seen his Book give so proper a Title unto it supposing that before it was published with this Preface he had not imparted it to any but some private Friend And if he would take my poor judgment in this matter I conceive he had done far better if he had published it under the Title of a Romance only for several Persons would then have read it as a pretty invention to pass away their idle time and perchance have taken much delight in it and I might have done the same my self But in reading his Book as soon as I found him to put a serious countenance on the business and that he would have us receive his vain Fopperies as Real Rational and Philosophical Truths I began to Stomach at them and farther when I found he had put the stamp and face of Scripture Truth upon such vain fancies I more and more detested them just as if I had seen a Camel or some such foreign Beast with a Mans Head and Face placed upon his Neck which I look'd upon as a hideous Monster and abhorred it whereas ifthe Camel had had his own proper Head I should have look'd upon it a while as a Novelty with pleasure considering the rare and extraordinary shape thereof This I confess hath much exasperated my mind against his Theory seeing him so strangely abuse and force the sacred Scriptures from their natural sense to make them carry some colour for his Fopperies Yet I must acknowledge there are some very serious and solid discourses in it here and there where he hath a good ground for them And he seems to be a Man of very good natural parts and to have studied and read very much So that considering all he hath put me to a great stand what to make of him and hath given me cause to suspect that he hath some very ill Principles contrary to the Religion we profess and hath cloaked them under his Theory to see how the World will first pass this and if well then to venture at something beyond it For it is impossible that a Man of his Parts and Reading should so mistake and misinterpret those places of Scripture which he brings to maintain his Theory And I think he gives me sufficient ground to affirm that either his Brain is crackt with over-love of his own Invention or his Heart is rotten with some evil design For I have heard of certain Men whose Brains have been disturbed with some one particular thing tho in all other matters very sober and Rational 'T is plain this Man hath taken a wonderful deal of pains for some years at least in perusing several Authors to find out what was in them to countenance his Theory which he so much adores in his Heart And that it might carry some colour of Religion also pretends to believe the Scriptures and so applies several parts of it to his Theory which have not the least ground for it Or else blinded and in some measure distracted with the Love of his own Invention fancies he sees in them much more than really there is as Children frighted with Hobgoblings fancy they see upon a Wall Figures of Devils with Horns and Feet and the like So Love which is said to be stronger than any other Passions may have the like effect and make him see that in Scripture which no Man else can perceive Sometimes he savours much of the Heathen Humour For you may observe he is very much taken and enlarges himself with great Delight when he speaks of their Golden Age Elysium Fields the Gardens of Hesperides the Youth of Greece sailing with Jason to gain the Golden Fleece their fabulous Fiction of a Chaos and all things produced by that Otherwhiles he seems to be a kind of Deist acknowledging God as the supream Origin of all But after his first Creation he takes all out of his hands and would have Nature only to act by a constant course in all things conteined in this sublunary World And what he understands by this Nature is hard to say For tho Page 289. he seems to give a tolerable Definition of it yet I pray you observe him Page 183. where he speaks of the several Animals in the World and saith It is below the Dignity of the Superiour Agent to act in their production and would have this to be the business of Nature as if this Nature were some distinct person subsisting and acting by it self and could do any thing of it self without the concurrence of the Supream Agent For if the Supream Agent doth concur then it is not below his Dignity to Act in their production But the Scripture saith A sparrow doth not fall from the house top without our heavenly father and so doubtless a Sparrow cannot arise from an Egg without our Heavenly Father particularly acting therein This savours very much of the Epicurean Opinion who thought it below the Dignity of the Godhead to trouble itself with the minute Affairs of this lower world But Believers know it is no trouble at all to God to act in infinite things more than in one Less trouble than it is to the Sun to shine upon every Grass in the Fields and every Sand of the Sea And therefore whatever this Man is whether a half or a whole and true Believer Yet he does so much magnifie Nature and her Actings in all this material World as he gives just cause of suspicion that he hath made her a kind of joynt Deess with God in the Affairs thereof Just as the Papists have made the Blessed Virgin to have a joynt Power with Christ in conferring Graces upon Men and so by degrees Men are come to that pass as to make Ten Prayers unto her for one they make unto God Yet if you ask the Papists whether the Blessed Virgin be a Goddess or a Creature they will answer a Creature but in their Actings make her a Goddess And so this Man gives a tolerable Definition of Nature but talks so much of her Actings that God is very near justled out of all And now who can chuse but admire to find not only shallow and giddy Persons but many serious knowing Men as I am very credibly informed who have the free use of the Scripture which teaches them so plainly the Creation and Deluge of the World yet receive and commend this Man's vain Inventions so contrary unto them which I hope to make evidently appear And I cannot attribute this to any thing else but to their being so intent on their worldly Affairs or Pleasures that they look very little at all into the Scriptures much less remember what is their contained It is a sad and lamentable condition of our depraved Nature that we are so apt to embrace any Errour more than Truth and that like Children we are so tossed to and fro with any wind of Doctrine and catch at Novelties ever so erroneous And I know not what can be proposed more erroneous and contrary to the
these Heavens nor this Earth can declare unto us the glory of God or his Handy-work for this present Earth is a strange mishapen thing full of broken Rocks and Mountains Hills and Valleys Lakes and Seas the ruines only of a former Earth which carried a smooth spherical form a beautiful and rich Soil delicately adorned with Fruitful Trees and pleasant Flowers without Seas or Lakes and in a word all over a very Paradise The Heavens also were then of a temperate Serene Air no Storms or Tempests no Scorching or Freezing Weather but pleasant Seasons throughout the year fit to breed and nourish all things which now clean contrary is filled with boistrous Winds Storms and Hurricanes Heats and Colds distempered and infectious Airs so that men are now cut off in the beginning or midst of their daies or if they fulfil the whole number of them it doth not amount to half a quarter of their former longevity This he undertakes to set forth to us in a Book entituled the Theory of the Earth Which I shall now examine and pass some brief Animadversions upon it III. The whole Discourse of this mans Theory ariseth from the great dissatisfaction he had in two things the first was concerning the common belief we have of the Deluge that the Earth was wholly overflowed and quite encompassed with so much Water all at once as to extend to the tops of the highest Mountains and fifteen Cubits over fo so we understand Moses's description of it This seems to him a thing not intelligible and consequently not credible as we shall see hereafter The second thing that troubles him is the mishapen form of our present Earth as he thinks not becoming the Omnipotent Power of God who Created all things and after every Work affirmed that it was good which no man can say of this imperfect World for it hath scarce any thing in it of form or order but lies like a confused Mass of Ruins But tho the Creation was the first thing in order yet in his Book he puts it in the second place and begins with the Deluge as most to his purpose shewing the impossibility of it according to his Scheme of Philosophy for by that we are to rule our thoughts and words in all things appertaining to the Natural World as he calls it But the plain truth is both these difficulties are but pretended to bring in his new devised fancy of making another World very different from that which Moses describes in the Creation This is his beloved Darling which he would gladly compel us to receive by shewing us first the impossibility of such a Deluge in this World as now it appears And from thence he introduces a World of his own framing and shews thereby his admirable Wit and Parts as he conceives in its composure which we shall see when we come to it At present we will follow his method and begin with the Deluge the common opinion whereof he rejects because it is not Intelligible IV. He lays down this Rule That in all things appertaining to this Natural World which consist of matter and form we must not allow of any thing that is not agreeable to the ordinary course of nature which he supposes may be conceived in a rational way As for example That two material bodies cannot penetrate the one into the other this is against the Principles of his Philosophy And therefore we ought not to allow that the Blessed Virgin continued a Virgin in bringing forth our Saviour into the World And that Accidents cannot subsist without a Subject to support them this also is unintelligible and therefore we allow not the Popish Transubstantiation So likewise we reject their Purgatory because it is unintelligible how the Soul separated from the Body being a pure Spiritual Substance can suffer by material Fire and suchlike their Tenets Yet we believe the first that the Blessed Virgin continued a Virgin in partu that is in bringing forth our Saviour as well as in conceiving him because we have a sufficient ground for this in Scripture both in the Prophet Isaiah and in the Gospel A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son Her Virginity is jointly affirmed both of her conceiving and bearing And therefore all the Christian Church have ever affirmed it and say according to the Creed called the Apostle's born of the Virgin Mary But we find no compelling Scripture to make us believe the Popish Tenets we mentioned If the Papists could shew us as plainly in Scripture their Transubstantiation as we can that the Virgin both conceived and bare a Son we should as readily believe the one as the other Wherefore our Rule of Belief is the Scripture and whatsoever is plainly declared there we presently submit unto whether the manner of it be intelligible or not intelligible whether it relate to the material World or the Spiritual World for I know no reason why we should make that distinction of Material and Spiritual if Gods Word plainly declares it for by reason we are more assured that Gods Word must be Truth than that any material thing can be or can not be so Who doth understand the union of Mans Material Body with his Spiritual part the Soul Where the faculties of the Soul are lodged his understanding Will and Memory and how they are distinguished How material accidents of the Body work upon the Soul and disorder sometimes the understanding sometimes the memory Nay in things wholly material How little doth man understand or can give a reason why a dry yellow Seed of Wheat should spring up in a green moist Blade and that grow into an Ear and become Wheat again Or who doth understand the various flowings and ebbings of the Sea These are things our very Senses tell us are so yet our Reason doth not at all understand how they came to be so Shall man then who understands not himself nor the mean works of God by his shallow weak Reason examine and determine the great and wonderful Works of God God forbid V. But this man perchance will say that he hath found out an explication of Scripture in this business of the Deluge which never was found before and such as may accord as well with Moses's relation as that we commonly receive To this I answer If his way of interpreting the Scripture be extravagant Romantick and ridiculous in it self not any thing becoming the gravity of Scripture and also put a sense extreamly forced and even contrary to the words as they have been understood by the whole World hitherto we have reason to reject it And now let any knowing serious Person not light and giddy Persons who are pleased with any novelty consider and weigh the Arguments he brings and the Answers herein contained and then let him judg of the whole matter wherein we will now proceed VI. His first Chapter is only by way of Introduction to bring in the rest And in his second Chapter he endeavours to shew us
brutish Reason nay more than brutish in comparison of the Divine Infinite Wisdom Wherefore S. Paul with great reason bids us Col. 2. 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. Not that true Reason or true Philosophy can spoil any man but vain and deceitful Reason and Philosophy such as the tradition or experiments of the World commonly make use of XII This pains I have taken to satisfie this over-inquisitive Man in the Works of God which he saith God hath given him Reason to employ in but yet to be done with Reason and Moderation which he doth not Having thus as I humbly conceive sufficiently declared where the quantity of Water may be found to make up such a Deluge as Moses mentions either wholly by Waters already created or if you please to take in the Divine Power of Multiplication which sure we may allow here as well as we believe it to be done in the Gospel-loaves then I am sure it is easie to find out Water for it And I think no sober man will deny in this Deluge a Miracle was wrought in the extraordinary manner of the Rains descending and the Fountains flowing let this Man deny what he pleases for some men cannot be confuted but by Club-reasons I desire him to remember what he saith Pag. 297. concerning Lucretius Though his suppositions be very precarious and his Reasonings all along very slight he will many times strut and triumph as if he had wrested the Thunder out of Joves right hand and a Mathematician is not more confident of his Demonstration than he seems to be of the truth of his shallow Philosophy Mutato nomine de te XIII We will now proceed to the manner of this Flood how Moses describes the beginning rise and increase of the Waters and likewise how he describes the decrease which I desire you to observe very well that when we come to compare it with this Mans invention and manner of it you may see how strangely he prevaricates from the Truth related by Moses Gen. 7. 11 c. where he saith The same day that Noah entred into the Ark were all the fountains of the great Deep broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights And ver 17. he saith The Flood was forty days upon the earth and the waters increased and bare up the Ark and it was lifted up above the earth and the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth and the Ark went upon the face of the waters and all the high hills that were under the whole Heaven were covered fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail and the Mountains were covered And then concludes the Chapter at ver 24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days Here you see how the Waters swelled first to that height as to reach to the place where the Ark stood and the Waters rose more and more till at length the Ark was lifted up above the Earth and as the Waters prevailed and covered all the Hills and Mountains under Heaven the Ark went upon the face of the Waters which continued in that manner a hundred and fifty days over the Earth Now can any sober rational man understand these words of Moses otherwise than that the Waters increased so far as at one time they covered the whole Earth not any particular part of it for Moses saith they prevailed upon the Earth in general as he had described it before Valleys and all Hills also So that the Ark moved upon the face of these Waters which thus continued many days And thus the whole Jewish Church and Christian Church in a word all Believers have understood these words of Moses in this very sense Had the words of Moses been any thing obscure and some men had raised doubts upon them he might have had some ground for his understanding them otherwise but the words of Moses being esteemed very plain in themselves and never any doubt raised upon them what other argument would this Man have to prove the sense of them unless he can prove all the World were such Dunces before him as they could not understand plain words Yet notwithstanding all this Gentleman hath the strange confidence to affirm Pag. 80. That without doubt it was a great oversight in the Antients to fansie the Deluge like a great standing Pool of Water reaching from the bottom of the Valleys to the top of the Mountains every where alike with a level and uniform Surface If it were so great an oversight in the Antients Why doth not he prove that oversight Doth he think any man takes his over-confident affirmation to be a proof All the World hitherto understanding them in this sense he should both have shewed and proved particularly wherein this mistake doth lie and set down the words of Moses which our Narration varies from without wresting or labouring to put on another sense than is evident for certainly no man would be so rash and heady as to contradict the whole World without a full and clear Demonstration Yet he neither offers a Demonstration nor any Argument to confute this Opinion but his over-great confidence so great as not to be parallel'd in any Writer that I ever heard of XIV Now let us go on to Moses in the description of the decrease of this Flood in the eighth Chapter where he saith God made a Wind to pass over the earth and the Waters asswaged the Fountains also of the Deep and the windows of Heaven were stopped and the rain from Heaven was restrained and the waters returned from off the earth continually After the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated and the Ark rested in the seventh month upon the Mountains of Ararat and in the first day of the tenth month were the tops of the Mountains seen Here you find how after the Waters had continued several months they sunk by degrees till the Mountain tops were seen and the Ark rested upon the Mount of Ararat Is it not evident also by this place that while the Ark moved upon the face of the Waters all the Mountains under Heaven were covered until the first day of the tenth month when the Mountain tops began to appear No other part of the Mountains was then discovered the standing Pool mentioned before covered all And after this ver 8. it is said Noah sent forth a Dove from him to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground but the Dove found no rest for the sole of her foot and she returned unto him into the Ark for the waters were upon the face of the whole Earth So that this Pool continued above forty days after the tenth month began Yet all this will not suffice to convince this Man of his Errour Notwithstanding all
should cease But he will say The Water coming out from thence might overflow all the Earth especially there being also great Rains at the same time To this I Answer according to his own Rule in his first Book Chap. 2. That all the Vapours in the upper Region condensed and become solid Water do not make up the hundredth part of what it was before To this he adds another Reason there an Experiment made by a Cubical Vessel set forth to receive the Rain in four and twenty hours the Waters received do not make up an inch and an half and then computes how much Water forty days rain would cause all which he concludes would amount to very little towards the Deluge for which he requires eight Oceans If this were so little as he would have it he must have all the rest from his Sea under the Earth But then he comes upon us with his Romantick flying Rivers as he expresseth it pag. 75. which like the great Dragon in the Apocalyps with their wonderful tails swept away a great part of Mankind Yet the greater part for ought I know might still remain and escape the Deluge For I would ask him how far these flying Rivers could reach We find when a mighty stone dashes into the Water the greatest part of the Water which is raised by it flies upward though some may rise obliquely on either side Let us now consider when two or three Mountains or half a dozen fall into his Gulf at once they might raise the Water oblikely a great way on either side I pray you how far Shall I yield unto him a hundred miles or five hundred miles sure I yield a great way yet this would come very far short of the Northern Poles And thus many men might have escaped the Deluge and been saved from it as well as Noah with his Ark. So that this Deluge would have been but a partial Deluge over a small part of the Earth a thing which he mightily argues against in the first Book of his Theory Chap. 3. for as I shewed before the Earth must needs break in those parts next the Torrid Zone several hundred years before the Northern And thus the greater part of his habitable World would have escaped the Deluge Again I pray you consider what Moses saith of the Flood and this Man urges also upon other occasions when it seems to serve his turn as when he argues against the Creation of new Waters for that would make a sudden rise of Water against which he urges the words of Moses who saith That the Flood increased by degrees till at length it lifted up the Ark above the Earth and carried it upon the face of the Waters and so decreased by degrees but now the case is altered and the Waters must dash up and turnble down on a sudden Is this increasing by degrees forty days or forty hours when the Water could not be four minutes in dashing up and so tumbling down again And thus he doth in several places of his Theory now Pro and then Con. XVII And now comes a thing very admirable He endeavours to screw out the ground of this Romantick Rupture from those few words of Moses The Fountains of the great Deep were broke open Mark you saith he Here Moses first speaks of breaking open From whence he concludes a great breach And of what The Fountains of the great Deep And this great Deep he supposes was all included within the Earth and had no Fountain at all issuing out for he allows no Fountains in his new Earth and therefore by Fountains you must conceive Moses doth not mean such flowing Fountains as we have but the breaking or cleaving the Earth asunder when the Water with the Vapours forced its way out But all this fansie of his is quite spoiled by himself he giving us a Rule and a true one Page 82. That Moses relating unto us the Deluge as an Historiographer ought to use common words and such as may express his meaning to the people to whom he delivered this relation Surely then the people who knew no other Fountains but such as usually we have flowing with Water must needs understand the like unto them and not such Fractions and breaches of the Earth as they never heard of before nor any man ever called Fountains Then he makes another Observation That Moses useth here the word great Abyss mentioned Gen. 1. 2. and not the common word for the Sea But I shall shew him that Moses doth call the same Abyss the Sea For Gen. 1. 9. those Waters which covered the Earth ver 2. were gathered together into one place and ver 10. God called those waters Seas And so we find that the Fountains of the great Deep and the Fountains of the Sea are both one and the same in the first Chapter of Genesis and therefore we in our Earth understand them so Moses calls them Fountains of the great Deep or Fountains of the Sea and by Fountains of the Sea we understand those that run from the Sea which were broken up whether Literally or Metaphoricaly as he pleases that is broken up and enlarged that they might flow in great abundance All this proves nothing to us nor to any man that hath not his head already filled with such a vain fansie as the rupture of the whole Earth But passing over all this let us now consider whether this be the Deluge that Moses meant XVIII He saith the Flood was forty days upon the Earth and the waters increased and bare up the Ark and it was lift up above the earth Here we have an increase of the Waters forty days by the flowing of the Fountains from the great Deep and the Windows of Heaven being opened both in the same day But in his description of the Flood he puts the Rain forty days before any breach of the Earth And when the Earth brake what became of the Ark Moses saith it was born up and lift above the Earth by the Waters prevailing but in his description the Earth must first break under the Ark and so the Ark necessarily must fall along with it into the Waters which were under the Earth And this he would have to be the same with lifting up above the Earth But poor Noah with his Sons and Daughters found it otherwise and surely were mightily amazed to find themselves so much deceived in God's Promise having taken so great pains to make an Ark to save them by swimming upon the Waters yet were now tumbled headlong down Ark and all into the Abyss A rare way of lifting up Then another great part of the Earth falling into the Abyss flounced the Waters up with a mighty force even unto the Heavens and made there as it were a flying River as his own words express it in the end of the sixth Chapter And so one piece of the Earth after another falling down into the Abyss there was such a commotion and tempest raised