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A37969 Brief remarks upon Mr. Whiston's New theory of the earth and upon an other gentleman's objections against some passages in a discourse of the existence and providence of God, relating to the Copernican hypothesis / by John Edwards ... Edwards, John, 1637-1716. 1697 (1697) Wing E197; ESTC R21718 27,908 59

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God would obviate Idolatry by downright Falsifying Can we think that Moses was inspired to Lye that the Heavenly bodies might not be worship'd For so runs the Argumentation of this Gentleman Moses makes the Jews believe in this chapter that God created the Sun and other Luminaries on the fourth day and that they belong to the Earth and a part of this System though there is no such thing but this he feigns as an Antidote against the Adoation of the Host of Heaven One would not have expected such a poor way of Reasoning from a man of Postulata's and Lemmata's Who would think that one so well vers'd in Hypotheses Phaenomena's and Solutions should discourse so weakly But this it is to abandon the Sacred Text and not to adhere to the easy and obvious meaning of the Holy Ghost in these Writings and in this Chapter more particularly It is this that hath betrayed our Learned Theorist to such strange and unaccountable fancies it is this that causes him to defend his Proposition viz. that the six days Creation extended no further than the bare Earth and that the whole System of the Heavenly Bodies is excluded from this History of Moses although in that very History he finds it clearly recorded that the Sun Moon and Stars by which day and night are distinguished are part of the Six days Creation Next I will observe that he is pleased to inform us of a New Calculation of Time in the primitive state of the world days and years were all one Book 2. p. 81. And afterwards Both these Periods are exactly coincident and both are performed in the same space of time And then he thinks good to apply it The Works of Creation were finished in six days that is six years he saith But how will he be able to reconcile this with Gen. I. 5 The evening and the morning were the first day and the same is said of all the other days of the Creation Here an evening and a morning are made the just limits of a day and therefore a day at the Creation of the world was not a Year for there is a greater number of evenings and mornings in the compass of a year And so when we read that six evenings and six mornings were spent in the works of the Creation we may rationally infer thence that these amount not to six Years And this Sagacious Writer would have made this Inference himself if he had not been tempted to the forsaking of the plain intelligible and obvious sense of the words and changing the easy and natural interpretation of Scripture for a forced one Again he thinks fit to symbolize with his Fellow-Theorist and to raise the same Objection against the Mosaick Creation that he did For thus you hear him objecting p. 50 51. The length of the days assigned is wholly disproportionate to the business done upon it The Third day hath two quite different nay incompatible Works assign'd it And the Earth with its furniture takes up four entire days when the sun moon and stars are crowded into one single day And the Improbability yea and impossibility of the Works ascribed by Moses to the Sixth day are asserted by him Book 2. p. 89 90 91. These Cavils might perhaps have become some profess'd Lay-Deist but they are unworthy of a person that bears and Ecclesiastical Badg and who is supposed to believe Moses's writing and not to find fault with Inspired History Are we to judg of the Proportion of the Days Works at the Creation Are we to set the Almighty his Task are shallow heads to censure the Operations of the Omnipotent Creator Must they measure every Days proceedings at the first formation of the world by certain Rules and Assignations of their own This is intolerable and no Pagan Philosopher would have acted thus for he could not but know that the Methods of a Divine and Infinite Agent transcend the conceptions of weak and finite minds and that the Supreme Being is not confined to our Proportions but acts as he pleases Natural and Common Productions are not the same with those Primary ones We must not argue from our ordinary Generations to that which was at the beginning of all things There was an other way and method observ'd and it is irrational and senseless to make these a Pattern to them Here was the Immediate hand of God and therefore it is no wonder that the beginning procedure and finishing of these Days Works were of a different nature from those Works that have been since There being an Extraordinary and Miraculous exertment of Divine Power it is as unreasonable as it is Irreligious to find fault with the Distribution of them It is rash folly to expect Mathematical Congruity in every Production and to look for Mechanick Laws in the erecting of the Universe in the System of the Heavens in the Planetary Bodies in the Sun and other Globes of Fire It is incongruous to think that Mechanism was observ'd in the formation of these But of this I will speak more anon Only at present I take notice of the Agreement of the Two Theorists as to the Main though this latter in one place severely chastises the former for the false steps he hath made in his Theory p. 76 77. There is a perfect Union and Friendship between them in the point of enervating the Mosaick History only they do it after a different manner The Old Theorist now we may call him so since this hath dubb'd himself the New one directly and professedly rejects the plain sense of the Mosaick Text whereas this pretends to own it but at the same time miserably wrests and perverts it The one openly declares that what Moses saith is not matter of Fact but the other comes and acknowledges in part that it is an Historical Account but denies that it is suitable to the Reality of things it is a History but False The former plainly and in downright terms owns his dislike of the Literal meaning of that part of Genesis but the latter though he admits of the Literal signification yet craftily and sophistically distorts the sense of the words and puts a force upon them The first uses more freedom and ingenuity telling the world without more ado that the Historical sense is not to be admitted the second pretends to own the Account of the Creation as to the very Letter but baffles it all by uncouth Expositions Thus though the two Theorists take a different Method yet they unite in exposing the Mosaick Writings It is Melancholy Reflection when we consider how men are hereby taught to vilify the Scriptures to dispute the Mosaick Verity to quarrel with the Creation to look upon the several Stages and Processes of it as feigned and because they are not adjus●ed to such Measures and Proportions as these persons fancy to vote them to be false and counterfeit What can a well meaning and sober Reader think when he finds our present Author disparaging and
Scripture And the Stars also in the same verse i. e. the Fixed Luminaries of Heaven are mention'd in contradistinction to the Other Lights Is it not strange now that notwithstanding this Evidence any man should start up and venture to maintain that Moses in this Chapter speaks only of the formation of the Earth Could it be expected that one who hath so great a share of Reason and Sense should thus talk Is it not prodigiously absurd that by Lights in the firmament of the heaven and Two Great Lights and the Stars also all of them either by day or by night to give light upon the earth we should understand the Earth and no more Another late Writer saw how inconvenient harsh and incongruous it was to do so and therefore though he was pleas'd to exclude the Stars i. e. the Fixed Stars from this Creation yet he grants that not only the Earth but other Planets and the Sun it self were the matter of the Creation in this chapter Indeed as for the Stars this Gentleman makes sure work with them for he dashes the word Stars out of the Text which no Commentator or Critick ever ventur'd to do But then indeed as if he repented of his rash act he refers the word Stars to the verb rule and forces a strange and unheard of sense on the place I wish this Ingenious Writer had not too much gratified the Deists whom he undertook to confute by flying to so precarious and shifting a Gloss on a plain Text of Scripture But our present Author out doth this Gentleman and will have neither Sun nor any other Planets nor Stars to be part of the Creation recorded by Moses although express mention be made in this chapter of the Lights both greater and lesser which were set or placed by God at the Creation in the Higher Firmament and although it be said Gen. 2. 1. thus i. e. as was described in the former chapter the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them Than which we could not have plainer words to express the Universal Frame of the World and every thing whatsoever that belongs to it for the Inspired Historian assures us that not only the heavens and the earth which terms themselves comprehend the whole Mundane Scheme were finish'd in the six days Creation but he adds that all the host of them were finish'd likewise that we might not have any ground of surmising with this Writer that Mojes gives us not an Account in the first chapter of Genesis of the Whole System of the Visible World Yet our Author confidently avers that in the foremention'd place the heavens and the earth signify the Terraqueous Globe alone with its Air or Atmosphere without including the Whole Universe or so much as the Solar System p. 10. To me it seems very wonderful and surprizing that any Man of Learning and lngenuity should so openly and plainly confront the Sacred Writer and misrepresent his Clear Account of the Creation of the World I declare I would not have troubled the Reader with any of these Reflections were it not upon this consideration only that this Theorist apparently shocks the Divine Revelation of the Holy Scriptures and contradicts the plain History of the First Inspired Penman I take it to be a very ill work to deal thus with this part of the Bible for the rest of it may as well be treated after the same manner and then in a short time we may give up this Book to the Deists and their fellows It is not from want of Deference to Mr. Whiston or his Parts and Worth that I thus speak I will be of the first that shall applaud his Ingenious Attempts but that which extorts a Censure from me is this that he hath the boldness to offer to the publick a Theory which is wholly inconsistent with the History of Moses And in this Censure all persons that pay a due reverence to the Scriptures must needs concur with me It is ill in a Person of his Figure especially to undervalue the Holy Text and thereby to conciliate in others who are not so well acquainted with it a disregard of the Sacred Penmen and their Writings This will be the natural result of such Undertakings and I am afraid hath been for if some men were not Deists before their perusal of such Writings these will make them so because they see there is no Respect given to Revealed Truth and there is no care taken to conform their Notions about the Creation of which Moses only can give us an account to the book of Genesis But let us hear what the Worthy Author saith in defence of himself and his Interpretation First he tells us that the Capacities of people could not bear an universal account of the origin of things p. 80. And again The Capacities of the Iews to whom Moses peculiarly wrote were very low and mean and their Improvements very small or rather none at all in Philosophick Matters p. 82. And so p. 83. The rude and illiteratte Iews were newly come from the Egyptian bondage and destitute of the very first Elements of Natural Knowledg and this he gives as a Reason why he asserts that the Narrative which Moses gives of the Creation reaches no further than the Earth Such jejune and childish Arguings can never have any power on Rational Minds who delight not to be entertain'd with fancy but solid Truth But no man can count this Reasoning to be of the latter sort for the Capacities of the people were able to bear a plain Relation of the formation of the Heavenly Bodies no less than of the Terrestrial ones The Jews might as well have understood Moses telling them that the Sun Moon and Stars were created as when he tells them that the Earth was created And accordingly we find that he relates the former of these no less than the latter though this Theorist pretends even against the express words of the History that there is no such thing And who but this Author and his Brother Theorist could have dreamt that there is any need of Improvements in Philosophick matters to understand that the Sun and other Luminaries of heaven were made by God on the 4th day of the Creation And I should here also take notice of a great Mistake viz. that the Book of Genesis was peculiarly wrote to the Iews who came out of Egypt as he speaks in the same place Certainly the design of penning it was more Catholick it was intended for all succeeding Iews to speak of no others at present not only such as were Illiterate and Rude but those of sufficient Knowledg and Understanding and surely these might be of sufficient capacity to bear a plain and short Narration of the making of the Heavens as well as of this Lower World This shews that there is no foundation for the Opinion which this Ingenious Writer hath espoused but I hope will have thoughts of being divorced from by