Deformity Again whereas the Author in his second Book where he treats of the Cosmogonia Mosaica will have it that the Creation according to the six days Works set forth Gen. 1. is deliver'd only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad capum usumque Populi and judges that some of the Antients have deliver'd the Generation of the World more Philosophically I must confess if any Tergiversation were to be allow'd from the Text of Moses I should be more enclin'd to think that either the World being eternal as the fore-mention'd-Philosophers held or at least that the time of its Rise or Creation being indefinite and wholly inscrutable by Man as all the Gentiles who held it not eternal must have suppos'd it not a Man of them as far as I know having assign'd or substituted any determinate time for its beginning Moses as a divine Legislator substituted a time for its Creation or Rise and the Modus of it whereas the Gentiles substituted only the Modus according to their corrupt Divinity thereby to carry on a Doctrine for the Good and Salvation of Man and that his Chronology according to the Lives of the Patriarchs may possibly be resolvable by Arithmantical Divinity according to certain Symbolical Mysteries contain'd in Numbers or I should more readily follow the Opinion of Austin than any of those Philosophers he holding that God created all things in an instant without any succession of time which Opinion might as well have been consider'd by the Author as that of the World's Eternity this equally taking away those gradual Changes which he represents in the Chaos setting the World immediately in the State it is And truly it seems much more rational to me that all things were set in their perfect State at first whether it be taken as the Text of Moses literally imports by a properated Maturation or instantaneously after the Opinion of Austin than to suppose an Earth gradually qualifi'd as those Philosophers do for the Production of Plants and Animals c. So that their Earth as it rose from a Chaos must have been a long time in a Quagmire condition and not affording a tolerable Habitation for an Irish Bog-trotter till the Sun I know not after what Revolution of Ages had made it tenantable which appears but a meagre and unsatisfactory Story of which I may say more elsewhere Of Austin's Opinion also were the most rational amongst the Jewish Doctors Rabbi Moses Aegyptius Philo Judaeus Abraham Judaeus and the Schools of Hillel and Schammai as Manasseh Ben Israel writes Procopius Gazaeus also and Cajetan held the same I may add that Hermodorus the Platonick says that Linus writ the Generation of the World the Courses of the Sun and Moon and the Generation of Fruits and Animals and that in the first Verse of his Work he affirms all things to have rose together And so much for this Point which some perhaps may think more than need to have been I shall now proceed to state the Author's Theory for the Composition of his Earth or how it rose from a Chaos which runs thus First He supposes that all those that allow the Earth an Origine agree that it rose from a Chaos tho I have shewn before that Austin and those that are for instantaneous Creation could not agree to it farther than to help out our way of conceiving because no real successive Changes could then have pass'd in the suppos'd Chaos in order to the Earth's Formation and then he lays down two Propositions to be made out by him The first is That the Form of the Antediluvian Earth or of the Earth that rose from a Chaos was different from the Form of the present Earth The second is That the Face of the Earth before the Deluge was smooth regular and uniform without Mountains and without a Sea He proves his first Proposition first because he says he has shewn in his Second Chapter that if the Earth had been always of the present Form it would not have been capable of a Deluge Secondly he proves it from a Passage in the second Epistle of S. Peter Chapter the Third Thirdly He proves it from Reason and the Contemplation of the Chaos from whence the Earth first arose To the first Proof I answer that as I have intimated before it does not concern me here to shew how a Deluge was possible according to the present Form of the Earth which may still rely on Miracle till more valid natural Reasons are assign'd for it than any perhaps have hitherto been and all I undertake is to shew that the Deluge could not have happen'd according to the Hypothesis laid down by the Author which I conceive I shall make out in its due place As to his second Proof from S. Peter first I have intimated in my Advertisement to the Reader prefixt to this Book that a right reverend Divine has already given some Explanation of the Passages of Scripture contain'd in the Theory and in this regard I shall not intermeddle with them farther than necessity of Argument shall enforce me thereunto Secondly as to Scripture Passages I have this to offer in general that since the End of the Scriptures is of an higher Nature than to instruct us in natural History and in Sciences grounded on second Causes to which God has left them as useless to the Salvation of Men I think they ought not to be apply'd but in those holy things of Faith and Morals for which they were dictated and possibly it was on these accounts that those of the Antients who are suppos'd to have read the Books of Moses did not quote them in their Writings Again since the Author is pleas'd to set by the first Chapter of Genesis as not Philosophically written tho certainly this if any part of the Scriptures is design'd for our instruction as to the original state of the World and the beginnings of things I know not why he should much insist on any part else unless it be so self-evident that it is not liable to various Expositions as those Passages he quotes are by him allow'd to be Neither to me do they seem cogent tho I may allow some of them to bear a fair Exposition enough his way as others seem more natural in another sense But this I observe generally of Quotations that farther than they carry a fair stress of Reasoning with them what by various Explications and comparing of Passages they breed endless Cavillations which rather nauseate than satisfie a judicious Reader And even that Passage of S. Peter so much insisted on by the Author tho it seems to intimate to us some other state of the Heavens and Earth before the Flood than they have since we find the thing is not so clearly hinted that any Man since could thence divine what that State should have been and I shall shew in the sequel by Arguments drawn from the Nature of the thing that the Attempt the Author has made for explaining it has
a particular Providence for upholding the Ante and Postdiluvian Longaevity will be forc'd to relapse here for any thing that can be made out from Authentick History or Reason in the Case Not but we have several Instances of late date of Persons who have liv'd two or three Hundred Years and upwards But this has not been successively as in the Patriarchs and there is odds betwixt three or four Hundred Years and near a Thousand And whereas the Author urges for a general Longaevity among the Antediluvians as well as for some time after the Flood we do not find it authoriz'd by Scripture And that it was granted only to the Patriarchs and some few others by a particular Providence and this through the means of a certain Panacaea well known to the Mystae I am satisfi'd according to what is written of it by the foremention'd Adept Philosopher But leest instead of open reasoning I seem to obtrude Mystery on the World which by some may be interpreted vain Ostentation I refer the Reader to the Book it self where he may read at least what is written and if hapily he does not fully apprehend what is said he may believe or reject what he thinks good CHAP. V. IN this Chapter the Author treats concerning the Waters of the Primitive Earth what the state of the Regions of the Air was then and how all Waters proceeded from them How the Rivers arose what was their Course and how they ended He applies also several places in Sacred Writ to confirm this Hydrography of the Earth especially the Origin of the Rainbow He says then that the Air being always calm and equal before the Flood there could be no violent Meteors there nor any that proceeded from extremity of Cold as Ice Snow and Hail nor Thunder neither nor could the Winds be either impetuous or irregular in that smooth Earth there being one ev'n Season and no unequal action of the Sun But as for watery Meteors or those that rise from watery Vapours more immediately as Dews and Rains there could not but be plenty of those in some parts or other of the Earth the action of the Sun being strong and constant in raising them and the Earth being at first moist and soft and according as it grew more dry the Rays of the Sun would pierce more deep into it and reach at length the Great Abysse which lay under the Earth and was an unexhausted storehouse of new Vapours He adds but the same Heat which extracted these Vapours so copiously would also hinder them from condensing into Clouds or Rains in the warmer parts of the Earth and there being no Mountains at that time nor contrary Winds nor any such Causes to stay them or compress them we must consider how they would be dispos'd off To this he says as the heat of the Sun was chiefly towards the middle part of the Earth so the copious Vapours rais'd there being once in the open Air their Course would be that way where they found least resistance to their motion which would be towards the Poles and the colder Regions of the Earth for East and West they would meet with as warm an Air and Vapours as much agitated as themselves which therefore would not yield to their progress that way So that the regular and constant Course of the Vapours of the Earth would be towards the extreme parts of it which when arriv'd in those cooler Climates would be there condenst into Dews or Rains continually This Difficulty he says for finding a Source for the Waters in the Primaeval Earth was the greatest he met with in the Theory which being thus clear'd he finds a second Difficulty viz. how those Waters should flow upon the even surface of the Earth or form themselves into Rivers there being no descent or declivity for their Course And he has no way to explain this but by giving an oval Figure to that Earth in which the Polar Parts he says must have been higher than the Aequinoctial that is more remote from the Center by which means the Waters that fell about the extreme parts of the Earth would have a continual descent toward the middle parts of it and by vertue of this Descent would by degrees form Channels for Rivers to pass in through the temperate Climates as far as the Torrid Zone And here he meets a third Difficulty viz. What Issue the Rivers could have when they were come thither To this says he when they were come towards those parts of the Earth they would be divided into many Branches or a multitude of Rivulets and those would be partly exhal'd by the heat of the Sun and partly drunk up by the dry sandy Earth For he concludes as those Rivers drew nearer to the Equinoctal parts they would find a less declivity or descent of Ground than in the beginning or former part of their Course for that in his suppos'd oval Figure of the Earth near the middle part of it the Semidiameters he says are much shorter one than another and for this reason the Rivers when they came thither would begin to flow more slowly and by that weakness of their Current suffer themselves easily to be divided and distracted into several lesser streams and Rivulets or else having no force to wear a Channel would lie shallow on the ground like a plash of Water As for the Polar parts of the Earth he says they would make a particular Scene by themselves the Sun would be perpetually in their Horizon which makes him think the Rains would not fall so much there as in other parts of the Frigid Zones where he makes their chief Seat and Receptacle whence sometimes as they flowed they would swell into Lakes and toward the end of their Course parting into several streams and Branches they would water those parts of the Earth like a Garden Having examin'd and determin'd of the state of the Air and Waters in the Primitive Earth he considers some Passages in Holy Writ which he conceives represent them of a different Form from the present order of Nature and agreeing with what he has set forth First he tells us that the Rainbow mention'd by Moses to have been set in the Clouds after the Deluge makes out that those Heavens were of a different Constitution from ours And secondly that St. Peter says the Antediluvian Heav'ns had a different Constitution from ours and that they were compos'd or constituted of Waters c. He urges concerning the Rainbow that it was set in the Clouds after the Deluge as a Confirmation of the Promise or Covenant which God made with Noah that he would drown the World no more that it could not be a Sign of this or given as a Pledge or Confirmation of such a Promise if it were in the Clouds before and with no relation to this Promise He adds much more concerning the Nature of Signs giv'n by God mention'd in the Scriptures which I think too tedious and
of Natural of Strife Discord and Division on the one hand and Love and Friendship on the other and that after a long Contest Love got the better of Discord and united the disagreeing Principles Then they make the forming of the World out of the Chaos a kind of Genealogy or Pedigree Chaos was the Common Parent of all and from Chaos sprung first Night and Tartarus or Oceanus of Night were born Aether and the Earth the Earth conceiv'd by the Influences of Aether and brought forth Man and all Animals This he says seems a Poetical Fiction rather than Philosophy yet compar'd with his Theory of the Chaos will appear a pretty regular account how in the formation of the World the Chaos divided it self successively into several Regions rising from one another as he has set forth in his first Book how the Chaos from an uniform Mass wrought in it self successively into several Regions or Elements The grossest parts sank to the Center on this lay the mass of Waters and over the Waters was a dark impure caliginous Air which the Ancients call'd Night as they call'd the mass of Waters Oceanus or Tartarus which two terms he finds with them often of the like force Now this Turbid air he says purifying itself by degrees as the more subtle parts flew upwards and compos'd th' Aether so the Earthy parts dropt down on the surface of the Water and that Mass on the other hand sending up its lighter and more oily parts towards its Surface these two incorporate there and compos'd this habitable Earth so being the Daughter of Nox and Oceanus and the Mother of all other things This Doctrine of the Chaos he says the Ancients call'd the Genealogy of the Gods and thus from Eris and Eros Love and Discord the World arose for in the first Commotion of the Chaos after an intestine struggle of all the parts the Elements separated from one another into so many different Bodies or Masses and in this state and posture things continued a good while which the Ancients after their Poetical or Moral way call'd the Reign of Eris or Contention Hatred Flight and Disaffection till Love and good Nature conquer'd Venus rose out of the Sea c. I shall here adjoyn also what the Author says of the Doctrine of the Mundane Egg because it particularly relates to the rising of the World from the Chaos He says then that the Ancients had a Doctrine partly Symbolical concerning the Mundane Egg or their comparing the World to an Egg and especially in th' Original Composition of it Now he tells us 't is certain that by the World in that Similitude they did not mean the great Universe for that has neither Figure nor any determinate form of Composition and it would be a great vanity and rashness to compare this to an Egg but this Comparison is to be understood of the sublunary World or of the Earth and for a general Key to Antiquity upon this Argument he lays down this as a Maxim or Canon that what the Ancients have said concerning the form and figure of the World or concerning th' Original of it from a Chaos or about the Periods or dissolution of it is never to be understood of the great Universe but of our Earth and of this sublunary and Terrestrial World He intimated somewhat to this purpose in his first Book saying that when we speak of a rising World and the Contemplation of it we do not mean this of the Great Universe for who can describe the Original of that but we speak of the sublunary World this Earth and its dependancies which rose out of a Chaos about 6000 Years ago Now he says he has shewn that the Figure of the Earth when finisht was Oval and th' inner form of it was a frame of four Regions encompassing one another where that of the Fire lay like the yolk and a shell of Earth inclos'd them all and thus the Riddle of the Mundane Egg is Expounded I think fit for Clearness-sake to consider this part of the Chapter before I proceed to the rest First then as to Strife Discord or Division on one hand in the Chaos and Love and Friendship on the other it 's known on what account these are brought in for some of the ancient Philosophers made two eternal and infinite Principles on this ground that one natural thing might be derived from many Causes and the ancient Philosophers generally affirm the Principles of Nature to be contrary and that one thing cannot be contrary to itself And whereas the Author calls these Moral Principles it 's known to the Mystae that there is a Microcosmical as well as a Macrocosmical Chaos and that the Ancients often under one Tenour of Discourse carried on both Moral and Natural Doctrines and knew well how to open or unlock the Microcosmical Chaos and to form thence a Moral World The Doctrine of Moses and the Prophets are full of this Mystery and a consummation of them was in the Person of our Saviour Christ the Doctrine also of the Gentils both Philosophers and Poets who were the ancient Divines contain the same Mysteries but their proceedings in several respects were in a very corrupt way and are now expell'd the World upon the establishment of a greater Light Those who are any way initiated in these Mysteries know how far they may be free to express themselves in them concerning which I have nothing more to offer than to pray that Love in the Moral World as well as in the Natural may still overpower the other perverse and refractory Principle and beseech God in his mercy to enlighten every Man in his appointed time As to the Chaos out of which the World rose though the Author thinks he has given a fair Explanation of it according to the sence of the Ancients and of the Changes it underwent when it form'd a World and all Creatures rose from it yet I think I have shewn before the inconsistency of this Explanation beside what else may be said against it And admitting th'application he has made of his Doctrine as to what Changes he supposes to have past in the Chaos when the World was form'd might quadrate in some tolerable way with what seems to be deliver'd by the Ancients concerning it yet since we are here gotten into fabulous Philosophy and since those terms of the Ancients Night Tartarus Oceamus Aether c. have various significations according as they are variously expounded by several Authors all that any Man can urge in the Case can amount to no more than his Say-so unless the determinate sense of those words as us'd by the Ancients were better ascertain'd to us than perhaps any Man has yet done concerning which I should have expected somewhat in a Book if extant which the learned Joan. Picus in his Oration and other parts of his Works says he had written Entituled Theologia Poetica our Common Mythologists not reaching it mean while to
avoid Cavillations in this kind I shall only set down briefly what I conceive to have been the sense of the Ancients concerning the Chaos and the Mundane Egg and let it bear as far as it may though withal to lessen that Reverence which some may have for the Cosmogonia of the ancient Gentils I shall first set down the sense of Eusebius concerning it who says That though Plato out of a seeming compliance with the Laws of his City pretends to give credit to the Poetick Theogonia which is the same with their Cosmogonia as a Tradition deliver'd down from the Sons of the Gods who must not be suppos'd to have been ignorant of their Parents yet all the while he does but slily jeer it plainly intimating the fabulosity thereof when he affirms it to have been introduc'd not only without necessary Demonstrations but also without so much as Probabilities This being premis'd I may set down what my own thoughts may be concerning it as follows The Ancient Philosophers who made it their business to search into the Reasons of Humane and Divine things could not rest in the Examination and setting forth of the Causes of particular Effects they found here on the Earth but attempted the consideration of the whole World and how all things issued at first from their divine or metaphysical Principle Now the World being anterior to Mankind after they had contemplated the proceeding of it from God when they came to set it forth they could not more plausibly do it than by similitude or Analogy to those common Generations we have before us whence came the Doctrine of the Mundane Egg and by the references which they conceiv'd were betwixt the operations of the Ideas in the Divine Mind and those they observ'd in the mind of Man They observ'd that Nature and Art proceeded from certain obscure and rough Dilineations to a more exact Form and concluding that as Art imitates Nature so Nature does the Deity from whence it flowed they thought that by observing that order which Nature holds was the only method to find out the way of the Divine Operation But as I have intimated in my Considerations on the first Book I know not how far we may look upon any of the most learned amongst the Gentils to have held any real successive Changes to have pass'd in the Chaos toward the formation of the World their design in setting forth a Chaos and Changes it underwent seeming to have been only to help our way of conceiving by reducing all things mentally to Number and Order as issuing at first from one Principle according to the Pythagorean Philosophy deriving all things à monade or as rising ab ovo Analogically which amounts to no more than what Jamblicus says of the Egyptians viz. that they made Mud and Water floating the Chaos being suppos'd such their Hieroglyphick of material and corporeal things And as Austin says when the Ancients talk of a Beginning of the World intellerunt non esse hoc temporis sed substitutionis initium De Civ Dei l. 10. c. 31. Whereas the Author will not allow Moses's Cosmopaeia to be Philosophical it not passing from one rank of Beings to another in a Physical Order and Connection according to the motions and transformations of the Chaos Moses making all things to spring from the all-powerful Word of God one after the other in that order which was fittest for furnishing an habitable World according to a popular Decorum To this I say first that many Men already pretend to have shewn and among others the Learned Vallesius a due Physical Order and Connexion in Moses's Cosmopoeia and that all things past in it according to a due priority of Nature And concerning this Cosmopoeia I could wish to have read a Book writ by Don Isaac Abravanel a Spanish Jew mention'd in Father Simon 's Catalogue of Jewish Authors annext to his Critical History entituled Miphaboth Elohim Works of God where the said Rabbin has learnedly treated of the Creation of the World and withal examin'd whence Moses had what is writ in the Book of Genesis Secondly That when the Author shall shew us in a more Philosophical way than Moses has done let him take it from whom of the Gentils he pleases how the World at first proceeded from God we may hearken to him mean while there is this to observe first that the Creation was a Metaphysical act and the Order of it is incomprehensible to Man farther than it has pleas'd God to reveal it to him by his Prophets Secondly That I have already validly refuted as I conceive those separations which the Author has suppos'd to have past in the Chaos at the formation of the World Thirdly That if the Author or any Man else shall attempt to explain what the Ancients have said of a Chaos and any successive Changes it underwent when it form'd an habitable World before they expect us to acquiesce in their Explanation or to believe that the Ancients meant more in what they said in that kind than to render our thoughts easie as to an apprehension of a beginning of things by their setting it forth by a similitude to common Generations from Eggs they ought to bring that ancient debated Point to a clear determination viz. whether the Egg or Chick were first for those who maintain a Chaos and real successive Changes to have past in it must make out the Egg to have been before the Chick whereas Plutarch Macrobius and others who have debated the Point seem more inclin'd to the other Opinion holding all things at first to have been set in their perfect state through the perfection of the first Cause Aristotle also tells us that Pherecydes Syrus the Magi and others of the Sages affirm'd that the first Principle whence all other things were generated was the best or of an absolute perfect Being so that in the Scale of Nature things did not ascend upwards from the most imperfect to the more perfect Beings as the ancient Poets represent but on the contrary descend downwards from the most perfect to the less perfect of which Opinion he also declares himself Whereas the Author sets down this as a Maxim that what the Antients have said concerning the Original of the World from a Chaos or about its Periods or Dissolution is never to be understood of the great Universe but of our Earth or of this sublunary World and thinks he can demonstrate that Moses's Cosmogonia is so to be under stood I know not whether it may be so easily done finding the greatest part of Writers to be of a contrary Opinion And those that maintain that Opinion may do well to tell us if the Heavens were for I know not what series of Ages before this Earth and sublunary Region what this place was before the time of the Creation set forth by Moses whether it were a Vacuum or a Spacium imaginarium for it would seem an odd Hole left
the following Passage Page 3. He says thus There is no Sect of Philosophers that I know of that ever gave an account of the universal Deluge or discovered from the Contemplation of the Earth that there had been such a thing already in Nature 'T is true they often talk of an Alternation of Deluges and Conflagrations in this Earth but they speak of them as things to come at least they give no Proof or Argument of any that have already destroy'd the World And beneath As to the Conflagration in particular this has always been reckon'd among the Opinions or Dogmata of the Stoicks That the World was to be destroyed by Fire and their Books are full of this Notion but yet they do not tell us the Causes of the Conflagration nor what preparations there are in Nature or will be toward that great Change And we may generally observe this of the Ancients that their Learning or Philosophy consisted more in Conclusions than in Demonstrations they had many Truths among them whereof they did not know themselves the Premises or Proofs which is an Argument with me that the knowledg they had was not a thing of their own Invention or which they came to by fair Reasoning and Observation upon Nature but was deliver'd to them from others by Tradition and ancient Fame sometimes more publick sometimes more secret these Conclusions they kept in mind and Communicated to those of their School or Sect or Posterity without knowing for the most part the just Grounds and Reasons of them On this Passage I have the following Particulars to offer 1. We have no reason to expect that the Greeks or Latins should have given any Account of the Deluge in Noah's time unless we will allow the Deluge of the Ancient Ogyges which is said to have lasted nine months to have been the same with that of Noah for they pretend not to have any Records farther than that Ogyges wherefore all things among the Greeks which Antiquity had worn out of date were call'd Ogygia And if haply they had any thing of times before it came very obscurely to them whence they call'd the Ante-Ogygian Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was only what they had by Hearsay of the Egyptians or other Nations Those who have made any mention of the universal Deluge under Noah are The Sibyl in Lactantius de Ira Dei c. 23. Xenophon de Equivocis Fabius Pictor de Aureo Seculo Cato de Originibus Archilochus the Greek who introduces also the Testimony of Moses in his Book de Temporibus Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities from Mnaseas Hierom of Egypt and Berosus the Chaldean Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus in Cyril's first Book against Julian Plato in his Timaeus Ovid and others of the Poets confound the Deluge of Noah with that of Deucalion describing this as general which in regard they must have known to have been particular I judg the scope of their Discourse chiefly tended to a moral or divine Institution the historical Narratson in itself being not true And Servius tells us that by a Deluge and Emphytheosis the Ancients understood a Change and a Melioration of times and we know Deluges were still introduc'd in the Iron age after a total corruption of Manners 2. As to Alterations by Deluges and Conflagrations which the Author intimates the Ancients to have held only by Tradition without finding by the Earth that any such things had been and without considering any Causes and Preparations in Nature for them I find it to be otherwise First I think it plain enough among the ancient Philosophers tho unobserv'd by the Author that they discover'd from the Contemplation of the Earth there had been already such a thing as a general Deluge at least successively so as the Waters of the Sea had some time or other cover'd the whole face of the Earth Thus Ovid introduces Pythagoras saying 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 Quodque fuit campus vallum decursus aquarum Fecit eluvie mons est deductus in aequor c. I 've seen what was most solid Earth before Become a Sea the Sea become a Shore Far from the Sea Sea-Cocles often lie And Anchors old are found on Mountains high Land-floods have made a Valley of a Plain And brought a Mountain with them to the Main And there you may read much more to the same purpose and all ancient Histories as well as modern tell us of such marine Bodies found on Mountains some urging them as Arguments for such Changes as there are learned Men now living who think they can demonstrate from such Bodies found on Mountains at all distances from the Sea that there is no part of the Land now appearing but has sometime been cover'd by the Sea I could produce much matter on this Argument were it not that I am unwilling to anticipate here what I have thoughts of setting forth in a particular Tract Again as for Causes of those Changes we find that Seneca a Master among the Stoicks describing an universal Deluge assigns Causes for them The sum of his Reasoning is thus He examines whether an universal Deluge will be caus'd by the overflowing of the Sea or by continual Rains or by the eruption of new Fountains and concludes it will be by all three joyn'd together and that nothing is difficult to Nature when she hastens to her end In the rise of things she uses a gentle effort and carries them on towards their perfection by unperceivable degrees but when the time of their Dissolution comes it 's done all on a sudden as he exemplifies in Animals and so he says Cities are long building and Woods long growing but reduc'd to Ashes in a few hours Therefore when that fatal Day shall come many Causes will act together There will be a general Concussion of the Earth opening new Sources of Waters continued and violent Rains whence at length the Snows heap'd up on Mountains for many Ages will be dissolv'd whereby the Rivers greatly swelling and forc'd by Tempests will overflow their Channels and by their rapid course carry all before them and many times their courses to the Sea being damn'd up they will return back and drown whole Countries mean while the immoderate Rains continuing the Winter Season encroaching on the Summer and the Seas being mightily increas'd by the vast discharges of the overflowing Rivers and being infested with violent Tempests they will find their Channel too narrow for them and overflow the Land forcing the Rivers back in a tempestuous manner towards their Sources and so at length bury the whole Earth in Waters unless happily for a time some of the Mountains may here and there stand as scatter'd Islands but at last there being a general Effort in the Waters as at
Timaeus out of them maintain'd the same Slobaeus recording out of him that this world was from Eternity and will remain to Eternity And again That the world may truly be call'd the Eternal Energy or effect of God and of successive generation Epicharmus also a Disciple of Pythagoras held it and Oâ—ellus Lucanus according to Philo. Neither need I to mention any that have maintain'd it since Aristotle the Author being free to own that he has had followers as Pliny Dicaearchus Simplicius Averrhoes Salustius Apuleius Taurus Alcinous and indeed most of the Platonicks and Peripateticks after Christianity I say I may pass by these the Opinion being much more Ancient than any of those Persons I have nam'd and indeed so ancient that its hard to retrieve the Original for Boemus tells us collecting I conceive from Diodorus It was a constant Tradition amongst the Chaldean Priests that the World had never any beginning nor should â—ever have an end which Tradition possibly with other corrupt Doctrines might have been deriv'd to them from times before the Deluge And how indeed could they hold any other Opinion when as Philo tells us they held the World itself or the universal Soul within it to be God which they consecrated under the name of Fate and Necessity persuading themselves that there was no other Cause of things but what is seen and that both goods and evils were dispenc'd by the Courses of the Sun Moon and Stars conformably to which Lucan introduces Cato saying Aestque Dei sedes nisi terra pontus aer Et coelum virtus superos quid quaerimus ultra Jupiter est quodcunque vides quocunque moveris What Seat has God but th' Earth the Air the Seas The Heavens and Vertue Seek no Gods but these It s Jove whate'er you see move where you please So again Psellus in his Exposition of the Dogmata of the Assyrians and Chaldeans says that both of them held the World Eternal I may add that the Ancient Druids held this Opinion of the Worlds Eternity their Philosophy being that of Pythagoras and Plato which is concluded to have been generally the same I say not in this particular with that of Moses and Pythagoras himself is said to have held it by Censorinus Natalis Comes also tells us that all the ancient Sages were divided into two Parties one of them held the World Eternal the others that it had sometime a beginning on the one hand were the most excellent Wits of the most famous Men on the other were divine Persons and Men divinely instructed And even the Ancient Cabalists among the Jews who think themselves the only Persons deep seen in Scripture-knowledge and to whom Origen seem'd inclin'd held an Eternity of Worlds tho indeed they suppos'd renovations of them from Chaos's at certain Periods concerning which I shall say more in the next Book I have deliver'd this Account of the Opinions of Men concerning the Worlds Eternity not but I wholly acquiesce in the Opinion commonly receiv'd among Christians of the Worlds late Beginning but only to give the Point its due Latitude which I judg'd too much limited by the Author of the Theory And upon the whole when we consider what is urg'd on both sides as the Author has brought Arguments of strength to prove the World's late Beginning so I conceive there are as weighty Reasons to be brought on the other part and that many will still say with Scaliger Solâ Religione mihi persuadetur mundum coepisse finem Incendio habiturum and with Melancthon Necessaria est diligentia in omnibus doctrinis videre quae certò adseverari possint quae non possint de quibus rebus humana ratio certam immobilem doctrinam habeat de quibus verò arcanis positis extra conspectum hominum erudiat nos vox coelestis Neutrum humana ratio invenire per sese potèst videlicet fuisse mundum inde usque ab Infinita Eternitate aut conditum esse recens ante annos 5507. And beneath Brevitas temporum mundi à Mose tradita Physicis ridicula zidetur Not a Man among the Gentiles having dreamt of so late a Beginning of the World as Moses seems to intimate And hence the learned Father Simon judges it probable that the Greek Doctors in the Septuagint Translation believing that the World was more ancient than appears from the Hebrew Text have took the liberty of etching out the time especially upon the belief they had that when the body of the Canonick Scripture which we have was publisht the people had only given them what was thought necessary for them So those who will not allow Plato to have held the World Eternal must at least grant he suppos'd it to have existed for a vast and unaccountable Succession of Ages And so we find what Simplicius reply'd to Grammaticus who urg'd against him a first Generation and a Beginning of time according to Moses viz. That Moses's Relation was but a fabulous Tradition wholly drawn from Egyptian Fables Aquinas also seems to me to give an home hint to those who from humane Reason will pretend to assign a time for the Worlds beginning saying Mundum incepisse est credibile non autem demonstrabile aut scibile hoc utile est ut consideretur ne fortè aliquis quod fieri est demonstrare praesumens rationes non necessarias inducat quae praebeant materiam irridendi infidelibus existimantibus nos propter hujusmodi rationes credere quae fidei sunt So again Picolomini Quoniam principium originis mundi longè abest à nobis ejus creatio superat naturae vires per cujus opera elevantur Philosophi ad inventionem causarum ideo mirum non est si Philosophi humanâ ducti ratione facilè in hanc sententiam labuntur quòd mundus omni ex parte sit aeternus reverâ enim per naturam nec principio nec fine valet esse praeditus Moreover as to all those learned amongst the Gentils whose Opinions concerning the Worlds Beginning the Author applauds before Aristotle's it s manifest they were more absurd than him in what they held for generally grounding themselves on this Principle Ex nihilo nihil fit they either suppos'd Corpuscles from Eternity rowling without order in an immense Space or that the said Bodies lay lurking in a confus'd Chaos from Eternity Now wherein do these men excel Aristotle Is it in that they have made a deform'd World from Eternity which came in time to be adorn'd Is there less absurdity and repugnancy in an infinite multitude of disorderly motions than of such as succeed in order and in the Eternity of a deform'd Body than of a beautiful Certainly it was better Aristotle's way who not having foreseen any Impossibility of eternal Motions and Bodies had rather have the Face of the World beautiful from Eternity than at some time to have emerg'd from an eternal
aptly enough exprest himself to his Friend Mersennus in reference to those who take upon them to correct the Order observ'd in Nature saying Why think you are there Men that fancy Plants in Mountains and the Stars in Heav'n might have been set in a far better order than they are but because they judge no order apt but that which the mind of Man so discerns These are Men who if humane sagacity has excogitated certain artificial Contextures which seem pleasing presently by a narrowness of mind strive to transfer them to the nature of things and think Natures works must then aptly consist when they are according to an Imitation of Art as tho besides the mind of Man there were not another mind to whom other harmoniacal Laws may be more pleasing And beneath he adds If Hypotheses are propos'd as learned Inventions which may exercise the Wit of Man by their subtlety and by a certain shadowy Analogy to things themselves seem not ungrateful I freely allow them as so but for Men to urge them as tho the nature of things must consist as they have fancy'd I see no reason we have so to receive them CONSIDERATIONS ON The Theory of the Earth The Second BOOK Concerning the Primaeval Earth and concerning Paradise CHAP. I. and II. THE first Chapter is an Introduction setting forth the Contents of the second Book The general state of the Primaeval Earth and of Paradise And it s thus In the first Book he says He shew'd the Primaeval Earth to have been without a Sea Mountains Rocks or broken Caves and that it was one continued and regular Masse smooth simple and complete as the first works of Nature use to be but here he must shew the other Properties of it how the Heavens were how the Elements what accommodation for humane Life why more proper to be the Seat of Paradise than the present Earth Concerning Paradise he notes first two Opinions to be avoided as two extreams One placing Paradise in the Extra-mundane Regions as in the Air or in the Moon the other confining it to a little spot of ground in Mesopotamia or some other Country of Asia the Earth being now as it was then For he says It is not any single Region of the Earth that can be Paradisiacal unless all Nature conspire and a certain order of things proper and peculiar to that State so that both must be found out viz. the peculiar order of things and the particular Seat of Paradise As to the peculiar Order of things he says It 's certain there were some Qualities and Conditions of Paradise that were not meerly Topical but common to all the rest of the Earth at that time and that the things that have been taken notice of as extraordinary and peculiar to the first Ages of the World and to Paradise and which neither do nor can obtain on the present Earth were first a perpetual Spring and Equinox Secondly The Longaevity of Animals Thirdly Their Production out of the Earth and the great Fertility of the Soil in all other things The Ancients he says have taken notice of all these in the first Ages of the World or in their golden Age and what they have ascrib'd to to this Age was more remarkably true of Paradise tho not so peculiar to it but that it did in a good measure extend to other parts of the Earth at that time And he says 'T is manifest their Golden Age was contemporary with our Paradise they making it to begin immediately after the Production and Inhabitation of the Earth which they as well as Moses raise from the Chaos and to degenerate by degrees till the Deluge And as the Author avers the whole Earth to have been in some sense Paradisiacal in the first Ages of the World and that there was besides some portion of it that was peculiarly so and bore the denomination of Paradise so the Ancients besides their golden Age which was common to all the Earth noted some parts of it which did more particularly answer to Paradise as the Elysian Fields Fortunate Islands Gardens of Hesperides Alcinous c The first Character then of Antiquity concerning the first and Paradisiacal state of things was a perpetual Spring and constant serenity of the Air for this he quotes Virgil Ovid and other Poets of the Gentils and Christian Authors for the same and adds that Jewish Authors have spoken of Paradise in the same manner saying that the days there were always of the same length thorowout the whole Year which made them fancy Paradise to lie under the Equinoxial The second Character was the Longaevity of Men and he thinks it probable of all other Animals in proportion and this he says is well attested and beyond all Exception having the joynt Consent of sacred and prophane History The third Character was the Fertility of the Soil and the Production of Animals out of the new made Earth Hence also he says all Antiquity speaks of the Plenty of the golden Age and of their Paradises whether Christian or Heathen and so of the spontaneous Origine of living Creatures out of the first Earth Now as to the time of Duration He says It is to be noted that these three Phoenomena of the first World did not last alike The Longaevrity of Men and the Temper of the Heav'ns lasted to the Deluge but that Fertility of the Soil and the simple and inoffensive way of living fail'd by degrees from the first Ages In the second Chapter the Author upon a more distinct Consideration of the three Characters before mention'd represents the great Change as he supposes of the World since the Flood intimating it as well in the Civil World as the natural and endeavours to shew that the Earth under its present form could not be Paradisiacal nor any part of it I thought it necessary to state the Contents of these two Chapters here that the Reader might clearly possess himself of the Authors Doctrine introductory to this Book tho I shall offer nothing against them at present but refer what I have to say thereon to my considerations on the next and some following Chapters where the Contents of these two will come more properly under Examination CHAP. III. HERE the Author sets forth th' Original differences of the first Earth from the present or Post-diluvian He proposes to find the Characters of Paradise and the Golden Age in the Primitive Earth and gives a particular Explication of each Character The Differences of the Primaeval Earth from the Present He says were chiefly three viz. The Regularity of its Surface it being smooth and even the Situation or Posture of its Body to the Sun which he affirms to have been direct and not as it is at present inclin'd and oblique and the Figure of it which was more apparently and regularly oval than it is now From these Differences he says flow'd a great many more inferiour and subordinate and which had a considerable
miraculous Effects and therefore of another nature from this here under Consideration Again it s well known that many Institutions in the Law of Moses were made directly in opposition to certain Customs among the Gentils Now whereas Iris among the Gentils was made generally the Messenger of Discord whence it was call'd Iris quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why may it not be thought that in opposition to this which might have been deriv'd down from the corrupt Antediluvian times God would have the Rainbow to be his sign of Love and Concord it signifying in its Nature indifferently Rains and fair Weather as Pliny says As to the existence of the Rainbow before the Flood certainly all the Gentils were of that Opinion Juno must have been an Antediluvian Goddess who was never without her Nymph Iris she being the most diligent Attendant she had alway standing ready at her Elbow and more officiously serviceable to her than the other thirteen Nymphs that belong'd to her among other services she is said to have made Juno's Bed and was represented with Wings and a Robe of divers Colours half tuckt up to shew her readiness to obey the Commands of her Mistris on all occasions The two predominant Colours of her Robes were blew and red denoting the two great destructions of the World the blew that which happen'd by the Waters at the Deluge and the Red the general Conflagration to succeed by Fire so that the Rainbow carries a mixt signality And indeed the antient Philosophers might properly enough make her the Messenger of Discord she carrying the Types of those two contrary Elements Fire and Water and God might make her his Messenger of Peace he controuling and directing all natural Powers and re-establishing a Concord betwixt those two contrary Elements whereof she carries the Types in those Colours she bears I may note in the last place that Father Simon censures Luther of Ignorance in the style and symbolical sense of the Scriptures for saying that there was no Rainbow before the Deluge and that God created it for those very Reasons set down Gen. 9. But though there may be a known symbolical sense contain'd under the Rainbow which may far more require our attention than the Symbol it self yet I shall not here take upon me to determine how far Luther may stand affected by that Censure As for what the Author urges from the Passage of St. Peter viz. That the Antediluvian Heav'ns had a different Constitution from ours containing only watery Meteors I do not find he makes out that there were more of those watry Meteors in the Air then than there are now so that a Deluge should be thence particularly caus'd on which account St. Peter intimates that different Disposition to have been and when the Author has said all he can of it he plainly concludes in his Latin Copy That he cannot find or discover by Reason whence that Glut of Waters rose at that time or wherefore after fifteen Ages after the World was made that Immense Glut of Waters gather'd together in the Air discharg'd itself on the Earth it might have been he says from supernatural Causes And in his Answer to Mr. Warren he says the Rains that made the Flood were extraordinary and out of the Course of Nature And what is this in effect but to own that the Deluge is not explicable by humane Reason and that Miracles are to be allow'd in it but they must be the Authors own way and not as others have said which perhaps by many may be interpreted to carry more of Humour than Reason CHAP. VI. THIS Chapter contains only a review of what the Author has said concerning the Primitive Earth with a more full survey of the state of the first World Natural and Civil and the Comparison of it with the present World so that here is little new wherefore I shall note only the following Passage where the Author says I cannot easily imagine that the sandy Desarts of the Earth were made so at first immediately from the Beginning of the World To this we may reply That if the sense of one Man may be oppos'd against that of another Lucan seems of a contrary Opinion where he says Syrtes vel primam mundo natura figuram Quum daret in medio pelagi terraeque reliquit When Nature fram'd the World at its first birth It left the Quicksands 'twixt the Sea and Earth CHAP. VII HERE the Author comes to the main Point to be consider'd in this Book viz. the Seat of Paradise and says that its Place cannot be determin'd by the Theory only nor from Scripture only and then gives us the sense of Antiquity concerning it as to the Jews the Heathens and especially the Christian Fathers shewing that they generally place it out of this Continent in the Southern Hemisphere He declares that considering the two Hemispheres according to his Theory he sees no Natural Reason or occasion to place it in one Hemisphere more than in the other and that it must rather have depended on the Will of God and the series of Providence that was to follow in this Earth than on any natural incapacity in one of those Regions more than in another for planting in it that Garden Neither do the Scriptures determine where the place was As to Antiquity he says the Jews and Hebrew Doctors place it in neither Hemisphere but under the Equinoctial because they suppos'd the Days and Nights to have been always equal in Paradise Among the ancient Heathens Poets and Philosophers he finds they had several Paradises on the Earth which they generally if not all of them place without or beyond this Continent in the Ocean or beyond it or in another Orb or Hemisphere as the Gardens of the Hesperides the fortunate Islands the Elysian Fields Ogygia Toprabane as it is describ'd by Diodorus Siculus and the like As to Christian Antiquity or the Judgment or Tradition of the Fathers in this Argument he tells us that the Grand Point disputed amongst them was Whether Paradise were Corporeal or Intellectual only and Allegorical Then of those that thought it Corporeal some plac'd it high in the Air some inaccessible by Desarts and Mountains and many beyond the Ocean or in another World but nam'd no particular Place or Country in the known parts of the Earth for the Seat of it and upon the whole he brings it to this Conclusion that tho their Opinions are differently exprest they generally concenter in this that the Southern Hemisphere beyond the Aequinoctial was the Seat of Paradise And this Notion of another World or Earth beyond the Torrid Zone he says he finds among Heathen Authors as well as Christian and that those who say Paradise was beyond the Ocean mean the same for that they suppos'd the Ocean to lie from East to West betwixt the Tropicks the Sun and Planets being there cool'd and nourisht by its moisture And having quoted many of the Fathers
and others in reference to the Seat of Paradise in the other Hemisphere he concludes that in this particular he is willing to refer himself wholly to the report and majority of Votes among the Ancients whether Christians or others who seem generally to incline to the South or South-east Land After so large an Apparatus for making out the Place of Paradise and a new World made for it a Man would have expected that some Circumstances at least should have been brought for pointing it forth and not barely to sit down by saying I wholly refer my self to the major Vote of Antiquity especially having promis'd us in the first Chapter of this Book a just account of it Since then there is nothing brought from Scripture or Reason for proving the place of Paradise I shall only consider the Authority of Antiquity for it as the Author has done but withal I must first declare it is not without a sacred dread that I commit Pen to Paper on this Subject well knowing of what weight it is and what Dispositions could be requir'd in a Person to treat of it according to its Dignity a Man ought to have had a due Institution amongst the Mystae by such I mean those excellent Genii whose better Stars have so dispos'd their Understandings that they have penetrated the Allegories and Aenigma's of the ancient Sages and are able readily to run through the whole systeme of Nature every where adapting Superiours to Inferiours according to those Scales of Numbers which a learned Adeptist has set forth and to have us'd great diligence in Study undisturb'd by worldly Circumstances both which I well know to have been wanting in me A Man ought to be thorowly seen in the Analogies betwixt the Intellectual Coelestial and sublunary Worlds and of the Microcosm to them all for otherwise he shall never be able to discern what is deliver'd literally what figuratively by the Ancients and for want of Persons being thus qualified those infinite Tautological Volumes have been written by School-men and others on this and other Parts of the Scriptures We know how difficult it is sometimes to discern even in Heathen Writers whether they write literally or figuratively as in Plato's Timaeus the Relation of the War betwixt the Athenians and the Atlantiques is said by Crantor Plato's first Interpreter to be a plain historical Relation others say it to be a meer Allegory and others again will have it to be a true Historical Narration but withal to carry on an Allegory Certainly the sense of the Scriptures in many Places and perhaps in this of Paradise is more difficult to be understood than any part of Plato's Works is and therefore I should rather have been content to have kept my self within the bounds of natural History in all my Considerations on this Theory But since the occasion offers that I say somewhat concerning the Seat of Paradise I shall lay down what I conceive the sence of the Ancients to have been in it humbly standing the Correction of meet Judges First then to pass by what the Author allows viz. that the Jews and Hebrew Doctors plac'd Paradise under the Aequinoctial and not in the Southern Hemisphere where he at last concludes it to have been As for the several Paradises of the Antient Heathen Poets and Philosophers which he will have us particularly observe to have been generally plac'd by them without or beyond this Continent as pointing at the other Hemisphere I have this to offer concerning them That I truly look upon it as trifling in any Man to think that any of those Poets or Philosophers judg'd any place on the Earth really Paradisiacal or meant any place so describ'd by them It seems to me plain enough from them that they alway meant Paradise Coelestial or Intellectual as the Allegorical Fathers did It 's true many of them took some place on the Earth noted for Salubrity and Pleasantness for a ground of their Allegory it being usual with the antient Mystae when they had any Doctrine figuratively to set forth to take some historical Ground whether Natural or Civil and those were lookt upon the most ingenious who in the delivery of such figurative Doctrine could make the historical Truth quadrate without addition but when any important Doctrine was to be deliver'd where the historical Truth could not hold then they either wholly feign'd some historical Narration by Analogy to which that Truth they design'd might be set forth or to some true historical Ground they took they added what Flourishes they thought fit for making it serve to carry on their Allegory as in the case of Paradise they have proceeded both ways To consider particularly the Paradisiacal places they describe what have the Fortunate Islands the Gardens of the Hesperides Alcinous c. being places known to us in this Hemisphere as literally understood to do with the other Hemisphere Some Authors as Virgil and others to shew themselves openly Allegorical plac'd the Elysian Fields in the subterraneous Regions where they thought no Man in his wits would seek for them and I think it plain enough to any thing but wilful blindness that those who plac'd Paradise beyond the Ocean in the Air c. did it on the same account as we may judge by the pure aetherial Earth describ'd by Plato The Author intimates more than once that the Pensile Gardens of Alcinous must be expounded by the Pensile structure of his Paradisiacal Earth as it hung over the Abysse before the Deluge whereas it 's well known what these Gardens were they were that Pensile Vault hanging over our Heads Alcinous solem lunam stellasque micantes Et coelum aeternum credidit esse Patrem where should his Gardens of Pleasure or his Paradise be but where his Gods were in the Society of whom he drank Nectar and Ambrosia or to express it according to Christian Divinity in the Love and Contemplation of whom he was ravisht with Delights Mythology tells us that the Gardens of the Hesperides said to be seated in the West were no others the Golden fruits being those Golden globous Bodies with which the Heavens are adorn'd and the watchful Dragon being that Dragon at the North Pole or the Zodiack Circle according to others said to be always watchful because it never sets to this part of the World which was the only part known to the Antients It was said to be seated in the West because as the Sun sets in the West the Stars appear the light of the Sun hiding them in the day-time The Gardens of Adonis are the same Adonis being the Sun that glorious Leader of the Coelestial Host And these are the three Paradisiacal Gardens which as Pliny tells us were most celebrated by Antiquity tho even these must refer higher I mean to the Intellectual and Archetypal Worlds till which the Mind of Man can never rest Those delightful Gardens of Adonis are said by some to have been taken by the Gentils
Wine their discourse then being besides the common apprehension of Men and hence S. Paul also in the like circumstance was taxt by Festus of being grown mad through too much Learning In reference to this assertion of the Author viz. that the Rise of the World from a Chaos and its periods must be understood only of our sublunary World there is one Opinion which deserves particularly to be noted viz. that of the Antient Cabalists These Ancient Jewish Rabins as Eleasar Moses Aegyptius Simon Ismael Jodan Nachinan and others with whom Origen seems to agree would never yield precedence in depth of Learning to the Philosophers of the Gentils and therefore derided their Opinions who by Astrology and Philosophy pretended to know the Methods taken by providence in the Rise and Periods of the World and affirm'd themselves the only Men knowing in the Mysteries of that Immense Aeternity as having drawn a consummate knowledge in reference thereunto from a Divine Tradition first communicated to Moses by God himself in Mount Sinai God saying Esdr 4. c. 14. v. 5. that he had shewn him the secrets and end of times These Doctors say that by the benefit of this Cabala or Tradition the marrow of the Law of Moses and the deepest secrets of God are reveal'd to them and that they thence know that God has created infinite Worlds in a continued succession and destroy'd and demolish'd them again viz. this sublunary Region every seven thousand years and the superior Region every forty nine thousand years They add that in six of the seven thousand years the Chaos generates and produces all new things and those being ended it gathers all things into itself again and rests the seventh thousand year and in that millenary of rest it fits and prepares it self for a new Germination and so a certain continued succession of Worlds has been hitherto and will be for the future and at length this inferior World being thus renewed and as it were reborn seven times and the course of forty nine thousand years expir'd in the fifty thousandth year the Heavens will also be dissolv'd and all things will return into their ancient Chaos and first matter and then God taking all the blessed Minds and Spirits to himself will give rest to the bulk of this Universe and afterwards all things being renewed by his Immense Wisdom and Power he will frame a World much more beautiful and pleasant and for this reason no mention is made of the Creation of Angels in the Scriptures where the Creation of the World is set forth because they remain'd immortal in the Creation of the precedent Worlds and hence Solomon in the Book of Wisdom supposes a confus'd matter before the Creation of this World and says elsewhere that there is nothing new under the Sun They endeavour to confirm their Opinion from several other Testimonies taken from the Scriptures which I shall not stand here to relate This Opinion indeed if it would bear might have been a good Salvo for those Men who in the Council of Nice objected to Spiridio and the other Bishops there that it seem'd very absurd God in his Infinite Eternity should have fram'd this World so short a time to continue but about four or five thousand years ago they asking what he did before or what he should do after this World ceas'd But the general stream of Divines is against this Opinion they holding that God framed only one World from the beginning And when all is said of that Opinion the Cabalists being a sort of mystical Writers I look upon the Scope of what they have said concerning infinite renovations of Worlds to be directed in a different way from what the letter seems to import but in such cases every Man being apt to please himself best with his own thoughts I shall not take upon me here to be their Expositor Let us now particularly consider the Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Mundane Egg whence some farther Light may be given to their Doctrine of the Chaos and of the Worlds Form or Figure Now concerning that Doctrine as I have intimated before the Author says it was partly symbolical they comparing the World to an Egg and especially in the original composition of it and he adds it 's certain that by the World in that similitude they did not mean the great Universe but the sublunary World only or the Earth the Figure of which when finish'd he has shewn to have been Oval and that th' inward form of it was a frame of four Regions encompassing one another as in an Egg. I know not why th' Author should be so positive in setting this down as a general Rule for us to prevent error in reading th' Ancients that what they have writ about the Form and Figure of the World as well as of its Origine and Dissolution must be understood only of the Earth when himself tells in his first Book in the Latin Copy that some of th' Antients by the Egg represented the World others the Earth and others the Chaos But he will have those who represented the World and the Chaos by it to have talkt by rote or through an ill understanding or being byass'd by their private Opinions to have wrested the signification of it from what the wisest among th' Ancients thought This indeed would be an easie way of refuting th' Ancients if it would pass but when we particularly consider what they have said in this point we shall not find a Man of them that favours th' Authors particular Opinion and in my first Book I think I have shewn it a notorious error if they had There are three ways then of considering the Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Mundane Egg first how the Egg is compar'd particularly to the Earth or sublunary Region Secondly how to the whole Universe consisting of the Heavens and the Earth Thirdly how to the Chaos In reference to the first Alexander Aphrodiseus says that an Egg comprehends all the qualities of th' Elements and plainly shews those four first Principles of things within itself the crusty shell resembles the Earth it being cold and dry the White carries the nature of water being cold and moist the Spirit contained in the White is for air being hot and moist and the Yolk represents the Fire having most of heat and less of drought nor is it without the colour of Fire Briefly he says that the likeness of the whole Universe which we call the World is shewn in an Egg for it consists of four Elements and has a kind of sphaerical Figure and carries within it a Principle of Life Thus we see he makes the sublunary Region an Egg inverted resembling the Yolk to the Aether and the Shell to the Earth contrary to the Authors Opinion Secondly the Egg is resembled to the whole Universe by Varro the most learned among the Romans as Probus on Virgil's sixth Eclogue acquaints us saying that Varro compar'd the Heavens
suppos'd all that was convey'd by it to have been acted among themselves which he conceives may be imputed partly to their ignorance of the State of their ancient times and partly to their pride lest they should seem to come behind others in matters of Antiquity Now to resolve this matter as far as my reason will bear all that I can conceive of it is this The Ancient Gentils as they came acquainted with the Ancient Tradition of the Jews deriv'd from Moses and the Patriarchs concerning a first Man from whom all Mankind was descended and a reparation of Mankind after a Deluge tho whether they believ'd any such things really to have been it does not appear to me and at length coming to be initiated and well instructed in the Grand Theorem of the Egyptians in the deep insight and use of which Moses far transcended the Egyptians themselves carrying in it the power of Religion and a consummation of Wisdom in order to the Government and Welfare of Mankind they thereby knew that certain Symbolical Mysteries were contain'd under the foresaid Doctrine and that it little imported Man whether any such things really were but greatly that they should be personated and therefore as they had a mind to propagate the same admirable Learning among themselves they introduc'd Protoplasts Deluges and reparations of Mankind in their own Country and from the same fountain proceeded the accounts their Poets give of a Chaos the formation of the World the Elysian Fields c. and this seems to me the most probable account how the Gentils came to celebrate in their Writings those great Facts in their fabulous way And withal it is to be observ'd that some of the Jews and Christians have wholly allegoriz'd some of those great Facts as recorded in Sacred Writ so we find that Philo being an Helenist Jew and conversing with the Greeks contrary to the commonly receiv'd Opinion among Jews and Christians wholly allegoriz'd Paradise held the Creation instantaneous expounded the Deluge in his Allegorical way c. and he has had followers both amongst Christians and Jews And this we may further note that though those great Facts recorded in the Scriptures according to the more generally receiv'd Opinion of Divines to which we ought to submit are receiv'd as Realities yet it seems it was not the design of Providence we should chiefly attend to those Facts but rather to the Symbolical Mysteries contain'd under them which far more nearly concern us Wherefore we find God thought it not necessary for us that we should precisely know the time of the Worlds beginning there being that difference in the Hebrew Samaritan and Septuagint Texts concerning that in the Opinion of Learned Persons it 's impossible to come to a certainty in the Point and the certainty of the time of the Deluge depending on the certainty of the time of the Creation this being unknown the other cannot tho I shall not conceal that I hear of a Person now living skill'd in the Cabbala Sacra who says he can plainly demonstrate from the Hebrew Letters of many words in the Bible numerically considered that the time substituted by Moses for the Creation is exactly agreeing with the Hebrew Chronology So as to the Seat of Paradise what have all those made of it who have been in quest after it but fallen into a Babel confusion as having attempted a thing too great or rather impossible for them I conclude nevertheless that there was a Terrestrial Paradise but miraculously founded for had the Jews ever known such a place to be made out by Typography as they must have known it if such a thing had been to be known I believe the Tradition of it had been as impossible to be lost as the Tradition of the place where Hierusalem is seated Again as for the time appointed for the Conflagration how many vain attempts have been made by Men for pointing forth the year in which it shall happen whereas the time being elapst which they prefixt for it it has shewn the vanity of their undertaking and we now hear of a Foreigner who has lately prefixt the time for it in the year 1696. and I doubt not but many Prophets will now start up upon the expectation of the determination of this Millenary who will assign some other shortly ensuing years for the same period whereas Father Simon tells us that the 6000 years which with the Jews in their Talmud contain 2000 years of Inanity that is to say before the Law 2000 years of the Law and 2000 years from the Messiah are only a simple Allegory which these Doctors have recounted in their Treatises Sanhedrim and Aveda and which have no appearance of truth And again it 's known that the Greek Church counts already above 7000 years past since the Creation and whether they are in the right of we or either of us I believe all the Chronology extant cannot convincingly determine It 's enough for us therefore to believe that a Conflagration will happen but for us to attempt to find out the precise time or any natural Causes for it I believe the search transcends the wit of Man the Effect being besides the ordinary Course of Providence as Aquinas has truly said Illa mundi deflagratio quae paulò ante universale Judicium futura est non ad aliquam naturae vim sed ad divinam potentiam referri debet Indeed Dr. Alabaster seems of another mind where he says that the Supputation of the coming of Christ and the Worlds passing away does not exceed the reach and diligent search of our Understanding and this for two Reasons first because the end prefixt to the World is a thing which belongs to the knowledge of Nature for that the beginnings middles and ends and causes and the administration of the acts of created things have their foundation in Nature itself And the wise Man testifies that he knew the beginnings and the ends of times Secondly because whatsoever things are to happen concerning the day of Judgment are covertly written in the Scriptures so that if the Veil of the Letter being remov'd we look throughly into the Scriptures we may thence draw no obscure Testimonies of the truth Now I look upon Dr. Alabaster tho he had been a long Student in Mystical Divinity to have lain under a mistake in all this reasoning for first to say that the end prefixt to the World is a thing which belongs to the knowledge of Nature and that the beginnings middles and ends and causes and administration of acts of created things have their foundation in Nature itself I conclude all this to be false as I have set forth from Vallesius in my Considerations on the first Book of the Theory Again as to the Wise man's testifying that he knew the beginnings and the ends of times and to what he says that whatsoever things are to happen concerning the day of Judgment are covertly written in the Scriptures