---- _de Nat. Deorum._ lib. ii. 46.
Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ lib. vii. cap. 16.
These are the opinions of writers before Christ; whether they were derived
from Scripture, it is not now my purpose to discuss. See also Lipsii
_Physiologia._ On the agreement of the systems of the Stoics, of the Magi,
and of the Edda, see Bishop Percy's Notes to Mallet's _Northern
Antiquities_, vol. ii.
The general conflagration and purgatorial fire were among the tenets of the
Sibylline books, and maintained by many Fathers of the Greek and Latin
churches down to the sixth century. See _Blondel on the Sibyls_, and
Arkudius _adversus_ Barlaam. Among modern writers on this subject, it will
be sufficient to name Magius _de Mundi Exustione_, Dr. H. More, and Dr T.
Burnet. Ray, in the third of his _Physico-Theological Discourses_,
discusses all the questions connected with the dissolution of the world.