_The particular History of Noah’s Flood is explained in all the
material Parts and Circumstances of it, according to the preceding
Theory. Any seeming Difficulties remov’d, and the whole Section
concluded, with a Discourse how far the Deluge may be look’d 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 shewn it to be the real Account of _Noah_’s Flood,
according to Authority both divine and human; 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 Abyss 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 rectified 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, tho’ it be not exact in every Particular; ’tis 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 thro’ a
thick Forest, tho’ 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 revealed to _Noah_, that for the
Wickedness and Degeneracy of Men, God would destroy Mankind with the
_Earth_, (_Gen. vi. 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, tho’
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, continued 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 shewn 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 that
Earth, being even and smooth, without Hills and Eminencies, and might
lay it all under Water to some Depth; so as the Ark, if it could not
float upon those Rain-Waters, at least taking the Advantage of a River,
or of a Dock or Cistern made to receive them, it might be afloat before
the Abyss was broken open. For I do not suppose the Abyss broken open
before any Rain fell; and when the opening of the Abyss and of the
Flood-gates of Heaven are mention’d together, I am apt to think those
Flood-gates were distinct from the common Rain, and were something more
violent and impetuous. So that there might be preparatory Rains before
the Disruption of the Abyss: And I do not know but those Rains, so
covering up and enclosing the Earth on every side, might providentially
contribute to the Disruption of it; not only by softning and weakning
the Arch of the Earth in the bottom of those Cracks and Chasms which
were made by the Sun, and which the Rain would first run into, but
especially by stopping on a sudden all the Pores of the Earth, and all
Evaporation, which would make the Vapours within struggle more
violently, as we get a Fever by a Cold; and it may be in that struggle,
the Doors and the Bars were broke, and the great Abyss gush’d out, as
out of a Womb.
HOWEVER, when the Rains were fallen, we may suppose the Face of the
Earth cover’d over with Water; and whether it was these Waters that St.
_Peter_ refers to, or that of the Abyss afterwards, I cannot tell, when
he saith in his first Epistle, _Chap. iii. 20._ _Noah and his Family
were sav’d by Water_; so as the Water which destroyed the rest of the
World was an Instrument of their Conservation, in as much as it bore up
the Ark, and kept it from that impetuous Shock, which it would have had,
if either it had stood upon dry Land when the Earth fell, or if the
Earth had been dissolv’d without any Water on it or under it. However,
Things being thus prepar’d, let us suppose the great Frame of the
exterior Earth to have broke at this time, or the Fountains of the great
Abyss, as _Moses_ saith, to have been then open’d; from thence would
issue upon the Fall of the Earth, with an unspeakable Violence, such a
Flood of Waters as would over-run and overwhelm for a Time all those
Fragments which the Earth broke into, and bury in one common Grave all
Mankind, and all the Inhabitants of the Earth. Besides, if the
_Flood-gates_ of Heaven were any thing distinct from the Forty Days
Rain, their Effusion, ’tis likely, was at this same time when the Abyss
was broken open; for the sinking of the Earth would make an
extraordinary Convulsion of the Regions of the Air, and that Crack and
Noise that must be in the Falling World, and in the Collision of the
Earth and the Abyss, would make a great and universal Concussion above,
which things together must needs so shake, or so squeeze the Atmosphere,
as to bring down all the remaining Vapours; but the Force of these
Motions not being equal throughout the whole Air, but drawing or
pressing more in some Places than in other, where the Center of the
Convulsion was, there would be the chiefest collection, and there would
fall, not Showers of Rain, or single Drops, but great Spouts or Cascades
of Water; and this is that which _Moses_ seems to call, not improperly,
the _Cataracts_ of Heaven, or the _Windows of Heaven being set open_.
THUS the Flood came to its height; and ’tis not easy to represent to our
selves 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 rise higher than the Mountains, and fill’d the Air
with broken Waves, with an universal Mist, and with thick Darkness, so
as Nature seem’d to be in a second Chaos; and upon this Chaos rid the
distress’d Ark, that bore the small Remains of Mankind. No Sea was ever
so tumultuous as this, nor is there any thing in present Nature to be
compar’d 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 Gulphs; and to this very
State of the Deluge and of the Ark, which was a Type of the Church in
this World, _David_ seems to have alluded in the name of the Church,
_Psal. xiii. 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 mann’d, live upon such a Sea; that kept it from being
dash’d against the Hills, or overwhelm’d in the Deeps. That Abyss, which
had devoured and swallow’d up whole Forests of Woods, Cities and
Provinces, nay the whole Earth, when it had conquer’d all, and triumph’d
over all, could not destroy this single Ship. I remember in the Story of
the _Argonauticks_, _Dion. Argonaut. l. 1. v. 47._ when _Jason_ set out
to fetch the Golden Fleece, the Poet saith, all the Gods that Day look’d
down from Heaven 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 look’d 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
carry’d the Fortune and Hopes of all Posterity, and if this had
perish’d, the Earth for any thing we know had been nothing but a Desart,
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 our selves with the Consideration of the Face
of the Deluge, and of the broken and drown’d Earth, in this Scheme, with
the floating Ark, and the Guardian Angels.
[Illustration: Book 1 Figure 8. The Sphere of the Earth has developed
mountains and valleys.]
THUS much for the Beginning and Progress of the Deluge. It now remains
only that we consider it in its Decrease, and the State of the Earth
after the Waters were retir’d into their Channels, which makes the
present State of it. _Moses_ saith, God brought a Wind upon the Waters,
and the Tops of the Hills became bare, and then the lower Grounds and
Plains by degrees; the Waters being sunk into the Channels of the Sea,
and the Hollowness of the Earth, and the whole Globe appearing in the
Form it is now under. There needs nothing be added for Explication of
this, ’tis the genuine Consequence of the Theory we have given of the
Deluge; and whether this Wind was a descending Wind to depress and keep
down the Swellings and Inequalities of the Abyss, or whether it was only
to dry the Land as fast as it appear’d, or might have both Effects, I do
not know; but as nothing can be perpetual that is violent, so this
Commotion of the Abyss abated after a certain time, and the great Force
that impell’d the Waters decreasing, their natural Gravity began to take
Effect, and to reduce them into the lowest Places, at an equal Height,
and in an even Surface, and level one Part with another: That is, in
short, the Abyss became our Sea, fixt within its Channel, and bounded by
Rocks and Mountains: _Then was the decreed Place establish’d for it, and
Bars and Doors were set; then was it said, hitherto shalt thou come, and
no further, and here shall thy proud Waves be stopt_, _Job xxxviii. 10,
11._ And the Deluge being thus ended, and the Waters settled in their
Channels, the Earth took such a broken Figure as is represented in those
larger Schemes, _p. 100._ And this will be the Form and State of it till
its great Change comes in the Conflagration, when we expect _a new
Heaven and a new Earth_.
BUT to pursue this Prospect of Things a little further; we may easily
imagine, that for many Years after the Deluge ceas’d, the Face of the
Earth was very different from what it is now, and the Sea had other
Bounds than it hath at present. I do not doubt but the Sea reach’d much
further in-land, and clim’d higher upon the Sides of the Mountains; and
I have observ’d in many Places a Ridge of Mountains some Distance from
the Sea, and a Plain from their Roots to the Shore; which Plain no doubt
was formerly cover’d by the Sea, bounded against those Hills as its
first and natural Ramparts, or as the Ledges or Lips of its Vessel. And
it seems probable, that the Sea doth still grow narrower from Age to
Age, and sinks more within its Channel and the Bowels of the Earth,
according as it can make its Way into all those subterraneous Cavities,
and crowd the Air out of them. We see whole Countries of Land gain’d
from it, and by several Indications, as ancient Sea-ports left dry and
useless, old Sea-marks far within the Land, Pieces of Ships, Anchors,
_&c._ left at a great Distance from the present Shores; from these
Signs, and such like, we may conclude that the Sea reach’d many Places
formerly that now are dry Land, and at first I believe was generally
bound in on either Side with a Chain of Mountains. So I should easily
imagine the Mediterranean Sea, for instance, to have been bounded by the
Continuation of the _Alps_ through _Dauphine_ and _Languedoc_ to the
_Pyreneans_, and at the other End by the _Darmatick_ Mountains almost to
the Black Sea. Then _Atlas major_, which runs along with the
Mediterranean from _Ægypt_ to the _Atlantick_ Ocean, and now parts
_Barbary_ and _Numidia_, may possibly have been the ancient Barrier on
the _Africk_ Side. And in our own Island I could easily figure to my
self, in many Parts of it, other Sea-bounds than what it hath at
present; and the like may be observ’d in other Countries.
AND as the Sea had much larger Bounds for some Time after the Deluge, so
the Land had a different Face in many Respects to what it hath now; for
we suppose the Valleys and lower Grounds, where the Descent and
Derivation of the Water was not so easy, to have been full of Lakes and
Pools for a long Time; and these were often converted into Fens and
Bogs, where the Ground being spungy, suck’d up the Water, and the
loosen’d Earth swell’d into a soft and pappy Substance; which would
still continue so, if there was any Course of Water sensible or
insensible, above or within the Ground, that fed this moist Place: But
if the Water stood in a more firm Basin, or on a Soil, which for its
Heaviness or any other Reason would not mix with it, it made a Lake or
clear Pool. And we may easily imagine there were innumerable such Lakes,
and Bogs, and Fastnesses for many Years after the Deluge, till the World
begun to be pretty well stock’d with People, and human Industry cleansed
and drained those unfruitful and unhabitable Places. And those Countries
that have been later cultivated, or by a lazier People, retain still, in
Proportion to their Situation and Soil, a greater Number of them.
NEITHER is it at all incongruous or inconvenient to suppose, that the
Face of the Earth stood in this Manner for many Years after the Deluge;
for while Mankind was small and few, they needed but a little Ground for
their Seats or Sustenance; and as they grew more numerous, the Earth
proportionally grew more dry, and more Parts of it fit for Habitation. I
easily believe that _Plato_’s Observation or Tradition [_de Leg. li.
3._] is true, that Men at first, after the Flood, liv’d in the Up-lands
and Sides of the Mountains, and by Degrees sunk into the Plains and
lower Countries, when Nature had prepar’d them for their Use, and their
Numbers requir’d more Room. The History of _Moses_ _Gen. xi._ tells us,
that some Time after the Deluge, _Noah_ and his Posterity, his Sons and
his Grand-children, chang’d their Quarters, and fell down into the
Plains of _Shiner_, from the Sides of the Hills where the Ark had
rested; and in this Plain was the last general Rendezvous of Mankind; so
long they seem to have kept in a Body, and from thence they were divided
and broken into Companies, and dispers’d, first, into the neighbouring
Countries, and then by degrees throughout the whole Earth; the several
successive Generations, like the Waves of the Sea when it flows,
over-reaching one another, and striking out farther and farther upon the
Face of the Land. Not that the whole Earth was peopled by an uniform
Propagation of Mankind every Way, from one Place, as a common Center;
like the Swelling of a Lake upon a Plain: For sometimes they shot out in
length, like Rivers, and sometimes they flew into remote Countries in
Colonies, like Swarms from the Hive, and settled there, leaving many
Places uninhabited betwixt them and their first Home. Sea-shores and
Islands were generally the last Places inhabited; for while the Memory
or Story of the Deluge was fresh amongst them, they did not care for
coming so near their late Enemy; or at least, to be inclos’d and
surrounded by his Forces.
AND this may be sufficient to have discours’d concerning all the Parts
of the Deluge, and the Restitution of the Earth to an habitable Form,
for the further Union of our Theory with the History of _Moses_; there
rests only one Thing in that History to be taken notice of, which may be
thought possibly not to agree so well with our Account of the Deluge;
namely, that _Moses_ seems to shut up the Abyss again at the End of the
Deluge, which our Explication supposeth to continue open. But besides
that half the Abyss is still really cover’d, _Moses_ saith the same
Thing of the Windows of Heaven, that they were shut up too; and he
seemeth in both to express only the Cessation of the Effect 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
then, that they could not continue the Deluge any longer, nor ever be
the Occasion of a second; and therefore in that Sense, 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 antediluvian Earth to have had a
plain and uniform Surface, without any Inequality of Hills and Valleys.
But this is easily answer’d, it 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 began. 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 finish’d our Account of _Noah_’s Flood, both generally and
particularly; and I have not wittingly omitted or conceal’d any
Difficulty that occurr’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 _Phænomena_ 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 satisfy 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 derived 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, (_Acts xiv. 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, _Mat. vi. 21._ 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, _Luke xii. 24._ 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 array’d 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 touch’d, 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 prefix’d, 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 be the great
Art of divine Providence, so to adjust the two Worlds, human and
natural, material and intellectual, as seeing thro’ 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 itself; 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 ’tis manifest,
taking any System of natural Causes, if the best possible, that there
may be more and greater Things done, if to this, upon certain Occasions,
you join 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 ’tis 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 St. _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.