that we cannot but embrace it Whereas on the contrary Hierom and others censure those as Triflers and Dreamers who so addict themselves to the Allegory that they will not withal allow a plain Historical Sense in that Narration they grounding themselves on this That unless an Historical Truth be held in those things which are deliver'd in the Scriptures by way of an Historical Narration nothing would be certain in them Whereas the Author says we may observe that tho the Fathers Opinions be differently express'd they generally concenter in this that the Southern Hemisphere was the Seat of Paradise and that this seems manifestly to be the Sense of Christian Antiquity and Tradition so far as there is any thing definitive in the Remains we have upon that Subject I find not that this is made out by him for doing which he distributes the Christian Authors and Fathers that have deliver'd their Opinion concerning the Place of Paradise into three or four Ranks or Orders and endeavours to shew that tho they express'd themselves differently yet duly examin'd that all conspire and concur in the foremention'd Conclusion In the first place he reckons those who have set Paradise in another World or in another Earth which he concludes must have been beyond the Torrid Zone in the other Hemisphere In this number he places Ephrem Syrus Moses Barcephas Tatianus and of later date Jacobus de Valentia To these he adds such as say that Adam when he was turn'd out of Paradise was brought into our Earth or into our Region of the Earth for this he says is tantamount with the former and this seems to be the sense of S. Hierom and of Constantine in his Oration in Eusebius and is positively asserted by Sulpitius Severus And again those Authors that represent Paradise as remote from our World and inaccessible as S. Austin Procopius Gazaeus Beda Strabus Fuldensis Historia Scholastica for what is remote from our World he says is to be understood to be that Anticthon or Antihemisphere which the Antients oppos'd to ours I must confess I have not many of the Authors here quoted by me my poor Country Study not affording them But on a Consideration of what the Author has quoted from them and what I find quoted from them by others we may discern how far they concur in that Doctrine which he here ascribes to them and to proceed in order as the Author has set them down I find the Opinion of Ephrem quoted by Ralegh from Barcephus thus Ephrem dicit Paradisum ambire terram atque ultra oceanum ita positum esse ut totum terrarum orbem ab omni circumdet regione non aliter atque lunae orbis lunam cingit Now he that can make Sense of this may unless he will expound it according to Plato's Fable of his Aethereal Earth The Author in his Latin Copy quotes also this Passage tho exprest in somewhat different terms and explains it thus That in the Paradisiacal Earth the Ocean compass'd about the Body of the Earth and the Paradisiacal Earth compass'd about the whole Ocean as the Orb of the Moon does the Moon so that he judges that Form of the Earth to be here intimated which he has before given it where the Abysse compass'd about the Body of the Earth and the Paradisiacal Earth the Abysse or the Ocean Now if this were so it 's manifest that Ephrem in that Passage could not relate to one Hemisphere more than to the other which was the only thing the Author had to make out But to be more plain in this matter the Book which Barcephas ascribes to Ephrem and that falsly as I conceive and whence he quotes his Opinion is call'd Parva Genesis or De Ortu Rerum the foregoing Passage well suiting with others quoted from a Book of that Title which I guess to be the same and if so I should have the worse Opinion of Barcephas for quoting so frivolous and I think I may say so impious a Pamphlet Ralegh derides that Parva Genesis for the miserable Stuff thence often quoted by Cedrenus and a Man may be as well satisfi'd of it by what we find thence quoted in Glycas who in the first part of his Annals says But that little Book De Ortu Rerum tells us that Adam took of the Tree of Knowledg and eat without Circumspection no way urg'd thereto by the Words of Eve but that he found a certain Disquiet in his Mind from Tiredness and Hunger But it 's best to bury these things in silence since they deserve an eternal silence And there he cites several other ridiculous Passages from him and concludes that every Man that understands the Scriptures looks upon them as so And again he quotes this Parva Genesis in the third Part of his Annals and rejects it in like manner saying that he knows not who was the Author of it whereas when on occasion he quotes Ephrem he does it with much reverence I have given a Character of this Book because the Author instances it in several places lamenting its loss and seems chiefly to rely on it in the Point under debate Barcephas indeed in one Passage which the Author quotes from him intimates Paradise to have been in the other Hemisphere But withal he says that it was beyond the Ocean and intimates it to be still in being so that unless the Author will receive these Traditions from him I know not why he should urge the other But I shall say more of Barcephas beneath As for Tatianus tho he distinguishes the Earth of Paradise from ours saying that to be of a more excellent make unless he had been more particular in pointing forth the place where it lay I know not why it should be concluded that he thought it in the other Hemisphere When Jacobus de Valentia places Paradise in the other Hemisphere he says it 's because it lies under more noble Stars than ours Now we know this ground to be notoriously false for that all Astronomers hold the Stars of this Hemisphere more noble than those in the other And as Mr. Gregory observes in his learned Notes on some Scripture Passages our Hemisphere is the principal and far more excellent than the other we have more Earth more Men more Stars more Day and which is more than all this the North Pole is more magnetical than the South according to what the learned Ridley says he observ'd viz. That the Pole of the Magnet which seats it self North is always the most vigorous and strong Pole to all intents and purposes If Hierom opposes Paradise to our Earth I know not why it should imply more than some Excellency of that Soil more than of ours Neither do the Passages of Sulpitius Severus or Constantine seem to me to have any force As for Austin and others that held Paradise remote from our World we know their Opinion relates to a suppos'd high elevated situation of Paradise and
could have made it change from a direct to an oblique or inclin'd Posture through a fancy'd loss of its equal Poise and this whether the frame of the Earth be suppos'd as vulgarly to consist by an Equilibration of parts to the Center of Gravity or according to the soundest Philosophy by a Magnetick Vigour strongly binding its parts together For suppose his Orb of Earth a Mile or two thick as he says it was in his Book of the Conflagration this can be no more to the whole Globe of the Earth than the thickness of a sheet or two of Paper is to a Globe of three foot Dameter as I have set forth in my first Book Now suppose a Globe of three foot Diameter suspended as the Earth is by Libration or Magnetism what conceivable alteration in as much on the surface of it as comes to about the thickness of a sheet or two of Paper could cause any Change in its Libration Or what alteration in such a proportion of a Magnetick Terrella three foot Diameter could make it decline from its wonted Points of bearing When the Author pleases to explain these things to me I may think more of it mean while I must conclude the bare Proproposal of this matter to be a plain Refutation of his Hypothesis Nay Let him suppose his Orb of Earth ten Miles thick if he pleases or more I desire him to shew us some possible way how upon its disruption such a proportion of either Hemisphere should be brought on the other as to be able to make it change the Position it had before Besides if any such disruption of an Orb of Earth as the Author supposes caus'd the Earth to change its Posture it must have inclin'd to the North and not to the South as he says it did because from what appears to us on the Globe of the Earth it 's manifest that we have much more Earth in the Northern Hemisphere than there is in South and consequently its inclination must have been this way But because the Author lays a great force on this Site of the first Earth to the Sun insisting on it as the most fundamental of the three Differences in the first Earth from the present and establishing it as the Ground for making out the three great Characters Properties or Phaenomena of the Golden Age of the Ancients and of Paradise I shall be a little mone full in this Point and set down a few Reasons against this Doctrine leaving it to Philosophical Heads to consider how far it can bear Neither has it been unconsider'd by many learned Men already what the Consequences must be if the Sun should constantly hold this Equinox Root or the Earth had always a right Posture to the Sun which makes me somewhat the more admire how this Doctrine should now be offer'd at We read of a King of Arragon who was wont to say that if he had been with th' Almighty when he made the World he would have given him Councels as to Heats Colds and other Particulars as to the frame of it that it should have been in a better state than it now is and this may pass among the extravagant Fancies of an inconsiderate Man But when we come Philosophically to assert a thing it would require a more than ordinary Consideration before we go about to unhinge a Frame of Providence as thinking to put it in a better state than an Infinite Wisdom has done And so distinct is the Relation and so artificial the Habitude of this inferiour Globe to the Superiour and ev'n of one thing in each unto the other that the more we consider them the more we may admire them and I think the more despair of ever contriving them in a better or more advantageous Site than they are in And tho all the advantages of the Suns present Course or of the Earths Situation to it may not be known by Man yet I believe whoever shall go about to alter it let him frame his Hypothesis as finely as he please he shall never be able to involve humane Reason so far but it may ever be made appear to him from what is known that he has been guilty of no less a mistake than that of Phaëton in not carrying an ev'n hand as to Heats Colds Light and Darkness c. and that it cannot consist with the general benefit of the Earth And hence Theodoret in his first Sermon concerning Providence sharply taxes those who would be finding fault with the Seasons Sed exurget fortasse ingratus quispiam qui ea quoque quae bene pulchre facta sunt simulque sapienter commodè administrantur reprehendere vel culpare volens dicat Cur sodes istae anni conversiones fiunt quaenam ex hisce anni partium successionibus ad nos utilitas redit c. And tho according to the scantling of our Reason we might fansie some posture of the Heav'ns more commodious to the Earth than the present yet thence presently to conclude that such a thing must really have been we having no solid historical Ground for it I cannot see but it renders us liable to that reprehension of Austin Tam stulti sunt homines ut apud artificem hominem non audeant vituperare quae ignorant sed cum ea viderint credunt esse necessaria ut propter usus aliquos instituta in hoc autem mundo cujus conditor administrator praedicatur Deus audent multa reprehendere quorum causas non vident in operibus atque instrumentis omnipotentis artificis volunt se videri scire quod nesciunt l. 1. de Gen. contra Manich. c. 16. But to proceed in Reasoning First then The Author making the Sun in the Antediluvian times to hold constantly the Equinox Root or giving the Earth a right Posture to it burns the middle Zone making it wholly uninhabitable and unpassible as he owns himself so that in the Antediluvian Earth there was no possible Communication betwixt the Men or other Animals inhabiting the two Temperate Zones which is followed with these Absurdities especally with the Author who seems very thrifty of Miracles that first when God turn'd Adam out of Paradise which he supposes to have been in the South Temperate Zone and the Torrid Zone to be the Flaming Sword he must have wrought a Miracle to have thence convey'd him and Eve into this Temperate Zone Secondly after Adam had got Children here the Author owning the other Temperate Zone to have been inhabited before the Flood God must have wrought another Miracle to have convey'd some of Adam's Children thither to people it Thirdly at the time of the Deluge he must have wrought a third Miracle to have brought of every Species of Animals in the other Temperate Zone into this to have been receiv'd into the Ark unless the Author will say that the Earth here produc'd all the same Species of Animals that were in the other Zone which a Philosopher
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
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
from the Eden of Moses that word with the Hebrews signifying Pleasures and Delights as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does with the Greeks and as the word Pardeis does with the Chaldeans and Persians whence the Greeks took the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latins Paradisus These are the Gardens where the never-ceasing Nightingale sings Vbi suavis cantat Aëdon Apollo being famous for his Charms he foments his Eggs in his Brest and solaces the waking labour of the tedious Nights with the sweetness of his Songs retiring in the Winter-time from these parts of the Earth to others then more Pleasant Concerning the Elysian Fields the Author takes an occasion to intimate as tho they were in the other Continent as he reflects on those who he conceives have misrepresented Paradise saying these have corrupted and misrepresented the notion of our Paradise just as some modern Poets have the notion of the Elysian Fields which Homer and the Antients plac'd in the extremity of the Earth and these would make a little green Meadow in Campania Foelix to be the fam'd Elysium Considering Homer and others of the Antient Gentils I see not why they must be interpreted to have plac'd those Fields in the other Hemisphere as for that Speech of Proteus to Menelaus in Homer Sed te quà terrae postremus terminus extat Elysium in in campum coelestia numina ducunt Strabo interprets this of the Fortunate Islands or the Canaries famous for a salubrity of the Air and gentle Zephires peculiar to that Region lying in the West Plutarch tells us that by those extreme parts of the Earth is meant the Moon where the shadow of the Earth and these sublunary Regions terminate Macrobius tells us that according to Antiquity those extreme parts of the Earth where the Elysian Fields are is the Sphaera 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the purest Minds reside But to pass by these Interpretations it 's well known to the Mystae what Homer would be at by his extreme parts of the Earth it implying only a passing from the Flesh into the Spirit where the Earth truly ends and where St. Paul found a real Paradise and there is a Torrid Zone to pass e're we come to it and passable only by those Qui solis meridiantis fulgidissimum jubar ferre possunt it being hardcoming near those Coestial Fires without being melted by their heat But I shall say more beneath concerning what some of the Ancient Gentils meant by seeming to place their Paradises in the other Hemisphere Virgil as I have intimated before represents the Elysian Fields as well as the place where the wicked are tormented in the bowels of the Earth And Servius tells that those Fields are at the Center abounding with all Delights and that Solemque suum sua sydera norunt Hither it was the Sibyl carried Aenaeas an Enterprize she had not undertaken but that she knew him of the Heroes and some way qualified to attend her in it for it 's an incredible labour and indeed in a manner insupportable to wade through those subterraneous Regions nor can the difficulty of it sink into the mind of Man without trial The Poet calls it Insanus Labor and it is so a divine Fury attends it during the transaction the Soul is stimulated to exert its noblest Instincts and the Understanding is consummated as far as it 's capable of so being Hence Plato says that humane Wisdom if compar'd with that which is had from Oracles and a divine Fury is as nothing and hence Virgil thought not Aeneas duly qualified for being founder of the Roman Empire till with his other Endowments he had this divine Institution of the Sibyl And I make no doubt but there are Sibyls still in the World who on certain occasions can and do perform the like pious Office to Man though the outward Typical part of Caves and Tripods be left off the Caves only denoting a deep mental Recess the Tripod the three successions of Time all known to Apollo Virgil not only in his sixth Aenead but elsewhere sufficiently intimates the dreadful Labour which attends this Transaction where he disswades Augustus though a great Emperour and a Man of noble Endowments of Mind from ever wishing himself a party concern'd in it saying Quicquid eris nam te nec sperent Tartara Regem Nec tibi regnandi veniat tam dira cupido Quamvis Elysios miretur Graecia campos Nec repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem Da facilem cursum Whate'er you 'll be for Hell ne'r hopes you King Nor so seek Rule to wish so direful thing Tho Greece admires th' Elysian Fields nor was Proserpine fond with Ceres thence to pass Vouchsafe the Favour And perhaps it might be in view of this difficulty that Christ said Regnum Coelorum vim patitur violenti rapiunt illud Mat. 11. and 12. And again That it was as hard for a rich Man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as for a Camel to go through the eye of a Needle If we consider what the Sibyl requir'd of Aenaeas to perform before he could accompany her in this great Undertaking it may not be difficult for us to conceive what those Regions are into which he pass'd the Golden Branch must be gotten and carried with him to gain his admittance into them and a dead Man a Friend of his slain by Triton a Sea God whom he had provok'd must be buried the Old Man the Animal Man must be slain and buried without which sacred Necromantick Practise Christ cannot be form'd nor reign within us nor can we enter the Kingdom of Bliss The Poet makes this Man a Trumpeter the Animal-man being nought but Clamour and Noise his Funeral-pile must be made of that ancient over-grown Forest that Den of wild Beasts with which the golden Bow is all invested Gold for that its a pure and incorruptible Metal and the most ductile and extendible of all Bodies and in its Colour resembles the glorious Lights of Heaven it terminating also the desires of Man was made by the Ancients the sacred Type of the Deity or of that divine Nature diffus'd thorow the World and hence by Divines the whole Intellectual World is call'd the Cataena Aurea and hence also are those famous Stories of the Golden Fleece at Colchos and of the Golden Fruits in the Gardens of the Hesperides and the Golden Age refers here and this is that Aurum Ignitum which St. John says will make a Man Rich. Now the Sibyl truly tells Aenaeas there is no coming at this Golden Branch that divine Spirit which must be his Passeport to the Elysian fields till he has cut down the wild Forest with which it is surrounded and made a Funeral-pile of it to burn the dead Body of his Friend Misenus that animal Man the Forest being nought but that confusion of Vice in which humane Life is involv'd and till this be cut down and burnt igne
the Change of the Poles otherwise than their private Opinion and the Reasons they assign for it are so frivolous that Vallesius aptly calls them Ineptiae Infantilis illius Philosophiae and shews the erroneous Ground they went upon But because the Author does not insist upon the validity of their Reasons I shall not examine them here but refer the Reader to Vallesius The Author adds some other Witnesses for this Change of the Posture of the Earth and Heavens viz. Plato the Poets some Christian Fathers and Jewish Doctors who all justifie that in the first Ages there was a constant Spring so that the Heavens and Earth must have chang'd their Posture since But I conceive I have sufficiently answer'd all this in my precedent and and some other Chapters and hope the Author will not go about to put upon us Allegorical Fictions for Historical Truths Another thing the Author endeavours to give an account of in this Chapter is how America came to be peopled which he thinks is easily answered according to his Hypothesis viz. that the Antediluvian Earth being smooth Men could freely pass before the Flood to all parts of this Continent and if they could not then pass into the other Hemisphere beyond the Torrid Zone he says Providence seems to have made provision for that in transplanting Adam into this Hemisphere after he had lain the foundation of a World in the other and concludes that God foreseeing how many Continents the Earth would be divided into after the ceasing of the Flood made provision to save a remnant in every Continent that the Race of Mankind might not be quite extinct in any of them As to this Assertion I shall leave it to the judgment of Divines how far we must be determin'd by the Text of Moses as to a destruction of all Mankind saving Noah and his Family in the Deluge there describ'd and shall only offer what follows from common Reason First It will concern the Author to consider how his Assertion here can consist with what he has set forth concerning the universality of the Deluge in the second Chapter of his first Book where he reasons against those who have endeavoured to represent Noah's Flood as a partial Deluge affecting only a particular Countrey and urges thus I cannot but look upon the Deluge as a much more considerable thing than these Authors would represent it and as a kind of Dissolution of Nature Moses calls it a destroying of the Earth as well as of Mankind And beneath he says St. Peter compares the Conflagration with the Deluge as two general dissolutions of Nature and one may as well say that the Conflagration shall be only National as to say that the Deluge was so And again we see that after the Flood the Blessing for Multiplication and for replenishing the Earth with Inhabitants was as solemnly pronounc'd by God Almighty as at the first Creation of Man Gen. 9.1 and Gen. 1.28 These Considerations he says he thinks might be sufficient to give us assurance from divine Writ of the universality of the Deluge and yet that Moses affords anonother Argument as demonstrative as any when in the History of the Deluge he says Gen. 7.19 The VVaters exceedingly prevailed upon the Earth and all the highest Hills that were under the whole Heavens were cover'd all the high Hills that were under the whole Heavens then quite round the Earth And in his Latine Copy he says Moses's History adds particularly the thing being as it were measur'd and accurately examin'd that the Waters overflowed the highest Mountains fifteen Cubits which Mark he judges to be added not without Providence that we might thence gather by a Testimony not to be gainsaid that the Deluge did not keep itself within the limits of any one Region whatsoever And much more the Author urges both in his English and Latin Copies to the same purpose and how all this can consist with a preservation of some Remnant of Men in every Continent at the time of the Deluge I must leave it to him to consider Secondly According to the Authors own Hypothesis when he says that the Passages North and South being not free Men could not go out of one Hemisphere into the other but Providence seems to have made a Provision for that in transporting Adam into this Hemisphere after he had lain a foundation for a World in the other I hope he does not mean by this that Adam left any Children in the other Hemisphere to people it and be a foundation of a World there It being a common Opinion that Adam and Eve were but a few hours in Paradise before they were expulst and that expulsion being suppos'd by the Author to be into this Hemisphere there were no People to remain in the other Wherefore as I have intimated before if the Author's Hypothesis must stand it must be with these Absurdities First that upon the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of Paradise God must have miraculously convey'd them through the Torrid Zone which the Author supposes as impassable as a burning Furnace into this Hemisphere Secondly After Adam had Children God must have wrought another Miracle to have convey'd some of them into the other Hemisphere to People it and it would have been a Curiosity to know which of Adam's Children were convey'd thither Cain we find must have been one because he is said Gen. 4.16 to have dwelt on the East of Eden which could not be in this Hemisphere if Paradise were in the other and it 's much that living so near Paradise and being past the flaming Sword he should not get into it as well as all descended from him to the Flood though his Crime could hardly deserve that Paradisiacal Continent for his Habitation Thirdly God must have wrought a third Miracle to have brought all Animals there of differing Species from those in this Hemisphere to the Ark at the time of the Deluge unless another Ark were built in the other Hemisphere Whereas the Author says in his first Book that Noah's Ark was the the first Ship or Vessel of bulk that ever was built in the World And I would ask whether the Author thinks that a Man may not give a rational account of the peopling of America without being clog'd with so many Absurdities I think it very easie and natural to imagine supposing the first Plantation in this Hemisphere and the VVorld always as it is how without any Miracle some small Vessels with People in them might have been driven by some Storm on the Continent of America from the more Easterly Coasts of the VVorld such small Vessels being a thing of common Notion so that I think we may reasonably conclude them to have been almost as ancient as Mankind Moreover we know that many Jewish Customs were found among the Americans on their first discovery and Ralegh tells us that in Mexico when first discover'd there were found written Books after the manner of
Spring-Tides the whole will be overflown He farther tells us that as Fires and Waters bear sway o'er earthly things their rise and ruine being from and by them it was the Opinion of Berosus that Deluges and Conflagrations will happen thro the Courses of the Planets and that a Conflagration shall happen when all the Planets which now keep different courses shall meet in Cancer being so plac'd that it shall pass in a direct line through them all and that a Deluge shall happen when the said Planets shall so meet in Capricorn the one making the Summer Solstice and the other the Winter Signs of great Power being the Points for the Changes of the Year And Seneca receives these Causes also one Cause being too little for so great a Ruin He adds whether the World be an Animal or a Body Nature governing it as Trees and standing Corn From its beginning there was included in it whatsoever it ought to act and to undergo to its end as in the Seed is comprehended the whole state of the future Man so that the Child yet unborn has the Law of a Beard and grey Hairs the Lineaments of the whole Body and of the succeding Age being there in little and conceal'd So he says the Origine of the World contain'd as well the Sun and Moon and Courses of the Planets and the Rise of Animals as those things with which earthly things are chang'd In these was an Inundation which happens by the Law of the World no otherwise than Summer and Winter And he says all things will help Nature for the performance of her Constitutions but the Earth it self will afford it the greatest cause to drown it which will be resolv'd into Moisture and flow by a continued consumption the tainted parts as in Bodies ulcerated by degrees bringing the rest to a general Colliquation Here we plainly see what the grounds of the Stoicks and others were for admitting Deluges and Conflagrations They having observed that particular Bodies on the Earth had a beginning and decay and were again renewed by their Seeds thence by Analogy concluded that the same Order must pass as to the whole World and again having consider'd that Fires and Waters bore the sway o'er earthly things and that the one prevail'd in the Summer the other in the Winter they thence imagin'd that besides ordinary Summers and Winters whereby the ordinary Changes are wrought on the Earth there would happen some great periodical Revolutions in the Heavens causing so great a Predominancy of Fires and Waters here below that they would cause general Changes over the whole face of the Earth at once Bede speaking of these Changes says it was the opinion of all the Philosophers that earthly things received their Periods sometimes by a Deluge and sometimes by a Conflagration because the Waters being plac'd under the Fountain of Heat it happens that the Moisture encreases by degrees and overpowers the Heat till being detain'd by no bounds it diffuses it self over the Earth and drowns it which Moisture at length being dry'd by the Heat of the Sun and Drought of the Earth the Heat encreases in its turn and over-powers the Moisture till being diffus'd over the Earth it burns it He adds there are some that say these things happen through the general Elevation and Depression of the Planets for if all the Planets are elevated together being remov'd from the Earth more than they ought they consume less of the Moisture whence the Moisture encreasing it diffuses it self o'er the Earth and causes a Deluge If but one two or three of them are elevated without the others the Moisture thereby does not abound for what increases by their remoteness is dry'd by the nearness of the others but if all are depress'd together they burn the Earth and cause a Conflagration doing too much by their nearness as by their remoteness they did too little Many others who write of these Mundane Changes word themselves much after the same manner Whence we find the Antients did not barely rely on Tradition for these Changes but had such grounds as they conceiv'd rational for admitting them Now if it shall be said that the Causes they have assign'd are not competent for such Changes possibly it may be because they sought for Causes which were not in Nature to be found For those Antients either supposing the Deluge of the antient Ogyges to have been general or having heard that some other Deluge had been affirmed so to have been and finding by marine Bodies dug in Mountains that the Waters of the Sea had been there they attempted to assign Causes for an universal Change at one effort whereas those Causes upon examination were found either to have been assign'd gratis without any solid ground or to answer only partial Changes Hence Aristotle and the soundest Reasoners well seeing the slight Presumptions on which this Opinion was grounded derided the Stoicks Epicureans and others who maintain'd it For first Aristotle knew they had no sound Records for making out that any such Change had happen'd in Nature And secondly he having well weighed the Rotation of the Elements and what past in particular Bodies found that what flow'd from the later receded from them which must cause a decay but whatever flowing there were in the Elements it still return'd into them so that nothing was lost or decay'd as to the whole nor so much to any chief part as to cause a total Dissolution And since no Man that I know of has hitherto assign'd a Cause able to work a general Change in the Earth at once I should be inclin'd according to natural Principles to follow his Opinion a general Change being to be ascribed to Miracle for ought I know till some Prophet shall come to help us out As for what has been said by the Sibylls and antient Magi among the Gentiles concerning these Changes I speak not of what has been prophetically deliver'd of them in Sacred Writ which I judg refers to a miraculous hand we know they were Persons chiefly concern'd in the Politick Government of their times and being greatly skill'd in Adept Philosophy as some of our Prophets also transcendently were they knew how to adapt the great Phaenomena of the Earth to the Microcosm and moral World and there is a Mystery in what they intimate as to these Changes which I think not fit here to explain but may note that those who are seen in the Promethean Arcanum Astrologicum and have heard the seven-Reed Pipe of Pan know on what grounds the above-mention'd Astrological Causes for Deluges and Conflagrations were originally introduc'd and whither they tend The antient Druids of our Nation who were the most famous for Adept Philosophy of any Men of these parts of the World nay and as Pliny says the Persian Magi may seem to have had their rise from them and who govern'd all here in their Sacrifices which they thought most acceptable to their Gods were wont to make
been unsuccessful and so for his Tehom Rabba or the great Abysse of Moses which he has also much urg'd and for any other Passages he has quoted To come to the Author's third Proof which is from Reason and the Contemplation of the Chaos whence the Earth rose this Proof in effect is not only for making out that the Earth as it rose from a Chaos in its first state was of a different Form from the present Earth according to the Authors first Proposition but withall is partly for shewing that the Face of the first Earth was smooth regular and uniform without Mountains and a Sea as he has set forth in his second Proposition wherefore the scope of it being connected with the Motions Progress and Separations which he supposes to have pass'd in the Chaos for forming the first Earth I shall briefly state them both together as he has represented them He supposes then the Chaos as a fluid Masse or a Masse of all sorts of little Parts or Particles of the Matter of which the World was made mixt together and floating in confusion one with another Hence he says there follows an impossibility that this Masse should be of such a Form and Figure as the Surface of our present Earth is Or that any Concretion or consistent State which this Mass could flow into immediately or first settle in could be of the said Figure He proves the first of these Assertions because a fluid Mass always casts it self into a smooth and spherical Surface He proves the second Assertion because when any fluid Body comes to settle in a consistent and firm State that Concretion in its first State of Consistence must be of the same Form that the Surface was when it was liquid as when Water congeals the Surface of the Ice is smooth and level as the Water was before And hence when he has consider'd the broken condition of the present Earth both as to its Surface and inward Parts he concludes that the Form of it now cannot be the same with that it had originally which must have been smooth regular and uniform according to his Second Proposition And to make this clear he sets forth the Motions and Progress which he supposes must have pass'd in the Chaos and how it settled it self in the said Form when it became an habitable World 1. First therefore he presents us with a Scheme which represents the Chaos as is before express'd viz. as a spherical and fluid Masse containing the Particles of all the Matter of which the World is compos'd mixt together and floating in confusion in it 2. The first Change which he conceives must happen in this Masse must be that the heaviest and grossest parts would subside towards the middle of it and there harden by degrees and constitute the interior Parts of the Earth while the rest of the Masse swimming above would be also divided by the same Principles of Gravity into two orders of Bodies the one like Water the other volatile like Air and that the watery part would settle in a Masse together under the Air upon the Body of the Earth composing not only a Water strictly so call'd but the whole Masse of Liquors or liquid Bodies belonging to the Earth and these Separations in the Body of the Chaos are represented to us in a second Scheme 3. The liquid Masse he says incircling the Earth being not the mere Element of Water but a Collection of all Liquors belonging to the Earth some of them must be fat oily and light others lean and more earthy like common Water Now these two kinds mixt together and left to themselves and the general action of Nature separate one from another when they come to settle which these must be concluded to have done the more oily and thin parts of the Masse getting above the other and swimming there as he represents in a third Figure 4. Next he considers that the Masses of the Air and Waters were both at first very muddy and impure so that they must both have their Sediments and there being abundance of little terrestrial Particles in the Air after the grossest were sunk down these lesser also and lighter remaining would sink too tho more slowly and in a longer time so as in their descent they would meet with that oily Liquor on the watery Masse which would entangle and stop them from passing farther whence mixing there with the unctious substance they compos'd a certain Slime or Fat soft and light Earth spread on the Face of the Waters as he shews in a fourth Figure 5. He says that when the Air was fully purg'd of its little earthy Particles upon their general descent they became wholly incorporate with the oily Liquor making both one Substance which was the first Concretion or firm and consistent Substance which rose upon the Face of the Chaos and fit to be made and really constituted an habitable Earth which he sets before us in a fifth Figure and which I have also subjoyn'd where A is the first Sediment of the Chaos B the Orb of Water or the Orb of the Abysse C the Orb which made the first habitable Earth 6. Having thus represented the Rise of the Earth from the Chaos he adds that whereas the Antients generally resemble the Earth to an Egg he thinks the Analogy holds as to those inward Envolvings represented in the Figure of the Earth and that the outward Figure of the first Earth was likewise oval it being a little extended toward the Poles which he represents to us in a sixth Figure and which I also here insert where as the two inmost Regions A B represent the Yolk and the Membrane that lies next above it so the exterior Region of the Earth D is as the Shell of the Egg and the Abysse C under it as the White that lies under the Shell This is the Author's Theory of the Earth in reference to the Composition of it as it settled from the Chaos in its first State which he says he has all along set forth according to the Laws of Gravity And this must now be consider'd by me First then If I should allow that the first Earth was form'd from a Chaos according to those Separations the Author has represented it would no way answer his chief End for which he gave it this Construction viz. The Capacity of causing a Deluge as I shall make appear in my Considerations on the next Chapter But tho I might be free to allow it as for any Deluge to be thence caus'd yet in other respects I must not do it because I take upon me to maintain that the World from its first Existence had Mountains a Sea and the like as it has now And both in reference to the Author's Argument from Reason viz. That all fluid Bodies and any first Concretion on them must keep to a sperical Figure whence he concludes the Earth on its first Concretion from the Chaos to have taken it and
so as to the Separations he supposes to have pass'd in the Chaos I have many things to say Not to stand therefore with the Author for allowing a Chaos and that it was a fluid Masse and of a circular Figure tho I know no reason why a Man should admit a Postulatum which if the Authority of Moses may be set by as the Author does I see no ground for unless it be to serve a turn for trying whether a natural Explication may be given of a Deluge which I judg miraculous and to reason with those who seem to have held gradual successive Changes to have pass'd in the Chaos in order to the forming of the World The main Error as I conceive on which the Author has grounded his whole Theory for the Composition of his Earth as it rose from a Chaos is that he has here consider'd the Chaos not as a strongly fermented Masse which it must necessarily have been from the infinite variety of seminal Principles of a contrary Nature therein contained as all Antiquity has represented it and from this fundamental Error has concluded that in the Separations and Settlements of the Chaos all things pass'd according to the common Laws of Gravity observ'd in the subsiding of unfermented Bodies no respect being had to those Effects which must necessarily have been produc'd by the said Ferments Can any Man cast his Eye on the Contrariety of Natures which appears betwixt Superiors and Inferiors and what we find in the Animal Vegitable and Mineral Kingdoms which every where occur to us and not presently thence conclude from the consideration of a Chaos where all these are suppos'd to have been confusedly mixt that the same Contrariety must have been there and that turbulent and violent Commotions were thence rais'd in it To go no further than Ovid who has represented the Nature of a Chaos as well as any of the Antients where he speaks of it he says Congestáque eodem Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum And mingled there The jarring Seeds of ill-joyn'd beings were And beneath quia corpore in uno Frigida pugnabant calidis humentia siccis Mollia cum duris sine pondere habentia pondus ' cause in one Masse The cold things fought with hot the moist with dry The soft with hard the light with contrary Indeed as he affirms the World to have risen from the Chaos he immediately subjoyns Hane Deus melior litem natura diremit God and prevailing Good broke off this Strife But how far this jarring Discord was taken away according to what we may reason from second Causes and what Effects must have been produc'd by them upon the framing of a World must be consider'd by us It must not then be thought that when the Chaos came to be separated in order to the framing of a World all the homogenious Bodies or pure Elements were rang'd by themselves a pure Element being a pure Chimaera no such thing in Nature Indeed if such a Separation had been made whereas there was a Mutiny before in the Chaos this would have establish'd a Peace but such a Peace that no habitable World nor any Animal Vegitable or Mineral Productions could then have been The Elements then upon the separation of the Chaos must have been mixt and blended together according to such Proportions as to be able to produce such Effects as the prime Author design'd them for therefore when we consider his design was a World should be produc'd qualifi'd for the Production Support and Propagation of those varieties of Species we find in Nature and withal reflect what the Quantities and Qualities of those Elements were and are which chiefly concern us in this Discourse viz. The Earth and Waters we shall soon find how this habitable Earth and the Sea thence arose All the Water which the Author does account for in Nature as I shall have occasion to set forth in the sequel does not amount to enough to make an Orb of Water to cover the Earth as it lies in an even Convexity with the Sea a quarter of a Mile deep and what is this to the vast Body of the other Element the Earth Not comparably so much as a Sheet of the thinnest Paper laid on a Globe of three foot diameter adds in thickness to that Globe Indeed notwithstanding this disproportion if the Earth when it first settled from the Chaos had been an homogenious Body without any Principle of Motion in it arising from Ferments through the Contrariety of Natures therein contein'd the Waters must have cover'd it as Moses seems to intimate it did Gen. 1. but when those Ferments quickned by the ordinary concourse of the first Cause not to insist here on a miraculous fiat came to exert their Force can we think that less Effects could be wrought than the production of Mountains and a Sea Channel such inconsiderable Nothings to the Body which produces them the greatest Mountains on the Earth being no more in proportion to the Earth than the slightest Dust on a Globe of three foot diameter is in proportion to that Globe as the ingenious French Author of a late Book entituled De L'Origine des Fountaines has well made appear where he has likewise shewn that the little Protuberances on an Orange which are usually compar'd to the Mountains of the Earth are each of them a thousand times greater in proportion to that Fruit than any Mountain on the Earth is in proportion to that Globe We find that many very small vegetable Seeds contain a protrusive Principle in them able to raise Bodies by degrees containing many Tuns weight and can we doubt but the primigenial Earth fermented with the Seeds of all things in it had a force able to produce the Effects mention'd And tho the Author seems to smile at those who have held that Mountains have been cast up as Mole-hills or produc'd as Wens on the Body of Man I know not whether it may be so easie to shew a Disparity and why the one is not as possible and as probable as the other for if the vastness of the Body will afford it and there be a proportional mover neither of which I think any Man has reason to question in the Earth I know not why the Earth may not be judg'd better able to produce the one than the Mole or Man's Body the others I well know that all Antiquity I mean it of those who held the World had a gradual beginning from a Chaos abets this Theory as I have stated it and the feign'd Story of the Gyant Typhoëus if it contains any natural deduction relates here Typhoëus being that Enormontick Spirit if I may so call it or that protrusive Impetus still reigning in the Chaos through Ferments Winds and Inflamations and causing the present Unevenesses in the Earth and the retiring of the Waters into a Sea-Channel till at length all things being set in their apt State Jupiter or a meet temperies of
competent as would be expected for such a Work The Sun doubtless supposing as the Author does that in the Antedilunian World it always kept in the Aequinox there being no Rains Cold nor changes of Seasons would heat dry and cleave the Earth in some parts especially in the Torrid Zone considerably but withal it must be consider'd how far the action of the Sun could penetrate for producing the effect propos'd it s known that if a Wall be heated red hot on one side it still continues cold on the other It s also a known Experiment that a good Thermometer plac'd in a subterraneous Grotto of an ordinary depth scarce varies perceivably in the hottest day of Summer and the coldest day of Winter how then shall the Sun penetrate three miles and three quarters deep into the Earth for so deep the Author seems to suppose his Orb of Earth to have been as I shall by and by shew and heat an Abyss of waters lying under it so as to rarifie it into vapours Qui queat hic subter tam crasso corpore terram Percoquere humorem calido sociare vapori Praesertim cùm vix possit per septa domorum Insinnare suum radiis ardentibus aestum And indeed Heat being not essentially in the Sun but an effect of the light by whose beams its imparted to us where Light is excluded Heat also must of course The Grotto where no operation of the Suns Heat is found has an open passage into it for the Suns operation if it could there exert it whereas the Author supposes the Antediluvian Earth to have been one continued substance without so much as a Cavern in it Again we must consider of what nature the Torrid Zone must have been and the Author in his second Book concludes it a sandy Desart if so Sand is not inclinable to cleave but soon fills up any Cleft made in it as I believe may be observ'd in all the sandy Desarts now extant and if Rocks are suppos'd under the Sands certainly horizondal beds of Rocks as all must have then have been are not liable to the Suns penetration at least by any perceivable Heat and indeed let the nature of it be what it might it comes much to the same thing and every Man who has us'd himself underground knows how little the Sun has to do with its Heat there Now tho the continued Equinox Heat then suppos'd may seem to aggravate the matter there must have been at least a vicissitude of days and nights and those still of equal length so that the Earth would be always cool'd in the night as well as heated in the day Moreover tho the Author supposes his Antediluvian Rivers to terminate as they came to the parts on each side the Torrid Zone being partly exhal'd by the Sun and partly absorpt in the Sands yet their waters must necessarily have pass'd in the Sands under Ground through the parts of the Torrid Zone which would soon fill up any clefts there made by the Sun I say the Waters must have pass'd so because his Antediluvian Earth must have been porous to percolate waters to all parts otherwise its impossible the Inhabitants in the temperate Zones should have been supply'd with waters to serve their necessary uses by Wells for no Man can indulge Fancy so far as to think the Antediluvian Rivers could have been so thick and near enough each other to afford a convenient supply for the Inhabitants of all the parts of the habitable Earth Men think it now very burthensom to fetch water a mile or two as in some places they are forc'd to do by their Situation remote from Waters and I hope it will not be said that the Rivers were then within a mile or two or ten or hundreds sometimes of each other As to the Comparisons brought in by the Author of the Aeolipile and the Egg which are broken when the moisture within them is rarified and turn'd into vapours by the heat of the fire I answer that when it shall appear to us that the Sun could cause an Heat in the waters of the Abyss proportional to what the others have when broken we may consider more of it mean while such an effect is so far from falling within my Conception that I look upon it in Nature impossible And as to the Doctrine of the Ancients concerning the Mundane Egg 's breaking I shall consider it in the second Book tho I may so far take notice of it here that whereas the Author here intimates as tho the Ancients by mentioning the Mundane Egg 's breaking referr'd to a Deluge its being caus'd that way the contrary is manifest to us for we know it was a general Opinion amongst the Ancients that the World had been renewed by many Deluges and Conflagrations whereas if one Deluge had been caus'd by such a disruption of the Earth any second or third Deluge had been impossible But what is most urg'd is that the generality of Earthquakes arise from like Causes and often end in a like effect viz. a partial Deluge or Inundation of the Place or Country where they happen To this I answer that tho some Philosophers assign the Causes of Earthquakes after this manner viz. That the strugling of Vapours rais'd and rarify'd by the Sun in the Earth sometimes cause a Disruption the Earth thereupon subsiding into Caverns whence Waters flow forth c. yet it would be hard to expect that Men should generally so far acquiesce in this Cause as to allow it a fair ground to build an Hypothesis of this weighl upon When as a great if not the greatest part of Philosophers assign other Causes for Earthquakes and those perhaps more probable Some will have Earthquakes to be caus'd only by certain Conjunctions of the Planets some by the Motion of Comets near the Earth others by subterraneous Fires or Ferments which truly produce Heats and Vapors within the Earth the Sun having nothing to do in it more than by a remote and general Causality others will have them produc'd by the Motion of subterraneous Waters others again by certain Moulderings or Founderings in certain Caverns of the Earth and other Causes are assign'd for them Lastly When the Author comes to the main Difficulty as he calls it viz. The finding of Waters sufficient to make an universal Deluge which after some time should so return into its Channels that the Earth should become again habitable both which he says are as easily effected according to his Explication set down before by me as they are impossible any other way I confess I greatly admire at this his Assertion and the Explanation he gives for those Effects The first thing we should have expected from the Author in reference to this Point is that he should have signified to us of what Depth he supposes his Abysse to have been and what Thickness he allows to his Orb of Earth for unless we will reason by rote it must be
that the common Laws of motion and gravity by which the Author pretends to establish his Hypothesis have no place here I may add that it 's the general Opinion of Divines that nothing of those things which God has made by himself and without the concurrence of any other Cause will ever have an end or total dissolution as the Author intimates this dissolution of the Earth to be for want of Principles in them sufficient for their eternal support tho God by his meer will may put an end to them or dissolve them as he pleases and therefore as the Earth and other Elements were made by God in the Beginning so according to their natures they will remain for ever without any destruction or dissolution as to the whole tho they may undergo some partial Changes And in reference to this the learned Vallesius on that passage of Esdras Considera ergo tu quoniam minori staturâ estis prae his qui ante vos qui post vos minori quam vos quasi jam senescentes creaturae fortitudinem juventutis praetereuntes Says but neither is that fourth Book of Esdras receiv'd by Divines nor could that Opinion ever down with me for the World has Ages according to divine Ordinations and the account of Times which God has with himself but not according to Nature since neither its rise was from Nature nor will its destruction so happen Indeed it may be that this or that little part of the Earth drain'd by long culture and sowing may decay but not the whole Earth neither does any little part of it ever so decay as things which really grow old so that it can never after resume its strength and as it were wax young again but all things pass away and return in a certain Circle according to all and each of their parts according to all by vicissitudes some being decay'd others render'd more fertile according to each each of them being alternately decay'd and restor'd And indeed the Learned Dr. Hakewill in his Apology has so well clear'd the Point against a general decay in the World that I think it past time of Day now to have it brought in question so that such a dissolution in the Earth tending to its general decay as the Author intimates may not be admitted I shall conclude this Chapter by observing that besides the miraculous Providence which the Author allows in the saving of the Ark his Hypothesis forces him to introduce two or three Miracles more as I shall shew in the Second Book Whence we shall find that what he has endeavour'd to save in one great Miracle he has been forc't to make out in little ones CHAP. IX NOW the Author comes to prove his Theory from the Effects and present Form of the Earth and in this Ninth Chapter after having observ'd that the most considerable and remarkable things that occur in the Fabrick of this present Earth are First subterraneous Cavities and subterraneous Waters Secondly the Channel of the great Ocean Thirdly Mountains and Rocks He proceeds to give an account of these according to his Hypothesis Beginning with subterraneous Cavities and Waters Saying that those Cavities were made upon the general Dissolution of the Earth according as the broken Fragments variously fell into hollow and broken Postures and that the subterraneous Waters are parts of the Abysse the Pillars and Foundations of the present Earth standing immerst in it Now I have shewn before that such an Orb of Earth and Dissolution of it on the Face of the Abysse for causing Noah's Deluge as the Author has suppos'd was impossible and consequently his Explanation here of subterraneous Cavities and Waters cannot hold I might add some things here for shewing the necessity of subterraneous Caverns in the Antediluvian Earth which the Author denies to have been But because in the following Chapters I shall shew the necessity of a Sea and Mountains in those times the Uses of which may be more conspicuous I shall pass by the Cavities at present CHAP. X. HEre the Author treats concerning the Sea-Channel and the Original of it the Causes of its irregular Form and unequal Depths as also of the Original of Islands their Situation and Properties He exaggerates much in the Description of the Sea-Chanel where amongst other things he says thus p. 128. When I present this great Gulph to my Imagination emptied of all its Waters naked and gaping at the Sun stretching its Jaws from one end of the Earth to another it appears to me the most ghastly thing in Nature And again p. 131. If we should suppose the Ocean dry and if we look't down from the top of some high Cloud upon the empty Shell how horridly and barbarously would it look And with what Amazement should we see it under us like an open Hell or a wide bottomless Pit So deep and hollow and vast so broken and confus'd so every way deform'd and monstrous c. To this I must say as far as I can conceive of the Sea-Channel if it were empty and had a Sword upon it and Trees as the Land has I can fancy no other Prospect could be there than what the Earth now affords us We have Mountains now that appear as high to us as perhaps any would if we then stood in any part of the Sea-Channel and so for any other suppos'd Unevennesses Indeed to look upon many places of it naked without a Sword on them might not seem so well so draw off the Skin from the most beautious Creature on the Earth and see how it will look as for other Ghastliness I fancy none for when all is said it is but a Veil spread over half the Earth allow'd to afford a quarter of a Mile depth to the Sea taking one place with another thorowout and not being above two Miles deep at the deepest part and what is this in a Philosophical Consideration when compar'd with the vast Body it lies upon It 's a place fit to receive such a poor Lake as the Sea otherwise not worth naming being not comparably so much to the Body of the Earth as the thickness of a Leaf of the thinnest Paper drawn from one half part of a Globe of three feet Diameter takes from the bulk of that Globe Next the Author tells us there are three things particularly to be consider'd concerning the Sea-Channel viz. It s general Irregularity the vast Hollowness of its Cavity and the Declivity of its sides which lie shelving tho with some Unevenness from top to bottom And these he thinks may be aptly explain'd according to his Hypothesis by the fall of the Earth and are not explainable any other way and he gives us two Figures for representing the Fall of the Earth to effect these things The like he says for the Rise of original Islands which he counter-distinguishes from such as are factitious these being made either by the Aggestion of Sands or the Sea 's leaving the tops
of some shallow places that lie high or by a Divulsion from some Continent or a Protrusion from the bottom of the Sea And he gives us also one Figure to represent the Rise of those original Islands according to his said Hypothesis To this I answer That the Causes he has given for these Phaenomena relating to the Sea Channel are well assign'd consequentially to his Hypothesis but as I have already shewn a failure in his Hypothesis those causes cannot be true neither shall I be more particular on them But as the Author has excluded a Sea from his Antediluvian Earth I shall set down a few Reasons to shew the necessity of a Sea from the beginning of the World First then we find a necessity of admitting a Sea from the beginning for the support of Sea-Animals and Vegetables which we cannot judg but to have been from the beginning For supposing that the Authority of Moses who tells us of a Sea and great Whales c. from the beginning should be evaded I would ask whether all Sea-Animals and Vegetables were created de novo after the Deluge or whether they were kept in the Antediluvian Rivers or in the Abysse First to say they were then created de novo or that their Seeds had been preserv'd in the Antediluvian World till they exerted their Powers at the Deluge it would no way be admitted For this were in effect to exclude in a manner half the Creation in reference to Plants and Animals from the Antediluvian Earth the Sea being the most fertile of all the parts of the World the generative Faculty being no where so luxuriant as there Secondly they could not live in the suppos'd Antediluvian Rivers which in all probability must have been all fresh and without any Saltness in them as I shall shew in the next Chapter And again when we consider the various Genius's of Fishes we find it inconsistent for them to have liv'd in those Rivers For as Philo says all marine Animals receive not their Being in all places some love a moorish and shallow Sea some Ditches and Ports neither passing up into the Land nor swimming far from the Sea shoar some living in the deep Seas shun Islands Rocks and Promontories running out into the Sea and others are delighted in calm and quiet Seas others in tempestuous so that being exercis'd with continual tossings and striving against the Surges they become stronger and fatter c. Now how all these Dispositions and a multitude of others could be answer'd in the Antediluvian Rivers or the Abysse I see not The like may be said of all Birds living always on the Sea Coasts and feeding on Sea Animals and the like of Vegetables which grow no where but in or by the Sea Thirdly as to the Abysse certainly the Birds could not be preserv'd there if it be said that the Fishes or Sea-Plants could I desire one Instance in natural History where any Animal or Vegetable has been found living twenty Fathoms deep in the Earth where there has not been a Communication to the day I well know there are some Fishes I cannot say Vegetables living in some subterraneous Rivers and Lakes which have such a Communication a I speak of but none otherwise To conclude the Author in his Answer to Mr. Warren finding himself urg'd against the living of Fishes in the Abysse through its closeness instances that a Child can live many Months shut up in the Mothers Belly where he says there is Closeness and Darkness in the highest degree and thinks it likely that the Fishes were less active and agile in the Abysse than they are now and that their Life was more sluggish then and their Motions more slow as being still in the Womb of Nature that was broke up at the Deluge and that they had Air enough for their imperfect way of breathing in that state and that possibly they might have some Passages in their Bodies open'd at the Disruption of the Abysse when they were born into the free Air which were not open'd before c. To this I reply that it 's one thing what a Man is forc't to say consequentially to an Hypothesis which he proposes to introduce and another what Reason dictates to him upon free Thought And I believe if the Author's Hypothesis would permit him to be open and candid he must own that such an Abysse could be no probable nor possible Habitation for Fishes As for the Instance of the Child in the Mothers Belly where the Author says there is Closeness and Darkness in the highest degree we know it to be otherwise the Mother being a living and breathing Animal and having a Body freely perspirable the Envelopings also with which the Infant is encompast being very thin nor can the Child subsist if the Mother dies Now what Analogy with this has an Orb of dead Earth a Mile or two thick with which the Abysse is suppos'd to be invested where the Fishes are said to live Again how unnatural is it for the Author to make the Fishes in the Antediluvian Paradisiacal times to be in an embrionate imperfect state so that the Whale could not sport himself by spouting up Waters nor the Nautili sayl before the Wind nor any Fishes divert themselves according to their Genius and what they enjoy in this pitiful degenerate World So that at a time when all things on the Earth are suppos'd to have flourisht in a degree far transcending the present the poor Fishes which least deserv'd it lay under a double Curse being wholly pent up in a dark Dungeon impervious to the Light and Air as great Blessings as the World affords and having no Food but by preying on each other whereas now besides Vegetables growing in the Seas they have good Supplies by what the Rivers bring them besides other good Contingencies from the Shoars I must confess that I know nothing forct and unnatural in an Hypothesis if this be not so Next we must consider the Necessity of a Sea in reference to its Use as to the Earth and to pass by its Use for Navigation which is generally suppos'd not to have been practis'd in the Antediluvian times we find that the Antients unanimously plac'd the Sea all along the torrid Zone many of them saying that the Body of the Sun and other Planets and Stars were refresht and nourisht by the Moisture thence drawn But however we may look upon this Opinion we must still say with the Poet Sed rapidus Titan ponto sua lumina pascens And that one of the chiefest Actions of the Sun's Rayes on this inferior Globe is to raise Waters from the Seas to be pass'd thence by the Winds on all the parts of the Earth to qualifie the Air for the Promotion Refreshment and Support of Vegetable and Animal Productions and hence as Plutarch says Homer in the Battle opposes Neptune to Apollo and hence Juno is said to have been born and brought up in the Island Samos
considering that diffus'd Variety Nature delights in may be content to smile at but will never allow or unless he can make out some other way the Conservation of those Species besides the Ark which will be consider'd by us in the sequel Secondly By this Doctrine the Author drowns the two Polar Zones supposing it to have then rain'd continually there and that all the Rivers that supply'd the Earth thence arose no Rains falling in the Torrid or either of the Temperate Zones But in reference to the State of the two Polar Zones in case the Sun always kept the Aequinox Root we must consider what the Learned Dr. Browne says in his Vulgar Errors where he has a Digression concerning the Wisdom of God in the Site and Motion of the Sun It is as follows If the Sun mov'd in the Aequator unto a parallel Sphere or to such as have the Pole for their Zenith it would have made neither perfect Day nor perfect Night For being in the Aequator it would intersect their Horizon and be half above and half beneath Or rather it would have made perpetual Night to both for tho in regard of the rational Horizon which bissects the Globe into equal parts the Sun in the Aequator would intersect the Horizon yet in respect of the sensible Horizon which is defin'd by the Eye the Sun would be visible unto neither For if as ocular Witnesses report and some also do write by reason of the Convexity of the Earth the Eye of Man under the Aequator cannot discover both the Poles neither would the Eye under the Poles discover the Sun in the Aequator Hence we find that contrary to what the Author has urg'd in his Answer to Mr. Warren If the Sun mov'd in the Aequator there would be a total absence or in a manner as good of the Sun in the Polar Parts whence vehement and continual Frosts must be there caus'd which would render them impossible Sources for his suppos'd Rivers Thirdly we may consider whether the Sun keeping always in the Aequator so as to make a continual Spring without a variety of Seasons would make better for the Rise Support and Propagation of the Earth's Productions even in the Temperate Zones than by its present Course Bede considering it says that if the Sun kept it self always at an equal distance from us in the Aequator this great Evil would thence ensue that the Earth would never conceive within which it does in the Winter nor would Fruits if any then grew come to a maturity without which Animals cannot live And indeed how the Sun always keeping in the Aequator and making still equal Days and Nights in all parts of the Temperate Zones should carry on Vegetation in the remote parts of them is not to me intelligible For now when the Sun is in the Aequinox we find its Heats but faint to us and were it not that we are holpen out by its approach to us toward the Tropick and thereby rendring our Days much longer than the Nights we have reason to doubt how our Fruits would be brought to a maturity much more those who live in the more northerly parts where the Vegetation wholly depends on their continued Days in the Summer with little or no intermission of Night And hence the Diversity of Seasons has been always lookt upon as necessary of which Cicero says In Autumn the Earth is opened to conceive Fruits in the Winter it 's comprest to digest them in the Spring it 's open'd to bring them forth in the Summer being brought to a maturity they are either mellow'd or dry'd In the Summer the Bodies and Branches of Vegetables are increast in Winter the Roots are strengthned and what is rais'd in the Summer is consolidated We see generally in Plants and Animals how Nature pleases it self in moving by interchangeable starts they require a time of rest as well as a time of labour One while upon the Sun's access they bring forth their Fruits another while upon its retreat they resume their Strengths Some Fruit-trees indeed in some Parts bear all the Year but to conclude thence that all may do so every where is more than their Natures will bear a Vicissitude of Seasons being necessary for them which Vicissitude seems to me plainly intimated in the Scriptures to have been from the beginning For when at the Cessation of the Deluge God says to Noah That he will no more curse the earth for the sake of man and that thence forward all the days of the earth seed-time and harvest heat and cold summer and winter day and night shall not cease This plainly denotes that such things had past before which having been interrupted during the Deluge should now return in their common course for otherwise those words Summer and Winter Seed time and Harvest had not been intelligible to Noah as never having seen or heard of such Seasons before And Pererius on the foresaid Passage says it plainly appears to be fabulous and full of Vanity and Ignorance what Ovid had said Met. 1. That this Inequality of Seasons was not in the Golden-Age of Saturn but that then there was a constant Spring and that afterward the Age degenerating this alternate Succession by Changes was brought on the World So again when it 's said Gen. 1. Let lights be made in the firmament of heaven and let them divide day and night and let them be for signs and seasons and days and years All expound those Seasons for the four Seasons of the Year And here I may add that by this altering the Sun's Course and making but one Season it subverts all antient Astronomy which if any Learning is concluded to have been derived to us from times before the Deluge And this Argument alone is convincing with me I cannot say it will with all Men that since all agree Clavem Magiae naturalis esse clavem Astrologicam and since the former Science has certainly been convey'd down to us from Antediluvian Times the Clavis to it must of course now that Clavis is known to be according to the present Disposition of the Heavens to the Earth whence I absolutely conclude that the same has ever been And we know that among the Priestly Ornaments of Aaron which carried the Types of the whole Universe the Brest-plate was one of the chief in which the twelve pretious Stones among other Significations typifi'd the twelve Signs of the Zodiack and their being rang'd in four Ternaries denoted the four Seasons of the Year which I believe had never been unless those Seasons had been according to the most perfect state of the World And that the Antediluvian Patriarchs as well as the Postdiluvian were in their respective times the most absolute Masters of the foresaid Science of any Men on the Earth and that from them it has been convey'd down in its Pureness to us is what I know not how to disbelieve Fourthly The Diversity of
needless here to insert Now concerning the first Difficulty which the Author has endeavoured here to explain in reference to the Source and Origine of the Antediluvian Waters I have this to offer He supposes that copious Vapours were continually rais'd from the Torrid Zone and the parts of the Temperate Zones next it and that they were hindred by the heat of the Sun from condensing into Clouds or Rains there being then no Mountains or other Cause to stay and compress them till having past through the Temperate Zones they came towards the extreme parts of the Earth or the Poles where they were continually condenst into Clouds Rains and Dews Now this I conceive is what no Meteorologist can allow for first though I should grant there were no Mountains before the Deluge for the existence of which from the Beginning I have already argued at least there must have been other Causes no less powerful to stop and compress the Vapours then arising notwithstanding the Author either has not taken notice of them or has here forgot them Certainly there were Woods before the Flood and those in a great plenty which to use the common Expression are known to attract Vapours as freely as Mountains and the Author allows the Trees then to have been of an imcomparably more vast and lofty growth than now the largest of our Trees being but shrubs to the Trees then and would not these attract Vapours in a plentiful measure whence Clouds and Rains would be produc'd to serve all the parts of the Earth It 's known that in several parts of the West-Indies wont to be much infested with Rains and Tempests after the Woods were there cut down those effects ceast Georg. Agricola tells us of a Valley in a Mountainous Tract in Germany which in Autumn and Winter was wont to be continually invested with thick Fogs hindring the sight of the Sun but at length the Woods being there cut down and some Adits driven in Mines for the Waters to pass those Fogs ceast I know also some Woods in England standing much on a Level which always cast forth a great smoak and have a Cloud over them against Rain the Country people thence taking their Prediction of it We know that in the Isle of Ferro there being not Fountains to supply the Inhabitants with fresh Water there grows a Tree over which a Cloud settles itself every Morning and resolves into Water which streams down from the Branches and is receiv'd in Vessels underneath for use And can we think but some of those stately Antediluvian Trees in case there had been no Rains would have perform'd this good natur'd Office to Man as indeed they had been bound to do it to Beasts for Men possibly might have then been supply'd with fresh Water in all the parts of the Earth by the means of Wells but how should the Beasts be supply'd remote from Rivers These Instances from natural History I think are sufficient to shew that Woods as well as Mountains attract Vapours and cause Rains and must have done it in the Antediluvian Earth Secondly to pass by Mountains and Woods and to consider the Quality of the Primaeval Earth which the Author supposes to have been at first soft and boggy can it be imagin'd that Vapours rais'd from it in the Torrid Zone and in the parts of the Temperate Zones next it should be convey'd to the Polar Zones for a Series of Ages without being condens'd into Clouds and Rains by the way when at the same time the Days and Nights are suppos'd to have been constantly of an equal length and when the Weakness of the Sun's Action arising from the Obliqueness of its Rayes in a good part of the intermediate Distance is duly consider'd Now this plainly shews that the Vapours rais'd by the Sun in the torrid and temperate Zones could never reach near the Poles before they were condens'd into Clouds and Rains even tho the Earth were all smooth and the Sun always kept the Aequinox Root as the Author supposes the state of things then was Thirdly how should Vegetation have been maintain'd for sixteen Hundred Years without Rains to refresh the Plants It 's true there are some parts now which have little Rain but either they lye near the Seas where they are plentifully supply'd with Vapours or have some annual Inundations as Aegypt c. which could not have held in the Antediluvian Earth Indeed the Earth being suppos'd soft at first it might possibly have supply'd Moisture for some Ages but after five Hundred or a Thousand Years what Moisture could that Earth have afforded And to talk of the Sun 's pumping up Waters from the Abysse lying two or three Miles deep in the Earth to supply Waters for the Rivers to run when the other Moisture was spent it seems to me too inconsistent to deserve naming Again it 's known that Rains are no less necessary now and then for purging the Air than a Dose of Physick may be for the Body of Man And tho it may be said that the Air then could not have been infested with evil Vapours as now the Quality of that Soil not affording them Yet as Purges are sometimes prescrib'd not only to evacuate the Body of evil Humours but in Cases of mere Plenitude when the Humours are not peccant so the Atmosphere then could not but be sometimes troubled with an Hazyness and Stagnation through the great plenty of Particles rais'd by the Sun 's constant Action and unless it were now and then purg'd by Rains Winds and fiery Meteors which are all deny'd it could not have been duly qualifi'd for the support of Animals and Vegetables to which I may add that were it not for Rains many times all the Fruits of Countries would be destroy'd by Insects devouring them in their first tender growth Lastly whereas the Author says that when the Vapours were arriv'd in the frigid Zones they would continually be there condens'd into Clouds Rains and Dews I reply if that holds true which I have suggested from Dr. Brown that the Sun keeping in the Aequator it would be always Night or Twilight in a more considerable part of the frigid Zones the Sun never rising above the Horizon and since the Author supposes those Zones to have been continually invested with Clouds which at least must have caus'd a Cimmerian Darkness there whether we can conceive any thing but continu'd Frosts and Snows to have been there which must have made them incapable of being Sources for those Waters he has suppos'd As to the second Difficulty the Author meets with here viz. for making the Waters flow on the even Surface of the Antediluvian Earth to explain which he has suppos'd that Earth to have been of an oval Figure in which the Polar Parts were higher than the Aequinoctial to afford a Descent to the Waters to form Channels to the extreme Parts of the Temperate Zones next the Torrid there are many things here
to oppose First the Author 's main Reason for the oval Figure of the Earth seems not to me to hold good where he says in his Latin Copy since the Bulk of Waters in the first Formation of the Earth when it was yet an aqueous Globe was much more agitated under the Aequator than the Water towards the Poles where it made less Circles those Parts so greatly agitated endeavouring to recede from the Centre of their Motion since they could not wholly spring up and fly away by reason of the Air every where pressing on them nor much flow back without the Resistance of the said Air they could not otherwise disingage themselves than by flowing off to the sides and so making the aqueous Globe somewhat oval This I say is contrary to Experiment for the more rapid any Course of Waters is the more it draws all neighbouring Waters to joyn with them in their Course and forces them not to recede from them into calmer Parts where the rapidness of their Course is check'd by a slower Motion and if this should be done to some distance can it be imagin'd but their native Gravity when rais'd considerably above their level long ere they reacht the Polar Parts would make them fall back again to the lower Aequinoctial Current And the native Nitency of the Waters in both Hemispheres on each side the Torrid Zone would much more strongly repel any Waters there rais'd above their level than the Rapidness of the Aequinoctial Current could force them off Again since the Earth consider'd as a Spherical Body is allow'd to be above 7000 Miles Diameter and since to enlarge a Circle into a moderate oval Figure its Area must be made a quarter as big again at least one way of its Diameter as it was before as Mr. Warren has demonstrated it follows that the Antediluvian Earth at each Pole must have been near 900 Miles extent in the suppos'd oval State more than if it had been exactly round And since this Earth inclos'd an Orb of Waters within it I desire to know how many Miles Depth of the 900 Miles the Author allows to his Orb of Waters he must allow it Miles enough to make an oval Orb for so his Water was suppos'd to be before the Orb of Earth was form'd upon it and consequentially to what is said he cannot allow his Orb of Waters to be less than 450 Miles deep at each Pole to make any thing of an oval Now to say that any Detrusion of Waters toward the Poles by the resistence of of the superambient Air could form a Mountain of Waters at each of the said Poles about 450 Miles in Height above their Spherical Convexity seems to me a strange and unaccountable Paradox in Hydrography especially the Orb under the Abysse being suppos'd Spherical as the Author has represented it in all his Schemes so that there was nothing to bear on the Detrusion of the Waters It 's true as the Author says in his Answer to Mr. Warren we see the Waters flowing towards and upon the Shoars by the Pressure of the Air under the Moon tho it be an Ascent both upon the Land and into the Rivers but I answer this flowing is only to the Height of some few Fathoms and besides it 's maintain'd by a bulk of Waters then swoln in the Sea near as high as any protruded on the Land and carrying a Pondus able to support them But what Force shall be able to support a Body of Waters in a violent State carried 450 Miles in height above their natural tendency as they all are when past the spherical Convexity For the Author owns the Demonstration of Archimedes concerning the spherical Figure of Water to be true and says that a fluid Body be it Water or any other Liquor always casts it self into a smooth and spherical Surface and if any parts by chance or by some agitation become higher than the rest they do not continue so long but glide down every way into the lower places till they all come to make a Surface of the same height and of the same distance every where from the Center By what agitation or resistence then of the superambient Air can Waters be driven on and held together for 450 Miles ascent in the open Air so as not to diverge and fall off by their natural tendency Besides if according to what I have said before the Author allows his Abyss Orb to be 450 Miles deep at the Poles he must allow it of a depth proportional to its oval Figure in its other parts and so for his Orb of Earth and how this can stand with the proportion he seems to assign to his Orbs according to what I have set forth l. 1. c. 6. and how a Deluge according to these proportions could be caus'd and the Waters go off so as to make an habitable World may require his consideration Again since the Sun according to the Authors Hypothesis moving always in the Aequinox before the Flood would constantly have held as remote if not more from the suppos'd rainy Region than it is now from us in the depth of Winter and since we find the Mountains now which are of any considerable height even in the temperate Zones are so cold that they are generally cover'd with Snows notwithstanding the Sun shines more on them than on the Countries lying beneath them and that even in the Summer when the Sun is nearest to them and the days are much longer than the nights it follows that the two Polar Mountains in all respects must always have had Colds in the greatest excess both in regard of their great distance from the Sun and of their being Mountains and of their having little or no Day nay if it were constant Day at the Poles themselves and there were as much Day as Night in the suppos'd rainy Regions as the Author can pretend to no more there this could not protect them against continual Frosts and Snows as appears by what I have said of the Mountains in the temperate Zones I may add that as Mr. Warren has observ'd several Navigators attempting to find out a nearer Course to China have been frozen to death tho they sail'd not so far North as the suppos'd rainy Regions in the oval Earth and chose the most seasonable time for their Enterprize viz. When the Sun was on this side the Equator and the days then in those Regions were much longer than the Nights if they had any Night at all Besides what experience all other Saylers have had of the great Colds and continued Frosts and Snows in those Countries notwithstanding the Vapours of the Sea or any nearness of the Sun and length of days which might help to remit them Lastly Whereas the Author conceivs the present Earth to be also of an oval Figure we know the general Sense of Men according to all experience and observation to be contrary and that whether the Constitution
of the Earth be consider'd according to Gravity or Magnetism Aristotle who consider'd it according to the former says that all the Particles of the Earth have a natural Gravity which carries them towards the midst or Center whence a spherical Figure of it must be caus'd as he explains at large and concludes that the Figure of the Earth must therefore be Spherical or naturally Spherical and that every thing must be said to be such as it uses to be or is by Nature and not what it may be by force or preternaturally and in a violent state The same may be said of the Earth's Figure if it be consider'd according to Magnetism the Experiment of the Terrella according to the various Inclinations of the Needle to it shewing the Earth to be Spherical And whereas the Author says that Circumnavigation the appearing and Occultation of Mountains and Towers to Saylors as also the Stars and the like prove indeed the Earth not to be plain but convex but does not plainly prove what that Convexity is whether Spherical or Oval We find that Clavius was of a contrary Opinion he thinking to have well prov'd the Spherical Figure of the Earth if measur'd either from East to West or from North to South by shewing that if a Man keeping the same Meridian passes from North to South there is that proportion still observ'd in the decrease of the elevation of the Pole which can only agree to a spherical Figure and so if any Man travels from East to West betwixt two Parallels he may still observe that to a City fifteen degrees more Easterly than another the Sun always rises and sets an hour sooner or later than to the other which anticipation of the rising and setting of the Sun could not keep the said proportion unless we give the Earth a spherical Figure As to the third Difficulty that the Author finds and the Explanation he endeavours to give of it viz. What Issue the Rivers would have when they were come to the parts near the Torrid Zone to which he says That then 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 drank up by the dry sandy Earth This seems not to me fairly to account for the Rivers Issue It 's true we have now accounts of some Rivers absorpt in the Sands but the Waters so absorpt or which any where pass into the Earth have their Issue again at some other place either passing into the Sea or emerging again on the Land but what became of those Antediluvian Waters which must have been in vast quantities absorpt in the Sands Did the Circumgyration of the Earth carry them back again under ground upon an Ascent toward the Poles Or did they sink into the Abysse This must have been full before for many Ages till the Sun had cloven the Earth and drawn out great quantities of the Abysse Waters and the other way of their Issue seems not to me conceivable But I shall insist no farther on this matter The Author in the last place urges that the Rainbow set in the Clouds after the Deluge makes out that the Antediluvian Heav'ns were of a different Constitution from ours the Rainbow having not been seen in the Clouds before Now concerning the Rainbow mention'd Gen. 9. many have said many things but the most natural Interpretation of it seems to me to be thus We find in the foregoing Chapter when Noah and his Family by Gods Command were come forth of the Ark and that Noah had rais'd an Altar and sacrific'd to God God accepting his Sacrifice assur'd him that he would no more destroy every living Soul as he had done but that Seed-time and Harvest Cold and Heat Summer and Winter Night and Day should not cease or should continue They having been interrupted for a years time before And in the 9th Chapter after having bless'd Noah and his Sons he made a Covenant with them against any future Deluge and to comfort them gave them the Rainbow as a present sign of the Air 's setling in its wonted way the Seasons which he had mention'd before to Noah being to succeed in Course And the Rainbow thus appearing after the Deluge carried somewhat new in it as the Author says a Sign ought to have done because it had not been seen for a year before and in its nature appearing after Rains it betokens fair Weather as appearing after fair Weather it betokens Rains Whereas the Author says he does not look upon the Rainbow as a voluntary Sign and by divine Institution but that it signified naturally and by Connection with the effect importing that the state of Nature was chang'd from what it was before and so chang'd that the Earth was no more in a condition to perish by Water This seems to me without any ground I agree with him so far that the Rainbow signified naturally and by Connection with the effect because appearing after Rains it betokens a remission of the moisture and consequently fair Weather and this with Gods Promise to Noah and his seeing the Waters retir'd from the Earth I think was sufficient for Noahs satisfaction he having had experience that God was Master of his Word before when he had reveal'd to him that he would bring a Deluge on the Earth But to say that the appearance of the Rainbow imported the state of Nature to be so chang'd that the Earth was no more in a condition to perish by Water this will not be allow'd for if the Deluge was miraculously caus'd as I conceive it to have been what natural sign could foreshew its coming or no return of it Wherefore in this respect I look upon it to be only a voluntary Sign and by divine Institution And we know some have been so far from thinking the Rainbow to denote a change of Air towards a Conflagration that they plainly say it denotes a Dominion of moisture in the Air and that on this account it will not appear forty years before the Conflagration happens Neither do I believe that Noah or perhaps any Man since him besides the Author could find by any natural signality in the Rainbow that a Deluge should ne'r return Indeed as the Author says if Noah had never seen a Rainbow before on its first appearance it could not but have made a lively Impression upon him for his assurance for its probable it would have rais'd a stupor in him and he would have lookt upon it as a Miracle wrought by God for his satisfaction whereas the Rules of Providence are otherwise God never giving a miraculous Sign but of a miraculous Effect which the preservation of the Earth from a second Deluge was not to be but only the Earth left to itself with those second Causes that attend it for its own preservation And those instances of Signs which the Author has quoted from the Scriptures are miraculous Signs of
by Providence after the rest of Beings were completed But as what Moses has said of the Creation by most Christian Writers is understood of the whole System of Beings as well coelestial as terrestrial so we find when the antient Gentils speak of the Rise of things from a Chaos they mean the same Hesiod and Ovid and others that write of the Chaos are plain that the Heavens rose from it as well as the Earth And we know the Hermetick Philosophers who are lookt upon by some to be much more antient than Moses but certainly of great Antiquity tell us of a Cohabitation there was of Superiors and Inferiors in the Chaos and that upon the Separation of it the Superiors retir'd to their coelestial Abode Aristophanes also whom the Author admires above the rest plainly says in his Cosmogonia that the Chaos was before the Earth the Air and the Heavens Moreover when the Author says the Theogonia of the Antients was the same with their Cosmogonia and their Cosmogonia the same with their Geogonia it would be absurd to understand those Genealogies of the terrestrial Bodies exclusively to the coelestial For those Gentils being infected with Polytheism and making the chief Parts and Portions of the World Gods it 's manifest that they did not only make the chief parts of the Earth so they being known to have ador'd the whole Host of Heaven So again as to the Dissolution of the World by Fire we find the Antients generally understood it of the Heavens as well as of the Earth Hierom in his Comment on the 15th of Isaiah says Quae quidem Philosophorum mundi opinio est omnia quae cernimus igni peritura Seneca delivering the Opinion of the Stoicks says Sydera syderibus incurrent omni flagrante materiâ uno igne quicquid nunc ex disposito lucet ardebit Lucan says Communis mundo superest rogus ossibus astra Misturus and he expresses himself to the same purpose elsewhere Ovid from the Oracles of the Sibyls says Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus Quo mare quo tellus correptáque regia coeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laboret The Sybils Verses are as follows Tunc ardens fluvius coelo manabit ab alto Igneus atque locos consumet funditus omnes Terrámque oceanúmque ingentem caerula ponti Stagnáque tum fluvios fontes Ditémque severum Caelestémque Polum caeli quoque lumina in unum Fluxa ruent formâ deletâ prorsus eorum Then from high Heaven vast streams of Fire shall flow Those Flames consuming all things here below The Earth the mighty Ocean the blue Main Lakes Rivers Fountains and what Dis does claim And Heaven it self whose Lights shall flow in one And Stars shall fall their Form destroy'd and gone So again it 's a common Opinion amongst Christian Divines that the Heavens will be destroy'd by Fire as well as the Earth Dr. Hakewill in his Apology says it seems to him the most likely opinion and most agreeable to Scripture and Reason that the whole World with all the parts thereof only Men Angels and Devils and the third Heavens the Mansion House of the Saints and Angels and the Place and Instruments appointed for the tormenting of the Damn'd excepted shall be totally and finally dissolv'd and annihilated which he proves by many forcible Arguments refuting the contrary Opinion and mentioning many learned Men of his thinking he has so far evinc'd it that it is not solidly answerable to whose Book for brevity sake I must remit the Reader So Salmeron on that passage of S. Peter 2.3 says Loquitur ergo hoc in loco de veris coelis de quibus David dixit Initio tu Domine terram fundasti Opera manuum tuarum sunt coeli ipsi peribunt nimirum per ignem ubi ostendit veros coelos veram terram verè peritura And beneath Quòd autem quidam ex patribus interpretabantur non de supremis veris coelis sed de aereis aqueis esse intelligendum ratione ipsius Textus revincuntur nam imprimis ostendimus nunquam coelorum nomine in plurali numero aereos elementares coelos accipi deinde post coelos nominatos subdit elementa verò calore solventur infra elementa ignis ardore tabescent quod aerem aquam sphaeram ignis spectare videtur Non possunt ergo per coelos accipi illa tria elementa cum bis coelos ab elementis contra distinguat Again Esay 34.4 it 's said All the Host of Heaven shall be dissolv'd and the Heavens shall be roul'd together as a scrole and all their Host shall fall down as the Leaf falls from the Vine and as a falling Fig from a Fig-tree Which words S. John Apoc. 6.13 seems to have borrowed from the Prophet And so I look upon the following Verses of Juvencus to be writ according to a Prophetick Truth Immortale nihil mundi compage tenetur Non orbis non regna hominum non aurea Roma Non mare non tellus non ignea sydera Coeli Nam statuit Genitor rerum irrevocabile tempus Quo cunctum torrens rapiet flamma ultima mundum I shall only add that those who by their insight in Symbolical Learning reach the mystical sense of the Prophets well know that what is symboliz'd by the Heavens will pass away in the day of the mystical Conflagration as well as what is symboliz'd by the Earth whence unless the whole shall be symbolically evacuated so that the Conflagration shall not concern external nature I shall ever believe that the one will be concern'd in it as well as the other homo cum dormierit non resurget dum non erunt Coeli And not to rest in mystery where I may be plain the mystical Conflagration is known to be the Baptism by Fire and the Spirit whence I conceive some Sects of Christians almost from the first times of Christianity as the Jacobites Aethiopians Copts Isini c. instead of baptizing with Water were wont to have their Children burnt by their Priests in the Cheeks or Foreheads with an Iron according to that Matth. 3. He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and Fire Now when God is pleas'd to send that Baptism not only Sense symboliz'd by the Earth but Reason also symboliz'd by the Heavens passes away and is absorp'd in the Spirit and carryed above itself the Spirit being as much exalted above Reason as Reason is above Sense and this is a truth own'd by all Divines though none I conceive can apprehend how the thing is transacted but those to whom God has vouchsafed that Baptism they being brought into that State of mind which made S. Paul say Omnia mihi in Aenigmate facta sunt Nothing being able to perceive the ways of the Spirit but the Spirit and hence we find after the Apostles receiv'd it they were censur'd by the People of being intoxicated with
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
Ancients and yet in the present form of the Earth we find no such thing nor any foundation for it I cannot believe that this was so universally receiv'd upon a slight presumption only because it lay under the Course of the Sun if the Sun had the same Latitude from the Equator in his Course and Motion that he has now c. he instances several of the Ancient Philosophers Astronomers and Geographers who held that Zone uninhabitable and adds that some of the Ancient Philosophers whom he also names held that the Poles of the World did once change their Situation and were at first in another posture from what they are now till that Inclination happen'd c. and concludes that these Opinions of the Ancients must refer to that State of things which he has represented in his Antediluvian World To this I answer that it seems no wonder it should be the common receiv'd Opinion among the Ancients that the Torrid Zone was uninhabitable for navigation being not come to its perfection America undiscover'd and no trading establish'd by Land to those parts of Africa that lye under the Torrid Zone and the great heats found in the neighbouring Climates to it might naturally induce such a belief in them so that we may allow it to have past as a negative Tradition among them for that no Man had attempted a discovery but to conclude that this was a positive Tradition among them deriv'd from Antediluvian times on a suppos'd differing position which the Heavens or Earth then had it 's more than the thing will bear neither was that Opinion of the uninhabitableness of the Torrid Zone so general in Ancient times but some Patrons of the Earth merely upon a stress of reasoning always said nay to it Thus Plutarch tells us that Pythagoras as great a Man as any among the Greeks and more ancient than any the Author has nam'd for the contrary Opinion held the Torrid Zone habitable and a temperate Region as being in the midst betwixt that of the Summer and that of the Winter and certainly Pythagoras was as likely a Man as any among the Ancients to have known such a Tradition and to have faithfully convey'd it to posterity if there had been any ground for it himself and Orpheus being judg'd by many to have been knowing in the Mosaick Cabala concerning the true System of the World Ptolomy also says many contend that the parts near the Equinoctial are inhabited as being the most temperate Region because the Sun neither stays in the vertical points but makes swift recesses according to Latitude from the Equinoctial points whence the Summer is rendred temperate neither in the Solstices is it far from the Vertex wherefore the Winters must be very mild Bede quotes this passage and adds but what those habitations are we cannot say with any likely ground for Men have not pass'd thither even to this day wherefore what is said of it may be lookt upon rather as a conjecture than a true History Tertullian also held the Torrid Zone a temperate Region and plac'd Paradise in it and so did Nicephoras according to the Opinion of Theophilus the like did Bonaventure and Durandus of later years and Avicenna among the Arabians held that Region temperate Here also it may be noted that generally those that held the uninhabitableness of the Torrid Zone held likewise the two Polar Zones uninhabitable through continual frosts there so that the Tradition of the one ought to be held as well as that of the other which would destroy the Authors Hypothesis for the source of his Waters as I have intimated before As to those Philosophers mention'd by the Author to have held that the Poles of the World once chang'd their Situation I know no reason we have to follow them in it more than a multitude of other erroneous Opinions which we find amongst the ancient Philosophers Ignonorance in Cosmography being an Epidemical distemper amongst them so that Plutarch tells us Pythagoras was said to be the first who bethought him of the Obliqueness of the Zodiack which Invention some ascribe to Oenopides of Chius The same tells us Parmenides was the first who limited the places inhabited on the Earth to wit those that are in the two habitable Zones to the Tropick Circles What wonder then that the Ancients should lie under great mistakes in things relating to that Knowledge But the Author urges in his Answer to Mr. Warren that Diogenes Anaxagoras Empedocles Leucippus and Democritus say there was once a Change of the Poles therefore it must be lookt upon as a Tradition amongst the Ancients for which they are good Testimonies But I would ask the Author whether either of those Philosophers deliver their Opinion as a Tradition among the Ancients Plutarch whence he quotes their Opinions entitles his Book The Opinions of the Philosophers and delivers this as their particular Opinion and not as a Tradition and assigns the several Reasons they went upon which are all found to be erroneous and to expect that we should receive their Opinion as a Tradition and acquiesce in it without any farther Ground seems to me altogether as unreasonable as to say that because Diagoras Theodorus Cyreneus Evemeras Euripides mentioned also by Plutarch and others of the ancient Philosophers held there was no Deity therefore this must be lookt upon as a well-grounded Tradition and fit for us to receive that there is no Deity This is too hard putting upon our Reason Well but the Author grants their Reasons are false but says it would be as injudicious to exclude them from being Witnesses or fair Testimonies of such a thing because they do not Philosophise well about that Change as if we should deny that there was such a War as the Peloponesian War because the Historian has not assign'd the true Causes and Reasons of it or to deny that a Comet appear'd in such a Year because a Person that makes mention of it has not given a good account of the generation of it nor of the Causes of its form and motion I answer That I do not exclude them from being Witnesses meerly because of the false Reasons they give for what they say but because that they neither own themselves as Witnesses neither does it any way appear that what they deliver is as they are VVitnesses but meerly from their own fancy as it may be said of Diagoras and the rest that held a non-existence of a Deity And as to the Instances of the Peloponesian War and the Comet there is a vast disparity betwixt these and the other for the Peloponesian War and the Comet are notorious Facts convey'd down to us by every Historian and Astronomer nemine contradicente as they receiv'd it from time to time from unquestionable Hands But what are those five Philosophers to the whole Body of the Philosophers both before and after them who mention no such thing Nor do those five affirm
that the Author upon his exclusion of Mountains was forc't to exclude Minerals from his Antediluvian Earth tho it be with this hard Circumstance that there is a plain Text of the Scriptures against him Gen. 4. where Tubalcain is said to have wrought in Brass and Iron long before the Flood which seems to me unanswerable So again Gen. 2. it 's said that the River Pison encompass'd the Land of Havilah where there was Gold And if we give credit to the Book of Henoch quoted by Tertullian L. de Idololat Tubalcain wrought also in the other Metals as Gold Silver c. of which afterwards Idols were made Moreover the Author allowing the Hebrew Chronology that supposes but 292 Years from the Flood to Abraham now as Ralegh says in Abraham's time Aegypt had many magnificent Cities and so had Palestine and all the bordering Countries yea all that part of the World besides as far as India and those not built with Sticks but with hewn Stones and defended with Walls and Rampires and how all these Cities should be built with hewn Stones without Iron is not so easily imaginable And to say that the Invention of it was after the Flood and all these things done with it in so short a time will not pass easily with me whatever it may with others And that Gold and Silver were plenty in the time of Abraham it 's evident Gen. 13. where Abraham is said to have been very rich in Gold and Silver and again Ch. 20. Abimelech says to Sarah Behold I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver and Ch. 33. Abraham says to Ephron I will give thee money for thy Field Ephron answers The field is worth four hundred sheckles of silver which when Abraham had heard he weighed to him the Sum he had nam'd in current Money Again it 's recorded in History that the first Man that stamp't Money in Italy was Janus whom Berosus will have to be the Patriarch Noah which Opinion also the Author abets both in his Theory and in his Answer to Mr. Warren I could add many other Instances relating hereunto but I think these sufficient Now it 's true the Author in his Answer to Mr. Warren Chap. 10 as to the Passage of Tubalcain replies That he does not believe Iron or Brass to be once mention'd in all his Theory Neither do I observe that they are there particularly nam'd but I believe if any Man please to read that Paragraph of the Authors before set down and duly weighs it he will soon find the whole Context of it consider'd what it naturally imports and that there is a difference betwixt an Evasion and a satisfactory Answer However I think it reason that every Man should be allow'd to be his own Expositor And if the Author does take upon him to maintain that Brass and Iron were before the Flood but no other Metals I conceive what I have urg'd for the others Coexistence with them carries some weight and if this will not be allow'd I would ask what should hinder the Generation of the other Metals if those were then generated For the main Difficulty still returns No Mountains no Mines and I would gladly see an Instance or two in natural History if there are any where Metals are generated without Mountains and have some colourable Reasons assign'd why if any of the Metals were generated before the Flood others should not since it 's generally observ'd that in the same Tracts of Lands where one sort of Metal is generated several others accompany it The Author in the later part of the said Paragraph intimates himself of Cartes's Opinion viz. That the Stamina or Principles of Metals rose from the lower Regions that lye under the Abysse and thinks it probable that they could not be drawn through such a Masse of Waters Now tho this be a good Argument against him Ad hominem to shew that he excludes all Metals before the Flood yet I shall not insist upon it because I could never acquiesce in Cartes's Hypothesis and were he still living I should be free to shew him the ground of my dislike Cartes consequentially to his Hypothesis supposes Metals to be altogether generated at the feet of Mountains whereas by Experience we find them as often if not oftner in Plains and Valleys on the tops of Mountains and those of a very considerable height as in the sides and at the feet of them But this is no place to refute Cartes's Hypothesis To conclude whoever goes about to exclude Metals from the Antediluvian Earth I believe that the Passage of Tubatcain will never admit of a fair Solution for if any Passages in the Scriptures are so self-evident that they will not bear various Interpretations I look upon that to be one and it not seeming to contain Mystery which may require to be allegorically resolv'd And again as for the Nature of the thing I believe no Man will be able thence to draw any Argument to convince us of their Non-existence before the Flood Nor have we reason to admit of any precarious Hypothesis tending thereunto Moreover when the Author excludes Minerals from his Antediluvian Earth we should know how far the Word extends for among other Minerals Salt is one and indeed the Sea and Mountains being excluded which are the two Magazines for Salt I know not how the World could have been well supply'd It 's true Men being generally suppos'd then to have eaten no Flesh it would be the less wanted But whatever they eat Salt is still a good Seasoner besides the Uses it has in the World for maintaining Vegetation and other ways especially in Marine Plants which cannot be supported by the ordinary Saltness drawn from the Earth Whereas the Author says that Metals and Metalick Minerals are factitious not original Bodies coaeval with the Earth c. I cannot allow this to be so at least as to their Non-existence before the Flood for if he supposes those Rocks which are found on Mountains with Metalline Ores betwixt them to have been primaeval and to have fallen at the Deluge those Ores must have been so too for it 's evident to him that views Rocks containing Ores betwixt them that the Rocks and Ores were form'd together as I may demonstrate in some other Work And the Author allows the Rocks in Mountains to have been Antediluvian and to have fallen at the Flood being free to own that the great naked Rocks he saw in the Alpes were some of the chief Motives which prompted him to this Hypothesis CHAP. XII IN this Chapter the Author gives a review of what has been already treated he sets forth the several Faces and Schemes under which the Earth would appear to a Stranger that should view it first at a distance and then more closely he examines and endeavours to refute all Methods offer'd by others for the Explanation of the Earth's Form and lastly adds a Conjecture concerning the other Planets their natural
Form and State compared with ours There being little new in this Chapter I have the less to consider in it neither will it concern me here to mind whether others have duly explain'd the Form of the Earth or not I shall therefore only take notice of one Passage here because it relates to what I have elsewhere urg'd where the Author argues against some Divines who say that God Almighty made the Mountains and Sea-Channel immediately when he made the World which Point he states as follows Let us consider the Earth in that transient in complete Form which it had when the Abysse encompass'd the whole Body of it We both agree that the Earth was once in this state and they say it came immediately out of this State into its present Form there being made by a supernatural Power a great Channel or Ditch in one part of it which drew off the Waters from the rest and the Soil which was squeez'd and forc'd out of this Ditch made the Mountains Against this he urges as follows If the Mountains were taken out of the Channel of the Sea then they are equal to it and would fill it up if they were thrown in again But these Proportions upon examination will not agree for tho the Mountains of the Earth are very great yet they do not equal by much the great Ocean the Ocean extends to half the surface of the Earth and if you suppose the greatest depth of the Ocean to answer the height of the greatest Mountains and the middle depth to the middle sort of Mountains the Mountains ought to cover all the dry Land to make them answer to all the capacity of the Ocean whereas we suppos'd them upon a reasonable Computation to cover but the tenth part of the dry Land and consequently neither they nor the Sea-channel could have been produc'd in this manner because of their great disproportion to one another And the same thing appears if we compare the Mountains with the Abysse which cover'd the Earth before this Channel was made for this Channel being made great enough to contain all the Abysse the Mountains taken out of it must also be equal to all the Abysse but the aggregate of the Mountains will not answer this by many degrees for suppose the Abysse was but half as deep as the Ocean to make this Calculus Answer all the dry Land ought to be cover'd with Mountains and with Mountains as high as the Ocean is deep or doubly high to the depth of the Abysse because they are but upon one half of the Globe Now whatever may be said of that Opinion of the Divines which I do not take upon me here to maintain the Reasoning which the Author here urges against them is no way conclusive but contrary to his own Assertions and suppositions If he will be just to the Divines in allowing the whole Acclivity of the Earth with the Mountains to have been then taken out of the Sea Channel and plac'd where they are For then I say he has suppos'd that the Sea covers half the Globe of the Earth and allows it as I conceive two Miles deep in the deepest part as it is esteem'd in the computation of the most Judicious and that there is a general declivity from all Shoars to the bottom of the Sea in all its parts tho that declivity be not every where even but sometimes interrupted and the depth of the bottom of it be various So again He has suppos'd in the second Chapter that the whole Earth being as it were a Mountain above the Sea there is a general Acclivity in it from the Sea-shores to its Mediterranean Mountains and that this general Acclivity makes a Mile in height to the foot of the said Mountains and that some of those Mountains are raised a Mile or more from the foot of them to their Summit which makes an height proportional to the Deepest parts of the Sea Hence I say according to the Authors own suppositions if all the rise of the Earth above the level of the Sea taking both the general acclivity of it with the Mountains were par'd off and turn'd upside down into the Sea-Channel they must of necessity fill it the highest Mountains answering to the deepest parts of the Sea and the general acclivity of the Earth with the other Mountains to the general declivity and other deeper parts of it Or it may be represented briefly thus The Author supposes the Sea to cover half the Globe and that taking one part with another of it it makes a quarter of a Mile depth throughout Now I believe the Author and all Men will agree that if all the Mountains taken with the general acclivity of the Earth were cast into a level they would make an Area over the other half part of the Globe a quarter of a Mile in height above the level of the Sea and consequently according to his own Hypothesis it must be able to fill the Channel of the Sea if empty For a Conclusion to this Book the Author considers the other Planets which he conceives to be of the same Fabrick and to have undergone the like fate and forms with our Earth Particularly as to Venus he says 't is a remarkable passage that St. Austin has preserv'd out of Varro which is as follows That about the time of the great Deluge there was a wonderful alteration or Catastrophe happen'd to the Planet Venus and that she chang'd her colour form figure and magnitude This the Author says is a great Presumption that she suffer'd her Dissolution about the same time that our Earth did Now First the Author seems not to have quoted Austin's Passage right saying that the Planet Venus chang'd her colour form figure and magnitude Austin's words being ut mutaret colorem magnitudinem figuram cursum Secondly This Passage I conceive has been answer'd aptly enough long since by Ralegh tho no great Philosopher where he says It is not improbable that the Flood of Ogyges being so great as Histories have reported it was accompany'd with much alteration of the Air sensibly discover'd in those parts and some unusual face of the Skies Varro in his Book de gente Populi Romani as cited by St. Austin reports out of Castor that so great a Miracle happen'd in the Star of Venus as never was seen before nor in after times for the Colour the Greatness the Figure and the Course of it were chang'd This fell out as Adrastus Cyzicenus and Dion Neapolites famous Mathematicians affirm'd in the time of Ogyges Now Concerning the Course of that or any other Planet I do not remember that I have any where read of so good Astrologers flourishing among the Greeks or elsewhere in those days as were likely to make any Calculation of the Revolutions of the Planets so exact that it should need no Reformation Of the Colour and Magnitude I see no reason why the difference found in the Star of Venus should