THE DELUGE

THUS the flood came to its height; and 'tis not easy to represent to ourselves this strange scene of things, when the Deluge was in its fury and extremity; when the earth was broken and swallowed up in the abyss, whose raging waters rose higher than the mountains, and filled the air with broken waves, with an universal mist and with thick darkness, so as nature seemed to be in a second chaos; and upon this chaos rid the distressed ark, that bore the small remains of mankind. No sea was ever so tumultuous as this, nor is there anything in present nature to be compared with the disorder of these waters: all the poetry, and all the hyperboles that are used in the description of storms and raging seas were literally true in this if not beneath it.

The ark was really carried to the tops of the highest mountains, and into the places of the clouds, and thrown down again into the deepest gulfs; and to this very state of the Deluge and of the ark, which was a type of the Church of this world, David seems to have alluded in the name of the Church (Ps. xlii. 7). Abyss calls upon abyss at the noise of thy cataracts or water-spouts; all thy waves and billows have gone over me. It was no doubt an extraordinary and miraculous providence that could make a vessel so ill manned live upon such a sea; that kept it from being dashed against the hills, or overwhelmed in the deeps. That abyss which had devoured and swallowed up whole forests of woods, cities, and provinces, nay the whole earth, when it had conquered all could not destroy this ship.

I remember, in the story of the Argonautics (Dion. Argonaut., l. 1. v. 47), when Jason set out to fetch the golden fleece, the poet saith, all the gods looked down from heaven that day to view the ship; and the nymphs stood upon the mountain tops to see the noble youth of Thessaly pulling at the oars; we may with more reason suppose the good angels to have

looked down upon this ship of Noah's; and that not out of curiosity, as idle spectators, but with a passionate concern for its safety and deliverance. A ship, whose cargo was no less than a whole world; that carried the fortune and hopes of all posterity, and if this had perished, the earth for anything we know had been nothing but a desert, a great ruin, a dead heap of rubbish, from the deluge to the conflagration. But death and hell, the grave and destruction have their bounds. We may entertain ourselves with the consideration of the face of the deluge, and of the broken and drowned earth, in this scheme, with the floating ark, and the guardian angels.

(From The Sacred Theory of the Earth.)

PARADISE

THE substance of the theory is this; that there was a primitive earth of another form from the present, and inhabited by mankind till the deluge: that it had those properties and conditions that we have ascribed to it, namely a perpetual equinox or spring, by reason of its right situation to the sun; was of an oval figure, and the exterior face of it smooth and uniform, without mountains or a sea. That in this earth stood Paradise; the doctrine whereof cannot be understood but upon supposition of this primitive earth, and its properties. Then that the disruption and fall of this earth unto the abyss which lay under it, was that which made the universal deluge, and the destruction of the old world; and that neither Noah's flood, nor the present form of the earth can be explained in any other method that is rational, nor by any other causes that are intelligible, at least, that have been hitherto proposed to the world.

These are the vitals of the theory, and the primary assertions, whereof I do freely profess my full belief; and whosoever by solid reasons will show me an error and undeceive me, I shall be very much obliged to him. There are other lesser conclusions which flow from these, and may be called secondary, as that the longevity of the Antediluvians depended upon their perpetual equinox and the perpetual equality and serenity of the air; that the torrid zone in the primitive earth was uninhabitable, and that all their rivers flowed from the extreme parts of the earth towards the equinoctial, there being neither

rain nor rainbow in the temperate and habitable regions of it; and lastly, that the place of Paradise, according to the opinion of antiquity (for I determine no place by the theory) was in the southern hemisphere. These, I think, are all truly deduced and proved in their several ways, though they be not such essential parts of the theory as the former.

There are also besides many particular explications that are to be considered with more liberty and latitude, and may perhaps upon better thoughts, or better observations, be corrected without any prejudice to the general theory. Those places of Scripture which we have cited, are, I think, all truly applied; and I have not mentioned Moses' cosmopœia, because I thought it delivered by him as a lawgiver, not as a philosopher; which I intend to show at large in another treatise, not thinking that discussion proper for the vulgar tongue. Upon the whole, we are to remember that some allowances are to be made for every hypothesis that is new proposed and untried; and that we ought not, out of levity of wit, or any private design, discountenance free and fair essays, nor from any other motive but only the love and concern of truth. (From the Same.)

THE CONFLAGRATION

BUT it is not possible, from my station, to have a full prospect of this last scene of the earth; for it is a mixture of fire and darkness. This new temple is filled with smoke, while it is consecrating, and none can enter into it. But I am apt to think, if we could look down upon this burning world from above the clouds, and have a full view of it, in all its parts, we should think it a lively representation of hell itself. For fire and darkness are the two chief things by which that state or place, uses to be described; and they are both here mingled together, with all other ingredients that make that Tophet that is prepared of old (Isaiah xxx.). Here are lakes of fire and brimstone; rivers of melted glowing matter; ten thousand volcanoes vomiting flames all at once: thick darkness, and pillars of smoke twisted about with wreaths of flame, like fiery snakes: mountains of earth thrown up into the air, and the heavens dropping down in lumps of fire.

These things will all be literally true, concerning that day,

and that state of the earth. And, if we suppose Beelzebub, and his apostate crew, in the midst of this fiery furnace (and I know not where they can be else) it will be hard to find any part of the universe, or any state of things, that answers to so many of the properties and characters of hell, as this which is now before us.

But if we suppose the storm over, and that the fire hath got an entire victory over all other bodies, and subdued everything to itself; the conflagration will end in a deluge of fire, or in a sea of fire, covering the whole globe of the earth; for when the exterior region of the earth is melted into a fluor, like molten glass, or running metal, it will, according to the nature of other fluids, fill all vacuities and depressions, and fall into a regular surface, at an equal distance everywhere from its centre. This sea of fire, like the first abyss, will cover the face of the whole earth, make a kind of second chaos, and leave a capacity for another world to rise from it.

But that is not our present business. Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion, on the vanity and transient glory of all this habitable world; how, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours of men, are reduced to nothing all that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished: and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities! Their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? Show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What remains, what impressions, what difference or distinction do you see in this mass of fire?

Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous: She glorified herself, and lived deliciously; and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow, But her hour is come, she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in perpetual oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth are melted as wax before the sun; and their place is nowhere found.

Here stood the Alps, a prodigious range of stone, the load of the earth, that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved, as a tender cloud, into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds. There was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia. And yonder towards the north, stood the Riphæan Hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropped away as the snow upon their heads, and swallowed up in a red sea of fire (Rev. xv. 3). Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints.

Hallelujah.

(From the Same.)