That the World will be destroy’d by Fire, is the doctrine of the Ancients, especially of the Stoicks. That the same doctrine is more ancient than the Greeks, and deriv’d from the Barbarick Philosophy, and That probably from Noah; the Father of all Traditionary Learning. The same doctrine expresly authoriz’d by Revelation, and inroll’d into the Sacred Canon.
THAT the present World, or the present frame of Nature, will be destroy’d, we have already shewn. In what manner this destruction will be, by what force or what kind of fate, must be our next enquiry. The Philosophers have always spoken of Fire and Water, those two unruly Elements, as the only Causes that can destroy the World, and work our ruine; And accordingly they say, all the great and fatal Revolutions of Nature, either past or to come, depend upon the violence of these Two; when they get the mastery, and overwhelm all the rest and the whole Earth, in a Deluge or Conflagration. But as they make these Two the Destroying Elements, so they also make them the Purifying Elements. And accordingly in the Lustrations, or their rites and ceremonies for purging sin, Fire and Water were chiefly made use of, both amongst the Romans, Greeks and Barbarians. And when these Elements over-run the world, it is not, they say, for a final destruction of it, but to purge Mankind and Nature from their Impurities. As for purgation by Fire and Water, the stile of our Sacred Writings
The Stoicks especially, of all other Sects amongst the Greeks, have preserved the doctrine of the Conflagration, and made it a considerable part of their Philosophy, and almost a character of their order. This is a thing so well known that I need not use any Citations to prove it. But they cannot pretend to have been the first authors of it neither. For, besides that amongst the Greeks themselves, Heraclitus and Empedocles, more ancient than Zeno, the Master of the Stoicks, taught this doctrine, ’tis plainly a branch of the Barbarick Philosophy, and taken from thence by the Greeks. For it is well known that the most ancient and mystick learning amongst the Greeks, was not originally their own, but borrowed of the more Eastern Nations, by Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and many more: who travel’d thither, and traded with the Priests for knowledge and Philosophy; and when they got a competent stock, returned home, and set up a School, or a Sect, to instruct their Country-men. But before we pass to the Eastern nations, let us, if you please, compare the Roman Philosophy upon this subject, with that of the Greeks.
The Romans were a great people, that made a shew of Learning, but had little in reality, more than words and Rhetorick. Their curiosity or emulation in Philosophical Studies was so little, that it did not make different Sects and Schools amongst them, as amongst the Greeks. I remember no Philosophers they had but such as Tully, Seneca, and some of their Poets. And of these Lucretius, Lucan and Ovid, have spoken openly of the Conflagration. Ovid's Verses are well known,
A Time decreed by Fate, at length will come,
When Heavens and Earth and Seas shall have their doom;
A fiery doom: And Nature's mighty frame
Shall break, and be dissolv’d into a flame.
We see Tully's sence upon this matter in Scipio's Dream. When the old man speaks to his Nephew Africanus, and shews him from the clouds, this spot of Earth, where we live; He tells him, tho’ our actions shou’d be great, and fortune favour them with success, yet there wou’d be no room for any lasting glory in this World; for the World it self is transient and fugitive. And a Deluge or a Conflagration, which necessarily happen after certain periods of time, sweep away all records of humane actions. As for Seneca, he being a profest Stoick, we need not doubt of his opinion in this point. We may add here, if you please, the Sibylline verses, which were kept with great Religion, in the Capitol at Rome, and consulted with much ceremony upon solemn occasions. These Sibyls were
But to comprehend the Arabians also, and Indians, give me leave to reflect a little upon the story of the Phœnix. A story well known, and related by some ancient Authors, and is in short this. The Phœnix, they say, is a Bird in Arabia, India, and those Eastern parts, single in her kind, never more than one at a time, and very long-liv'd: appearing onely at the expiration of the Great Year, as they call it: And then she makes her self a Nest of Spices, which being set on fire by the Sun, or some other secret power, she hovers upon it, and consumes her self in the flames. But, which is most wonderful, out of these ashes riseth a second Phœnix; so that it is not so much a death as a renovation. I do not doubt but the story is a fable, as to any such kind of Bird, single in her species, living and dying, and reviving in that manner: But ’tis an Apologue, or a Fable with an interpretation, and was intended as an Emblem of the World: which, after a long age, will be consum’d in the last fire: and from its ashes or remains will arise another world, or a new-form’d Heavens and Earth. This, I think, is the true mystery of the Phœnix, under which Symbol the Eastern Nations preserv’d the doctrine of the Conflagration and renovation of the World. They tell some-what a like story of the Eagle, soaring a-loft so near the Sun, that by his warmth and enlivening rays, she renews her age and becomes young again. To this the Psalmist is thought to allude: Psal. 103. 5. Thy Youth shall be renew’d like the Eagles: which the Chaldee Paraphrast renders, In mundo venturo renovabis, sicut Aquilæ, juventutem tuam. These things to me seem plainly to be symbolical, representing that World to come, which the Paraphrast mentions, and the fireing of this. And this is after the manner of the Eastern Wisdom; which always lov’d to go fine, cloath’d in figures and fancies.
You see of what extent and universality throughout all Nations, this doctrine of the Conflagration hath been. Let us now consider what defects or excesses there are, in these ancient opinions, concerning this fate of the World, and how they may be rectified: That we may admit them no further into our belief, than they are warranted by reason, or by the authority of Christian Religion. The first fault they seem to have commited about this point, is this, That they made these revolutions and renovations of nature, indefinite or endless: as if there would be such a succession of Deluges and Conflagrations to all eternity. This, the Stoicks seem plainly to have asserted, as appears from Eumenius, Philo, Simplicius, and Others. St. Jerome imputes this Opinion also to Origen: but he does not always hit the true sence of that Father, or is not fair and just in the representation of it. Whosoever held this Opinion, ’tis a manifest errour, and may be easily rectified by the Christian Revelation; which teaches us plainly, that there is a final period and consummation of all things that belong to this Sublunary or Terrestrial world. When the Kingdom shall be deliver’d up to the Father: and Time shall be no more.
Another Errour they committed in this doctrine, is, the Identity, or sameness, if I may so say, of the worlds, succeeding one another. They are made indeed of the same Lump of matter, but they suppos’d them to return also in the same Form. And, which is worse, that there would be the same face of humane affairs; The same Persons and the same actions over again; So as the second World would be but a bare repetition of the former, without any variety or diversity. Such a revolution is commonly call’d the Platonick Year: A period, when all things return to the same posture they had some thousands of years before; As a Play acted over again, upon the same Stage, and to the same Auditory. This is a groundless and injudicious supposition. For, whether we consider the nature of things; The Earth after a dissolution, by Fire or by Water, could not return into the same form and fashion it had before; Or whether we consider Providence, it would no ways suit with the Divine Wisdom and Justice to bring upon the
So much for the Stoicks in particular, and the Greeks in general. We have also, you see, trac’d these Opinions higher, to the first Barbarick Philosophers: who were the first race of Philosophers after the Flood. But Josephus tells a formal story of Pillars set up by Seth, before the Flood; implying the foreknowledge of this Fiery destruction of the World, even from the beginning of it. His words are to this effect, give what credit to them you think fit. Seth and his fellow students having found out the knowledge of the cœlestial Bodies, and the order and disposition of the Universe; and having also receiv’d from Adam a Prophecy, that the World should have a double destruction, one by Water, another by Fire; To preserve and transmit their knowledge, in either case, to posterity. They raised two Pillars, one of Brick, another of Stone, and ingrav’d upon them their Philosophy and inventions. And one of these pillars, the Author says, was standing in Syria, 1 even to his time. I do not press the belief of this story; there being nothing, that I know of, in Antiquity Sacred or prophane, that gives a joint testimony with it. And those that set up these Pillars, do not seem to me to have understood the nature of the Deluge or Conflagration; if they thought a Pillar, either of Brick or Stone, would be secure, in those great dissolutions of the Earth. But we have pursued this doctrine high enough without the help of these ante-diluvian Antiquities: namely, to the earliest people and the first appearances of Wisdom after
In like manner the Prophets, when they speak of destroying the wicked, and the Enemies of God and Christ, at the end of the world, represent it as a destruction by Fire. Psalm the 11th. 6. Upon the wicked the Lord shall rain coals, fire, and brimstone, and a burning tempest: This shall be the portion of their Cup. And Psal. 50. 3. Our God shall come, and will not be slow: A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. And in the beginning of those two triumphal Psalms, the sixty-eight, and ninety-seventh, we see plain allusions to this coming of the Lord in fire. The other Prophets speak in the same style, Of a fiery indignation against the wicked, in the day of the Lord: As in Isaiah 66. 15. For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with his Chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. And in Daniel, (c. 7. 9, 10.) The Ancient of days is plac’d upon his Seat of Judgment, cover’d in flames. I beheld till the Thrones were set, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: His Throne was like the fiery flame, his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: Thousand thousands ministred unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: The judgment was set, and the Books were opened. The Prophet Malachy (c. 4. 1.) describes the Day of the Lord to the same effect, and in like colours; Behold the Day cometh, that shall burn as an Oven: and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day that cometh shall burnt them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. And that nature her self, and the Earth shall suffer in that fire, the Prophet Zephany tells us, (c. 3. 8.) All the Earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousie. Lastly, this consumption of the Earth by fire, even to the foundations of it, is exprest livelily by Moses in his Song, Deut. 32. 22. A fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell: and shall consume the Earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the Mountains.
If we reflect upon these Witnesses; and especially the first and last, Moses and St. Peter: at what a great distance of time they writ their Prophecies, and yet how well they agree, we must needs conclude that they were acted by the same
