mans eyes opened by a Rational way or by a Miracle So likewise at the Pool of Bethesda John 5. an Angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had Here we see the means express'd how they were cured yet without all doubt a miraculous means and far above the Reason of this Man and beyond his Philosophy to find out be it ever so great And so it is related by Moses himself when God caused the people to pass through the Red Sea Exod. 14. 21. Moses stretched out his hand over the Sea and the Lord caused the Sea to go back by a strong East-wind all that night and made the Sea dry Land and the waters were divided and the Children of Israel went into the middest of the Sea upon the dry ground and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left Here we see a means used Moses stretching out his hand over the Sea and the Sea went back by a strong East-wind all night So that the Sea was not dried up of a sudden but by degrees Now will this Man with his Philosophy shew us a Rational way how this was done without any Miracle most absurd And just so though Moses ascribes the Deluge to a means the breaking open the Fountains of the great Deep and the Windows of Heaven to be opened and the Rain to descend and the Fountains to run forty days and forty nights and so the Flood prevailed till it overflowed the whole World to say there was no Miracle at all in this is as absurd and especially in his way of his new-found World where were neither Seas Rains nor Tempests whatsoever till the Flood but a constant calm serene Air perpetually which must needs cause them to think such a Deluge miraculous indeed never having any such thing as Rain before and of a sudden to see Water poured down in such wonderful abundance for forty days together If we should see Fire descend from Heaven in like manner forty days together no Man would doubt to affirm it to be a Miracle not Intelligible And thus you see what wonderful unintelligible difficulties this Man hath raised out of his Philosophy in this matter of the Deluge which he so much stumbles at IX But because he is a Man so desirous that all should be done in a Rational way we will endeavour a little to make this Deluge Intelligible in his own way and shew him how we may find Water enough for it in the vast great Deep below which he says is fathomless and from the vaster Heaven above which I may call Boundless in comparison of the lesser body of Earth to overflow that little circumference though it be taken fifteen Cubits above the highest Mountain and so make up his eight Oceans which he says is requisite Gen. 1. We find that when God created the Heavens and the Earth the Waters covered the Earth and then God divided the Waters and placed some above the Firmament and left some remaining under it Where or how the Waters above the Firmament were placed the Scripture doth not mention and therefore I acknowledg my ignorance and I find very knowing persons have much disputed whether in his Atmosphere or in some higher place but I rest contented in believing it because the Word of God hath said it Yet if I may propose my thoughts I conceive they might be placed in some upper part of the Aerial Firmament and not carried up above the Heavens as some have fansied and there extended to a far wider circumference than they were in here below whilst they compassed the Earth for a great depth of Water here when carried up and enlarged to that mighty extent would make a far thinner Orb and as clear as Crystal all earthly parts being extracted and no way hinder but rather encrease the light of Sun Moon and Stars as we see glasses of like nature do If this Philosopher tell me that immediately above the Air lies the fiery Region an ill neighbour for the Water I shall make bold to ask him how he knows that Hath he ever been there to see it As for Philosophers talk I think it much like Physicians many guesses but no certainty of any thing But if he like not this place for the Waters let him find out another for I hope he will not deny Moses's plain words That the Waters were divided and part placed above the Firmament If this Philosopher ask me farther how the Water being a heavier body than the Air doth there subsist and not fall down again I shall ask him how the thickest and heaviest Clouds sometimes pass away without any falling Rain and sometimes thin and far lighter Clouds fall down in showers How at the Prayer of Eliah it rained not on the Earth by the space of three years and six months and he pray'd again and the Heaven gave rain James 5. 17. Will this Philosopher say this was done by the course of Nature and ordinary means I am sure S. James ascribes it to Eliah's Prayer which withheld the natural course of the Rains descending for presently when he prayed again the Heaven gave rain All Elements have no other station than what God hath appointed them We know the fire came down from above when God commanded and burnt Sodom and Gomorrha And we are likewise assured that God commanding the Waters ascended up on high and that the Firmament is betwixt those above and those below this the Scripture declares Wherefore the first Principle of my Philosophy is To believe the Scriptures and that God governs all things and that every Element keeps that station which God hath appointed until he determine otherwise But if this Theorist be unsatisfied with this kind of discourse as not agreeing with his Principles of Nature let him place the Waters above the Firmament where he will it matters not to me Yet if he allow the Scripture he must join with me and grant that God had a great reserve of Waters in some Storehouse above to make use of whensoever he pleased As for the Waters under the Firmament first they covered all the Earth after they were divided then God gathered them together unto one place and made the dry land appear and God called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the Waters called he Seas For the reception of which Waters he had prepared a Channel how deep or how great a part of the Earth is filled with them I suppose is beyond this Mans skill in Philosophy or Hydrography to determine yet so that they were not all contained in the depth of that Channel below the Earth but part within the Channel and part remaining yet higher than the Earth in a wonderful manner as David expresseth it Psalm 33. 7. He gathereth the waters of the Sea together as an heap He
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