the Chaos out of which they rise Look upon the World first as an Embryo world without form or shape and then consider how its Members were fashion'd how by degrees it was brought into that diversity of Parts and Regions which it consists of with all their furniture and with all their ornaments The Idea of all which was before hand according to David's expression written in the Divine Mind and we partake of that wisdom according to our capacity in seeing and admiring the methods of it These seem to be necessary preparatives or directions to those that would contemplate with profit Natural Providence and the great Works of God in the Visible Creation We consider'd Nature in the precedent Chapter abstractly and in her self and now we consider her under the Conduct of Providence which we therefore call Natural Providence And as we have endeavour'd to remove those false Notions and Suppositions that lay as Clouds upon her face so we must now endeavour to represent her in a better light and in a fuller beauty By Natural Providence therefore we understand The Form or Course of Universal Nature as actuated by the Divine Power with all the Changes Periods and Vicissitudes that attend it according to the method and establishment made at first by the Author of it I said of Universal Nature through all the Orders of Beings in the Intellectual World and all the Regions and Systems of Matter in the Corporeal For having prov'd in the foregoing Chapter that there is an Author of Nature a Being Infinitely Perfect by whose power and influence alone all finite Natures exist and act we have an assured ground to conclude that nothing can come to pass throughout the whole Creation without the prescience and permission of its Author and as it is necessary to suppose that there is an Idea in the Divine Understanding of all the mass of Beings produc'd or Created according to the several ranks and orders wherein they stand so there is also an Idea there according to which this great Frame moves and all the parts of it in beauty and harmony And these two things The Essences of all Beings and the Series of their Motions compose the MUNDANE IDEA as I may so call it or that great All-comprehensive Thought in the Divine Understanding which contains the System of Universal Providence and the state of all things past present or to come This glorious Idea is the express Image of the whole Creation of all the Works of God and the disposition of them here lie the mysteries of Providence as in their Original The successive Forms of all Nature and herein as in a Glass may be view'd all the Scenes of Time or Eternity This is an Abyss of Sacred Wisdom The inexhausted Treasure of all Science The Root of Truth and Fountain of Intellectual Light and in the clear and full contemplation of this is perfect happiness and a truly Beatifick Vision But what concerns the Intellectual World in this Idea and the Orders or Natures that compose it is not our present business to pursue We are to speak of the Corporeal Universe whereof we will make now a short and general Survey as it lies under Providence The Corporeal Universe how immense soever it be and divided into innumerable Regions may be consider'd all as one System made up of several subordinate Systems And there is also one immense design of Providence co-extended with it that contains all the fate and all the revolutions of this great Mass. This I say is made up of several subordinate Systems involving one another and comprehending one another in greater and greater Orbs and Compositions and the Aggregate of all these is that which we call the Universe But what the form of these Compositions is and what the Design of Providence that runs thorough them all and comprehends them all this is unsearchable not only to Humane Understanding but even to Angels and Archangels Wherefore leaving those greater Systems and Compositions of the Universe as matter of our admiration rather than of our knowledge There are two or three kinds of lesser Systems that are visible to us and bring us nearer to our subject and nearer home That of a Fixt Star single That of a Fixt Star with its Planets and That of a single Planet Primary or Secondary These three Systems we see and enjoy more or less No doubt there are Fixt Stars single or that have no Planets about them as our Sun hath nay 't is probable that at first the whole Universe consisted only of such Globes of liquid Fire with Spheres about them of pure Light and Aether Earths are but the dirt and skum of the Creation and all things were pure as they came at first out of the hands of God But because we have nothing particular taught us either by the light of Nature or Revelation concerning the Providence that governs these single Stars of what use they are to Intellectual Beings how animated by them what diversity there is amongst those Aethereal Worlds what Periods they have what Changes or Vicissitudes they are capable to undergo because such Inquiries would seem too remote and carry us too far from our subject we leave these Heavenly Systems to the enjoyment and contemplation of higher and more noble Creatures The Sun with all the Planets that move about him and depend upon him make a good sort of System not considerable indeed if compar'd with the whole Universe or some of the greater Compositions in it but in respect of us the System of the Sun is of vast extent We cannot measure the greatness of his Kingdom and his Dominion is without end The distance from the highest Planet to the nearest Fixt Star in the Firmament is unmeasurable and all this belongs to the Empire of the Sun besides the several Planets and their Orbs which cast themselves closer about his Body that they may receive a warmer and stronger influence from him for by him they may be said to live and move But those vast spaces that lie beyond these Opake Bodies are Regions of perpetual light One Planet may Eclipse the Sun to another and one Hemisphere of a Planet to the other Hemisphere makes night and darkness but nothing can Eclipse the Sun or intercept the course of his light to these remote Aethereal Regions They are always luminous and always pure and serene And if the worst and Planetary parts of his Dominions be replenisht with Inhabitants we cannot suppose the better to lie as Desarts uninjoy'd and uninhabited his Subjects then must be numerous as well as his Dominions large and in both respects this System of a Fixt Star with its Planets of which kind we may imagine innumerable in the Universe besides this of the Sun which is near and visible to us is of a noble Character and Order being the habitation of Angels and glorified Spirits as well as of Mortal Men. A Planetary System is the last and lowest
and of these no doubt there is great variety and great differences not only of Primary and Secondary or of the principal Planet and its Moons or Attendants but also amongst Planets of the same rank for they may differ both in their original constitution and according to the from and state they are under at present of which sort of differences we have noted some amongst our Planets though they seem to be all of much-what the same original constitution Besides according to external circumstances their distance manner of motion and posture to the Sun which is the Heart of the whole System they become different in many things And we may observe that those leading differences though they seem little draw after them innumerable others and so make a distinct face of Nature and a distinct World which still shows the riches and fecundity of Divine Providence and gives new matter of contemplation to those that take pleasure in studying the works and ways of God But leaving all other Planets or Planetary Systems to our meditations only we must particularly consider our own Having therefore made this general Survey of the great Universe run thorough the boundless Regions of it and with much ado found our way home to that little Planet where our concerns lie This Earth or Sublunary World we must rest here as at the end of our course And having undertaken to give the general Theory of this Earth to conclude the present Treatise we 'll reflect upon the whole work and observe what progress we have hitherto made in this Theory and what remains to be treated of hereafter This Earth though it be a small part or particle of the Universe hath a distinct System of Providence belonging to it or an Order establisht by the Author of Nature for all its Phaenomena Natural or Moral throughout the whole Period of its duration and every interval of it for as there is nothing so great as to be above the Divine care so neither is there any thing so little as to be below it All the Changes of our World are fixt How or how often to be destroy'd and how renew'd What different faces of Nature and what of Mankind in every part of its Course What new Scenes to adorn the Stage and what new parts to be acted What the Entrance and what the Consummation of all Neither is there any sort of knowledge more proper or of more importance to us that are the Inhabitants of this Earth than to understand this its Natural and Sacred History as I may so call it both as to what is past and what is to come And as those greater Volumes and Compositions of the Universe are proportion'd to the understanding of Angels and Superiour Beings so these little Systems are Compendium's of the Divine Wisdom more fitted to our capacity and comprehension The Providence of the Earth as of all other Systems consists of two parts Natural and Sacred or Theological I call that Sacred or Theological that respects Religion and the dispensations of it the government of the Rational World or of Mankind whether under the Light of Nature only or of a Revelation the method and terms of their happiness and unhappiness in a Future Life The State Oeconomy and Conduct of this with all the Mysteries contain'd in it we call Theological Providence in the head whereof stands the Soul of the Blessed Messiah who is Lord of both Worlds Intellectual and Material When we call the other part of Providence Natural we use that word in a restrain'd sence as respecting only the Material World and accordingly this part of Providence others and superintends the state of the Earth the great Vicissitudes and Mutations of it for we must not imagine but that these are under the Eye of Providence as well as Humane Affairs or any revolutions of States and Empires Now seeing both in the Intellectual and Corporeal World there are certain Periods Fulnesses of Time and fixt Seasons either for some great Catastrophe or some great Instauration 'T is Providence that makes a due harmony or Synchronism betwixt these two and measures out the concurrent fates of both Worlds so as Nature may be always a faithful minister of the Divine Pleasure whether for rewards or punishments according as the state of Mankind may require But Theological Providence not being the subject of this work we shall only observe as we said before what account we have hitherto given of the Natural state of the Earth and what remains to be handled in another Treatise and so conclude I did not think it necessary to carry the story and original of the Earth higher than the Chaos as Zoroaster and Orpheus seem to have done but taking that for our Foundation which Antiquity Sacred and Profane doth suppose and Natural Reason approve and confirm we have form'd the Earth from it But when we say the Earth rise from a Fluid Mass it is not to be so crudely understood as if a rock of Marble suppose was fluid immediately before it became Marble no Things had a gradual progression from one form to another and came at length to those more permanent forms they are now setled in Stone was once Earth and Earth was once Mud and Mud was once sluid And so other things may have another kind of progression from fluidity but all was once fluid at least all the exteriour Regions of this Earth And even those Stones and Rocks of Marble which we speak of seem to confess they were once soft or liquid by those mixtures we find in them of Heterogeneous Bodies and those spots and Veins disperst thorough their substance for these things could not happen to them after they were hard and impenetrable in the form of Stone or Marble And if we can soften Rocks and Stones and run them down into their first Liquors as these observations seem to do we may easily believe that other Bodies also that compose the Earth were once in a Fluid Mass which is that we call a Chaos We therefore watch'd the motions of that Chaos and the several transformations of it while it continued Fluid and we found at length what its first Concretion would be and how it setled into the form of an habitable Earth But that form was very different from the present form of the Earth which is not immediately deducible from a Chaos by any known Laws of Nature or by any Wit of Man as every one that will have patience to examine it may easily be satisfied That First Earth was of a smooth regular surface as the Concretions of Liquors are before they are disturb'd or broken under that surface lay the Great Abyss which was ready to swallow up the World that hung over it and about it whensoever God should give the command and the Vault should break and this constitution of the Primaeval Earth gave occasion to the first Catastrophe of this World when it perisht in a Deluge of Water For
ignorant Heathens that scarce ever heard of God or the Gospel that are threaten'd with this fiery vengeance No 't is the Heathens that live amongst Christians those that are Infidels as to the existence of God or the truth of Christian Religion tho' they have had a full manifestation of both These are properly the Adversaries of God and Christ. And such adversaries St. Paul says in another place A fearful judgment and fiery indignation shall devour which still refers to the same time and the same Persons we are speaking of Then as to the third sort of Men Antichrist and his Followers besides this Text of St. Paul to the Thessalonians 't is plain to me in the Apocalypse that Mystical Babylon is to be consum'd by fire and the Beast and False Prophet to be thrown into the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone Which Lake is no where to be found till the Conflagration You see then for whom Tophet is prepar'd of old For Atheists isfidels and Antichristian Persecutors And they will have for their Companions the Devil and his Angels the heads of the Apostasie These are all in open rebellion against God and Christ and at defiance as it were with Heaven Excepting Antichrist who is rather in a secret conspiracy than an open rebellion For under a pretended Commission from Jesus Christ He persecutes his Servants dishonours his Person corrupts his Laws and his Government and makes War against his Saints And this is a greater affront and provocation if possible than a bare fac'd opposition would be There are other Men besides these that are unacceptable to God All sorts of sinners and wicked persons but they are not so properly the Enemies of God as these we have mention'd An intemperate Man is an Enemy to himself and an injust Man is an Enemy to his Neighbour But those that deny God or Christ or persecute their Servants are directly and immediately Enemies to God And therefore when the Lord comes in flames of fire to triumph over his Enemies To take vengeance upon all that are Rebels or Conspirators against him and his Christ these Monsters of Men will be the first and most exemplary Objects of the divine wrath and indignation To under take to speak to these three Orders of men and convince them of their errour and the danger of it would be too much for the Conclusion of a short Treatise And as for the third sort the Subjects of Antichrist none but the Learned amongst them are allow'd to be inqulsitive or to read such things as condemn their Church or the Governours of it Therefore I do not expect that this English Translation should fall into many of their hands But those of them that are pleas'd to look into the Latin will find in the Conclusion of it a full and fair warning to come out of Babylon which is there prov'd to be the Church of Rome Then as to those that are Atheistically inclin'd which I am willing to believe are not many I desire them to consider How mean a thing it is to have hopes only in this Life and how uneasie a thing to have nothing but fears as to the Future Those sure must be little narrow Souls that can make themselves a portion and a sufficiency out of what they enjoy here That think of no more that desire no more For what is this life but a circulation of little mean actions We lie down and rise again dress and undress feed and wax hungry work or play and are weary and then we lie down again and the circle returns We spend the day in trifles and when the Night comes we throw our selves into the Bed of folly amongst dreams and broken thoughts and wild imaginations Our reason lies asleep by us and we are for the time as arrant Brutes as those that sleep in the Stalls or in the Field Are not the Capacities of Man higher than these and ought not his ambition and expectations to be greater Let us be Adventurers for another World 'T is at least a fair and noble Chance and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions If we should be disappointed we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow mortals and if we succeed in our expectations we are eternally happy For my part I cannot be perswaded that any man of Atheistical inclinations can have a great and generous Soul For there is nothing great in the World if you take God out of it Therefore such a person can have no great thought can have no great aims or expectations or designs for all must lie within the compass of this Life and of this dull Body Neither can he have any great instincts or noble passions For if he had they would naturally excite in him greater Idea inspire him with higher notions and open the Scenes of the Intellectual World Lastly He cannot have any great sefice of Order Wisdom Goodness Providence or any of the Divine Perfections And these are the greatest things that can enter into the thoughts of man and that do most enlarge and ennoble his mind And therefore I say again That He that is naturally inclined to Atheism being also naturally destitute of all these must have a little and narrow soul. But you 'l say it may be This is to expostulate rather than to prove or to upbraid us with our make and temper rather than to convince us of an error in speculation 'T is an error it may be in practice or in point of prudence but we seek Truth whether it make for us or against us convince us therefore by just reasoning and direct arguments That there is a God and then wee 'l endeavour to correct these defects in our natural complexion You say well and therefore I have endeavour'd to do this before in another part of this Theory in the Second Book ch 11. Concerning the Author of Nature where you may see that the Powers of Nature or of the Material World cannot answer all the Phanomena of the Universe which are there represented This you may consult at leisure But in the mean time 't is a good perswasive why we should not easily give our selves up to such inclinations or opinions as have neither generosity nor prudence on their side And it cannot be amiss that these persons should often take into their thoughts this last scene of things The Conflagration of the World Seeing if there be a God they will certainly be found in the number of his Enemies and of those that will have their portion in the Lake that burns with Fire and Brimstone The Third sort of persons that we are to speak to are the Incredulous or such as do not believe the truth of Christian Religion tho' they believe there is a God These are commonly men of Wit and Pleasure that have not patience enough to consider coolely and in due order the grounds upon which it appears that Christian Religion is from
likewise in the Philosophy and Learning of the Ancients there are several remains and indications of this Internal form and composition of it For 't is observable that the Ancients in treating of the Chaos and in raising the World out of it rang'd it into several Regions or Masses as we have done and in that order successively rising one from another as if it was a Pedigree or Genealogy And those Parts and Regions of Nature into which the Chaos was by degrees divided they signified commonly by dark and obscure names as the Night Tartarus Oceanus and such like which we have express'd in their plain and proper terms And whereas the Chaos when it was first set on work ran all into divisions and separations of one Element from another which afterwards were all in some measure united and associated in this primigenial Earth the Ancients accordingly made Contention the principle that reign'd in the Chaos at first and then Love The one to express the divisions and the other the union of all parties in this middle and common bond These and such like notions which we find in the Writings of the Ancients figuratively and darkly deliver'd receive a clearer light when compar'd with this Theory of the Chaos which representing every thing plainly and in its natural colours is a Key to their thoughts and an illustration of their obscurer Philosophy concerning the Original of the World as we have shewn at large in the Latin Treatise Fig 7. pag. 44. Thus much concerning the first Earth its production and form and concerning our Second Proposition relating to it Which being prov'd by Reason the laws of Nature and the motions of the Chaos then attested by Antiquity both as to the matter and form of it and confirm'd by Sacred Writers we may take it now for a well establisht truth and proceed upon this supposition That the Ante-diluvian Earth was smooth and uniform without Mountains or Sea to the explication of the universal Deluge Give me leave only before we proceed any further to annex here a short Advertisement concerning the Causes of this wonderful structure of the first Earth 'T is true we have propos'd the Natural Causes of it and I do not know wherein our Explication is false or defective but in things of this kind we may easily be too credulous And this structure is so marvellous that it ought rather to be consider'd as a particular effect of the Divine Art than as the work of Nature The whole Globe of the Water vaulted over and the exteriour Earth hanging above the Deep sustain'd by nothing but its own measures and manner of construction A Building without foundation or corner-stone This seems to be a piece of Divine Geometry or Architecture and to this I think is to be refer'd that magnificent challenge which God Almighty made to Iob Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth declare if thou hast understanding Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest or who hath stretched the line upon it Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastned or who laid the corner-stone thereof When the morning Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy Moses also when he had describ'd the Chaos saith The Spirit of God mov'd upon or sat brooding upon the face of the waters without all doubt to produce some effects there And S. Peter when he speaks of the form of the Ante-diluvian Earth how it stood in reference to the Waters adds By the Word of God or by the Wisdom of God it was made so And this same Wisdom of God in the Proverbs as we observed before takes notice of this very piece of work in the formation of the Earth When he set an Orb over the face of the Deep I was there And lastly the Ancient Philosophers or at least the best of them to give them their due always brought in Mens or Amor as a Supernatural principle to unite and consociate the parts of the Chaos which was first done in the composition of this wonderful Arch of the Earth Wherefore to the great Architect who made the boundless Universe out of nothing and form'd the Earth out of a Chaos let the praise of the Whole Work and particularly of this Master-piece for ever with all honour be given CHAP. VI. The dissolution of the First Earth The Deluge ensuing thereupon And the form of the present Earth rising from the Ruines of the First WE have now brought to light the Ante-diluvian Earth out of the dark mass of the Chaos and not only described the surface of it but laid open the inward parts to shew in what order its Regions lay Let us now close it up and represent the Earth entire and in large proportions more like an habitable World as in this Figure where you see the smooth convex of the Earth and may imagine the great Abysse spread under it which two are to be the only subject of our further contemplation Booke j st p. 46. In this smooth Earth were the first Scenes of the World and the first Generations of Mankind it had the beauty of Youth and blooming Nature fresh and fruitful and not a wrinkle scar or fracture in all its body no Rocks nor Mountains no hollow Caves nor gaping Chanels but even and uniform all over And the smoothness of the Earth made the face of the Heavens so too the Air was calm and serene none of those tumultuary motions and conflicts of vapours which the Mountains and the Winds cause in ours 'T was suited to a golden Age and to the first innocency of Nature All this you 'll say is well we are got into a pleasant World indeed but what 's this to the purpose what appearance of a Deluge here where there is not so much as a Sea nor half so much Water as we have in this Earth or what appearance of Mountains or Caverns or other irregularities of the Earth where all is level and united So that instead of loosing the Knot this ties it the harder You pretend to shew us how the Deluge was made and you lock up all the Waters within the womb of the Earth and set Bars and Doors and a Wall of impenetrable strength and thickness to keep them there And you pretend to shew us the original of Rocks and Mountains and Caverns of the Earth and bring us to a wide and endless plain smooth as the calm Sea This is all true and yet we are not so far from the sight and discovery of those things as you imagine draw but the curtain and these Scenes will appear or something very like them We must remember that S. Peter told us that the Ante-diluvian Earth perish'd or was demolish'd and Moses saith the great Abysse was broken open at the Deluge Let us then suppose that at a time appointed by Divine Providence and from Causes made ready to do that great execution upon a sinful
an intention to express the very truth So for instance if there was one place of Scripture that said the Earth was mov'd and several that seem'd to imply that the Sun was mov'd we should have more regard to that one place for the motion of the Earth than to all the other that made against it because those others might be spoken and understood according to common opinion and common belief but that which affirm'd the motion of the Earth could not be spoke upon any other ground but only for truth and instruction sake I leave this to be appli'd to the present subject Thus much for the Sacred Writings As to the History of the ancient Heathens we cannot expect an account or Narration of Noah's Flood under that name and notion but it may be of use to observe two things out of that History First that the Inundations recorded there came generally to pass in the manner we have describ'd the Universal Deluge namely by Earthquakes and an eruption of Subterraneous waters the Earth being broken and falling in and of this we shall else-where give a full account out of their Authors Secondly that Deucalion's Deluge in particular which is suppos'd by most of the Ancient Fathers to represent Noah's Flood is said to have been accompained with a gaping or disruption of the Earth Apollodorus saith that the Mountains of Thessaly were divided asunder or separate one from another at that time And Lucian de deâ Syriâ tells a very remarkable story to this purpose concerning Deucalion's Deluge and a ceremony observ'd in the Temple of Hieropolis in commemoration of it which ceremony seems to have been of that nature as impli'd that there was an opening of the Earth at the time of the Deluge and that the waters subsided into that again when the Deluge ceas'd He saith that this Temple at Hieropolis was built upon a kind of Abysse or had a bottomless pit or gaping of the Earth in one part of it and the people of Arabia and Syria and the Countries the eabouts twice a year repair'd to this Temple and brought with them every one a vessel of water which they pour'd out upon the floor of the Temple and made a kind of an Inundation there in memory of Deucalion's Deluge and this water sunk by degrees into a Chasm or opening of a Rock which the Temple stood upon and so left the floor dry again And this was a rite solemnly and religiously perform'd both by the Priests and by the People If Moses had left such a Religious rite among the Iews I should not have doubted to have interpreted it concerning his Abysse and the retiring of the waters into it but the actual disruption of the Abysse could not well be represented by any ceremony And thus much concerning the present question and the true application of our Theory to Noah's Flood CHAP. VIII The particular History of Noah's Flood is explain'd in all the material parts and circumstances of it according to the preceding Theory Any seeming difficulties removed and the whole Section concluded with a Discourse how far the Deluge may be lookt upon as the effect of an ordinary Providence and how far of an extraordinary WE have now proved our Explication of the Deluge to be more than an Idea or to be a true piece of Natural History and it may be the greatest and most remarkable that hath yet been since the beginning of the World We have shown it to be the real account of Noah's Flood according to Authority both Divine and Humane and I would willingly proceed one step further and declare my thoughts concerning the manner and order wherein Noah's Flood came to pass in what method all those things happen'd and succeeded one another that make up the History of it as causes or effects or other parts or circumstances As how the Ark was born upon the waters what effect the Rains had at what time the Earth broke and the Abysse was open'd and what the condition of the Earth was upon the ending of the Flood and such like But I desire to propose my thoughts concerning these things only as conjectures which I will ground as near as I can upon Scripture and Reason and am very willing they should be rectifi'd where they happen to be amiss I know how subject we are to mistakes in these great and remote things when we descend to particulars but I am willing to expose the Theory to a full trial and to shew the way for any to examine it provided they do it with equity and sincerity I have no other design than to contribute my endeavours to find out the truth in a subject of so great importance and wherein the World hath hitherto had so little satisfaction And he that in an obscure argument proposeth an Hypothesis that reacheth from end to end though it be not exact in every particular 't is not without a good effect for it gives aim to others to take their measures better and opens their invention in a matter which otherwise it may be would have been impenetrable to them As he that makes the first way through a thick Forest though it be not the streightest and shortest deserves better and hath done more than he that makes it streighter and smoother afterwards Providence that ruleth all things and all Ages after the Earth had stood above sixteen hundred Years thought fit to put a period to that World and accordingly it was reveal'd to Noah that for the wickedness and degeneracy of men God would destroy mankind with the Earth Gen. 6. 13. in a Deluge of water whereupon he was commanded in order to the preserving of Himself and Family as a stock for the new World to build a great Vessel or Ark to float upon the waters and had instructions given him for the building of it both as to the matter and as to the form Noah believed the word of God though against his senses and all external appearances and set himself to work to build an Ark according to the directions given which after many years labour was finish'd whilst the incredulous World secure enough as they thought against a Deluge continu'd still in their excesses and insolencies and laught at the admonition of Noah and at the folly of his design of building an extravagant Machine a floating house to save himself from an imaginary Inundation for they thought it no less seeing it was to be in an Earth where there was no Sea nor any Rain neither in those parts according to the ordinary course of Nature as shall be shown in the second Book of this Treatise But when the appointed time was come the Heavens began to melt and the Rains to fall and these were the first surprizing causes and preparatives to the Deluge They fell we suppose tho we do not know how that could proceed from natural causes throughout the face of the whole Earth which could not but have a considerable effect on
which proceeded from their opening For as Moses had ascrib'd the Deluge to the opening of these two so when it was to cease he saith these two were shut up as they were really put into such a condition both of them that they could not continue the Deluge any longer nor over be the occasion of a second and therefore in that sence and as to that effect were for ever shut up Some may possibly make that also an Objection against us that Moses mentions and supposes the Mountains at the Deluge for he saith the waters reached fifteen Cubits above the tops of them whereas we suppose the Ante-diluvian Earth to have had a plain and uniform surface without any inequality of Hills and Valleys But this is easily answer'd 't was in the height of the Deluge that Moses mention'd the Mountains and we suppose them to have risen then or more towards the beginning of it when the Earth was broke and these Mountains continuing still upon the face of the Earth Moses might very well take them for a standard to measure and express to Posterity the height of the waters though they were not upon the Earth when the Deluge begun Neither is there any mention made as is observ'd by some of Mountains in Scripture or of Rain till the time of the Deluge We have now finisht our account of Noah's Flood both generally and particularly and I have not wittingly omitted or conceal'd any difficulty that occur'd to me either from the History or from abstract reason Our Theory so far as I know hath the consent and authority of both And how far it agrees and is demonstrable from natural observation or from the form and Phaenomena of this Earth as it lies at present shall be the subject of the remaining part of this First Book In the mean time I do not know any thing more to be added in this part unless it be to conclude with an Advertisement to prevent any mistake or misconstruction as if this Theory by explaining the Deluge in a natural way in a great measure or by natural causes did detract from the power of God by which that great judgment was brought upon the World in a Providential and miraculous manner To satisfie all reasonable and intelligent persons in this particular I answer and declare first That we are far from excluding Divine Providence either ordinary or extraordinary from the causes and conduct of the Deluge I know a Sparrow doth not fall to the ground without the will of our Heavenly Father much less doth the great World fall in pieces without his good pleasure and superintendency In him all things live move and have their being Things that have Life and Thought have it from him he is the Fountain of both Things that have motion only without Thought have it also from him And what hath only naked Being without Thought or Motion owe still that Being to him And these are not only deriv'd from God at first but every moment continued and conserv'd by him So intimate and universal is the dependance of all things upon the Divine Will and Power In the second place they are guilty in my Judgment of a great Error or indiscretion that oppose the course of Nature to Providence St. Paul says Act. 14. 17. God hath not left us without witness in that he gives us Rain from Heaven yet Rains proceed from natural causes and fall upon the Sea as well as upon the Land In like manner our Saviour makes those things instances of Divine Providence which yet come to pass in an ordinary course of Nature In that part of his excellent Sermon upon the Mount that concerns Providence He bids them Consider the Lilies how they grow they toil not neither do they spin and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these He bids them also consider the Ravens they neither sow nor reap neither have they Store-house nor Barn and God feedeth them The Lilies grow and the Ravens are fed according to the ordinary course of Nature and yet they are justly made arguments of Providence by our Saviour nor are these things less Providential because constant and regular on the contrary such a disposition or establishment of second causes as will in the best order and for a long succession produce the most regular effects assisted only with the ordinary concourse of the first cause is a greater argument of wisdom and contrivance than such a disposition of causes as will not in so good an order or for so long a time produce regular effects without an extraordinary concourse and interposition of the First cause This I think is clear to every man's judgment We think him a better Artist that makes a Clock that strikes regularly at every hour from the Springs and Wheels which he puts in the work than he that hath so made his Clock that he must put his finger to it every hour to make it strike And if one should contrive a piece of Clock-work so that it should beat all the hours and make all its motions regularly for such a time and that time being come upon a signal given or a Spring toucht it should of its own accord fall all to pieces would not this be look'd upon as a piece of greater Art than if the Workman came at that time prefixt and with a great Hammer beat it into pieces I use these comparisons to convince us that it is no detraction from Divine Providence that the course of Nature is exact and regular and that even in its greatest changes and revolutions it should still conspire and be prepar'd to answer the ends and purposes of the Divine Will in reference to the Moral World This seems to me to â—e the great Art of Divine Providence so to adjust the two Worlds Humane and Natural Material and Intellectual as seeing thorough the possibilities and futuritions of each according to the first state and circumstances he puts them under they should all along correspond and fit one another and especially in their great Crises and Periods Thirdly Besides the ordinary Providence of God in the ordinary course of Nature there is doubtless an extraordinary Providence that doth attend the greater Scenes and the greater revolutions of Nature This methinks besides all other proof from the Effects is very rational and necessary in it self for it would be a limitation of the Divine Power and Will so to be bound up to second causes as never to use upon occasion an extraordinary influence or direction And 't is manifest taking any Systeme of Natural causes if the best possible that there may be more and greater things done if to this upon certain occasions you joyn an extraordinary conduct And as we have taken notice before that there was an extraordinary Providence in the formation or composition of the first Earth so I believe there was also in the dissolution of it And I think it had been
impossible for the Ark to have liv'd upon the raging Abyss or for Noah and his Family to have been preserv'd if there had not been a miraculous hand of Providence to take care of them But 't is hard to separate and distinguish an ordinary and extraordinary Providence in all cases and to mark just how far one goes and where the other begins And writing a Theory of the Deluge here as we do we were to exhibit a Series of causes whereby it might be made intelligible or to shew the proximate Natural Causes of it wherein we follow the example both of Moses and S. Peter and with the same veneration of the Divine Power and Wisdom in the government of Nature by a constant ordinary Providence and an occasional extraordinary So much for the Theory of the Deluge and the second Section of this Discourse CHAP. IX The Second Part of this Discourse proving the same Theory from the Effects and present form of the Earth First by a general Scheme of what is most remarkable in this Globe and then by a more particular Induction beginning with an Account of Subterraneous Cavities and Subterraneous Waters WE have now finisht our explication of the Universal Deluge and given an account not only of the possibility of it but so far as our knowledge can reach of its Causes and of that form and structure of the Earth whereby the Old World was subject to that sort of Fate We have not beg'd any Principles or Suppositions for the proof of this but taking that common ground which both Moses and all Antiquity presents to us viz. That this Earth rose from a Chaos We have from that deduc'd by an easie train of consequences what the first Form of it would be and from that Form as from a nearer ground we have by a second train of consequences made it appear that at some time or other that first Earth would be subject to a dissolution and by that dissolution to a Deluge And thus far we have proceeded only by the intuition of Causes as is most proper to a Theory but for the satisfaction of those that require more sensible arguments and to compleat our proofs on either hand we will now argue from the Effects and from the present state of Nature and the present form of the Earth prove that it hath been broken and undergone such a dissolution as we have already describ'd and made the immediate occasion of the Deluge And that we may do this more perspicuously and distinctly we will lay down this Proposition to be prov'd viz. That the present form and structure of the Earth both as to the surface and as to the Interiour parts of it so far as they are known and accessible to us doth exactly answer to our Theory concerning the form and dissolution of the first Earth and cannot be explain'd upon any other Hypothesis yet known Oratours and Philosophers treat Nature after a very different manner Those represent her with all her graces and ornaments and if there be any thing that is not capable of that they dissemble it or pass it over slightly But Philosophers view Nature with a more impartial eye and without favour or prejudice give a just and free account how they find all the parts of the Universe some more some less perfect And as to this Earth in particular if I was to describe it as an Oratour I would suppose it a beautiful and regular Globe and not only so but that the whole Universe was made for its sake that it was the darling and favourite of Heaven that the Sun shin'd only to give it light to ripen its Fruit and make fresh its Flowers and that the great Concave of the Firmament and all the Stars in their several Orbs were design'd only for a spangled Cabinet to keep this Jewel in This Idea I would give of it as an Oratour But a Philosopher that overheard me would either think me in jest or very injudicious if I took the Earth for a body so regular in it self or so considerable if compar'd with the rest of the Universe This he would say is to make the great World like one of the Heathen Temples a beautiful and magnificent structure and of the richest materials yet built only for a little brute Idol a Dog or a Crocodile or some deformed Creature plac'd in a corner of it We must therefore be impartial where the Truth requires it and describe the Earth as it is really in it self and though it be handsome and regular enough to the eye in certain parts of it single tracts and single Regions yet if we consider the whole surface of it or the whole Exteriour Region 't is as a broken and confus'd heap of bodies plac'd in no order to one another nor with any correspondency or regularity of parts And such a body as the Moon appears to us when 't is look'd upon with a good Glass rude and ragged as it is also represented in the modern Maps of the Moon such a thing would the Earth appear if it was seen from the Moon They are both in my judgment the image or picture of a great Ruine and have the true aspect of a World lying in its rubbish Our Earth is first divided into Sea and Land without any regularity in the portions either of the one or the other In the Sea lie the Islands scatter'd like limbs torn from the rest of the body great Rocks stand rear'd up in the waters The Promontories and Capes shoot into the Sea and the Sinus's and Creeks on the other hand run as much into the Land and these without any order or uniformity Upon the other part of our Globe stand great heaps of Earth or stone which we call Mountains and if these were all plac'd together they would take up a very considerable part of the dry Land In the rest of it are lesser Hills Valleys Plains Lakes and Marishes Sands and Desarts c. and these also without any regular disposition Then the inside of the Earth or inward parts of it are generally broken or hollow especially about the Mountains and high Lands as also towards the shores of the Sea and among the Rocks How many Holes and Caverns and strange Subterraneous passages do we see in many Countries and how many more may we easily imagine that are unknown and unaccessible to us This is the pourtraicture of our Earth drawn without flattery and as oddly as it looks it will not be at all surprising to one that hath consider'd the foregoing Theory For 't is manifest enough that upon the dissolution of the first Earth and its fall into the Abyss this very face and posture of things which we have now describ'd or something extremely like it would immediately result The Sea would be open'd and the face of the Globe would be divided into Land and Water And according as the fragments fell some would make Islands or Rocks in the Sea others would
the Waters But thus much for the Subterraneous communication of Seas and Lakes And thus much in general concerning Subterraneous Cavities and concerning the hollow and broken frame of the Earth If I had now Magick enough to show you at one view all the inside of the Earth which we have imperfectly describ'd if we could go under the roots of the Mountains and into the sides of the broken rocks or could dive into the Earth with one of those Rivers that sink under ground and follow its course and all its windings till it rise again or led us to the Sea we should have a much stronger and more effectual Idea of the broken form of the Earth than any we can excite by these faint descriptions collected from Reason The Ancients I remember us'd to represent these hollow Caves and Subterraneous Regions in the nature of a World under-ground and suppos'd it inhabited by the Nymphs especially the Nymphs of the waters and the Sea-Goddesses so Orpheus sung of old and in imitation of him Virgil hath made a description of those Regions feigning the Nymph Cyrene to send for her son to come down to her and make her a visit in those shades where mortals were not admitted Duc age duc ad nos fas illi limina Divûm Tangere ait Simul alta jubet discedere latè Flumina quà juvenis gressus inferret at illum Curvata in montis faciem circumstitit unda AccepÃtque sinu vasto misÃtque sub amnem Iámque domum â—mirans Genetricis humida regna Speluncisque lacos clausos lucósque sonantes Ibat ingenti motu stupâ—factus aquarum Omnia sub magnâ labentia slumina terrâ Spectabat diversa locis PhasÃmque Licúmque c. Et Thalami matris pendentia pumice tecta c. Come lead the Youth below bring him to me The Gods are pleas'd our Mansions he should see Streight she commands the floods to make him way They open their wide bosom and obey Soft is the path and easie is his tread A watry Arch hends o'er his dewy head And as he goes he wonders and looks round To see this new-found Kingdom under ground The silent Lakes in hollow Caves he sees And on their banks an echoing grove of Trees The fall of waters 'mongst the Rocks below He hears and sees the Rivers how they flow All the great Rivers of the Earth are there Prepar'd as in a womb by Nature's care Last to his mother's bed-chamber he 's brought Where the high roof with Pumice-stone is wrought c. If we now could open the Earth as this Nymph did the Water and go down into the bosom of it see all the dark Chambers and Apartments there how ill contriv'd and how ill kept so many holes and corners some fill'd with smoak and fire some with water and some with vapours and mouldy Air how like a ruine it lies gaping and torn in the parts of it we should not easily believe that God created it into this form immediately out of nothing It would have cost no more to have made things in better order nay it had been more easie and more simple and accordingly we are assured that all things were made at first in Beauty and proportion And if we consider Nature and the manner of the first formation of the Earth 't is evident that there could be no such holes and Caverns nor broken pieces made then in the body of it for the grosser parts of the Chaos falling down towards the Center they would there compose a mass of Earth uniform and compact the water swimming above it and this first mass under the water could have no Caverns or vacuities in it for if it had had any the Earthy parts while the mass was liquid or semi-liquid would have sunk into them and fill'd them up expelling the Air or Water that was there And when afterwards there came to be a crust or new Earth form'd upon the face of the Waters there could be no Cavities no dens no fragments in it no more than in the other And for the same general reason that is passing from a liquid form into a concrete or solid leasurely and by degrees it would flow and settle together in an entire mass There being nothing broken nor any thing hard to bear the parts off from one another or to intercept any empty spaces between them 'T is manifest then that the Earth could not be in this Cavernous form originally by any work of Nature nor by any immediate action of God seeing there is neither use nor beauty in this kind of construction Do we not then as reasonably as aptly ascribe it to that desolation that was brought upon the Earth in the general Deluge When its outward frame was dissolv'd and fell into the great Abyss How easily doth this answer all that we have observ'd concerning the Subterraneous Regions That hollow and broken posture of things under ground all those Caves and holes and blind recesses that are otherwise so inaccountable say but that they are a Ruine and you have in one word explain'd them all For there is no sort of Cavities interior or exterior great or little open or shut wet or dry of what form or fashion soever but we might reasonably expect them in a ruine of that nature And as for the Subterraneous waters seeing the Earth fell into the Abyss the pillars and foundations of the present exteriour Earth must stand immers'd in water and therefore at such a depth from the surface every where there must be water found if the soil be of a nature to admit it 'T is true all Subterraneous waters do not proceed from this original for many of them are the effects of Rains and melted Snows sunk into the Earth but that in digging any where you constantly come to water at length even in the most solid ground this cannot proceed from these Rains or Snows but must come from below and from a cause as general as the effect is which can be no other in my judgment than this that the roots of the exteriour Earth stand within the old Abyss whereof as a great part lies open in the Sea so the rest lies hid and cover'd among the fragments of the Earth sometimes dispers'd and only moistning the parts as our bloud lies in the flesh and in the habit of the body sometimes in greater or lesser masses as the bloud in our Vessels And this I take to be the true account of Subterraneous waters as distinguish'd from Fountains and Rivers and from the matter and causes of them Thus much we have spoke to give a general Idea of the inward parts of the Earth and an easie Explication of them by our Hypothesis which whether it be true or no if you compare it impartially with Nature you will confess at least that all these things are just in such a form and posture as if it was true CHAP. X. Concerning the Chanel of the
That the Earth rise at first from a Chaos for besides Reason and Antiquity Scripture it self doth assure us of that and that one point being granted we have deduc'd from it all the rest by a direct chain of consequences which I think cannot be broken easily in any part or link of it Besides the great hinge of this Theory upon which all the rest turns is the distinction we make of the Ante diluvian Earth and Heavens from the Post-diluvian as to their form and constitution And it will never be beaten out of my head but that S. Peter hath made the same distinction sixteen hundred years since and to the very same purpose so that we have sure footing here again and the Theory riseth above the character of a bare Hypothesis And whereas an Hypothesis that is clear and proportion'd to Nature in every respect is accounted morally certain we must in equity give more than a moral certitude to this Theory But I mean this only as to the general parts of it for as to particularities I look upon them only as problematical and accordingly I affirm nothing therein but with a power of revocation and a liberty to change my opinion when I shall be better inform'd Neither do I know any Author that hath treated a matter new remote and consisting of a multitude of particulars who would not have had occasion if he had liv'd to have seen his Hypothesis fully examin'd to have chang'd his mind and manner of explaining things in many material instances To conclude both this Chapter and this Section we have here added a Map or Draught of the Earth according to the Natural face of it as it would appear from the Moon if we were a little nearer to her or as it was at first after the Deluge before Cities were built distinctions of Countries made or any alteâ—ations by humane industry 'T is chiefly to expose more to view the Mountains of the Earth and the proportions of Sea and Land to shew it as it lies in it self and as a Naturalist ought to conceive and consider it 'T is true there are far more Mountains upon the Earth than what are here represented for more could not conveniently be plac'd in this narrow Scheme But the best and most effectual way of representing the body of the Earth as it is by Nature would be not in plain Tables but by a rough Globe expressing all the considerable inequalities that are upon the Earth The smooth Globes that we use do but nourish in us the conceit of the Earth's regularity and though they may be convenient enough for Geographical purposes they are not so proper for Natural Science nothing would be more useful in this respect than a rough Globe of the largest dimensions wherein the Chanel of the Sea should be really hollow as it is in Nature with all its unequal depths according to the best soundings and the shores exprest both according to matter and form little Rocks standing where there are Rocks and Sands and Beaches in the places where they are found and all the Islands planted in the Sea-chanel in a due form and in their solid dimensions Then upon the Land should stand all the ranges of Mountains in the same order or disorder that Nature hath set them there And the in-land Seas and great Lakes or rather the beds they lie in should be duly represented as also the vast desarts of Sand as they lie upon the Earth And this being done with care and due Art would be a true Epitome or true model of our Earth Where we should see besides other instructions what a rude Lump our World is which we are so apt to dote upon CHAP. XII A short review of what hath been already treated of and in what manner 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 and the Application of them to our subject All methods whether Philosophical or Theological that have been offer'd by others for the Explication of the Form of the Earth are examin'd and disprov'd A conjecture concerning the other Planets their Natural Form and State compared with ours WE have finish'd the Three Sections of this Book and in this last Chapter we will make a short review and reflection upon what hath been hitherto treated of and add some further confirmations of it The Explication of the Universal Deluge was the first proposal and design of this Discourse to make that a thing credible and intelligible to the mind of Man And the full Explication of this drew in the whole Theory of the Earth Whose original we have deduc'd from its first Source and shew'd both what was its primaeval Form and how it came into its present Form The summ of our Hypothesis concerning the Universal Deluge was this That it came not to pass as was vulgarly believ'd by any excess of Rains or any Inundation of the Sea nor could ever be effected by a meer abundance of Waters unless we suppose some dissolution of the Earth at the same time namely when the Great Abyss was broken open And accordingly we shewed that without such a dissolution or if the Earth had been always in the same form it is in now no mass of water any where to be found in the World could have equall'd the height of the Mountains or made such an Universal Deluge Secondly We shewed that the form of the Earth at first and till the Deluge was such as made it capable and subject to a Dissolution And thirdly That such a dissolution being suppos'd the Doctrine of the Universal Deluge is very reasonable and intelligible And not only the Doctrine of the Deluge but the same supposition is a Key to all Nature besides shewing us how our Globe became Terraqueous what was the original of Mountains of the Sea-chanel of Islands of subterraneous Cavities Things which without this supposition are as unintelligible as the universal Flood it self And these things reciprocally confirming one another our Hypothesis of the Deluge is arm'd both breast and back by the causes and by the effects It remains now that as to confirm our Explication of the Deluge we shew'd all other accounts that had been given of it to be ineffectual or impossible so to confirm our doctrine concerning the dissolution of the Earth and concerning the Original of Mountains Seas and all inequalities upon it or within it we must examine what causes have been assign'd by others or what accounts given of these things That seeing their defectiveness we may have the more assurance and satisfaction in our own method And in order to this let us observe first the general forms under which the Earth may be consider'd or under which it doth appear accordingly as we view it more nearly or remotely And the first of these and the most general is that of a Terraqueous Globe If a Philosopher should come out of
share of it and were in their proportion longer-liv'd than they are now Nay not only Animals but also Vegetables and the forms of all living things were far more permanent The Trees of the Field and of the Forest in all probability out-lasted the lives of Men and I do not know but the first Groves of Pines and Cedars that grew out of the Earth or that were planted in the Garden of God might be standing when the Deluge came and see from first to last the entire course and period of a World We might add here with S. Austin another observation both concerning Men and other living Creatures in the first World that They were greater as well as longer-liv'd than they are at present This seems to be a very reasonable conjecture for the state of every thing that hath life is divided into the time of its growth its consistency and its decay and when the whole duration is longer every one of these parts though not always in like proportions will be longer We must suppose then that the growth both in Men and other Animals lasted longer in that World than it doth now and consequently carried their Bodies both to a greater height and bulk And in like manner their Trees would be both taller and every way bigger than ours neither were they in any danger there to be blown down by Winds and Storms or struck with Thunder though they had been as high as the Aeâ—yptian Pyramids and whatsoever their height was if they had Roots and Trunks proportionable and were streight and well pois'd they would stand firm and with a greater majesty The Fowls of Heaven making their Nests in their Boughs and under their shadow the Beasts of the Field bringing forth their Young When things are fairly possible in their causes and possible in several degrees higher or lower 't is weakness of Spirit in us to think there is nothing in Nature but in that one way or in that one degree that we are us'd to And whosoever believes those accounts given us both by the Ancients and Moderns of the Indian Trees will not think it strange that those of the first Earth should much exceed any that we now see in this World â—That Allegorical description of the glory of Assyria in Ezekiel Chap. 31. by allusion to Trees and particularly to the Trees of Paradise was chiefly for the greatness and stateliness of them and there is all fairness of reason to believe that in that first Earth both the Birds of the Air and the Beasts of the Field and the Trees and their Fruit were all in their several kinds more large and goodly than Nature produces any now So much in short concerning the Natural World Inanimate or Animate We should now take a prospect of the Moral World of that time or of the Civil and Artificial World what the Order and Oeconomy of these was what the manner of living and how the Scenes of humane life were different from ours at present The Ancients especially the Poets in their description of the Golden Age exhibit to us an Order of things and a Form of Life very remote from any thing we see in our days but they are not to be trusted in all particulars many times they exaggerate matters on purpose that they may seem more strange or more great and by that means move and please us more A Moral or Philosophick History of the World well writ would certainly be a very useful work to observe and relate how the Scenes of Humane Life have chang'd in several Ages the modes and Forms of living in what simplicity Men begun at first and by what degrees they came out of that way by luxury ambition improvement or changes in Nature then what new forms and modifications were superadded by the invention of Arts what by Religion what by Superstition This would be a view of things more instructive and more satisfactory factory than to know what Kings Reign'd in such an Age and what Battles were fought which common History teacheth and teacheth little more Such affairs are but the little under plots in the Tragi comedy of the World the main design is of another nature and of far greater extent and consequence But to return to the subject As the Animate World depends upon the Inanimate so the Civil World depends upon them both and takes its measures from them Nature is the foundation still and the affairs of Mankind are a superstructure that will be always proportion'd to it Therefore we must look back upon the model or picture of their Natural World which we have drawn before to make our conjectures or judgment of the Civil and Artificial that were to accompany it We observ'd from their perpetual Aequinox and the smoothness of the Earth that the Air would be always calm and the Heavens fair no cold or violent Winds Rains or Storms no extremity of weather in any kind and therefore they would need little protection from the iniuries of the Air in that state whereas now one great part of the affairs of life is to preserve our selves from those inconveniences by building and cloathing How many Hands and how many Trades are imploy'd about these two things which then were in a manner needless or at least in such plainness and simplicity that every man might be his own workman Tents and Bowers would keep them from all incommodities of the Air and weather better than Stone-walls and strong Roofs defend â—s now and Men are apt to take the easiest ways of living till necessity or vice put them upon others that are more laborious and more artificial We also observ'd and prov'd that they had no Sea in the Primitive and Ante-diluvian World which makes a vast difference 'twixt us and them This takes up half of our Globe and a good part of Mankind is busied with Sea-affairs and Navigation They had little need of Merchandizing then Nature suppli'd them at home with all necessaries which were few and they were not so greedy of superfluities as we are We may add to these what concern'd their Food and Diet Antiquity doth generally suppose that Men were not Carnivoâ—us in those Ages of the World or did not feed upon Flesh but only upon Fruit and Herbs And this seems to be plainly confirm'd by Scripture for after the Deluge God Almighty gives Noah and his Posterity a Licence to eat Flesh Gen. 9. 2 3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you Whereas before in the new-made Earth God had prescrib'd them Herbs and Fruit for their Diet Gen. 1. 29. Behold I have given you every Herb bearing Seed which is upon the face of all the Earth and every Tree in the which is the Fruit of a Tree yielding Seed to you it shall be for meat and of this Natural Diet they would be provided to their hands without further preparation as the Birds and the Beasts are Upon these general grounds we may
infer and conclude that the Civil World then as well as the Natural had a very different face and aspect from what it hath now for of these Heads Food and Cloathing Building and Traffick with that train of Arts Trades and Manufactures that attend them the Civil Order of things is in a great measure constituted and compounded These make the business of life the several occupations of Men the noise and hurry of the World These fill our Cities and our Fairs and our Havens and Ports yet all these fine things are but the effects of indigency and necessitousness and were for the most part needless and unknown in that first state of Nature The Ancients have told us the same things in effect but telling us them without their grounds which they themselves did not know they lookt like Poetical stories and pleasant fictions and with most Men past for no better We have shewn them in another light with their Reasons and Causes deduc'd from the state of the Natural World which is the Basis upon which they stand and this doth not only give them a just and full credibility but also lays a foundation for after-thoughts and further deductions when they meet with minds dispos'd to pursue Speculations of this Nature As for Laws Government natural Religion Military and Judicial affaiâ—â— with all their Equipage which make an higher order of things in the Civil and Moral World to calculate these upon the grounds given would be more difficult and more uncertain neither do they at all belong to the present Theory But from what we have already observ'd we may be able to make a better judgment of those Traditional accounts which the Ancients have left us concerning these things in the early Ages of the World and the Primitive state of Nature No doubt in these as in all other particulars there was a great easiness and simplicity in comparison of what is now we are in a more pompous forc'd and artificial method which partly the change of Nature and partly the Vices and Vanities of Men have introduc'd and establisht But these things with many more ought to be the subject of a Philosophick History of the World which we mention'd before This is a short and general Scheme of the Primaeval World compar'd with the Modern yet these things did not equally run through all the parts and Ages of it there was a declension and degeneracy both Natural and Moral by degrees and especially towards the latter end but the principal form of Nature remaining till the Deluge and the dissolution of that Heavens and Earth till then also this Civil frame of things would stand in a great measure And though such a state of Nature and of Mankind when 't is propos'd crudely and without its grounds appear fabulous or imaginary yet 't is really in it self a state not only possible but more easie and natural than what the World is in at present And if one of the old Ante-diluvian Patriarchs should rise from the dead he would be more surpris'd to see our World in that posture it is than we can be by the story and description of his As an Indian hath more reason to wonder at the European modes than we have to wonder at their plain manner of living 'T is we that have left the tract of Nature that are wrought and screw'd up into artifices that have disguis'd our selves and 't is in our World that the Scenes are chang'd and become more strange and Fantastical I will conclude this Discourse with an easie remark and without any particular Application of it 'T is a strange power that custom hath upon weak and little Spirits whose thoughts reach no further than their Senses and what they have seen and been us'd to they make the Standard and Measure of Nature of Reason and of all Decorum Neither are there any sort of Men more positive and tenacicus of their petty opinions than they are nor more censorious even to bitterness and malice And 't is generally so that those that have the least evidence for the truth of their beloved opinions are most peevish and impatient in the defence of them This sort of Men are the last that will be made Wise Men if ever they be for they have the worst of diseases that accompany ignorance and do not so much as know themselves to be sick CHAP. VII The place of Paradise cannot be determin'd from the Theory only nor from Scripture only What the sence of Antiquity was concerning it both as to the Iews and Heathens and especially as to the Christian Fathers That they generally plac'd it out of this Continent in the Southern Hemisphere WE have now prepar'd our work for the last finishing stroaks describ'd the first Earth and compar'd it with the present and not only the two Earths but in a good measure the whole State and Oeconomy of those two Worlds It remains only to determine the place of Paradise in that Primaeval Earth I say in that Primaeval Earth for we have driven the point so far already that the seat of it could not be in the present Earth whose Form Site and Air are so dispos'd as could not consist with the first and most indispensable properties of Paradise And accordingly we see with what ill success our modern Authors have rang'd over the Earth to find a fit spot of ground to plant Paradise in some would set it on the top of an high Mountain that it might have good Air and fair weather as being above the Clouds and the middle Region but then they were at a loss for Water which made a great part of the pleasure and beauty of that place Others therefore would seat it in a Plain or in a River-Island that they might have Water enough but then it would be subject to the injuries of the Air and foul weather at the seasons of the Year from which both Reason and all Authority have exempted Paradise 'T is like seeking a perfect beauty in a mortal Body there are so many things requir'd to it as to complexion Features Proportions and Air that they never meet all together in one person neither can all the properties of a Terrestrial Paradise ever meet together in one place though never so well chosen in this present Earth But in the Primaeval Earth which we have describ'd 't is easie to find a Seat that had all those beauties and conveniences We have every where through the temperate Climates a clear and constant Air a fruitful Soil pleasant Waters and all the general characters of Paradise so that the trouble will be rather in that competition what part of Region to pitch upon in particular But to come as near it as we can we must remember in the first place how that Earth was divided into two Hemispheres distant and separated from one another not by an imaginary line but by a real boundary that could not be past so as the first inquiry will
was compriz'd and signified in their ancient doctrine of the Mundane Egg which hath been propagated through all the Learned Nations And lastly As to the situation of that Earth and the change of its posture since that the memory of that has been kept up we have brought several testimonies and indications from the Greek Philosophers And these were the three great and fundamental properties of the Primitive Earth upon which all the other depend and all its differences from the present Order of Nature You see then though Providence hath suffer'd the ancient Heathen Learning and their Monuments in a great part to perish yet we are not left wholly without witnesses amongst them in a speculation of this great importance You will say it may be though this account as to the Books and Learning of the Heathen may be lookt upon as reasonable yet we might expect however from the Iewish and Christian Authors a more full and satisfactory account of that Primitive Earth and of the Old World First as to the Iews 't is well known that they have no ancient Learning unless by way of Tradition amongst them There is not a Book extant in their Language excepting the Canon of the Old Testament that hath not been writ since our Saviour's time They are very bad Masters of Antiquity and they may in some measure be excus'd because of their several captivities dispersions and desolations In the Babylonish captivity their Temple was ransack'd and they did not preserve as is thought so much as the Autograph or original Manuscript of the Law nor the Books of those of their Prophets that were then extant and kept in the Temple And at their return from the Captivity after seventy years they seem to have had forgot their Native Language so much that the Law was to be interpreted to them in Chaldee after it was read in Hebrew for so I understand that interpretation in Nehâ—miah 'T was a great Providence methinks that they should any way preserve their Law and other Books of Scripture in the Captivity for so long a time for 't is likely they had not the liberty of using them in any publick worship seeing they return'd so ignorant of their own Language and as 't is thought of their Alphabet and Character too And if their Sacred Books were hardly preserv'd we may easily Believe all others perisht in that publick desolation Yet there was another destruction of that Nation and their Temple greater than this by the Romans and if there were any remains of Learning preserv'd in the former ruine or any recruits made since that time this second desolation would sweep them all away And accordingly we see they have nothing left in their Tongue besides the Bible so ancient as the destruction of Ierusalem These and other publick calamities of the Iewish Nation may reasonably be thought to have wasted their Records of ancient Learning if they had any for to speak truth the Iews are a people of little curiosity as to Sciences and Philosophical enquiries They were very tenacious of their own customs and careful of those Traditions that did respect them but were not remarkable that I know of or thought great Proficients in any other sort of Learning There has been a great fame 't is true of the Iewish Gabala and of great mysteries contain'd in it and I believe there was once a Traditional doctrine amongst some of them that had extraordinary Notions and Conclusions But where is this now to be found The Essenes were the likeliest Sect one would think to retain such doctrines but 't is probable they are now so mixt with things fabulous and fantastical that what one should alledge from thence would be of little or no authority One Head in this Cabala was the doctrine of the Sephiroth and though the explication of them be uncertain the Inferiour Sephiroth in the Corporeal World cannot so well be appli'd to any thing as to those several Orbs and Regions infolding one another whereof the Primigenial Earth was compos'd Yet such conjectures and applications I know are of no validity but in consort with better Arguments I have often thought also that their first and second Temple represented the first and second Earth or World and that of Ezekiel's which is the third is still to be erected the most beautiful of all when this second Temple of the World shall be burnt down If the Prophecies of Enoch had been preserv'd and taken into the Canon by Eâ—ra after their return from Babylon when the Collection of their Sacred Books is suppos'd to have been made we might probably have had a considerable account there both of times past and to come of Antiquities and futuritions for those Prophecies are generally supposâ—d to have containâ—d both the first and second fate of this Earth and all the periods of it But as this Book is lost to us so I look upon all others that pretend to be Ante-Mosaical or Patriarchal as Spurious and Fabulous Thus much concerning the Iews As for Christian Authors their knowledge must be from some of these foremention'd Iews or Heathens or else by Apostolical Tradition For the Christian Fathers were not very speculative so as to raise a Theory from their own thoughts and contemplations concerning the Origin of the Earth We have instanc'd in the last Chapter in a Christian Tradition concerning Paradise and the high situation of it which is fully consonant to the site of the Primitive Earth where Paradise stood and doth seem plainly to refer to it being unintelligible upon any other supposition And 't was I believe this elevation of Paradise and the pensile structure of that Paradisiacal Earth that gave occasion to Celsus as we see by Origen's answer to say that the Christian Paradise was taken from the pensile Gardens of Alcinous But we may see now what was the ground of such expressions or Traditions amongst the Ancients which Providence left to keep mens minds awake not fully to instruct them but to confirm them in the truth when it should come to be made known in other methods We have noted also above that the ancient Books and Authors amongst the Christians that were most likely to inform us in this Argument have perisht and are lost out of the World such as Ephrem Syrus de ortu rerum and Tertulâ—ian de Paradiso and that piece which is extant of Cepha's upon this subject receives more light from our Hypothesis than from any other I know for correcting some mistakes about the Figure of the Earth which the Ancients were often guilty of the obscurity or confusion of that Discourse in other things may be easily rectifi'd if compar'd with this Theory Of this nature also is that Tradition that is common both to Iews and Christians and which we have often mention'd before that there was a perpetual serenity and perpetual Equinox in Paradise which cannot be upon this Earth not so much as under the
or in the execution in the preparation to them or in the finishing of them Wherefore in my judgment if any be of this perswasion it cannot be so much the effect of their understanding as of their disposition and inclination and in moral things mens opinions do as often spring from the one as from the other For my part I do generally distinguish of two sorts of opinions in all men Inclination-opinions and Reason'd-opinions Opinions that grow upon Mens Complexions and Opinions that are the results of their Reason and I meet with very few that are of a temperament so equal or a constitution so even pois'd but that they incline to one sett of Opinions rather than another antecedently to all proofs of Reason And when they have espous'd their opinions from that secret sympathy then they find out as good Reasons as they can to maintain them and say nay think sometimes that 't was for the sake of those Reasons that they first imbrac'd them We may commonly distinguish these Inclination-opinions from the Rational because we find them accompanied with more Heat than Light a great deal of eagerness and impatience in defending of them and but slender arguments One might give instances of this both in Sects of Religion and Philosophy in Platonists Stoicks and Epicureans that are so by their temper more than their reason but to our purpose it will be sufficient to instance in one hearty Epicurean Lucretius who is manifestly such more from his inclination and the bent of his Spirit than from the force of Argument For 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 Iove's right hand and a Mathematician is not more confident of his demonstration than he seems to be of the truth of his shallow Philosophy From such a principle of natural Complexion as this I allow a man may be Atheistical but never from the calm dictate of his Reason yet he may be as confident and as tenacious of his Conclusion as if he had a clear and distinct evidence for it For I take it to be a true Maxim in Humane Nature that A strong inclination with a little evidence is equivalent to a strong evidence And therefore we are not to be surprisâ—d if we find Men confident in their opinions many times far beyond the degree of their evidence seeing there are other things besides evidence that incline the Will to one Conclusion rather than another And as I have instanc'd in Natural Complexion so Interest hath the same effect upon Humane Nature because it always begets an inclination to those opinions that favour our interest and a disinclination to the contrary And this principle may be another ingredient and secret perswasive to Atheism for when men have run themselves so deep into Vice and Immorality that they expect no benefit from a God 't is in a manner necessary to their quiet and the ease of their mind that they should fansie there is none for they are afraid if there be a God that he will not stand neuter and let them alone in another World This I say is necessary to the quiet of their mind unless they can attain that great Art which many labour after of non-reflection or an unthinking faculty as to God and a World to come but to return to our Argument after this short digression And as that regular diversity which we see in the forms of Nature and especially in the Bodies of Animals could not be from any blind principle either of Necessity or of Chance So in the last place that Subordination which we see in the parts of Nature and subserviency to one another the less Noble to the more Noble the Inanimate to the Animate and all things upon Earth unto Man must needs have been the effect of some Being higher than Matter that did wisely dispose all things so at first and doth still conserve them in the same order If Man had been born into the World and a numerous host of Creatures without any provision or accommodation made for their subsistence and conveniences we might have suspected that they had come by Chance and therefore were so ill provided for but which of them can complain through their various Kinds and Orders what is there awanting They are all fitted to their several Elements and their ways of living Birds Beasts and Fishes both by the form and shape of their Bodies the manner of their covering and the quality of their food Besides They are instructed in little Arts and Instincts for their conservation and not only for their proper conservation but also to find a way to make and bring up young ones and leave behind them a Posterity And all this in so fit a method and by such a pretty train of actions as is really admirable Man is the Master of all and of him a double care is taken that he should neither want what Nature can afford nor what Art can supply He could not be provided of all conveniences by Nature only especially to secure him against the inâ—uries of the Air but in recompence Nature hath provided materials for all those Arts which she see would be needful in Humane Life as Building Cloathing Navigation Agriculture c. That so Mankind might have both wherewithal to answer their occasions and also to imploy their time and exercise their ingenuity This Oeconomy of Nature as I may call it or well ordering of the great Family of living Creatures is an argument both of Goodness and of Wisdom and is every way far above the powers of brute Matter All regular administration we ascribe to conduct and judgment If an Army of Men be well provided for in things necessary both for Food Cloaths Arms Lodging Security and Defence so as nothing is awanting in so great a multitude we suppose it the effect of care and forecast in those persons that had the charge of it they took their measures at first computed and proportion'd one thing to another made good regulations and gave orders for convenient supplies And can we suppose the great Army of Creatures upon Earth manag'd and provided for with less fore-thought and Providence nay with none at all by meer Chance This is to recede from all rules and analogy of Reason only to serve a turn and gratifie an unreasonable humour To conclude this Argument There are two general Heads of things if I recollect aright which we make the marks and characters of Wisdom and Reason Works of Art and the Conduct of affairs or direction of means to an end and wheresoever we meet either with regular material works or a regular ordination of affairs we think we have a good title and warrant to derive them from an intelligent Author Now these two being found in the Natural World and that in an eminent degree the one in the Frame of it and the other in the
and consider the Deist and Atheist only as two Sects in Philosophy or their doctrine as two different Hypotheses propos'd for the explication of Nature and in competition with one another whether should give the more rational account of the Universe of its Origin and Phaenomena I say if we consider them only thus and make an impartial estimate whether System is more reasonable more clear and more satisfactory to me there seems to be no more comparison than betwixt light and darkness The Hypothesis of the Deist reacheth from top to bottom both thorough the Intellectual and Material World with a clear and distinct light every where is genuine comprehensive and satisfactory hath nothing forc'd nothing confus'd nothing precarious whereas the Hypothesis of the Atheist is strain'd and broken dark and uneasie to the Mind commonly precarious often incongruous and irrational and sometimes plainly ridiculous And this judgment I should make of them abstractly from the interest of Religion considering them only as matter of Reason and Philosophy And I dare affirm with assurance if the faculties of our Souls be true that no Man can have a System of Thoughts reaching thorough Nature coherent and consistent in every part without a Deity for the Basis of it CHAP. XI Concerning NATURAL PROVIDENCE Several incroachments upon Natural Providence or misrepresentations of it and false methods of Contemplation A true method propos'd and a true representation of the Vniverse The Mundane Idea and the Vniversal System of Providence Several subordinate Systems That of our Earth and Sublunary World The Course and Periods of it How much of this is already treated of and what remains The Conclusion WE have set bounds to Nature in the foregoing Chapter and plac'd her Author and Governour upon his Throne to give Laws to her Motions and to direct and limit her Power in such ways and methods as are most for his honour Let us now consider Nature under the conduct of Providence or consider Natural Providence and the extent of it And as we were cautious before not to give too much power or greatness to Nature consider'd apart from Providence so we must be careful now under this second consideration not to contract her bounds too much lest we should by too mean and narrow thoughts of the Creation Eclipse the glory of its Author whom we have so lately own'd as a Being infinitely perfect And to use no further Introduction In the first place we must not by any means admit or imagine that all Nature and this great Universe was made only for the sake of Man the meanest of all Intelligent Creatures that we know of Nor that this little Planet where we sojourn for a few days is the only habitable part of the Universe These are Thoughts so groundless and unreasonable in themselves and also so derogatory to the Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness of the First Cause that as they are absurd in Reason so they deserve far better to be mark'd and censur'd for Heresies in Religion than many Opinions that have been censur'd for such in former Ages How is it possible that it should enter into the thoughts of vain Man to believe himself the principal part of God's Creation or that all the rest was ordain'd for him for his service or pleasure Man whose follies we laugh at every day or else complain of them whose pleasures are vanity and his Passions stronger than his Reason Who sees himself every way weak and impotent hath no power over external Nature little over himself cannot execute so much as his own good resolutions mutable irregular prone to evil Surely if we made the least reflection upon our selves with impartiality we should be asham'd of such an arrogant Thought How few of these Sons of Men for whom they say all things were made are the Sons of Wisdom How few find the paths of Life They spend a few days in folly and sin and then go down to the Regions of death and misery And is it possible to believe that all Nature and all Providence are only or principally for their sake Is it not a more reasonable character or conclusion which the Prophet hath made Surely every Man is vanity Man that comes into the World at the pleasure of another and goes out by an hundred accidents His Birth and Education generally determine his fate here and neither of those are in his own power His wit also is as uncertain as his fortune He hath not the moulding of his own Brain however a knock on the Head makes him a Fool stupid as the Beasts of the Field and a little excess of passion or melancholy makes him worse Mad and Frantick In his best Senses he is shallow and of little understanding and in nothing more blind and ignorant than in things Sacred and Divine He falls down before a stock or a stone and says Thou art my God He can believe non-sence and contradictions and make it his Religion to do so And is this the great Creature which God hath made by the might of his Power and for the honour of his Majesty Upon whom all things must wait to whom all things must be subservient Methinks we have noted weaknesses and sollies enough in the Nature of Man this need not be added as the top and accomplishment That with all these he is so Vain as to think that all the rest of the World was made for his sake And as due humility and the consideration of our own meanness ought to secure us from any such vain opinion of our selves so the perfection of other Beings ought to give us more respect and honour for them With what face can we pretend that Creatures far superiour to us and more excellent both in Nature and condition should be made for our sake and service How preposterous would it be to ascribe such a thing to our Maker and how intolerable a vanity in us to affect it We that are next to the Brutes that perish by a sacrilegious attempt would make our selves more considerable than the highest Dignities It is thought to have been the crime of Lucifer who was thrown down from Heaven to Hell that he affected an equality with the Almighty and to affect to be next to the Almighty is a crime next to that We have no reason to believe but that there are at least as many orders of Beings above us as there are ranks of Creatures below us there is a greater distance sure betwixt us and God Almighty than there is betwixt us and the meanest Worm and yet we should take it very ill if the Worms of the Earth should pretend that we were made for them But to pass from the invisible World to the visible and Corporeal Was that made only for our sake King David was more wise and more just both to God and Man in his 8th Psalm where he says He wonders when he considers the Heavens that the Maker of them could think on Man
He truly supposes the Celestial Bodies and the Inhabitants of them much more considerable than we are and reckons up only Terrestrial things as put in subjection to Man Can we then be so fond as to imagine all the Corporeal Universe made for our use 'T is not the Millioneth part of it that is known to us much less useful We can neither reach with our Eye nor our imagination those Armies of Stars that lie far and deep in the boundless Heavens If we take a good Glass we discover innumerably more Stars in the Firmament than we can with our single Eye and yet if you take a second Glass better than the first that carries the sight to a greater distance you see more still lying beyond the other and a third Glass that pierceth further still makes new discoveries of Stars and so forwards indefinitely and inexhaustedly for any thing we know according to the immensity of the Divine Nature and Power Who can reckon up the Stars of the Galaxy or direct us in the use of them And can we believe that those and all the rest were made for us Of those few Stars that we enjoy or that are visible to the Eye there is not a tenth part that is really useful to Man and no doubt if the principal end of them had been our pleasure or conveniency they would have been put in some better order in respect of the Earth They lie carelesly scatter'd as if they had been sown in the Heaven like Seed by handfuls and not by a skilful hand neither What a beautiful Hemisphere they would have made if they had been plac'd in rank and order if they had been all dispos'd into regular figures and the little ones set with due regard to the greater then all finisht and made up into one fair piece or great Composition according to the rules of Art and Symmetry What a surprizing beauty this would have been to the Inhabitants of the Earth What a lovely Roof to our little World This indeed might have given one some Temptation to have thought that they had been all made for us but lest any such vain imagination should now enter into our thoughts Providence besides more important Reasons seems on purpose to have left them under that negligence or disorder which they appear in to us The second part of this opinion supposeth this Planet where we live to be the only habitable part of the Universe and this is a natural consequence of the former If all things were made to serve us why should any more be made than what is useful to us But 't is only our ignorance of the System of the World and of the grandeur of the Works of God that betrays us to such narrow thoughts If we do but consider what this Earth is both for littleness and deformity and what its Inhabitants are we shall not be apt to think that this miserable Atome hath ingross'd and exhausted all the Divine Favours and all the riches of his goodness and of his Providence But we will not inlarge upon this part of the opinion lest it should carry us too far from the subject and it will fall of its own accord with the former Upon the whole we may conclude that it was only the Sublunary World that was made for the sake of Man and not the Great Creation either Material or Intellectual and we cannot admit or affirm any more without manifest injury depression and misrepresentation of Providence as we may be easily convinc'd from these four Heads The Meanness of Man and of this Earth The Excellency of other Beings The Immensity of the Universe and The infinite perfection of the first Cause Which I leave to your further Meditation and pass on to the second rule concerning Natural Providence In the second place then if we would have a fair view and right apprehensions of Natural Providence we must not cut the chains of it too short by having recourse without necessity either to the First Cause in explaining the Origins of things or to Miracles in explaining particular effects This I say breaks the chains of Natural Providence when it is done without necessity that is when things are otherwise ntelligible from Second Causes Neither is any thing gain'd by it to God Almighty for 't is but as the Proverb says to rob Peter to pay Paul to take so much from his ordinary Providence and place it to his extraordinary When a new Religion is brought into the World 't is very reasonable and decorous that it should be usher'd in with Miracles as both the Iewish and Christian were but afterwards things return into their Chanel and do not change or overflow again but upon extraordinary occasions or revolutions The power Extraordinary of God is to be accounted very Sacred not to be touch'd or expos'd for our pleasure or conveniency but I am afraid we often make use of it only to conceal our own ignorance or to save us the trouble of inquiring into Natural Causes Men are generally unwilling to appear ignorant especially those that make profession of knowledge and when they have not skill enough to explain some particular effect in a way of Reason they throw it upon the First Cause as able to bear all and so placing it to that account they excuse themselves and save their credit for all Men are equally wise if you take away Second Causes as we are all of the same colour if you take away the Light But to state this matter and see the ground of this rule more distinctly we must observe and consider that The Course of Nature is truly the Will of God and as I may so say his first Will from which we are not to recede but upon clear evidence and necessity And as in matter of Religion we are to follow the known reveal'd Will of God and not to trust to every impulse or motion of Enthusiasm as coming from the Divine Spirit unless there be evident marks that it is Supernatural and cannot come from our own So neither are we without necessity to quit the known and ordinary Will and Power of God establisht in the course of Nature and fly to Supernatural Causes or his extraordinary Will for this is a kind of Enthusiasm or Fanaticism as well as the other And no doubt that great prodigality and waste of Miracles which some make is no way to the honour of God or Religion 'T is true the other extream is worse than this for to deny all Miracles is in effect to deny all reveal'd Religion therefore due measures are to be taken betwixt these two so as neither to make the Divine Power too mean and cheap nor the Power of Nature illimited and all-sufficient In the Third place To make the Scenes of Natural Providence considerable and the knowledge of them satisfactory to the Mind we must take a true Philosophy or the true principles that govern Nature which are Geometrical and
Water had formerly This is according to St. Peter's doctrine for he makes the same parts of the Universe to be the subject of both namely the inferiour Heavens and the Earth The Heavens and the Earth which were then perish'd in a Deluge of Water But the Heavens and the Earth that are now are reserv'd to fire The present Heavens and Earth are substituted in the place of those that perish'd at the Deluge and these are to be over-run and destroy'd by fire as those were by water So that the Apostle takes the same Regions and the same space and compass for the one as for the other and makes their fate different according to their different constitution and the different order of Providence This is the sence St. Austin gives us of the Apostle's words and these are the bounds he sets to the last Fire whereof a modern Commentator is so well assur'd that he says They neither understand Divinity nor Philosophy that would make the Conflagration reach above the Elementary Heavens Let these be then its limits upwards the Clouds Air and Atmosphere of the Earth But the question seems more doubtful How far it will extend downwards into the bowels of the Earth I answer still to the same depth that the Waters of the Deluge reach'd To the lowest Abysses and the deepest Caverns within the ground And seeing no Caverns are deeper or lower at least according to our Theory than the bottom of the great Ocean to that depth I suppose the rage of this fire will peneâ—rate and devour all before it And therefore we must not imagine that only the outward turf and habitable surface of the Earth will be put into a flame and laid wast the whole exteriour region of the Earth to the depth of the deepest part of the Sea will suffer in this Fire and suffer to that degree as to be melted down and the frame of it dissolv'd For we are not to conceive that the Earth will be only scorcht or charkt in the last Fire there will be a sort of liquefaction and dissolution it will become a molten Sea mingled with fire according to the expression of Scripture And this dissolution may reasonably be suppos'd to reach as low as the Earth hath any hollownesses or can give 〈◊〉 to smoke and flame Wherefore taking these for the bounds and limits of the last great Fire the next thing to be enquir'd into are the Natural Causes of it How this strange fate will seize upon the Sublunary World and with an irresistible fury subdue all things to it self But when I say Natural Causes I would not be so understood as if I thought the Conflagration was a pure Natural Fatality as the Stoicks seem to do No 't is a mixt Fatality The Causes indeed are Natural but the administration of them is from an higher hand Fire is the Instrument or the executive power and hath no more force given it than what it hath naturally but the concurrence of these Causes or of these fiery powers at such a time and in such a manner and the conduct of them to carry on and compleat the whole work without cessation or interruption that I look upon as more than what material Nature could effect of it self or than could be brought to pass by such a government of matter as is the bare result of its own laws and determinations When a Ship fails gently before the Wind the Mariners may stand idle but to guide her in a storm all hands must be at work There are rules and measures to be observ'd even in these tumults and desolations of Nature in destroying a World as well as in making one and therefore in both it is reasonable to suppose a more than ordinary Providence to superintend the work Let us not therefore be too positive or presumptuous in our conjectures about these things for if there be an invisible hand Divine or Angelical that touches the Springs and Wheels it will not be easie for us to determine with certainty the order of their motions However 't is our duty to search into the ways and works of God as far as we can And we may without offence look into the Magazines of Nature see what provisions are made and what preparations for this great Day and in what method 't is most likely the design will be executed But before we proceed to mark out Materials for this Fire give me leave to observe one condition or property in the Form of this present Earth that makes it capable of Inflammation 'T is the manner of its construction in an hollow eavernous form By reason whereof containing much Air in its cavities and having many inlets and outlets 't is in most places capable of ventilation pervious and passable to the Winds and consequently to the Fire Those that have read the former part of this Theory know how the Earth came into this hollow and broken form from what causes and at what time namely at the Universal Deluge when there was a disruption of the exteriour Earth that fell into the Abyss and so for a time was overflow'd with Water These Ruines recover'd from the Water we inhabit and these Ruines only will be burnt up For being not only unequal in their Surface but also hollow loose and incompact within as ruines use to be they are made thereâ— by capable of a second fate by inflammation Thereby I say they are made combustible for if the exteriour Regions of this Earth were as close and compact in all their parts as we have reason to believe the interiour Regions of it to be the Fire could have little power over it nor ever reduce it to such a state as is requir'd in a compleat Conflagration such as ours is to be This being admitted that the Exteriour Region of the Earth stands hollow as a well set Fire to receive Air freely into its parts and hath issues for smoke and flame It remains to enquire what fewel or Materials Nature hath fitted to kindle this Pile and to continue it on Fire till it be consum'd or in plain words What are the Natural Causes and preparatives for a Conflagration The first and most obvious preparations that we see in Nature for this effect are the Burning Mountains or Volcano's of the Earth These are lesser Essays or preludes to the general Fire set on purpose by Providence to keep us awake and to mind us continually and forewarn us of what we are to expect at last The Earth you see is already kindled blow but the Coal and propagate the Fire and the work will go on Tophet is prepar'd of old and when the Day of Doom is come and the Date of the World expir'd the breath of the Lord shall make it burn But besides these Burning Mountains there are Lakes of pitch and brimstone and oily Liquors disperst in several parts of the Earth These are in enrage the Fire as it goes and to fortifie
being a work of Providence we may be sure such measures are taken as will effectually carry it on when once begun The Body of the Earth will be loosen'd and broken by Earth-quakes the more solid parts impregnated with sulphur and the cavities fill'd with unctuous fumes and exhalations so as the whole Mass will be but as one great funeral Pile ready built and wanting nothing but the hand of a destroying Angel to give it fire I will not take upon me to determine which way this devouring Enemy will steer his course from Italy or in what order he will advance and enter the several Regions of our Continent that would be an undertaking as uncertain as useless But we cannot doubt of his success which way soever he goes unless where the Chanel of the Ocean may chance to stop him But as to that we allow that different Continents may have different Fires not propagated from one another but of distinct sources and originals and so likewise in remote Islands and therefore no long passage or trajection will be requir'd from shore to shore And even the Ocean it self will at length be as Fiery as any part of the Land But that with its Rocks like Death will be the last thing subdued As to the Animate World the Fire will over-run it with a swift and rapid course and all living Creatures will be suffocated or consumed at the first assault And at the same time the beauty of the Fields and the external decorations of Nature will be defac'd Then the Cities and the Towns and all the works of man's hands will burn like stubble before the wind These will be soon dispatch'd but the great burthen of the Work still remains which is that Lâ—quefaction we mention'd before or a melting fire much more strong and vehement than these transient blazes which do but sweep the surface of the Earth This Liquefaction I say we prov'd before out of Scripture as the last state of the fiery Deluge And 't is this which at length will make the Sea it self a Lake of fire and brimstone When instead of Rivers of Waters which used to flow into it from the Land there come streams and rivulets of Sulphureous Liquors and purulent melted matter which following the tract of their natural gravity will fall into this great drain of the Earth Upon which mixture the remaining parts of sweet water will soon evaporate and the salt mingling with the Sulphur will make a Dead Sea an Asphaltites a Lake of Sodom a Cup of the dregs of the Wine of the fierceness of God's Wrath. We noted before two remarkable effects of the Burning Mountains which would contribute to the Conflagration of the World and gave instances of both in former Eruptions of Aetna and Vesuvius One was of those Balls or lumps of Fire which they throw about in the time of their rage and the other of those torrents of liquid Fire which rowl down their sides to the next Seas or Valleys In the first respect these Mountains are as so many Batteries planted by Providence in several parts of the Earth to fling those fiery Bombs into such places or such Cities as are marked out for destruction And in the second respect they are to dry up the Waters and the Rivers and the Sea it self when they fall into its Chanel T. Fazellus a Sicilian who writ the History of that Island tells us of such a River of fire upon an eruption of Aetna near twenty eight miles long reaching from the Mountain to Port Longina and might have been much longer if it had not been stopt by the Sea Many such as these and far greater we ought in reason to imagin when all the Earth begins to melt and to ripen towards a dissolution It will then be full of these Sulphureous juices as Grapes with Wine and these will be squeez'd out of the Earth into the Sea as out of a wine-press into the Receiver to fill up that Cup as we said before with the wine of the fierceness of God's wrath If we may be allow'd to bring Prophetical passages of Scripture to a natural sence as doubtless some of those must that respect the end of the World these phrases which we have now suggested of the Wine-press of the wrath of God Drinking the fierceness of his wine poured without mixture into the cup of his indignation with expressions of the like nature that occur sometimes in the old Prophets but especially in the Apocalypse These I say might receive a full and emphatical explication from this state of things which now lies before us I would not exclude any other explication of less force as that of alluding to the bitter cup or mixt potion that us'd to be given to malefactors but that methinks is a low sence when applyed to these places in the Apocalypse That these phrases signifie God's remarkable judgments all allow and here they plainly relate to the end of the World to the last Plagues and the last of the last Plagues chap. 16. 19. Besides The Angel that presided over this judgment is said to be an Angel that had power over fire And those who are to drink this potion are said to be tormented with fire and brimstone ch 14. 10. This presiding Angel seems to be our Saviour himself â— 19. 15. who when he comes to execute Divine Vengeance upon the Earth gives his orders in these words Gather the clusters of the Vine of the Earth for her grapes are fully ripe And thereupon the Destroying Angel thrust in his sickle into the Earth and gathered the Vine of the Earth and cast it into the great Wine-press of the Wrath of God And this made a potion compounded of several ingredients but not diluted with water ch 14. 10. and was indeed a potion of fire and brimstone and all burning materials mixt together The similitudes of Scripture are seldom nice and exact but rather bold noble and great and according to the circumstances which we have observ'd This Vineyard seems to be the Earth and this Vintage the end of the World The pressing of the Grapes into the cup or vessel that receives them the distillation of burning liquors from all parts of the Earth into the trough of the Sea and that lake of red Fire the bloud of those Grapes so flowing into it 'T is true This judgment of the Vintage and Wine-press and the effects of it seem to aim more especially at some particular region of the Earth â—h 14. 20. And I am not against that provided the substance of the explication be still retained and the universal Sea of Fire be that which follows in the next Chapter under the name of a Sea of Glass mingled with Fire This I think expresses the highest and compleat state of the Conflagration when the Mountains are fled away and not only so but the exterior region of the Earth quite dissolv'd like wax before the Sun
beloved City That Camp and that City therefore were upon the Earth And fire came down from Heaven and devoured them If it came down from Heaven it came upon the Earth Furthermore those Persons that are rais'd from the Dead are said to be Priests of God and of Christ and to reign with him a thousand years Now these must be the same Persons with the Priests and Kings mention'd in the Fifth Chapter which are there said expresly to reign upon Earth or that they should reign upon Earth It remains therefore only to determine What Earth this is where the Sons of the first Resurrection will live and reign It cannot be the present Earth in the same state and under the same circumstances it is now For what happiness or priviledge would that be to be call'd back into a mortal life under the necessities and inconveniences of sickly Bodies and an incommodious World such as the present state of mortality is and must continue to be till some change be made in Nature We may be sure therefore that a change will be made in Nature before that time and that the state they are rais'd into and the Earth they are to inhabit will be at least Paradisiacal And consequently can be no other than the New Heavens and New Earth which we are to expect after the Conflagration From these Considerations there is a great fairness to conclude both as to the Characters of the Perons and of the place or state that the Sons of the first Resurrection will be Inhabitants of the New Earth and reign there with Christ a thousand years But seeing this is one of the principal and peculiar Conclusions of this Discourse and bears a great part in this last Book of the Theory of the Earth it will deserve a more full explication and a more ample proof to make it out We must therefore take a greater compass in our discourse and give a full account of that State which is usually call'd the Millennium The Reign of the Saints a thousand years or the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth But before we enter upon this new Subject give me leave to close our present Argument about the Renovation of the World with some Testimonies of the Ancient Philosophers to that purpose 'T is plain to me that there were amongst the Ancients several Traditions or traditionary conclusions which they did not raise themselves by reason and observation but receiv'd them from an unknown Antiquity An instance of this is the Conflagration of the World A Doctrine as ancient for any thing I know as the World it self At least as ancient as we have any Records And yet none of those Ancients that tell us of it give any argument to prove it Neither is it any wonder for they did not invent it themselves but receiv'd it from others without proof by the sole authority of Tradition In like manner the Renovation of the World which we are now speaking of is an ancient Doctrine both amongst the Greeks and Eastern Philosophers But they shew us no method how the World may be renew'd nor make any proof of its future Renovation For it was not a discovery which they first made but receiv'd it with an implicite faith from their Masters and Ancestors And these Traditionary Doctrines were all fore-runners of that Light that was to shine more clearly at the opening of the Christian dispensation to give a more full account of the fate and revolutions of the Natural World as well as of the Moral The Iews 't is well known held the Renovation of the World and a Sabbath after six thousand years according to the Prophecy that was currant amongst them whereof we have given a larger account in the precedent Book ch 5. And that future state they call'd Olam Hava or the World to come which is the very same with St. Paul's Habitable Earth to come Heb. 2. 6. Neither can I easily believe that those constitutions of Moses that proceed so much upon a Septenary or the number Seven and have no ground or reason in the nature of the thing for that particular number I cannot easily believe I say that they are either accidental or humoursome without design or signification But that they are typical or representative of some Septenary state that does eminently deserve and bear that Character Moses in the History of the Creation makes six days work and then a Sabbath Then after six years he makes a Sabbath-year and after a Sabbath of years a year of Jubilee Levit. 25. All these lesser revolutions seem to me to point at the grand Revolution the great Sabbath or Iubilee after six Millenaries which as it answers the type in point of time so likewise in the nature and contents of it Being a state of Rest from all labour and trouble and servitude a state of joy and triumph and a state of Renovation when things are to return to their first condition and pristine order So much for the Iews The Heathen Philosophers both Greeks and Barbarians had the same doctrine of the Renovation of the World currant amongst them And that under several names and phrases as of the Great Year the Restauration the Mundane periods and such like They suppos'd stated and fix'd periods of time upon expiration whereof there would always follow some great revolution of the World and the face of Nature would be renew'd Particularly after the Conflagration the Stoicks always suppos'd a new World to succeed or another frame of Nature to be erected in the room of that which was destroy'd And they use the same words and phrases upon this occasion that Scripture useth Chrysippus calls it Apocatastalis as St. Peter does Act. 3. 21. Marcus Antoninus in his Meditations several times calls it Palingenesia as our Saviour does Mat. 19. 28. And Numenius hath two Scripture-words Resurrection and Restitution to express this renovation of the World Then as to the Platonicks that Revolution of all things hath commonly been call'd the Platonick year as if Plato had been the first author of that opinion But that 's a great mistake he receiv'd it from the Barbarick Philosophers and particularly from the Aegyptian Priests amongst whom he liv'd several years to be instructed in their learning But I do not take Plato neither to be the first that brought this doctrine into Greece for besides that the Sibylls whose antiquity we do not well know sung this Song of oâ—d as we see it copyed from them by Virgil in his fourth Eclogue Pythagoras taught it before Plato and Orpheus before them both And that 's as high as the Greek Philosophy reaches The Barbarick Philosophers were more ancient namely the Aegyptians Persians Chaldeans Indian Brackmans and other Eastern Nations Their Monuments indeed are in a great measure lost yet from the remains of them which the Greeks have transcrib'd and so preserv'd in their writings we see plainly they all had this doctrine of the