All Evasions answered; That there was no new Creation of waters at the Deluge: And that it was not particular or National, but extended throughout the whole Earth. A prelude and preparation to the true Account and Explication of it: The method of the first Book.
THOUGH in the preceeding Chapter we may seem to have given a fair trial 1 to the common opinion concerning the state of the Deluge, and might now proceed to sentence of condemnation; yet having heard of another plea, which some have us’d in its behalf, and another way found out by recourse to the Supream Power, to supply all defects, and to make the whole matter intelligible, we will proceed no further till that be consider’d; being very willing to examine whatsoever may be offer’d, in that or any other way, for resolving that great difficulty which we have propos’d, concerning the quantity of water requisite for such a Deluge. And to this they say in short, that God Almighty created waters on purpose to make the Deluge, and then annihilated them again when the Deluge was to cease; And this, in a few words, is the whole account of the business. This is to cut the knot when we cannot loose it; They show us the naked arm of Omni-potency; such Arguments as these come like lightning, one doth not know what Armour to put on against them, for they pierce the more, the more they are resisted: We will not therefore oppose any thing to them that is hard and stubborn, but by a soft answer deaden their force by degrees.
And I desire to mind those persons in the first place of what St. Austin hath said upon a like occasion, speaking concerning those that disprov’d the opinion of waters above the Heavens (which we mentioned before) by natural Reasons. "We are not, saith he, to refute those persons, by saying, that according to the Omnipotence of God, to whom all things are possible, we ought to believe there are waters there as heavy as we know and feel them here below; for our business is now to enquire according to his Scripture, how God hath constituted the Nature of things, and not what he could do or work in these things by a miracle of Omnipotency." I desire them to apply this to the present argument for the first answer.
Secondly, let them consider, that Moses hath assign’d causes of the Deluge; Forty days Rain, and the disruption of the Abysse; and speaks nothing of a new
Fourthly, they are to consider, that as we are not rashly to have recourse to the Divine Omnipotence upon any account, so especially not for new Creations; and least of all for the creation of new matter. The matter of the Universe was created many Ages before the Flood, and the Universe being full, if any more was created, then there must be as much annihilated at the same time to make room for it; for Bodies cannot penetrate one anothers dimensions, nor be two or more within one and the same space. Then on the other hand, when the Deluge ceas’d, and these waters were annihilated, so much other matter must be created again to take up their places: And methinks they make very bold with the Deity, when they make him do and undo, go forward and backwards by such countermarches and retractions, as we do not willingly impute to the wisdom of God Almighty.
Lastly, I shall not think my labour lost, if it be but acknowledg’d, that we have so far clear’d the way in this controversie, as to have brought it to this issue; That either there must be new waters created on purpose to make a Deluge, or there could be no Deluge, as ’tis vulgarly explain’d; there not being water sufficient in Nature to make a Deluge of that kind. This, I say, is a great step, and, I think, will satisfie all parties, at least all that are considerable; for those that have recourse to a new Creation of waters, are of two sorts, either such as do it out of laziness and ignorance, or such as do it out of necessity, seeing they cannot be had otherwise; as for the first, they are not to be valu’d or gratifi’d; and as for the second, I shall do a thing very acceptable to them, if I free them and the argument from that necessity, and show a way of making the Deluge fairly intelligible, and accountable without the creation of new waters; which is the design of this Treatise. For we do not tye this knot with an Intention to puzzle and perplex the Argument finally with it, but the harder it is ty’d, we shall feel the pleasure more sensibly when we come to loose it.
It may be when they are beaten from this new Creation of water, they will say the Element of Air was chang’d into water, and that was the great storehouse for the Deluge. Forty days Rain we allow, as Moses does, but if they suppose any
All Antiquity, we know, hath spoke of these mundane Revolutions or Periods, that the World should be successively destroy’d by Water and Fire; and I do not doubt but that this Deluge of Noah's, which Moses describes, was the first and leading instance of this kind: And accordingly we see that after this Period, and after the Flood, the blessing for multiplication, and for replenishing the Earth with Inhabitants, was as solemnly pronounc’d by God Almighty, as at the first Creation of man, Gen. 9. 1. with Gen. 1. 28. These considerations, I think, might
Gen. 7. 19. The waters exceedingly prevailed upon the Earth, and all the high Hills that were under the whole Heavens were covered. All the high Hills, he saith, under the whole Heavens, then quite round the Earth; and if the Mountains were cover’d quite round the Earth, sure the Plains could not scape. But to argue with them upon their own grounds; Let us suppose only the Asiatick and Armenian Mountains covered with these waters, this they cannot deny; then unless there was a miracle to keep these waters upon heaps, they would flow throughout the Earth; for these Mountains are high enough to make them fall every way, and make them joyn with our Seas that environ the Continent. We cannot imagine Hills and Mountains of water to have hung about Judæa, as if they were congeal’d, or a mass of water to have stood upon the middle of the Earth like one great drop, or a trembling jelly, and all the places about it dry and untouch’d. All liquid bodies are diffusive; for their parts being in motion have no tye or connexion one with another, but glide and fall off any way, as gravity and the Air presseth them; so the surface of water doth always conform into a Spherical convexity with the rest of the Globe of the Earth, and every part of it falls as near to the Center as it can; wherefore when these waters began to rise at first, long before they could swell to the heighth of the Mountains, they would diffuse themselves every way, and thereupon all the Valleys and Plains, and lower parts of the Earth would be filled throughout the whole Earth, before they could rise to the tops of the Mountains in any part of it: And the Sea would be all raised to a considerable heighth before the Mountains could be covered. For let's suppose, as they do, that this water fell not throughout the whole Earth, but in some particular Country, and there made first a great Lake; this Lake when it begun to swell would every way discharge it self by any descents or declivities of the ground, and these issues and derivations being once made, and supplied with new waters pushing them forwards, would continue their course till they arriv’d at the Sea; just as other Rivers do, for these would be but so many Rivers rising out of this Lake, and would not be considerably deeper and higher at the Fountain than in their progress or at the Sea. We may as well then expect that the Leman-Lake, for instance, out of which the Rhone runs, should swell to the tops of the Alpes on the one hand, and the Mountains of Switzerland and Burgundy on the other, and then stop, without overflowing the plainer Countries that lie beyond them; as to suppose that this Diluvian Lake should rise to the Mountains tops in one place, and not diffuse it self equally into all Countries about, and upon the surface of the Sea: in proportion to its heighth and depth in the place where it first fell or stood.
Thus much for Sacred History. The universality of the Deluge is also attested by profane History; for the fame of it is gone through the Earth, and there are Records or Traditions concerning it, in all parts of this and the new-found World. The Americans do acknowledge and speak of it in their Continent, as Acosta witnesseth, and Laet in their Histories of them. The Chineses have the Tradition of it, which is the farthest part of our Continent; and the nearer and Western
