This is a short Chapter, and will be soon dispatch’d. ’Tis to prove that
the _Rainbow was before the Flood_. And notwithstanding that, a good
Sign that there should never be a Flood again. This is to me a Paradox,
but he confirms it by a greater Paradox: For he says, God might as well
(as to Significancy, or Authenticalness) _have appointed the Sun, as the
Rainbow, for a Sign that there never should have been another Flood_. So
that if God had said to _Noah_, I do assure thee there shall never be a
second Deluge, and for a Sign of this, _Behold I set the Sun in the
Firmament_: This would have done as well, he says, as the Rainbow. That
is, in my Judgment, it would have done nothing at all more than the bare
Promise. And if it had done no more than the bare Promise, it was
superfluous. Therefore if the Rainbow was no more than the Sun would
have been, it was a superfluous Sign. They to whom these two Signs are
of equal Significancy and Effect, lie without the Reach of all
Conviction, and I am very willing to indulge them in their own Opinions.
But he says, _p._ 257. _God sometimes has made things to be Signs, that
are common and usual. Thus the Fruit of a Tree growing in Paradise, was
made a Sign of Man’s Immortality._ But how does it appear that this was
a common Tree; or that it was given to _Adam_ as a Sign that he should
be immortal? Neither of these appear from Scripture. Secondly, he says,
2 _Kings_ xiii. 17. _Shooting with Bow and Arrows upon the Ground, was
made a Sign to_ Joash _of his prevailing against the_ Syrians. This was
only a Command to make war against _Syria_, and a Prophecy of Success;
both deliver’d in a symbolical or hieroglyphical Way. The Command was
signify’d by bidding the King shoot an Arrow, which was the Sign of War.
And the Sign of Victory or of divine Assistance, was the Prophet’s
strengthening the King’s Hands to draw the Bow. This is nothing as to a
Sign given in Nature, or from the natural World, in Confirmation of a
divine Promise: Which is the thing we are only to consider.
All the rest of this Chapter is lax Discourse without Proof. And as to
the Significancy of the Rainbow, upon Supposition that it was a new
Appearance; and its Insignificancy upon Supposition that it was an old
Appearance, we have spoken so fully in the Theory it self, _Eng. Theor._
_Book_ 2. _ch._ 5. that it would be needless here to make any longer
Stay upon this Argument.