equally salt, nor the water of lakes and rivers, every where, perfectly fresh. It were however worth an experiment to try, how long a trout would live in sea water, or a mackrel in fresh, How long either could live in mixed water, is hardly worth the trying. Thirdly, whence the waters of the universal deluge were accumulated and whither discharged, is a matter of more difficulty to those who are not convinced of the fact. Moses says no more, as to the former, than that the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven opened; and, as to the latter, he only tells us, that the fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and that God made a wind to pass over the earth, whereby the waters were assuaged. Ere this account can be properly criticised, we must know a great deal more of the earth under us, and the heavens above us, than we do, or ever can do in this life. Here, as knowledge cannot be attained, there is an open, or rather a call, for a few rational suppositions, which might lead to a solution of the difficulties before us. It is agreed, that the diameter of the earth is near eight thousand miles. To believe it solid rock from the surface to the centre, would be, one might think, to suppose a waste of matter, at least, of matter so dense and compact. Let us then suppose, that the globe consists of a crust, five hundred miles in thickness, composed of earth, rock, bitumen, minerals, &c. and the space within, seven thousand miles in diameter, to contain air, fire, water, or a chaotic mixture of them all. In a crust of five hundred miles in depth, there is room for many caverns, one over another, of vast extent, and, possibly, of from five to twenty miles in height. That which is largest and uppermost, may be filled with water, with an outer crust above it, of from one to four miles, here and there, in thickness. We may likewise suppose other caverns lateral to, or lower than this, replete with fire and ignited air or water. The force of vapour or expanded water, is to that of rarified air in a gun, as four hundred to thirteen. In this case, the fire of a lower cavern, bursting up through the water of another above it, may produce enormous convulsions and explosions in and from the upper crust. Of these last, earthquakes and volcanos exhibit an experimental proof. So much for the earth. Now as to the heavens, wherewith we are still less acquainted, what quantities of water, and how far rarified, there may be above us, we are totally ignorant, and therefore, whatever our opinions may be, they cannot contradict the Mosaic account of forty days heavy rain. If water may be so expanded

as here noticed, there is no saying what quantities of it may be lodged above our atmosphere, as on a rock, nor by what causes there kept in a state of expansion, for some time, and at other times condensed. We cannot say how far, in the former case it may heighten, nor in the latter lessen, the transparency of the medium, wherein it is suspended. The disappearance of several fixed stars may make it probable, that bodies of a more opaque nature, than pure ether, may sometimes interpose between those luminaries and our eyes. Be this as it will, we know that the air, light and pellucid as it is, often bears up immense quantities of water; and can neither say, what is the height of our atmosphere, nor what there may be above it, to carry still more. Philosophy hath not, cannot reach to these things; and therefore ought to be silent, till much greater lights are afforded. Nothing can argue a greater degree of stupidity, not to say petulance and vanity, than talking with assurance of things we know not. But now taking the foregoing suppositions (and as such only I propose them, though some of them I can go near to prove) for granted, the theory of a universal deluge will, wonderful as it is, be far less unaccountable than that of the creation, which every infidel, not divested of common sense, readily admits, I mean as a fact perfectly well accounted for by infinite wisdom and power. Suppose then, that by a universal earthquake the outer crust of the earth had been so shattered, as to fall into the abyss of waters under it, this and the great rains must have raised the waters fifteen cubits above the antediluvian hills, which were it necessary, as it is not, I should insist were none of them near so high as our present mountains. Thus it is that the possibility of the deluge, as related by Moses, may be rationally ascertained. We have nothing farther to do, but, on the data assumed, to shew the possibility of the present earth's emergence from the abyss, and to get rid of the additional water which came from above. To effect this, let us have recourse to a second earthquake, whereby the earth, as we now see it, might have been pushed up to a considerably greater height than it stood at before the deluge, and that in a larger quantity of firm matter the bottom of the sea might have sunk a mile or two lower, and that of the grand abyss twice as much; so that the abyss below the crust, and the sea above it, swallowed up all their own waters, and all that had fallen during the forty days rain, leaving nothing for the wind to do, but to waft away the superficial moisture which lay on the

ground. To make this theory feasible, let us take it for granted, which we may safely do on repeated observations, that a great part of the earth, as we now find it, lay under the sea, before the deluge. The large beds of sea-shells, and other submarine bodies, found almost in all countries, not only in low grounds, but even in our mountains, shew to demonstration that the places where they are found were once under the sea, or at least under the wash of the sea, in some very extensive deluge. For the dry land thus gained considerable quantities of that character before the flood, are now sunk under the sea, insomuch, that the land animals, and the fishes, may have made a beneficial exchange, the respective sorts of fertility having been somewhat exhausted before the great revolution. (See Sherlock on Prophecies.) It may be requisite just to take notice here, that in many countries, particularly to the south of Mount Atlas, where they seldom have either springs or rivers, they find plenty of pure water, by digging down to what they call the sea under ground. Hence it may appear, that I have begged no question in asserting the existence of the abyss mentioned above. As to the subterraneous caverns and fires, with their prodigious effects, I am not a whit more obliged to supposition. To say any thing of the benefits we derive from these fires, would be to depart from my present subject; but as they are made an objection by atheistical people to religion, it will not be amiss to say a few words of them, by the by, in this place. These fires have a very considerable share, along with the sun, in causing the fertility of the earth, as is evident in countries near the volcanos, and often shook by earthquakes, such as Naples, Sicily, and Peru, where there is a greater produce of fine fruits than in any other parts of the world. Here the crust of the earth is thinner than elsewhere, and here therefore the subterraneous stove operates with more effect than elsewhere, though it is not without effect any where. Tempests save a thousand lives at land for one they destroy at Much the same is true of thunder and volcanic eruptions. They purge the air, and supply it with sulphureous and inflammable principles, without which animal life, no more than vegetative, could not be well maintained. But to return, as the universal deluge was a particular dispensation to punish and put a stop to sin, it is not a little absurd to look for its causes in the mere natural course of things, especially as subjected to the futility of vain philosophy, too presuming on its own powers of accounting for every phenomenon,

sea.

to have recourse to divine interposition, even where the aberrations of free agents have made it necessary; which, notwithstanding, vanity affects to call cutting, instead of untying knots. But reason says, Deus interfit, si dignus vindice nodus; a good maxim in Pagan poetry, but a much better in the government of the moral world, to which the natural should be subservient. I confess therefore, that what I have here offered, as philosophical, is to be understood no otherwise than answering a fool according to his folly, with stuff perhaps as foolish as his own. Is the Maker of all things so confined to his own works, that he can do nothing out of the order of that nature, which he hath impressed on the operations of his own hands? If man hath gone aside from the nature which God hath given him, may not God go aside from it to find him? Vain babbler, what dost thou know? He that made the world, can he not destroy it? at least can he not alter it, but thou must say to him, What doest thou?' If intemperance and the gout hath not yet taken away the use of thy limbs, tell me how thou canst set one foot before another? If thy pride hath not totally ruined thy brains, tell me how it was that God created the world, how he made this globe, how he kindled up the fire, and how he poured out the water from the unfruitful fountain of nothing? If thou canst answer to none of these questions, how darest thou question his power to direct his own works, or to make and annihilate water? If he touch the mountains they shall smoke, if he look on the earth it shall tremble.' Art thou more insensible than they? And is it thy philosophy that hath stupified thee beyond the hardness of marble? If God, to make an example of an apostate world, or to redeem a penitent one, should not be allowed miraculously to interpose without thy permission, what would become of thee who cannot be saved without a miracle, as great perhaps as any in his work of creation? If his interposition cannot be known but by working miracles, the working none would be somewhat more, and worse than all other miracles; for would it not prove, that a God of infinite justice and power allows impunity to sin? and that a God of infinite mercy and power gives no encouragement to repentance and amendment? Nature itself is a miracle, or a congeries of infinité miracles. If this world, as it certainly was, hath been made for man, a morally free agent; and if man, through the abuse of his freedom, is at any time in danger of being miserable for ever, the working of miracles contrary to those of nature, for his correc

tion and recovery, becomes highly probable on the footing of his Maker's attributes. Were all things, at all times, left to the known course of nature, the infidel might with good reason, on all occasions, deny a providential interposition. We hope therefore, that Providence may have leave at one time to point the course of nature, or at another to invert it, for purposes of the greatest importance and goodness. Whether the deluge, in particular, was from the beginning calculated for the very time in which it happened, when God foresaw the extreme wickedness of mankind; calculated, I mean, on a mere course of nature; or was miraculously brought to pass at that time, the deluge, and its effects, would be the same in themselves, and ought to be the same moral warning to us, if rightly considered. But, on the latter supposition, to which I cannot help adhering, the warning becomes more signal and striking. Howsoever, I have by suppositions formed a sort of world, and blown the globe into a bubble; I nevertheless believe the whole transaction, and indeed every thing else done by the Almighty, to have been miraculous. This I do in common with the bulk of mankind, equally concerned with me in the great event, because I will not, and they cannot, proceed philosophically on the subject. To this I am constrained (to omit other circumstances) by the recourse which all the several species of land animals and reptiles had to the ark, on the approach of destruction. And yet even in this case, recourse may be rationally had to nature, by supposing the ark to have been built on the highest ground in a country abounding with all such creatures as could not live in water. These would naturally fly from the water as it gradually rose, until they came to the top of this higher ground, and from thence into the ark. It is said that Noah was a hundred years in building the ark, and that Christ, by his Spirit, preached, during that period, to an infidel and disobedient world, wholly corrupted, and hardened in violence, iniquity, and oppression, insomuch that no other use could be made of them, but that of an example in their extirpation, of divine justice and vengeance on a reprobate generation. Our Saviour inculcates this fearful example with that of Sodom and Gomorrah, on the infidels of his own time, and of ours, who so strikingly resemble those he had then to do with, that a similar extermination, not long to be deferred, if not prevented by a speedy and general repentance, seems to await our atheism and wickedness. If so little success attended the preachings of God