Some new dispositions towards the Conflagration, as to the matter, form, and situation of the Earth. Concerning miraculous Causes, and how far the ministery of Angels may be engaged in this Work.
WE have given an account, in the preceding Chapter, of the ordinary preparations of Nature for a general fire; We now are to give an account of the extraordinary, or of any new dispositions, which towards the end of the World, may be superadded to the ordinary state of Nature. I do not, by these, mean things openly miraculous and supernatural, but such a change wrought in Nature as shall still have the face of Natural Causes, and yet have a greater tendency to the Conflagration. As for example, suppose a great Drought, as we noted before, to precede this fate, or a general heat and dryness of the air and of the Earth; because this happens sometimes in a course of Nature, it will not be lookt upon as prodigious. ’Tis true, some of the Ancients speak of a Drought of Forty Years, that will be a forerunner of the Conflagration, so that there will not be a watery Cloud, nor a Rainbow seen in the Heavens, for so long time. And this they impute to Elias, who, at his coming, will stop the Rain and shut up the Heavens, to make way for the last Fire. But these are excessive and ill-grounded suppositions, for half forty years drought will bring an universal sterility upon the Earth, and thereupon an universal Famine, with innumerable diseases; so that all mankind would be destroyed before the Conflagration could overtake them.
But we will readily admit an extraordinary drought and desiccation of all bodies to usher in this great fatality. And therefore whatsoever we read in Natural History concerning former droughts, of their drying up fountains and rivers, parching the Earth and making the outward Turf take fire in several places; filling the air with fiery impressions, making the Woods and Forests ready fewel, and sometimes to kindle by the heat of the Sun or a flash of Lightning: These and what other effects have come to pass in former droughts, may come to pass
But if an augmentation is to be made of Terrestrial Fire, or of such terrestrial principles as contain it most, as Sulphur, Oyl, and such like, I am apt to believe, these will encrease of their own accord, upon a general drought and desiccation of the Earth. For I am far from the opinion of some Chymists, that think these principles immutable, and incapable of diminution or augmentation. I willingly admit that all such particles may be broken and disfigur’d, and thereby lose their proper and specifick virtue, and new ones may be generated to supply the places of the former. Which supplies, or new productions being made in a less or greater measure, according to the general dispositions of Nature; when Nature is heightned into a kind of Feaver and Ebullition of all her juices and humours, as she will be at that time, we must expect that more parts than ordinary, should be made inflammable, and those that are inflam’d should become more violent. Under these circumstances, when all Causes lean that way, a little help from a superiour power will have a great effect, and make a great change in the state of the World. And as to the power of Angels, I am of opinion that it is very great as to the Changes and Modifications of Natural Bodies; that they can dissolve a Marble as easily as we can crumble Earth and Moulds, or fix any liquor, in a moment, into a substance as hard as Crystal. That they can either make flames more vehement and irresistible to all sorts of Bodies; or as harmless as Lambent Fires, and as soft as Oyl. We see an instance of this last, in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery Furnace, where the three Children walk’d unconcern’d in the midst of the Flames, under the charge and protection of an Angel. And the same Angel, if he had pleas’d, could have made the same Furnace seven times hotter than the wrath of the Tyrant had made it.
We will therefore leave it to their ministery to manage this great Furnace, when the Heavens and the Earth are on Fire. To conserve, encrease, direct, or temper the flames, according to instructions given them, as they are to be Tutelary