CHAPTER IX
How the Sea will be diminish’d and consum’d. How the Rocks and Mountains will be thrown down and melted, and the whole exteriour frame of the Earth dissolv’d into a Deluge of Fire.
WE have now taken a view of the Causes of the Conflagration, both ordinary and extraordinary: It remains to consider the manner of it; How these Causes will operate, and bring to pass an effect so great and so prodigious. We took notice before that the grand obstruction would be from the Sea, and from the Mountains; we must therefore take these to task in the first place; and if we can remove them out of our way, or overcome what resistance and opposition they are capable to make, the rest of the work will not be uneasie to us.
The Ocean indeed is a vast Body of Waters; and we must use all our art and skill to dry it up, or consume it in a good measure, before we can compass our design. I remember the advice a Philosopher gave Amasis King of Egypt, when he had a command sent him from the King of Æthiopia, That he should drink up the Sea. Amasis being very anxious and solicitous what answer he should make to this strange command, the Philosopher Bias advis’d him to make this round answer to the King; That he was ready to perform his command and to drink up the Sea, provided he would stop the rivers from flowing into his cup while he was drinking. This answer baffled the King, for he could not stop the rivers; but this we must do, or we shall never be able to drink up the Sea, or burn up the Earth.
Neither will this be so impossible as it seems at first sight, if we reflect upon those preparations we have made towards it, by a general drought all over the Earth. This we suppose will precede the Conflagration, and by drying up the Fountains and Rivers, which daily feed the Sea, will by degrees starve that Monster, or reduce it to such a degree of weakness, that it shall not be able to make any great resistance. More than half an Ocean of Water flows into the Sea every day, from the Rivers of the Earth, if you take them all together. This
The flames, he says, sprung up thorough the waters, four days together, so as the whole Sea was hot and burning; and they rais’d by degrees, as with Engines, a mass of Earth, which made a new Island, twelve furlongs in compass. And in the same Archipelago, flames and smoak have several times (particularly in the year 1650) rise out of the Sea, and fill’d the Air with sulphureous scents and vapours. In like manner, in the Island of St. Michel, one of the Tercera's, there have been, of later years, such eructations of fire and flames; so strong and violent, that, at the depth of an hundred and sixty fathoms, they forc’d their way through the midst of the waters, from the bottom of the Sea into the open Air. As has been related by those that were eye-witnesses.
In these three ways, I conceive, the great force of the Sea will be broken, and the mighty Ocean reduc’d to a standing Pool of putrid waters, without vent and
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. Which will be literally true at the second coming of our Saviour, as it was figuratively apply’d to his first coming. Now, being once level’d with the rest of the Earth, the question will onely be, how they shall be dissolv’d. But there is no Terrestrial Body indissolvable to Fire, if it have a due strength and continuance; and this last fire will have both, in the highest degrees; So that it cannot but be capable of dissolving all Elementary compositions, how hard or solid soever they be.
’Tis true, these Mountains and Rocks, as I said before, will have the priviledge to be the last destroy’d. These, with the deep parts of the Sea, and the Polar regions of the Earth, will undergo a slower fate, and be consum’d more leisurely. The action of the last Fire may be distinguish’d into two Times, or two assaults; The first assault will carry off all Mankind, and all the works of the Earth that are easily combustible, and this will be done with a quick and sudden motion. But the second assault, being employ’d about the consumption of such Bodies or such Materials as are not so easily subjected to fire, will be of long continuance, and the work of some years. And ’tis fit it should be so; that
, The Elements will be melted with fervent heat; besides burning up the works of the Earth. Then adds, Seeing all these things shall be dissolv’d, &c. These terms of Liquefaction and Dissolution cannot, without violence, be restrained to simple devastation and superficial scorching. Such expressions carry the work a great deal further, even to that full sence which we propose. Besides, the Prophets often speak of the melting of the Earth, or of the hills and mountains, at the presence of the Lord, in the day of his wrath. And St. John (Apoc. is. 2.) tells us of a Sea of Glass, mingled with Fire; where the Saints stood, singing the song of Moses, and triumphing over their enemies, the Spiritual Pharaoh and his host, that were swallowed up in it. That Sea of Glass must be a Sea of molten glass; it must be fluid, not solid, if a Sea; neither can a solid substance be said to be mingled with Fire, as this was. And to this answers the Lake of fire and brimstone, which the Beast and false Prophet were thrown into alive, Apoc. 19. 20. These all refer to the end of the World and the last Fire, and also plainly imply, or express rather, that state of Liquefaction which we suppose and assert.
makes that to be, which is to succeed after the Conflagration. And a World also without a Sea, so St. John describes the New Earth he saw. As these characters do not agree to the present Earth, so neither would they agree to your Future one; for if that dead lump could revive and become habitable again, it would however retain all the imperfections of the former Earth, besides some scars and deformities of its own. Wherefore if you would cast the Earth into a new and better mould, you must first melt it down; and the last Fire, being as a Refiner's fire, will make an improvement in it, both as to matter and form. To conclude, it must be reduc’d into a fluid Mass, in the nature of a Chaos, as it was at first; but this last will be a Fiery Chaos, as that was Watery; and from this state it will emerge again into a Paradisiacal World. But this being the Subject of the following Book, we will discourse no more of it in this place.