everlasting 〈◊〉 and Happiness when this Life shall be ended But here the Epicureans and sensual Persons will be ready to object and argue Here are Pleasures and Delights in this World which are very inviting and taking and do highly gratifie my Senses and Appetites I hear likewise of future Rewards and Punishments for those that deny or fulfil their carnal Lusts and Desires These sensual Pleasures I see and taste and feel and am sure of the other I do but only hear of and therefore they do not they cannot so strongly affect me Were Heaven and the Happiness thereof set before my eyes and did I see it as plainly and clearly as I do these things below then indeed I should not need many motives to provoke me to endeavour the obtaining of it But alas that is far above out of our sight the Joys of Heaven are by the Apostle termed things not seen Again these outward and temporal enjoyments are present and easily obtainable the other at a great distance future and besides very hard to come by and I love my ease Vt est ingenium hominum à labore proclive ad libidinem Should I deny my self Good in this Life and then perchance cease to be and so have no Reward for my pains nay on the contrary expose my self to the hazard of many afflictions and sufferings which are the portion of the Godly in this Life how unnecessarily shall I make my self miserable Miserable I say because by the Apostle's own confession Christians If in this life only they had hope would be of all men the most miserable 1 Cor. 15. 19 Had I not better make sure of what is before me Why have I these Appetites within me and such Objects about me the one being so suitable to the other is it not more natural and reasonable to fulfil than deny them Surely it cannot be Wisdom to lose a certain Good for an uncertain Hope and for an ungrounded fear of Hell hereafter to undergo a Purgatory here To this Argumentation upon the false Foundation of the uncertainty of a Future Estate of endless Happiness or Misery accordingly as we have behaved our selves in this Life I answer That for the futurity of such an estate we have the best Authority in the World to wit the holy Scriptures and universal Tradition 1. The Holy Scriptures whose Authority to be more than humane hath been by many so clearly and convincingly demonstrated that I shall take it for granted and not waste time to prove it The Testimonies herein contained concerning eternal Happiness and Misery are so clear and full that it seems to me impossible without manifest distortion to elude or evade the force of them Some we have already recited and might produce many more Isa. 33. 14. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings Dan. 12. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt 2. Thess. 1. 9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord c. speaking of them who know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Isa. 66. 24. For their worm shall not die neither shall their fire be quenched The Origenists and others that cannot be reconciled to the Catholick Doctâ—ine of the Eternity of the Punishments of the Damned make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from which the Latin aevum is derived to signifie sometimes a determinate time as might say they easily be proved by many examples and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate for ever signifies when applied to this matter a long indeed but yet a finite time and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render for ever and ever may likewise signifie not an eternal duration but a time to which some term may be set by God though to us unknown In the same sense they accept the Adjective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a long but finite time But I am of S. Augustine's Opinion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth in the New Testament signifie the same with aeternus in Latin and is appropriated to things that have no end and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever and ever doth in like manner always denote eternal or endless duration That the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to the state of the Damned doth signifie eternal S. Augustine well demonstrates from the Antithesis in that place of Matth. 25. 46. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal Where it is in the same sense attributed to that Life which is the Reward of the Righteous and that Fire which is the Punishment of the Damned there being no reason to believe that the same word in the same Verse when applied to opposites should be taken in a different sense But by the confent of all Christians it is granted that the Life of the Blessed shall be eternal therefore so must the Punishment of the Damned be too This acception of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for eternal or endless when it refers to the state of those miserable Persons receives a further and strong confirmation from the Second Particular we proposed that is Vniversal Tradition It being a received Opinion among the Heathen which must needs descend down to them by Tradition from the Ancients that Eternal Punishments awaited the Wicked after Death What more common Notion among the Grecians and Romans than of an Elysium and Tartarus the former to reward good Men the latter to punish wicked And those too esteemed to be Eternal States Of this the Epicurean Poet Lucretius is a sufficient and unexceptionable Witness For he makes the fear of these Punishments to be the cause of all the Miseries of Humane Life and the Foundation of all Religion Aeternas quoniam poenas in morte timendum Now that he could derive this from no other source but Tradition is clear because he lived a good while before our Saviour's time and the divulgation of the Scripture among the Heathen And because it may be objected that Aeternas may signifie only of long continuance to put the Matter out of all doubt in another place he saith Nam si nullum finem esse putarent Aerumnarum homines nulla ratione valerent Relligionibus atque minis obsistere vatum But if it once appear That after Death there 's neither Hope nor Fear Then Men might freely triumph then disdain The Poet's Tales and scorn their fancy'd Pain But now we must submit since Pains we fear Eternal after Death we know not where And that this Opinion and Belief generally prevailed among the People before Epicurus his time the same Lucretius testifies in the beginning of his first Book Humana ante oculos foedè cum vita jaceret In terris oppressa gravi sub
Curious by publishing a general Catalogue of all the formed Stones found in England and his Remarks upon them And I have likewise proved by good Authority that beyond the Seas in high Mountains and many Leagues distant from the Sea too there have been Beds of real shells I might have added Sharks-teeth or Glossopetrae as both Goropius Becanus and Georgius Agricola testifie if not in Beds yet plentifully disperst in the Earth There are several Medical Histories extant as Dr. Tancred Robinson informs me of perfect shells found in Animal Bodies in whose Glands they were originally formed which is a considerable Objection not easily to be removed TAB II. pag 162 TAB III pag. 162 TAB IV Pag 162 CHAP. V. That there have been great Charges made in the Superficial Part of the Earth since the General Deluge and by what Means I Shall now Discourse a little concerning such Changes as have been made in the Superficial part of the Earth since the Universal Deluge and of their Causes That there have been such I think no sober and intelligent Person can deny there being so good Authority and Reason to prove it Plato in his Timaeus tells us That the Egyptian Priests related to Solon the Athenian Law-giver who lived about 600 years before our Saviour that there was of old time without the Straits of Gibraltar a vast Island bigger then Africa and Asia together called Atlantis which was afterward by a violent Earthquake and mighty Flood and Inundation of Water in one day and night wholly overwhelmed and drown'd in the Sea Whence it may be conjectured that the Old and New World were at first continuous or by the Intervention of that Island not very far remote from each other That the Island of Sicily was of old broken off from Italy by the irruption or insinuation of the Sea is generally believed and there is some memorial thereof retained in the very name of the City Rhegium standing upon the Fretum that separates Italy and Sicily which signifies breaking off Zancle quoque juncta fuisse Dicitur Italiae donec confinia pontus Abstulit mediâ tellurem reppulit undâ In like manner the Island called Euboea now Negroponte was of old joyned to Greece and broken off by the working of the Sea Moreover the Inhabitants of Ceylon report that their Island was anciently joyned to the Main-land of India and separated from it by the force of the Sea It is also thought and there is good ground for it that the Island of Sumatra was anciently continuous with Malacca and called the Golden Chersonese for being beheld from afar it seems to be united to Malacca And to come nearer home Verstegan affirms and not without good reason that our Island of Great Britain was anciently Continent to Gaule and so no Island but a Peninsula and to have been broken off from the Continent but by what means it is in his judgment altogether uncertain whether by some great Earthquake whereby the Sea first breaking through might afterward by little and little enlarge her passage or whether it were cut by the labour of Man in regard of commodity by that passage or whether the Inhabitants of one side or the other by occasion of War did cut it thereby to be sequestred and freed from their Enemies His Arguments to prove that it was formerly united to France are 1. The Cliffs on either side the Sea lying just opposite the one to the other that is those of Dover to those lying between Callice and Bouloin for from Dover to Callice is not the nearest Land being both of one Substance that is of Chalk and Flint 2. The sides of both towards the Sea plainly appearing to have been broken off from some more of the same stuff or matter that it hath sometime by Nature been fastned to 3. The length of the said Cliffs along the Sea-shore being on one side answerable in effect to the length of the very like on the other side that is about six Miles And 4. the nearness of Land between England and France in that place the distance between both as some skilful Sailers report not exceeding 24. English Miles Some of the Ancients as Strato quoted by Strabo in the first Book of his Geography say That the Fretum Gaditanum or Strait of Gibraltar was forcibly broken open by the Sea The same they affirm of the Thracian Bosphorus and Hellespont that the Rivers filling up the Euxine Sea forced a passage that way where there was none before And in confirmation hereof Diodorus Siculus in his Fifth Book gives us an Ancient Story current among the Samothracians viz. That before any other Floods recorded in Histories there was a very great Deluge that overflowed a good part of the Coast of Asia and the lower Grounds of their Island when the Euxine Sea first brake open the Thracian Bosphorus and Hellespont and drowned all the adjacent Countries This Traditional Story I look upon as very considerable for its Antiquity and Probability it seeming to contain something of truth For it 's not unlikely that the Euxine Sea being over-charged with Waters by extraordinary Floods or driven with violent storms of Wind might make its way through the Bosphorus and Hellespent But it will be objected That the Euxine Sea doth empty it self continually by the Bosphorus and Hellespont into the Mediterranean and that if it had not this way of discharge the Rivers bringing in more than is spent by vapour it would soon overflow all its shores and drown the circumjacent Countreys and so it must have done soon after the Flood and therefore it is not probable that Samothrace should have been inhabited before that irruption if any such there were To which I answer 1. That Monsieur Marsilly thinks he hath demonstrated an under-current in the Thracian Bosphorus by means of which the Euxine may receive as much Water from the Mediterranean as it pours forth into it But because I have already declared my self not to be satisfied of the being and possibility of these undercurrents I answer 2. The Annual receipts from the Rivers running into the Euxine not very much exceeding what is spent in vapour who knows but that from the time of the General Deluge till the Irruption whereof we are discoursing the Euxine might yearly enlarge its Bason and encroach upon the Neighbouring Countreys Natural Historians give us an account of new Islands raised up in the Sea Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. 2. cap. 87. enumerates Delos and Rhodes Islands of note and of less account and later emersion Anaphe beyond Melos and Nea between Lemnos and the Hellespont Alone between Lebedos and Teos and among the Cyclades Thera and Therasia Olymp. 135. An. 4. which last or one of the same name Seneca saith was raised himself beholding it nobis spectantibus enata Among the same after 130 years Hiera and two Furlongs distant in his own time when Iunius Syllanus and L. Balbus were Consuls Thia. But the most
And before this Earthquake also flames appeared for 4 days upon a Mountain near Geneva It is very strange and remarkable that the flames that issued out were of the nature of an Ignis fatuus and burnt nothing and that as Monsieur Colbert writes the Earthquake raged every Night and never in the Day-time Concerning Earthquakes I shall only add two Observations 1. That it is not likely that they spend all their strength upon Cities but do indifferently shake break in sunder and throw down Mountains and Rocks and seeing few Cities there are but have been shaken and many ruined and subverted by them and levelled with the Ground there is good reason to think that few Rocks or Mountains have escaped their Fury but have suffered the like Concussions and Alterations 2. That the Changes that have hitherto happened in the Earth by Earthquakes have not been so considerable as to threaten a dissolution of the present System of the Terraqueous Globe should there be a like succession of them to Eternity Unless we will except that unparall'd universal one which happened in the days of Valentinian the first which we have already mention'd by which the whole known World both Land and Sea and it s like the then unknown too were violently shaken which might seem to be a Prelude to the future Conslagration or Destruction of the whole by such a confusion and dashing in pieces of all the parts of it one against another as the Stoicks speak of Of the Effects of burning Mountains or Vulcanos I have already said something and shall afterwards have occasion to say more In brief 1. They cast forth out of their Mouths and scatter all over the Country sometimes to a very great distance abundance of Sand and Ashes Dion Cassius reports that in that noted deflagration of Vesuvius in the time of Titus the Emperour there was so much Cinders and Ashes vomited out of its flaming Tunnel and with that Fury and Violence that they were transported over Sea into Africa Syria and Egypt and on the other side were carried as far as Rome where they darkned the very Air and intercepted the Sun-beams At which time by the fury of this burning and tempest the whole Mountain and Earth thereabouts was so shaken that two adjoyning Cities Herculanium and Pompeii were destroyed with the People sitting in the Theater And the famous Natural Historian Pliny the Elder then Admiral of the Roman Navy out of a curiosity of searching out the Causes and Nature of the Deflagration approaching too near the Mountain and staying too long there was suffocated with the sulphureous smoke and stench thereof Of another eruption of the same Vesuvius we read in the time of Leo the Emperour wherein the Ashes thereof transported in the Air obscured all Europe being carried as far as Constantinople and that the Constant inopolitans being wonderfully affrighted therewith insomuch as the Emperour forsook the City in memory of the same did yearly celebrate the Twelfth of November 2. They also pour out huge Floods of melted Minerals Stones and other Materials running down like Rivers for many Miles together as did the Mountain Aetna in that last and most famous Eructation disgorging such mighty streams of fiery running matter as flowed down to Catana above twenty Miles distant and advanced a considerable way into the very Sea it self Secondly The next thing I shall mention is the extraordinary Floods caused by long continuing showers or violent and tempestuous storms and shots of rain The most ancient and memorable of this kind is that of Deucalion of which we have already discoursed sufficiently S. Hierome in the Life of Hilarion as I find him quoted by Dr. Hakewill speaks of a Flood and Inundation after the Death of Iulian in which Naves ad praerupta montium delatae pependerunt the Ships being landed upon the tops of the Mountains there stuck Which whether it proceeded from Rain or from an Irruption of the Sea or from both Causes together he doth not say but if it were literally true and not hyperbolically exaggerated then may some credit be given to what Sabin in his Commentaries upon Ovid's Metamorphosis reports Ex Annalium monumentis constat Anno 1460. in Alpibus inventam esse Navim cum anchoris in cuâ—iculo per quem metalla effodiuntur It appears by the Monuments of History that in the Year 1460. in a Mine of the Alps was found a Ship with its Anchors in confirmation of what that Poet writes Et vetus inventa est in montibus anchora summis In the Year of our Redemption 590. in the Month of October Gregory being then Bishop of Rome there happened a marvellous overflowing in Italy and especially in the Venetian Territory and in Liguria accompanied with a most fearful storm of Thunder and Lightning after which followed the great Plague at Rome by reason of the many dead Serpents cast up and left upon the Land after the Waters decreased and returned Strozius Sigog in his Magia omnifaria telleth of an Inundation in Italy in the time of Pope Damasus in which also many Cities of Sicily were swallowed another in the time of Alexander the Sixth also in the Year 1515. Maximilian being Emperour He also remembers a perillous overflowing in Polonia about Cracovia by which many People perished Likewise Vignier a French Historian speaketh of a great Flood in the South part of Languedoc which fell in the Year of our Lord 1557. with so dreadful a Tempest that all the People attended therein the very end of the World and Judgment-day saying that by the violent descent of the Waters about Nismes there were removed divers old heaps and mountures of Ground and many other Places torn up and rent by which accident there was found both Coin of Silver and Gold and divers pieces of Plate and Vessels of other Metal supposed to be hidden at such time as the Goths invaded that Province These stories related in the three last Paragraphs I have borrowed of Sir Walter Ralegh his History of the World To which I shall add one of late date happening in Sicily a Narrative whereof communicated in a Letter from Palermo dated Iune the 25th 1682. I met with in the London Gazette Numb 1742. in the following words We have an Account from the Town of Tortorica That on the sixth Instant about seven a Clock in the Evening after so great a darkness that no object could be distinguished at the distance of four paces there arose such a great storm of Rain Lightning and Thunder which lasted six and thirty hours that about One a Clock the next morning great Torrents of Water caused by these Rains fell down from the neighbouring Mountains with so great rapidity that they carried with them Trees of an extraordinary bigness which threw down the Walls and Houses of the Town they happened to beat against The Waters were so violent that they overthrew the Church of St. Nicholas and the Arch-Deacon of the