distant from the Sea which is an unquestionable Evidence that the Sea was sometime Master of that Tract of Ground 4. Touching the Conchae marinae of several sorts it is most unquestionable I referr my self herein to the Relation of Mr.
exhaust the numbers of Men than Woman Therefore we will allow to Productions of five Couples about 16 Males and 14 Females which though not exactly answering either of those proportions yet comes near to them namely 16 Males to 14 Females And because partly through the weakness of Infancy and those Diseases that happen to Youth either by reason of intemperance indiscretion want of of care and the ebullition and fermentation of Blood more dye before 20 Years than between that age and 50 we will suppose of those six Procreations only two attain to the state of future Nuptials and procreation of succeeding Generations therefore we will allott only two of these six to attain to the state of Men and Women and consequently in an ordinary course of Nature live to the common age of Mankind And although the common age of Mankind when they are passed the danger of Childhood and Youth is 70 Years yet because I would have my Supposition as easie and general as may be I shall allow 60 to be that ordinary Age abating great Casualties and Epidemical Diseases And upon this account we may justly suppose these things 1. That these two Children may be coexisting with their Parents for near 30 Years for if the eldest be born at 27 Years of the age of the Father and the other at 30 Years of his age and live till the Father be 60 Years old the youngest is 30 Years old at the extremity of his Father's age which we suppose 60 Years and 2. These two Children by Intermarriage may have likewise two three or more Children by that time the Father attains 60 Years So that in the compass of about 34 Years the number of two namely the Father and Mother is increased to the number of eight namely the Father and Mother their two Children and four Grand-children so that in 34 Years they become increased in a quadruple proportion and all coexisting and although by that time we suppose the Father and Mother dye yet in the like Period of thirty four by a Geometrical Proportion their Increase is multiplied proportionnable to the Excess of their number above Two But if we shall suppose that the Technogonia began sooner as at 17 or 18 Years and continued longer viz. until 65 and that the Ages of Mens Lives were protracted generally to 70 Years the Increase would be very much greater And upon this account it is that considering the long Lives of the Ancients shortly after the Flood and the long continuance of their strength of Procreation Petavius in his 9 th Book De doctrina Temporum cap. 14. and before him Temporarius in his Chronology gives us a plain Demonstration That within the compass of 215 Years after the Flood the Sons of Noah and their Descendents might without a Miracle increase to prodigious and incredible multitudes The number of coexisting Individuals is by one of these Authors with very clear evidence computed to 1219133512 descended from one of the Sons of Noah And therefore that allowing the beginning of the Syrian Monarchy to have been about 153 Years after the Flood it might shortly after the beginning of Ninus his Empire which is supposed to have been about 215 Years after the Flood have grown to that greatness that might easily render credible the mighty Cities that were built by him and the great Armies that he raised and the Battles that he fought and vast Slaughters that he made and suffered But if we should follow the Account of the Septuagint which gives us a far greater Period of Time from the Flood to Abraham the advantage of the Increase would be signally greater although the common Account of the Jews render the Increase easily credible without the help of a Miracle And because that there can be no greater evidence of this Truth of the Increase of Mankind than Experience and Observation neither can there be any Observation or Experience of greater certainty than the strict and vigilant Observance of the Calculations and Registers of the Bills of Births and Deaths and because I do not know any one thing rendred clearer to the view than this Gradual Increase of Mankind by the curious and strict Observations of a little Pamphlet entitled Observations upon the Bills of Mortality lately printed I shall not decline that light or evidence that this little Book affords in this matter wherein he plainly evinceth 1. That the number of Males to Females is regularly as 14 to 13 or as 16 to 15. Cap. 8. 2. That supposing the number of breeding Couples to be 48000 in about the space of 7 Years in a healthy time or in 8 Years if there be Plagues the great City of London which is not so healthy as the Countrey will double without the help of the access of Foreiners and therefore Adam and Eve doubling themselves every 64 Years would in the Period of 5610 Years the supposed distance from the Creation of Man produce a far greater number of Mankind than are now in the World Cap. 11. 3. That in the Countrey which is generally more healthy than London upon a medium of Observation of 90 Years there are five Births for four Burials sometimes three to two and seldom in any Year these Burials equalled or exceeded the Births or if they did yet the succeeding Years ballanced it to that proportion of 5 to 4 for in the space of 90 Years 1059 were Born in one Parish more than were Buried Cap. 12. 4. That this Redundance did not much increase the place or Parish it self because by transmigrations to London to Forein Plantations and other places of Trade they disburthened the proportion of their increase and added to the greatness and amplitude of other places especially London 5. That considering the small excess of the number of Males above the number of Females and considering the redundancy of the number of Males is only sufficient to make good that decay of Males above Females by Wars and Navigation and other Accidents more incident to Males than Females there is very near a parity of Males and Females in the World to keep it in a consonancy and congruity to the first institution of Matrimonial society between one Man and one Woman 6. That consequently Polygamy doth not in the general conduce to the Increase of Mankind because the natural or ordinary proportion between the number of each is equal But in as much as by reason of the great Consumption of Males among the Turks by divers Accidents especially that of their great Wars between them and the Persians Tartars Christians and Moors whereby there is or at least in some Ages was a great redundance of the number of Woman above the number of Men The use of Polygamy allowed among them gives a greater increase of People than otherwise would be because of the excess of the number of Women above the number of Men by such Accidents These are some of those plain and evident Observations of the seemingly inconsiderable
Pamphlets which give a greater Demonstration of the Gradual Increase of Mankind upon the face of the Earth than a hundred notional Arguments can either evince or confute and therefore I think them worthy of being mentioned to this purpose Upon all which and much more that might be said it is evident That according to the ordinary course of Nature though those common and usual Accidents of common Sicknesses ordinary Casualties and common Events are incident to Humane Nature the number of Mankind doth and must necessarily increase in the World and the Natural Supplies of Mankind are greater and more numerous than the Decays thereof I now therefore come to the Second Consideration namely The Examination of the extraordinary or more universal Correctives of the Multiplication of Mankind which because it will be large I shall allow unto it a distinct Chapter CAP. IX Concerning those Correctives of the Excess of Mankind which may be thought to be sufficient to reduce it to a greater Equability I Come now to the Second premised Consideration and Inquiry viz. Whether there may not be found some extraordinary Occurrences and Correctives that may reduce that otherwise Natural and ordinary Increase of Mankind to an Equability And I call them Extraordinary not simply in respect of themselves but in opposition to those daily and ordinary Casualties which happen to Humane Nature and in respect of those great Distances and Periods whether certain or casual wherein they may be supposed to happen And I shall improve this Objection against the Increase de facto of Mankind with the greatest impartiality and advantage that may be It is certain that the Increase of Brutes and other Animals which are perfect and univocally generated is very great in the World Aristotle that inquisitive Searcher into Nature in his 4 th Book of the History of Animals hath given us an Account touching most Animals of the length of their Lives times of their Breeding intervals of their Birth wherein though possibly there may be variation in several Climates yet his Account may give a near estimate proportionable also to other places For Instance the Cow breeds in the second Year brings forth the tenth Month lives 15 or 20 Years the Mare breeds the third Year brings forth in the twelfth Month lives 25 30 and sometimes 40 Years the Sheep and Goat bear in the second Year bring forth in the beginning of the sixth Month sometimes two ordinarily but one lives 10 12 or 13 Years Sows breed in the second Year bring forth after four Months their Young numerous Bitches breed in the latter end of the first or beginning of the second Year bring forth after threescore Days or in the ninth Week their Young many 5 6 or sometimes 12 they live 10 or 12 sometimes 15 or 20 Years Wolves breed and bring forth as Dogs only their number fewer sometimes 2 sometimes 3 sometimes 4 the Doe brings forth after eight Months complete but one and sometimes two and live long the Fox breeds 4 the Cat 5 or 6 and lives 6 Years many times more the speedy and numerous increase of Mice is prodigious Aristotle mentions 120 produced of one Female in a very little time Pliny in his 11 th Book Cap. 63. hath in effect transcribed Aristotle herein By this it appears That the Natural Increase of these Animals is much greater than of Men yet their numbers have not arrived to that great excess because those that are for food have their reduction by their application for that purpose those that are domestical and not for food as Cats and Dogs are kept within compass by drowning or destroying their Young and those that are noxious as Wolves and Foxes are reduced by that common destruction that Men pursue them with Touching Birds their Increase seems to be much greater than of Men or Brutes but they have those reductions that bring them to a fair equability unless it be in those Islands and Rocks in the Sea unaccessible by Men where Sea-Fowls breed First their number is reduced by Man for food 2. For destruction as in Birds that are noxious 3. By the natural shortness of the Lives of many that are yet numerous breeders 4. By the mutual destruction of the weaker by Birds of prey whereof more particularly hereafter 5. By the Winter cold which starves very many either for want of heat or food and of this more hereafter Fishes are infinitely more numerous or increasing than Beasts or Birds as appears by the numerous Spawn of any one Fish though ordinarily they breed but once a Year and if all these should come ro maturity even the Ocean it self would have been long since over-stored with Fish Now the Correctives and Reductions of these are very many 1. Aristotle observes in his 6 th de Historia Animalium cap. 13. Those Eggs that are not sprinkled aspergine seminis genitalis maris prove unfruitful a great part are devoured by the Male and much more by other Fish some of their Eggs are buried in the slime and corrupted 2. Many are taken by Men and employed for food 3. As among Birds and Beasts they are Beasts and Birds of prey which are less numerous than others so especially among Fish And though the Wisdom of Providence hath given certain Expedients to Animals especially Fishes of the weaker nature to escape the voracious as swiftness to some smalness to others whereby they escape to Shallows and Shoars unaccessible to the greater and to those that are not able to move or at least not to move swiftly the protection of Shells as Oysters Escalops Crabs Lobsters and other Shell-fish yet a very great number are devoured by the voracious kind I do remember that a Friend of mine having stored a very great Pond of 3 or 4 Acres of ground with Carps Tench and divers other Pond-fish of a very great number and only put in two very little small Pikes at 7 Years end upon the draught of his Pond not one Fish was left but the two Pikes grown to an excessive bigness and all the rest together with their millions of Fry devoured by those pair of Tyrants 4. Birds also of prey as Storks Herons Cormorants and other Fowl of that kind destroy many both in the Sea Rivers Ponds and Lakes 5. Extreme Frost especially in Ponds and Lakes make a great destruction of Fish partly by freezing them partly by the exclusion of the ambient Air which insinuates it self into the Water and is necessary for the preservation of the Lives of those watry Inhabitants 6. By great Heats and Droughts not only drying up Lakes Ponds and Rivers but also tainting the Water with excessive heat and though these two do not so much concern Sea-fish who have more scope and room yet they have a great influx upon Rivers Ponds and Lakes Again to say something of Insects whether aiery terrestrial or watry they seem to be more numerous than the common sorts of univocal Animals who have
24148 Anno 1637 at Prague 30000 Anno 1652 at Cracovia 37000 Anno 1656 at Naples 30000 Anno 1657 at Genoa 70000 Anno 1619 at Grand Cairo in 10 Weeks 73500 And Leo in his History of Africa tells us that the Pestilence is so hot sometimes in that City that there dye 12000 almost every Day and Pliny in 7. Nat. Hist. cap. 50. saith that the Southern Plagues happen most in the Winter and move Westward according to the course of the Sun which some have observed also in the Northern that it sometimes held a gradual Motion and for the most part Westward as in 1652 at Cracovia 1653 at Dantzick 1654 at Copenhagen 1655 at Amsterdam and other Towns in the Netherlands 1656 at Naples and Rome 1657 at Genoa And I have somewhere read that in Alexandria in Egypt the Plague is Anniversary beginning with the Rising of Nilus which is about the 17 th of June and continueth rising 40 Days sometimes 12 sometimes 15 Cubits and in its greatest excess to 18 Cubits and as many Days decreaseth so that the Plague lasteth 80 Days and then perfectly ceaseth with the full Ebb of Nilus So that upon the account of Plagues and extraordinary Epidemical Diseases there seems to be a great Corrective of the Redundance and Increase of Mankind 2. Let us a little take notice of Famines which though they have not been of late times much observed partly because of the great Industry of Mankind improving and increasing the Fruits of the Earth partly by those Supplies that have come by Sea to those Countries that are in want but principally by the goodness of God in lending the Children of Men seasonable Weather and fruitful Seasons and prosperous Influences yet in former times they have been very grievous and destroyed multitudes of People Walsingham in the Life of E. 2. tells us of so severe a Famine in England that they were enforced to eat Dogs and Horses yea and stole Children and eat them viz. 9 E. 2. And divers other Instances our own Histories give us of other great Famines in this and other Countries Ordinarily a Famine and a Plague anciently went together or the former followed upon the heels of the Plague by reason of some of these means 1. Commonly the same distemperature of the Air that occasioned the Plague occasioned also the infertility or noxiousness of the Soil whereby the Fruits of the Earth became either very small or very unwholsom As it happened in that Famine under E. 2. above mentioned in so much that the Historian tells us that Medicinales herbae quae levamen languidis conferre solebant per Veris intemperiem Elementorum inaequalitatem contra naturam effectae degeneres virus pro virtute reddebant 2. Commonly the Plague among Men was accompanied or followed with a Rot or Murrain among Cattel whereby the flesh of Beasts was wanting or noxious to those that used it 3. Commonly by a great and general Mortality or Plague the Husbandmen and Labourers were so diminished that there wanted People to gather in the Harvest or Till the Ground whereby there necessarily ensued a Famine And oftentimes by a kind of necessity Famines were durable the Stock being exhausted one Year left little for the supply of Tillage Husbandry or Increase for the next And as Famine was anciently the Concomitant or Consequent of Plague so both Plague and Famine especially the latter were the usual Consequents of War which bring with it Devastation and Destruction and a general intermission of that Husbandry and Care that should supply it The terrible Effects of Famine and the great Consumption of Mankind that is occasioned was principally 1. Of the Poor who upon the bare increase of the Price of Victuals and wanting wherewith to buy must needs occasion their starving or a tumultuous gaining it by force where they could not get it which was but a short and temporary Relief and made more want after by the spoil and disorder occasioned thereby 2. Of numerous Armies who being brought into places of want or scarcity without due Conduct or Provision are oftentimes destroyed in a Week especially in close and long Sieges as it happened in Samaria when besieged by the Assyrians and Jerusalem when besieged by the Romans wherein more dyed by the Famine than by the Sword So that Famines as well as Plagues seem to give a great Reduction to the Numbers of Mankind 3. A few words may serve concerning Wars which are so frequent and bring so great a Desolation upon Mankind that it seems to equal that allay of the Excesses of Brutes Fishes Birds and Insects by the other Beasts Birds or Fishes of prey and the rather because many if not all the considerable Parts of the World are some Years at it though it may be some Ages free from Pestilences and Famines other than such as are consequences of War but in no Age nor Year of the World hath it been quiet from Wars and those calamitous consequences thereof at least in some considerable parts of the World It would be endless and indeed Morally impossible to give an Account of the Numbers of People and Armies that have been cut off by Wars especially on the side of the Conquered Some few Instances may give some kind of Estimate herein Diodorus Siculus in his third Book tells us that Ninus in his Preparation against the Bactrians gathered an Army of 1700000 Foot-men 200000 Horse-men 10600 Chariots that Zoroastres his Army consisted of 400000 who in the first Conflict prevailed and killed 40000 but were afterwards wholly destroyed so that probably in that War there fell no less than 400000 Men Darius Hystaspis in the Battel of Marathron whither he came with an Army of 600000 lost in one Battel 200000 his Successor Xerxes went into Greece with an Army according to some consisting in the whole number of it and its Appendices of five Millions those that spake most sparingly of above one Million all which within the space of five Years were in effect wholly lost Vide Lips de Constant. lib. 2. cap. 21 22 24. Alexander destroyed the Army of Darius consisting of a Million of Men the greatest part whereof fell by the Sword and Pliny in his 7 th Book of his Natural History Cap. 15. tells us that Julius Caesar and his Armies in the time of His Command killed 1192000 persons besides those that he slew in the Civil Wars And if by the Estimate of that one Man we might make a Calculation of those that were slain by the Assyrian Babylonian Persian and Grecian Monarchies by Cyrus Darius Astyages Alexander and his succeeding Captains by Marius Sylla Pompey Vespasian and the succeeding Roman Emperors by Tamberlane and the Scythians by the Goths Vandals Turks Tartars Muscovites Persians Moors and Christians by the Wars in this little Spot of England by the late Wars in France Spain Germany by the Spaniards in the West Indies the numbers of Internecions and Slaughters would exceed
terrae tractus eosdem hos Mare illos Continentem non esse sed tempore cuncta permutari I have mentioned these places of these Masters of Learning and Reason the more at large not only because they herein give the sharpest Objections against the necessity of a Temporary Beginning of Mankind by applying these Suppositions as Correctives or Reductions of the excess of the Generation of Men and Animals but also they do discover herein some things that are useful in this Inquiry For Instance 1. It appears hereby that the Inventions of Arts Sciences and Laws might be far more ancient than those times that Historians gave for their Invention for they might be in other Places or Ages and either by a successive rotation brought from one place to another or if they were lost yet succession of Ages might retrive new Discoveries of them again 2. We have a plain detection of the means whereby possibly the American People might have their deduction from the Europeans or Asiaticks because it is not impossible but the Continents might be in some Ages or other contiguous though now disjoyned by the mutations of the situations of Seas though the certain times of those Changes are not transmitted by History to our Age. 3. That the ancient Histories of things by Depopulations Wars Famines Inundations Transmigrations of People and other Accidents may be lost in after Ages which possibly in former Ages might be known and some Monuments thereof than extant which are now obliterated and forgotten Thus far concerning these Reductives by Inundations and Conflagrations out of the Princes of the Academical and Peripatetical Philosophers We shall find the like Suppositions frequently among the Stoicks Seneca may be an Instance for all that Sect only these vary from the former for although they do with the former admit and instance in temporary and partial Inundations by Earthquakes and other Accidents de quibus vide Senecam l. 3. Nat. Quaest de Terrae motu yet these go farther and suppose Universal Deluges and Conflagarations which will quite alter the whole Frame of this lower World and the whole Face thereof See the Rhetorical Description thereof Senec. in sine lib. 3. Nat. Quaest. Qua ratione inquis Eadem qua conflagratio futura est utrumque fit cum Deo visum ordiri meliora vetera finire Aqua ignis terrenis dominatur ex his ortus ex his interitus And out of Berosus assigns the Times and Periods of these Universal Deluges and Conflagrations Arsura enim terrena quando omnia sidera quae nunc diversos agunt cursus in Cancrum convenerint sic sub eodem posita vestigio ut recta linea exire per omnes omnium possit Inundationem futuram cum eadem siderum turba in Capricornum convenerit illìc solstitium hîc bruma confinitur But yet he supposeth a Restitution of the World after these Destructions Nec ea semper licentia undis erit sed peracto exitio humani generis extinctÃsque pariter feris in quarum homines ingenia transierant iterum aquas terra sorbebit natura pelagus stare aut intra terminos furere coget rejectus è nostris sedibus in sua secreta pelletur Oceanus antiquus ordo revocabitur omne ex integro animal generabitur dabitúrque terris homo inscius scelerum melioribus auspiciis natus sed illis quoque innocentia non durabit nisi dum novi sunt citò nequitia subrepit virtus difficilis inventu est rectorem ducémque desiderat etiam sine magistro vitia discuntur I shall spare mentioning any more to this purpose though many more Instances may be given out of the Philosophers of all Sects and Poets as Ovid and others Only I shall subjoyn these two Inquiries and so conclude this Objection 1. Whence it is that these Ancients had these Conjectures touching these Floods and Conflagarations so as to frame them into an Hypothesis either for the Castigation of the Excesses of Generation as Aristotle and Plato or to the total Dissolution thereof as the Stoicks and the means that wrought this Perswasion seem to be these 1. The things that seem to prevail with the Academicks and Peripateticks for these Partial Floods and Conflagrations seem to be those dark and obscure Histories of the things of that nature which had twice before happened in Greece Namely for Floods the Tradition of the Diluvium Ogygium or Diluvium antiquius which is supposed by Chronology to be under Ogyges King of Attica about 1000 Years before the first Olympiad about 248 Years before the Flood of Deucalion in Thessaly about 532 after the General Flood in the time of Noah and about the 2951 Year of the Julian Period and of the World 2187 though there is some variation among the Computations of Chronologers This was a Partial Flood as it seems in Attica part of Greece 2. Diluvium Deucalionis which was also Partial and about 248 Years after the former in the time of Cecrops first King of Athens or as others in the time of Cranaus his Son This is that mentioned by Plato and Aristotle that drowned a great part of Greece only some saved by Deucalion by bringing them to the top of Parnassus And out of the History of Moses touching the Universal Flood and the History of Deucalion Ovid made up his first Book attracting in a great measure to the latter what was written of the former by Moses And for Conflagrations they had two traditional Conflagrations in and near Greece which might give some countenance to this Perswasion namely 1. That of Phaeton Incendium Phaetontis which seems not to be long after the Flood of Deucalion though much of the Relation thereof as the Grecians and Ovid after them made was a Poetical Fiction yet it seems it had something of reality in it as is observed by Plato ubi supra 2. Idae Incendium which was no great business but an Eruption of Fire out of the Hill Ida as now in Etna this was about 73 Years after the Flood of Deucalion 2. As to the Stoicks who held Universal Inundations and Conflagrations possibly they might have the former of these from the Traditional Relation of the Universal Flood of Noah which Relation they believed and upon that founded their Supposition of the like Inundations being acquainted with the History of the Flood but not with the Covenant that God made never to bring a Flood again 2. As to that of the Universal Conflagration of the World it seems it was a known ancient and received Tradition among the Jews before our Saviour's time reinforced by him and his Disciples This seems to be implied in that Prophecy of Enoch Jude 14. and by ancient Tradition either from Noah or the ancient Jews this Perswasion might be Traditionally derived to the Gentiles and believed by the Stoicks 2. It appears by what hath been before transcribed That these Philosophers supposed those Inundations and Conflagrations to be at great distances
by Wars Oppressions and Internecions Plagues Famines and other Calamities we find the Product of one Nation derived from only two Persons Isaac and Rebecca in the compass of about 5000 Years swoln into incredible numbers of Millions of Persons now existing and known to be of that Linage and Descent and still continuing unquestionably in that Distinction besides those multitudes derived from the Line of Esau and the ten Tribes which are as it were lest and confounded without any distinction among other Nations And thus far of the first Instance concerning the Multiplication of the Nation of the Jews The next Instance that I shall give shall be nearer home the Kingdom of England I shall not give any Instance touching it before the Conquest because those times are dark and besides the Vicissitudes and Successions of various Nations in this Kingdom renders the discovery of the Progress of Generations of Men or the Increases thereof difficult as Britons Romans Picts Saxons and Danes The ancient Inhabitants were the Britons the Body of which People hath been in a great measure shut up and contained within the Country of Wales but what by the transplanting of many of the Welsh into England and by transplanting of the English into Wales it is not possible to say that all the Britons are confined to the Country of Wales or that none but Britons are there and therefore there can be no particular or evident Conclusion made touching their Increase or Multiplication But I shall take a shorter Period or Compass of Time namely the last 600 Years or thereabouts since the Norman Conquest And although it may be true that many Persons of Forein Countries have come into England and planted themselves here so that the whole Increase of this Kingdom cannot be singly attributed to those that were either Natives or such as came in with the Conquerour but many Scotcâ— Irish Dutch but especially French either by Naturalizations or Transmigrations have increased the Inhabitants of this Island yet considering that probably the Migrations of the English into Scotland Holland France and other Countries have made amends for their Migrations hither We may make a reasonable Conjecture that the Descendents from those that inhabited this Kingdom in the time of the Conquerour have increased exceedingly above what they were in that time And the Evidence thereof is this King William the First after his Victory over Herald did in the 16 th Year of his Reign over England caule a Survey to be made of all the Cities Towns Mannors and inhabited Lands in England Northumberland Cumberland Durham and North-Wales This Survey was finished in the 20 th Year of his Reign and the Book it self preserved to this Day among the Records of the Exchequer not only a Transcript or Copy but the very Original Book it self and is called Doomsday In this Book are entred the Names of the Mannors or inhabited Townships Boroughs and Cities and the Owner of them the Number of Plough-Lands that each contains and the Number of the Inhabitants upon them under the several Names appropriate to those Places As for Instance Ibi 12 Burgenses 5 Villani 5 Bordarii 5 Nativi 5 Radiminches 5 Cotterelli and the like according to the quality or condition of the Inhabitants So that this Book in effect gives an Account not only of the Manurable Lands in every Mannor Town or Vill but also of the Number and Natures of their several Inhabitants To make a Calculation of the Number of Plough-Lands and Inhabitants through all England as they are recorded and to make therewith a Comparison unto the present State and Number of Inhabitants at this Day throughout England is a laborious piece of work but it is not difficult to be done in any one County I have tryed the Comparison in the County of Gloucester through some great Boroughs as Gloucester it self Thornbury Tetbury and other places and in effect through the whole County and I do find 1. That there are very many more Vills and Hamlets now than there were then and very few Villages Towns or Parishes then which continue not to this Day but now there are as many as then and many more The 5 th of March 9 E. 2. there issued Writs to the Sheriffs of the several Counties to return the Names of the several Vills and Land-Owners in their several Bayliwicks which was accordingly done and remains of Record in the Exchequer under the stile of Nomina Villarum and the Sum of the Vills of Gloucestershire together with the five Boroughs of Gloucester Bristol Berkley Dursly and Newenham amounted to 234 which I take it are more than are in Doomsday and yet not so many as are at this day and those that continue to this day are far more populous than they were at the taking of either of those Surveys 2. That there is much more Tillage and more Plough-Lands now than there were then which happens by the reduction of many great Wasts and Commons into Tillage or Meadow or Pasture which then were only Wasts and therefore not particularly surveyed because of no considerable Value and not taken notice of in that Survey 3. That the number of Inhabitants now are above twenty times more than they were at that time as well in particular Towns Boroughs and Mannors as in the general extent of the County and yet that Survey even as to the number and quality of those that resided in those Towns or Mannors at least as Housholders is very precise and particular I have not yet made an exact particular Calculation of the Number recorded in that Book through the whole County but I will give a few Instances of particular Towns which may give an estimate touching the whole Gloucester is now a very great and populous City formerly before the time of H. 8. a Borough In the Survey of Doomsday it is surveyed distinct from the Bertun of Glouc ' the gross of the Borough is surveyed together in the beginning of the County but there are some other particular Burgages thereof mentioned under the Titles of particular Mens Possessions as Terra Rogeri de Lacy Terra Elnuffi de Hesding c. The whole concretion of the City of Gloucester consists partly of what was the ancient Borough partly of accessions from the Mannors or Villages adjacent as Barton and some others I shall therefore cast up the whole Number of all that were in Gloc ' or Barton In the Survey of Gloucester there are reckoned 23 Burgages and Houses 16 that were demolished for the building of the Castle 14 that were wasted and some that belonged to Osbertus Episcopus not numbred but yielded the yearly Rent of 10 Shillings which according to the usual rate of the Houses in Gloucester at that time which was at 5 d or 6 d a House might produce 20 Houses in toto 73. Besides these there are surveyed under the Titles of several Owners of Lands sparsim through the Book as under the Title
it is expresly affirmed that both Sexes in distinct Persons were then created Male and female created he them and such transpositions are not unusual neither in the Holy History nor in other Histories The first Chapter gives the brief and orderly Relation of the whole Series of Times and Things done in them and the second Chapter is only a fuller and more explicit Declaration of some things that are briefly and compendiously delivered in the first Chapter as appears not only by the Relation of the Formation of Eve but divers other passages relating to what was transacted in the first Chapter 7. The Formation of Man was the last Work of the Creation the last Work of the last Day and the Reasons of this Order seem to be these 1. Because in the Method of the Creation of Sublunary Natures Almighty God proceeded from the less to the more perfect and curious Parts of the visible Creation as first he made Vegetables then Fishes and Birds then Brutes and Man in the last place as the most perfect and containing not only the Faculties of Vegetables and Animals and that in a more perfect nature but also a superadded intellectual spiritual Soul So he was the noblest part of the Creation at least of this lower World 2. Because Mankind should be furnished to his hand with all things convenient and useful to his existence and operation as the Grass was provided before the Brutes were created so before the Creation of Mankind Fruits of the Earth were provided for his food and delight a Paradise for his entertainment and employment of his Senses and Industry Idleness being not indulged even in Paradise and the goodly Furniture of the visible World both Celestial and Sublunary to raise his Admiration Contemplation and Delight 3. Because God Almighty intended him a liberal Patrimony which he would furnish and compleat in all its numbers before Man was created and as soon as he had created him gave him this inferior World as his Usufructuary and Steward at least but yet withall gave him a subordinate dominion of that whereof he made him his Steward and this great Benefactor prepared this Gift of this inferior Terrestrial World to be ready for his Creature Man's reception as soon as he had a Being and accordingly gave it him with all its Furniture Gen. 1.28 29. 8. That Man was by Almighty God in his first Creation in a state of perfect Felicity and Immortality but under a condition of Obedience to the Divine Will Command and Law that he had implanted in his Mind and Conscience certain Principles of Moral Goodness and Righteousness which are the Original of those common Notions of Good and Evil as so many secret Byasses and Inclinations to the observance of the Good and avoidance of the Evil. And as even the inferior Animals have implanted in them secret Instincts and Tendences for the preservation and advance of their sensible individual and specifical natures so these implanted Notions and Moral Inclinations in the Mind of Man were therein lodged to guide and lead him in a conformity to his excellent Constitution and for the attainment of an intellectual and eternal Good and these though the vigour and brightness of them were much abated by his Fall yet were transmitted with his nature to his Descendents And this is the Original of those common Notions which yet remain in the Humane Nature though refracted and abated by the Fall of Man this is that common Light and Law of Nature which to this day in some measure prevails in the generality of Mankind to the Acknowledgment Adoration and Reverence of a Deity and Moral Righteousness this is that Law of Nature mentioned by the Apostle Rom. 1. written in the Hearts of Men wherby they do by Nature the things contained in the Law But of this I shall write somewhat fuller in the ensuing Chapter 9. Besides this Moral inscribed Law God Almighty for the tryal of Man's Obedience gave him a positive Law prohibiting the eating of the forbidden Fruit under pain of temporal and eternal Death and Curse and Man was left in the hands of his own liberty to obey or disobey it 10. That Man being left to the free liberty of his own Will though furnished with sufficient abilities to have obeyed Almighty God yet by the temptation of Satan his own sensual appetite and ambitious affectation violated his Maker's Law and broke that Condition upon which much of his Perfection and Happiness was conferred upon him and although he retained his Essentials namely his Essential Constitution this Spirituality and Immortality of his Soul his Faculties of Understanding and Will he thereby incurred these unhappy deprivations 1. A loss of the immortal state of his Composition being now obnoxious to the separation of Soul and Body 2. A very great abatement of that temporal Felicity he had in this Life and obnoxious to the everlasting separation from God with the Death of the Soul 3. An abatement and diminution of those Habits of Knowledge and Rectitude of Soul and a great weakning and decay of the vigour and activity of connatural implanted Notions or Inclinations 4. A great disorder in the due subordination of his Faculties and a great confusion and corruption prevailing upon his noble Faculties and weakning disordering and abasing them 5. An impair of that Sovereignty and Dominion over the Creatures who rebelled against Man as soon as he forsook his Maker 6. Diseases Disorders Weaknesses Sicknesses Harbingers and Forerunners of Death attaquing his Bodily Constitution 7. A transmission of these Hereditary Imperfections and Decays to his Posterity And herein and hereby we have an Account of that great Quaesitum among the Learned Heathen where yet for want of this Discovery by the Holy Scriptures they could never attain the full knowledge and reason namely the Original of Sin and Evil and those many Corruptions Defections and Miseries of Mankind And thus much concerning the Divine History of the Creation and Defection of Man CAP. IV. The Reasonableness of this Hypothesis of the Origination of the World and particularly of the Humane Nature and the great Advantages it hath above all other Hypotheses touching the same THat the World had a beginning of its Being at least in that order and consistence that it now holds I have shewed in the beginning of this Book Again if there could be any imaginable doubt or question whether the great Integrals of the World were eternal and without beginning yet I have shewed that Mankind or the successive Generations thereof ex ante genitis is in Nature and Reason impossible and in Fact and Experience apparently improbable and therefore that there were some common Parents of Mankind who had their beginning of existence and that in some other way than they are now produced All that have supposed an Origination of Mankind ex non genitis have admitted something either of Matter analogous to it out of which Mankind hath had such his Origination