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A30490
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The theory of the earth containing an account of the original of the earth, and of all the general changes which it hath already undergone, or is to undergo till the consummation of all things.
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Burnet, Thomas, 1635?-1715.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing B5953; ESTC R25316
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460,367
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444
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Perfection but seeing they have not determin'd in any definite numbers what the length of every Age will be nor given us the summ of all we cannot draw any conclusion from this account as to the point in question before us But must proceed to the Jewish and Christian Oracles The Iews have a remarkable Prophecy which expresseth both the whole and the parts of the World's duration The World they say will stand Six Thousand Years Two Thousand before the Law Two Thousand under the Law and Two Thousand under the Messiah This Prophecy they derive from Elias but there were two of the Name Elias the Thesbite and Elias the Rabbin or Cabbalist and 't is suppos'd to belong immediately to the latter of these Yet this does not hinder in my opinion but that it might come originally from the former Elias and was preserv'd in the School of this Elias the Rabbin and first made publick by him Or he added it may be that division of the time into three parts and so got a Title to the whole I cannot easily imagine that a Doctor that liv'd two hundred years or thereabouts before Christ when Prophecy had ceas'd for some Ages amongst the Iews should take upon him to dictate a Prophecy about the duration of the World unless he had been supported by some antecedent Cabbalistical Tradition which being kept more secret before he took the liberty to make publick and so was reputed the Author of the Prophecy As many Philosophers amongst the Greeks were the reputed Authors of such doctrines as were much more ancient than themselves But they were the publishers of them in their Country or the revivers of them after a long silence and so by forgetful posterity got the honour of the first invention You will think it may be the time is too long and the distance too great betwixt Elias the Thesbite and this Elias the Rabbin for a Tradition to subsist all the while or be preserv'd with any competent integrity But it appears from S. Iude's Epistle that the Prophecies of Enoch who liv'd before the Floud relating to the day of judgment and the end of the World were extant in his time either in Writing or by Tradition And the distance betwixt Enoch and S. Iude was vastly greater than betwixt the two Elias's Nor was any fitter to be inspir'd with that knowledge or to tell the first news of that fatal period than the old Prophet Elias who is to come again and bring the alarum of the approaching Conflagration But however this conjecture may prove as to the original Author of this Prophecy the Prophecy it self concerning the Sexmillennial duration of the World is very much insisted upon by the Christian Fathers Which yet I believe is not so much for the bare Authority of the Tradition as because they thought it was founded in the History of the Six days Creation and the Sabbath succeeding as also in some other Typical precepts and usages in the Law of Moses But before we speak of that give me leave to name some of those Fathers to you that were of this judgment and supposed the great Sabbatism would succeed after the World had stood Six Thousand Years Of this opinion was S. Barnabas in his Catholick Epistle ch 15. Where he argues that the Creation will be ended in Six Thousand Years as it was finish'd in Six Days Every day according to the Sacred and mystical account being a Thousand Years Of the same judgment is S. Irenaeus both as to the conclusion and the reason of it He saith the History of the Creation in six days is a narration as to what is past and a Prophecy of what is to come As the Work was said to be consummated in six days and the Sabbath to be the seventh So the consummation of all things will be in Six Thousand Years and then the great Sabbatism to come on in the blessed reign of Christ. Hippolitus Martyr disciple of Irenaeus is of the same judgment as you may see in Photius ch 202. Lactantius in his Divine Institutions l. 7. c. 14. gives the very same account of the state and continuance of the World and the same proofs for it And so does S. Cyprian in his Exhortation to Martyrdom ch 11. S Ierome more than once declares himself of the same opinion and S. Austin tho' he wavers and was doubtful as to the Millennium or Reign of Christ upon Earth yet he receives this computation without hesitancy and upon the foremention'd grounds So Iohannes Damascenus de fide Orthodoxâ takes seven Millennaries for the entire space of the World from the Creation to the general Resurrection the Sabbatism being included And that this was a received and approv'd opinion in early times we may collect from the Author of the Questions and answers ad Orthodoxos in Iustin Martyr Who giving an answer to that enquiry about the six thousand-years term of the World says We may conjecture from many places of Scripture that those are in the right that say six thousand years is the time prefixt for the duration of this present frame of the World These Authors I have examin'd my self but there are many others brought in confirmation of this opinion as S. Hilary Anastasius Sinaita Sanctus Gaudentius Q. Iulius Hilarion Iunilius Africanus Isidorus Hispalensis Cassiodorus Gregorius Magnus and others which I leave to be examin'd by those that have curiosity and leisure to do it In the mean time it must be confest that many of these Fathers were under a mistake in one respect in that they generally thought the World was near an end in their time An errour which we need not take pains to confute now seeing we who live twelve hundred or fourteen hundred years after them find the World still in being and likely to continue so for some considerable time But it is easie to discern whence their mistake proceeded not from this Prophecy alone but because they reckon'd this Prophecy according to the Chronology of the Septuagint which setting back the beginning of the World many Ages beyond the Hebrew these six thousand years were very near expir'd in the time of those Fathers and that made them conclude that the World was very near an end We will make no reflections in this place upon that Chronology of the Septuagint lest it should too much interrupt the thred of our discourse But it is necessary to shew how the Fathers grounded this computation of Six Thousand Years upon Scripture 'T was chiefly as we suggested before upon the Hexameron or the Creation finish'd in Six Days and the Sabbath ensuing The Sabbath they said was a type of the Sabbatism that was to follow at the end of the World according to S. Paul to the Hebrews and then by analogy and consequence the six days preceding the Sabbath must note the space and duration of the World If therefore 〈◊〉 could discover how much a Day is reckon'd for in this mystical
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