up from under that Tract between them the ground must there sink down in proportion to â—ill up the emptied space beneath and so fall lower down than the rest of the Earth And for the same reason or others like it many places in the Sea may be exceeding deep and seem to go down into a perfect Abyss as it were or a bottomless profundity And we must note that though but only part of the Earth be Mountainous yet little or none of it is exactly level as being every where heaved up by the forementioned Causes more or less And therefore the smoothest Plains that appear to the eye to be very even are not really so Only this we may observe concerning them That when Horse-men travel over them the Ground being struck with the Feet of the Beasts yields a kind of Sound Which shews that the Earth in those Plains is much in that Posture into which the Sun and Vapours did at first raise it loose that is and porous and somewhat hollow Whereas amongst Hills and Dales it yields no such noise when beaten with such Tramplings And the reason is clear because it being â—lung up and fallen down and altered and transposed by eructations and sinkings it has so been driven closer and made more compact And then as to Maritime Hills or those near the Sea when the Ground was crushed down by the hand of OMNIPOTENCE to make a Receptacle for the Water it is easie to conceive how they should fly up at the sides of Seas or not far from them As also how Hills should be highest in those Countries about which Seas are deepest For the Ground in the adjacent or not far distant Seas being sunk very low and forced to give way very much it might well crowd out and thrust up a great height about the Shores or in the adjoyning Regions Nor is it to be thought that when so great a part of the surface of the Earth was pressed down that the Ground should struggle out at the Brinks of the Ocean only and in some considerable distance from the Shores much of it would recoil from under the compression in thâ— Sea it self and fly up irregularly in innumerable places where it could best do it And hence might come Banks in the Sea stretcht out as Mountains are on the Land to extraordinary lengths As also Rocks and Flats and Shelves without number Nor must this be omitted That all the Mountains of the Earth if raised according to this Conjecture will have no reason to hold proportion in bulk to the Cavity of the Ocean A thing which the common Hypothesis of their Formation implys and which lies as a main Objection against it For thus the In-land Mountains would not be made out of the Sea at all Nor would the whole quantity of Earth which at first filled up the Cavity of the Sea be cast out into the Maritime Hills but most of it be squeezed and forced down deeper into the bowels of the Earth Thus also Islands might be made to take a short step out of the way we are in I mean such as are not of the largest size whether they be distant from all Continents as the Canaries Azores Hesperides and others in the Atlantic Ocean or such as lie in whole Fries by the Main-lands-side as they do in several places of the World Though many of this latter sort might be raised out of Mud or Dirt descending in great plenty out of Rivers So were the Echinades in the Ionian Sea just before the mouth of the River Achelous Or else they might be made by the flowing of the Waters into the Sea when they were first drawn off the surface of the Earth For then they running furiously down into the Pit which Providence had fitted and appointed for them might wear away the ground about the Verge thereof and eating into its Superficies by the violence of their course might divide it into a multitude of little Apartments which afterward when the Sea was filled might be petty Islands about its Coasts as the Philippines for instance and others in the Oriental Seas which stand in whole Sholes even thousands of them together against China and India Whirlepools also by the same means might be made in the Sea as well as chanels for Rivers underground by land for the Earth being pressed down deep in some places and thereby forced to ascend in others kind of arched Vaults might so be formed Which leading out of one Sea or one part of a Sea into another the waters flowing through them cause those voragines or Gulfs at the top where they enter their subterraneous Pipes or Passages Many of which Gulfs are so strong that they suck in and swallow up whatever comes into them But to return we need no more wonder at the Greatness or Number of Mountains made in this method on the Earth than at the Granâ—â—losity or ruggedness in the rind of an Orange And as the Mountains in truth bear no more proportion to the Earth's Dimensions than those little pimples do to the fruit we speak of so they and In-land Mountains both may proceed from Causes not altogether unlike Though now those Causes as to the Earth are so debilitated and wasted that they are unable to produce the like Effects Particularly that slatuous Moisture wherewith at first it did abound and might be put into it on purpose to make it heave in general into necessary inequalities and in places to ascend into mighty Hills is spent and gone And we have no more reason to expect that the Earth should ordinarily send forth Mountains now than that a dead ripe Orange pluckt off the Tree should break out into such Wheals or Wens as we see upon some 5. One argument for Mountains in the first World is yet behind which shall end this Chapter There were METALS in the World And these as all know are now found at the Roots of Mountains And they being the places whence they are digged now it is a shrewd presumption they ever lodg'd in the same Indeed the very generating them in the exterior Region of the Earth does necessarily suppose cavities in it And Cavities under-ground do as necessarily infer inequalities above it And here the Theory will receive another wound perhaps an incurable one in its Hypothesis I mean where it makes the Antediluvian Earth all smooth and even without Mountains all solid to the Abyss without caves or holes But therefore to shun this great inconvenience it fairly consents to the abolishing of Metals out of the first state of Nature Some moreover add to what has been said that in the first nature there were no Minerals or Metals who according to our Hypothesis I think want not their Reasons But this is out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire For thus the Fidelity of Moses is assaulted and another intolerable affront put upon the HOLY GHOST For do not both inform us That the City Enoch
Landskips And however the Theorist does sometimes disparage the Mountainous parts of the Earth at such a rate as if they had been wholly unworthy of the care of Nature and she had scorned to put her hand to the work of their â—ormation and indeed his Hypothesis makes them nothing but ruines yet another while when the ingenious Man is pleased to turn the stream of his Eloquence the contrary way he represents them though certainly the most horrid visible pieces of Nature as exceeding grateful to Beholders Yea he makes this very Earth of ours and that in the hideously amazing and gastly Cragginess of its Mountains to afford more delights to contemplative Minds than ever the Roman or Grecian Theaters did or those Sports wherewith they entertained Spectators So he expresseth himself in the Latin Theory Pag. 89 90. And at the same time we find him transported as it were into a pleasing rapture or pang of Admiration through the singular content and satisfaction he found from the prospect and consideration of what we speak of And truly that roughness brokenness and multiform confusion in the surface of the Earth which to the inadvertent may seem to be nothing but inelegancies or frightful Disfigurements to thinking Men will appear to be as the Tornings and Carvings and ornamental Sculptures that make up the Lineaments and Features of Nature not to say her Braveries Nor need we wonder that the Theorist should be so mightily pleased and raised by the sight and contemplation of these things for though some would take them for flaws and botches and the fag ends of Nature yet in them a quick and piercing Eye can easily discern not only her pretty dexterous Mechanisms but the marvellous and adoreable Skill of her Maker most rarely expressed And therefore the inspired Psalmist meditating upon the Earth in its present Form and particularly revolving in his Holy Thoughts the Mountains the high Hills the Rocks and the great and wide Sea was so taken with them that he could not but think they had GOD for the cause or Author of them And accordingly he declared and proclaimed the worst of them not only to be produced by him but to be the product of his infinite Wisdom O LORD in wisdom hast thou made them all Psal. 104. 24. And when the Divine Wisdom brought forth the Earth and these pieces of it and ordered them into their present places and postures and so admirably well as that the Psalmist directed by the Heavenly SPIRIT could not chuse but celebrate the Production and disposition of them has not this Earth as much to shew for its being made by Rulâ— and Measure as another of a pretended different Form could have had especially when it must all over have been but one vast Plain And then in the Second place this Form of the Earth is most Vseful likewise It appears to be so in sundry respects and very considerable ones For now a great part of Mankind live by the Seas either in way of Traffick or Navigation not to say that all are some way or other the better for them But in the First World says the Theory there was no Sea Mountains also now are most eminently serviceable That is to say in Bounding Nations in Dividing Kingdoms in Deriving Rivers in Yielding Minerals and in breeding and harbouring innumerable wild Creatures I might also add in contributing somewhat towards enlarging the Earth and inabling it in some Countries to sustain its Inhabitants Thus it is alledged as one Reason why Palestine could maintain so many of old that the Country was rising and falling into Hills and Vales whereby ground was gâ—ined and so the Land was far roomthier to use my Author's Phrase And indeed that there were store of Hills in Iudea and very fruitful ones is insinuated by the Royal Prophet where he calls upon Men to give praise to GOD for making Grass to grow upon the Mountains But in the first Earth there were no Mountains neither Lastly The Earth in its present Form and State is attended with Rains and seasonable Showres Whereas in its other Figure and capacity it must have been all over cut into Rills and Aqueducts for the Watring of Mens Grounds and their trouble in doing it would have been endless and unspeakable because it must generally have been done by hand What Tongue can express the toil they must have had in a manual watring of Fields Woods Groves Orchards c. and in slicing a great part of the Earth in pieces thus to moisten and cultivate the rest But now kind Nature saves them that labour while Clouds do the work effectually for them For they filling their Buckets by the help of the Sun and then emptying the same to the best advantage excuse them from the drudgery by taking it upon themselves And that these Rules whereby we measure the Vsefulness of this Earth and shew it to be more excellent than that of the Theory are the most true and proper Rules is manifest from GOD's making use of the same in a Case not unlike For he comparing Egypt and Palestine prefers the latter before the former because in Egypt the Seed sown was watered with the foot as a garden of herbs but Palestine was a land of hills and valleys and drank water of the rain of heaven Deut. 11. 10 11. So that if an Earth most comely and decent in it self and also most Vseful and convenient for Men may most properly be said to be laid in measures and to have had the line stretched upon it or the Rule applied to it as questionless it may than the present Form of the Earth may challenge this Text more justly to it self than the other could do had it ever been And however the Architecture of that is presumed to surpass the Architecture of this yet one thing may here be remarked concerning it That the Holy Man's Language does but indifferently sute it For to talk of Foundations in such a Circle or of a Corner-stone in such a spherical Arch as the primitive Earth is conceived to be sounds but harshly The Sixth Place consists of the 8 9 10 and 11 th Verses of the same Chapter where GOD continues his Interrogatories thus Or who shut up the Sea with Doors when it brake forth as if it had issued out of a Womb When I made the Cloud the garment thereof and thick darkness a swadling band for it and brake up for it my decreed placâ— and set bars and doors And said Hitherto shalt thou come but no farther and here shall thy proud waves be staied Which Period the Theory would have to be understood of the breaking forth of the Sea at the opening of the Abyss but the Context allows it not For that plainly signifies that what the Sea is here said to do and what is said to be done to that was transacted in the beginning when the Foundations of the Earth were fastened and the corner-stone
thereof was laid and the morning Stars sang c. And therefore when the Theory would put a difference in respect of time betwixt the foregoing 4 5 and 6 th Verses and those last set down so as to make the Questions in the former Verses proceed upon the Form and construction oâ— the first Earth and those in the latter upon the demolition of that Earth the opening of the Abyâ—s and the present state of both what it says is gratis diâ—tum and the distinction groundless Yea it seems not only to be applied without grounds but with force and violence for the Context intimates no such matter but rather the contrary It runs on in a direct series of Queries without giving the least hint that any of the Particulars touching which they are made were of later date than others And that the first set of them relate to things as ancient as the Primitive Earth's Production the Theory owns and therefore why should not the other too To which add when the Sea brake forth at the time of the disruption it could not be said to issue as out of a Womb so properly as out of its House where it had dwelt above Sixteen hundred Years for a Womb is the place where a thing is conceived and brought into being which before was not But these Waters were preexistent to the inclosure of the Abyss the Womb which held them yea against the order of Nature they were contributive to the being of it as they were the basis whereon the First Earth was built So that the place of the Abyss falls in but ill with the notion of a Womb in reference to these Waters And consequently they could as ill be said to issue from thence as out of a Womb. And then the Darkness at the Disruption was not so thick nor so much a garment or swadling band to the Sea as darkness was at the Creation Yea the truth is it could then be no garment or swadling band at all for the Sea but only for the Flood For by that time the tumultuary Waters of the Deluge were quietly retired into the decreed place and became a Sea the Sky was cleared up and the darkness gone Nor could it so properly be said to be shut up with Doors and to have Bars set upon it then as to be infranchized or set at liberty For those Doors and Bars which shut it up and made it fast in a closer state before the Disruption were then all broken down and thrown open for ever and it was put into a condition of far greater freedom than it formerly had its present settlement being perfectly a state of enlargement to it But now turn the words to the sense of the Old Hypothesis and besides that they keep time exactly with the Context how patly do they fall in with it For when on the First Day GOD together with the Earth made the Water of the Sea as it brake forth into being as if it had issued out of a Womb indeed because it just then gushed out of the Womb of nothing into Existence and as he then made the Cloud the garment thereof and thick darkness a swadling band for it in a fuller sense for darkness was then upon the face of the deep Gen. 1. 1. and that darkness for certain most thick there being then neither Sun nor Light so on the Third Day when he brake up Chanels for it he might well call them His decreed place and declare that he had beset it with Bars and Doors because by his command the Waters were gathered off the surface of the Earth where was their first and naturâ—â— situation and shut up in such Receptacles and with such a confinement as they would never have withdrawn into of themselves but would always have remained in their original diffusion over the whole Terrestrial Globe And that this shutting up of the Sea in its decreed place was a thing done in the beginning and not at the time of the Flood is evident Prov. 8. 29. where GOD's giving his Decree to the Sea that it should not pass his commandment and his appointing the foundations of the Earth are made to be Sâ—nchronals But from the last Verse of the Quotation Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther and here shall thy proud waves be stayed an objection is raised against the usual exposition of the Place For that sentence shews saith the Theory that it cannot be understood of the first disposiâ—ion of the Waters as they were before the Flood for their proud waves broke those bounds whatsoever they were when they overâ—lowed the Earth in the Deluge I answer If they did so yet that argues not but the words may speak the disposition of the Waters before the Flood according to the common interpretation of them for that Inundation was by GOD's special appointment And when he assigned to the Waters the place of their abode he did not intend to fortifie them in it against his own Omnipotence or to devest himself of his Sovereign Prerogative of calling them forth when he pleased And when they passed the bounds he set them so long as they did it not by any force of their own but meerly by his powerful order or providential act this their Eruption and spreading Overflow cannot be lookt upon as a breach of that Law or those Limits he prescribed them It was only the marvellous effect of an extraordinary Cause and a particular Exception of GOD's own making to the general and standing Rule of his Providence Just as Enoch's or Elijah's Translation was to the universal and irrevocable Sentence of Death That may be one answer in defence of the ancient Hypothesis But then to the Theorist I may give in this for another The proud Waves of the Sea did never pass their bounds to make the Deluge The great Deep or the Fountains then broken up had no relation to the Sea I confess this implies that the Flood is to be explained by a new Hypothesis but if we can but bring in such a one as may be as justifiable as the Theory's is which we shall endeavour to do we need not concern our selves farther about it The last place is Prov. 8. 27 28. When he prepared the Heavens I was there when he set a compass upon the face of the Deep when he established the Clouds above when he strengthned the fountains of the Abyss Whence is inferred So there was in the beginning of the World a Sphere Orb or Arch set round the Abyss which is presumed to be no other than the first habitable Earth But this is a sense far fetcht to serve the turn of an Hypothesis when there is a nearer at hand will do much better For by the Compass set upon the face of the Depth is meant no more than those bounds wherewith GOD encompassed not the Theory's Abyss but the open Waters The HOLY GHOST who is the best Interpreter of his own Writings expounds it so
disruption of the Abyss as if the fall of the Earth had caused such extraordinary commotions in the Air or convulsions of its Regions as made them every where to pour down Waters For the Theory will have the Rains to be antecedent to the disruption I do not suppose the Abyss broken open till after the forty days rain But then this is most directly against Scripture again for that plainly affirms the contrary that the Fountains of the great Deep and the Windows of Heaven were both opened upon one day Gen. 7. 11. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life in the second month the seventeenth day of the month the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened So that in the same year of Noah's Life and in the same Month of that Year and on the same Day of that Month the Fountains below and the Windows above were both set open that the Waters issuing out of both might raise the Deluge 6. Let me add in the next place That it is a known Question that has been moved by Writers of all sorts Ancient and Modern Iewish and Christian Divines Historians Chronologers c. at what time of the year the Flood came in Iosephus for instance will have it to happen in Autumn others in the Spring and they give their reasons for it The Question does manifestly proceed upon inadvertency their not minding that when it was Spring in one part of the World it was Autumn in another And the like Question is put by Writers and bandied among them touching the Creation at what time of the year that great Work was done But somewhat more improperly there being no Seasons of the year before the Creation Now this being the general Judgment of the Learned That the year had Tempestival Changes from the beginning even the same that it has now as these Questions import from hence it may be inferted that they never dreamt of this Position of the Earth or a Perpetual Aequinox but were all of the contrary perswasion or common Opinion 7. As for the Authorities that are made use of to establish the Doctrine we are upon if they be examined they will hardly be found to speak home in the case For though in the Contents of the Tenth Chapter of the Second Book of the Latin Theory it be thus declared the last Article concerning the right Situation of the first Earth is establisht by the sentences of Philosophers yet if their Sentences alledged in that Chapter be well considered they will appear to be too weak and insufficient I shall set them all down fully to avoid suspicion of perverting or misrepresenting them The first is taken out of Plutarch and delivered by him as the joint Opinion of two ancient Philosophers Diogenes and Anaxagoras think that after the World was constituted and living creatures were brought forth out of th◠Earth the World in a manner was inclined towards its Southern part of its own accord And that this perchance was done by providence that some parts of the World might be inhabited and others not by reason of cold heat and convenient temperature But this will do the Theory little service it rather fights against it For the Inclination here is said to be made by Providence that some of the Worlds parts might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitable by reason of a good temperature Which agrees not with the Theory for that holds the World to have been of the best temperature before the Earth was inclined insomuch that it knew no Season but Spring And what then could mend its habitableness Yet in order to that the Earth was inclined as the Citation intimates And when in the Judgment of these Philosophers the inclination of the Earth was to conduce to or improve its habitableness and according to the Tenor of the Theory it would rather have been an hindrance or disadvantage to the same it is apparent that this Allegation does rather cross than confirm the Hypothesis In case it be argued That this Inclination might promote or mend the habitableness of the Earth as it quenched the flame in the Torrid Zone and reduced its intolerable to a gentle hea◠neither thus can the Passage be drawn to favour the Theory For say the Philosophers by vertue of this Inclination some parts of the Earth were to be rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uninhabitable and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too upon the account of vehement heat Whereas this very Inclination was of necessity to be a qualification or corrective or indeed a perfect extinction of all furious burning in the Torrid Zone as the Theory owns So that the Authority cited is so far from establishing the Theory's Hypothesis of the Earth's Inclination that it will not be easily reconciled to it Nor can it excuse the matter with this Pair of Philosophers to say that they were blinded here with the common Error and ran for company with those that believed there was a Torrid Zone when there really was none For allowing they were so sagacious as to discover this Secret of the Earth's Inclination we must also grant that by the same quick-sightedness they would clearly have discerned that the effect thereof could not have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a scorching raging insufferable heat about the middle of the Earth but a certain mitigation or quenching of the same The second Sentence is that of Empedocles which occurs in the same Chapter of Plutarch Empedocles teacheth That the Air giving way to the force of the Sun the North inclined the Northern parts being elevated and the Southern ones depressed and this happened by that means to the whole World Here is a mighty effect produced without a cause assigned at least here is non causa pro causa the assignation of a cause altogether incompetent and not to be understood For why should the Air yield to the force of the Sun more towards the South than towards the North when his force was equal upon both the Regions at once For he moving at all times exactly in the midst betwixt them his influence must be exactly alike upon each and therefore that it should cause the depression of one more than of the other is a thing in the dark and unintelligible But say the Sun had had power to displace the Earth and by sinking one Pole of it through such a cession of the Air to have raised the other yet then that this cession should not be in the Air nor consequently this dislocation of the Earth till the Flood happened is not to be thought And therefore this Sentence favours not the Theory neither for that has positively determined the time of the Deluge to have been the juncture of the Earth's declension or dislocation Whereas if the Sun had been the cause thereof by working a change in the Air conducive thereunto it must have been accomplisht
very long before The next Sentence is Leucippus's thus delivered by Laertiâ—s That the Sun and Moon are subjâ—ct to Eclipses long of the Earth's inclining to the South And that the Northern Regions are always Snowy Frosty and Icy But by Plutarch thus Leucippus was of the mind That the Earth verges towards the Southern Regions because of the thinness or openness of them for while the Northern parts are frozen with cold the opposite are hot To take off this we need but reflect on what has been said already for how could the Southern Pole of the Earth dip into the Air by reason the Air at that Pole was hotter and more rarified than it was at the Northern Pole when the Sun cut his way most evenly betwixt both the Poles Or if it could have been so yet then the Earth must have lost its regular Position and the Equinox have been turned out of being many hundreds of years before the Deluge came which is utterly inconsistent with the Theory Democritus his Judgment also is brought in in these words The Southern part of the ambient Air being the weaker the bulky Earth did therefore incline that way For the Northern Regions being evenly but the Southern unevenly tempered thence it was that accordingly it sagged down where it abounded with fruits and increase Here is nothing new save this That the â—arth abounding most with fruits towards the South the weight of those helped to bear it downward and so sway'd it out of its Aequinoctial Site which in truth is but a vain and unphilosophic Phancy For first How could the Earth be more fruitful at one Pole than at the other when the Soil was alike and so alike fertile and both the Poles were equidistant from the Sun Secondly If the Earth had been most loaden with natural Increments about its South Pole yet how could these have overset or poized it down by making it the heavier For they all proceeding out of the Bowels of the Earth She must be as heavy before they grew up as after Thirdly If the Earth could have been cast or settled towards the South by those fruits we speak of yet still here would be violence done to the Theory by shutting its continual praediluvian Aequinox quite out of doors For the Earth being most fruitful at first and consequently its Produâ—â— about the Southern parts most copious That Pole by their ponderous burthen must have been overpowered in the beginning and the Earth sunk into that inclining posture in which now it stands Having thus taken account of these Philosophers Opinions before we go farther let us make a short stop here only so long as to remark these Four Particulars already hinted First That they of them who are most express for the Inclination of the Earth do not deny this Inclination to have been from the beginning or very soon after Secondly That they do not only not deny this but implicitly affirm it by their assigning such causes of it For though they be improper and such as never were yet had they been and could they have produced the effect at all they would certainly have done it in the beginning of the World Thirdly That none of these Philosophers do make the least mention of a continual Aequinâ—x antecedaneous to the Earth's Inclination And in case it should be urged that their very asserting the Earth to be inclined does suppose it was once in such a Position as was attended with a fixed Aequinox In way of answer it is observable Fourthly That there is one Notion which runs through most of their Assertions and sufficiently proves that they could never think the Earth held such a Position as to be capable of a constant and settled Aequinox For they intimate that the Southern Air was more thin and weak and yielding than the Northern as being more temperate or warm than that But had they believed that the Earth kept a Right Position to the Sun and so had both its Poles equidistant from him they must withal have believed the Air about both to have been of the like temperature and consistency All which put together makes it evident That the cited Testimonies are not satis illustria clear enough to do the Theory's business and that the Article of the Right Situation of the Earth the cause of the supposed Aequinox is not at all established Philosophorum Sententiis by the sayings of the aforesaid Philosophers But therefore we have not done yet Anaxagoras comes in with a second Attestation and witnesseth That the Stars were moved Tholiformly from the beginning so as the Pole always appeared about the top of the Earth but afterwards it declined So Diâ—genes Laertius delivers his mind And this may seem to be somewhat a better evidence for the Earth's changing her Site But in way of reply it might be noted First That Ambrosius the Monk a good Philologer who translated Laertius into Latin instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so it signifies the Stars to have moved unevenly from the beginning that is as they do now But let 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the true lection Yet then Secondly Aldobrandinus renders that turbulentè unsteddily And so makes the Philosopher speak the same sense that Ambrosius does in a different word But we will go â—arther still and suppose Thirdly That Anaxagoras meant that the Stars were carried about instar I holi after the fashion of a Cupulo of which kind of Figure was the Pantheon at Rome and therefore Dio calls that Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tholiform yet then might he not mean withal that they imitated this Figure in their motion only so far as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Pole of the Earth by being near to a direct Situation under the Pole of the World not of the Ecliptic would permit it to be done For the Declination he here speaks of we cannot understand so well with reference to the Pole of the Ecliptic because he calls it the Pole simply which denotes the Pole of the Aequator And about this Pole indeed several Stars or Constellations as the two Bears the Dragon Cepheus Cassiopoea c. do move Tholiformly at all times the Pole still appearing about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or top of the Earth that is to say about the Pole of it And that these and other Stars thereabouts had declined since the beginning he might well be of Opinion inasmuch as the Vertex top or Pole of the Earth might in his time have suffered a considerable declination from the Pole of the World According to which declination the Fixt Stars seem to advance in Longitude Insomuch that Aries hath passed into the Dodecatemorium or place of Taurus in the Zodiac and Taurus into that of Gemini and so on But then this is such a Declination as does not at all imply that the axis of the Earth was ever in a Parallelism with that of
Its Motions in some places would flag and faulter and in others grown as much too fierce and violent and so through unhappy deficiencies and redundancies of Motion that commonly change and destroy Nature post into innumerable Disorders and Intanglements and so become a most lamentably hampered thing eternally devoid of all beauty and harmony And the very same would happen to the Earth in its Proportion It is now a very goodly piece and incomparably furnisht and adorned There are few places in it but afford taking Prospects or present the eye with such pretty Objects that if the Beholders be not too incurious they may well be affected with them Herbs Flowers Trees Fruits Springs Brooks Rivers c. with what variety and in what abundance does it send forth But yet let the Clouds we speak of with-hold their moisture but a few years and what a rueful change would then appear The choicest Grounds which now swell with Plenty and luxuriate with fatness and pleasing Gayeties would be miserably exhausted and their tempting amoenities turned into horridness They would be quite devested of their florid attire and of all their rich and gorgeous habiliments Yea not only their wanton gawdy Dresses but even their coarsest and most ordinary Cloaths would be â—indg'd off their Backs and being stript of their decent necessary Garments would have nothing leâ—t to cover their nakedness We live in an Island where according to St. Peter's phrase the Earth stands in the Waters and out of the Waters more than in other places Yet as much Water as we have about us should the Clouds be unkind and deny us their effusioâ—s to what grievous straits should we soon be reduced We may justly conclude so from what has happen'd by some short Droughts amongst us the effects of which are found upon Record in our English Chronicles And if a little dry weather be intolerable to us who dwell so near the Seas and have Neptune's Territories round about us how extreamly pernicious must lasting Droughts be to higher or more In-land Situations But therefore the First Vse of the Clouds is to keep the Earth in a Flourishing Condition To temper the immoderate heat of the Sun and to asswage his scorching fury To moisten the Air and keep it cool and to cool the Earth by keeping it moist That so once in a year at least it might put on its bravery and be deckt and array'd in its prideless Gallantry the Image of its native finery and those higher glories wherewith at first it was better beautified and imbellisht And therefore when GOD brings the Clouds over it to perform their work of natural Distillation He is said to do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for hiz Earth in the quoted Text. Because the Earth is His and because it might continue to be like his that is Comely and Graceful Whereas if Clouds by their Waters should not refresh it in a short time it would scarce be fit to be owned for GOD's Earth It would be so fear and bare and barren and desolate that it would hardly look like a piece of His Workmanship Yea so parched would it be and so dry would it grow and such heats would it conceive from the inflaming Sun that it would be forced to anticipate its final Destiny by burning in good measure before the Conflagration Secondly The Clouds are Vseful for Mercy They do not keep the Earth from Desolation and help to maintain it in a Condition good and flourishing upon its own account only but upon ours also That so we may be fed and cloathed and furnished with its valuable Products and the fruits of its increase The Psalmist if we would read this in Holy Stile expresses it thus Thou visitest the earth and blessest it Thou makest it very plenteous Thou waterest her furrows Thou sendest rain into the little valleys thereof Thou makest it soft with the drops of rain and blessest the increase of it thou crownest the year with thy goodness and thy clouds drop fatness They shall drop upon the dwellings of the wilderness and the little hills shall rejoice on every side The folds shall be full of sheep the valleys also shall stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing And in another place He watereth the hills from above the earth is filled with the fruit of thy works He bringeth forth grass for the cattle and green herb for the service of man That he may bring food out of the earth and wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oyl to make him a chearful countenance and bread to strengthen man's heart But this is not all the mercy which showrs down from the Clouds They drop an higher mercy on us still I mean as they are an Argument and a mighty Argument against the black and cursed sin of Atheism For being notable Instruments of Divine Providence they so bear witness in a powerful manner to the existence of a GOD. And therefore when as great a Disputant as ever entered the Christian Schools except the adorable Master of them would have reasoned Men into an acknowledgment of the True GOD he argued from this very Topic the Clouds or which is all one from the Rain they afforded Yea he told them plainly That GOD himself made use of it as an Evidence to prove and attest his own being He left not himself without witness in that he gave us Rain Acts 14. 17. And truly he that shall consider all the Phaenomena's of this Meteor and trace it along from its Rise or Generation to its fall and profitable effects upon the Earth will find it of singular force to evince a DEITY As for the Causes Nature and Qualities of Rain the way of its Production the manner of its Distillation c. the Apostle urged them not he knew those things were too high for the Men of Lystra But then he pressed them with the thing another way more suitable to their Capacity namely As Rain was a means of the Earth's being fruitful He gave us Rains and fruitful seasons Pursue it but on this part and how powerful an Argument or Testimony will it be of the Existence of a GOD I mean as it will appear to be a wonderful Instrument exactly sitted for its appointed work and as it manifests a strange Providential Contrivance in adapting it in point of congruity and ability to be the excellent Cause of such signal Effects For suppose the most understanding Man as to that concern in the whole World had Woods and Nurseries and Orchards and Gardens and Fields and Pastures to be watered how would he chuse to have it done so as it might be most for their and consequently for his own advantage Why in the same way we shall find it done by the Clouds only better and indeed so much better that it will be very hard if not impossible for Art to match it by any Invention A certain Indication that a more than ordinary
of it What clearer Token would it have been of his Covenant What stronger support of Mens confidence in it the two principal Ends whereunto it was appointed Why should we for instance that are now alive be the more firmly perswaded of the Truth of GOD's Compact or the more fully satisfied that he will surely stand to it Indeed if it had been a New Apparition by being so very fine and curious it might have wrought prettily upon Noah's Phancy and theirs who were with him Especially it coming with such a Promise of Mercy and finding them in the midst of such gaâ—tly ruines But bating but this that its Newness might sweetly affect its Beholders making delightful and somewhat surprizing Impressions on their Minds and raising in them little transports and wondrings what great benefit could result from it As to the Persons then in being it would have been a most valid Ratification of the Divine Covenant without its novity as being turned into a Seal of an immutable Promise of Security against general Floods to come made by that GOD who had justly delivered them and that most miraculously from one lately past And as to after Generations it must be all one to them whether the Celestial bow was first exhibited since the Deluge or before it For as many as think aright concerning it that it is an Effect of Natural Causes and that the rorid Cloud the opposite Sun and the Eye of the Spectator being rightly disposed so as to make due Refractions and Reflections of the Sun-beams at requisite Angles it must as necessarily appear as fire must burn they cannot discern any shadow of reason why it should not as well assure them the World should be drowned no more had it been extant ever since the Creation as if it had commenced its appearance at the drying up of the Flood To be short whenever it appears it is because it cannot do otherwise but when it does appear it betokens the Earth's preservation from drowning meerly upon the account of GOD's Ordinance that so it should do And therefore it might be as good a Prognostic or Token of the Worlds indemnity from a second Flood though it had appeared in all Ages before as if it had then shown it self first when GOD was pleas'd to make it the Sign of his Covenant 3. And indeed it is the way or method of Providence both in its Penal and Propitious Dispensations to make known and common natural and familiar things Marks of his Displeasure and Significations and Vehicles of its kindness and beneficence Thus as to Punishment it was a piece of the Serpet's Curse that he should go upon his belly Yet it does not appear that this Malediction deprived him of Legs or that he and his Species ever went erect So it was made part of the Womans Sentence that her Husband should rule over her Yet her Condition before was a State of Subjection to him as intimated to proceed from the order of her Creation So that what stands clearly imputed to her sin and seems to be the plain Consequent of her Guilt and the effect of her Doom was antecedent to the same and the Lot of her Innocence Only Circumstances were altered and what was sweet and easie as Nature at first was unhappily changed into trouble and penance in the issue of things And the like is observable in the Oeconomy of Mercy I mean in the very conduct of Religion it self and that in the sublimest Mysteries thereof For the Evangelical Sacraments were instituted in Water Bread and Wine for sealing and ratifying a far nobler Covenant than that betwixt GOD and the Patriarch Noah extending to his Posterity and all living Creatures And yet these were common Elements and of ordinary use at all times Only positive Commands and Divine Institution improved them into means of Christian Proselytism and Communion with the DEITY And this makes it the more probable that the Rainbow was an usual Meteor Because then GOD in giving it to the World in Confirmation of his Promise or Pact would have acted most consonantly to his other proceedings Yea even to his proceedings in the highest and holiest Solemnities of Religion of nearest intercourse with His MAJESTY and so of greatest importance to Mankind For there he has made the most common things to be Signs and Mystical Deferents of himself and his Favours to all worthy Partakers of them But all such instances says the Theory fall short and do not reach the case before us For a sign confirmatory of a Promise when there is something affirmed de futuro must indispensably be something New Otherwise it cannot have the Nature Vertue and influence of a Sign And a little before Such Signs must be some new appearance and must thereby induce us to believe the effect otherwise the pretended Sign is a meer Cypher and superfluity To which I answer As to Signs given by GOD to confirm his Promises he has taken a Latitude to himself in chusing and appointing them For Sometimes he has made things new and strange to be Signs of this nature Thus his own Deafness and Dumbness was to be a Sign to Zachariah of his Promised Son The Retrogradation of the Shadow on Ahaz's Dial was to be a Sign to Hezekiah of his promised Recovery And the Fleece expos'd to the Dew first wet and then dry was to be a Sign to Gideon of his promised Victory But then Sometimes he has made things to be Signs that on the other side are common and usual Thus the Fruit of a Tree growing in Paradise was made a Sign of Man's Immortality if he continued Obedient and therefore it was called The Tree of Life say many of the Learned And shooting with Bow and Arrows upon the ground than which nothing could be more ordinary was made a Sign to Ioash of his prevailing against the Syrians And therefore when he shot the Arrow was called The Arrow of the LORD's deliverance from Syria 2 Kings 13. 17. Here was sagitta significans promittens salutem or in the Theory's words a sign confirmatory of a Promise wherein there was something affirmed de futuro but it had nothing new or extraordinary in it the thing being most common and usual save only that GOD by his Prophet intimated its significancy that way But had it not therefore the nature vertue and influence of a Sign whereby to induce the King to believe the effect Was it a pretended sign only and a meer Cypher and Superfluity The like may be said of the Rainbow It was no new appearance but a Common Meteor usually seen in the first World But being stamped by GOD with a signality that way it immediately put on the Nature Virtue and Influence of a confirmatory Sign and became able to induce Noah and his Posterity to believe that the Promise of the Earth's Preservation from future drowning shall certainly be performed according to the significancy wherewith it was marked to