DELUGE 
nals of Ethiopia. ae account bears a great joann 
to the hypothefis of Dr. Burnet. It muft be owne 
however, that feveral of the deluges which tradition ee 
cords, were merely topical inundations ; and they fhould 
be carefully dit Ringuithed from that of Noah; thouzh an- 
erent and modern writers frequently confound them toge- 
ther. Moreover, natural, as well as civil, hiflory bears a 
ofes’s account of the See and fhews 
uft have been univerfal, or nearly owever 
difficult it may be for us, either to find noes: fuficienty 
ample for fo great a bo ly o aters, or me or re- 
movin e prefent external furface of ce earth, 
= 
ou 
i) 
et 
marine animals and petrified fhells 
great diflances from their original habitation, cromen ated 
with the earth, or on eminences far clevate above the level 
fe 
hiftories of che firft ages, which fhew that mankind were lately 
{prung from a {mall flock, en even {uit the time ree 
by Mofes for the flood. 
great empires of Egypt, Affyria, Babylon, 
cc. concur to hes ame purpofe. We might add, the in- 
vention a refs of arts and f{ciences, ye alo favour 
the Mofaic hitory of the antediluvians, objec~ 
tions u eluge from the ize of fhe a and 
whether it were general, or partial ; " fecpndly, its 
natural caufe ; and, thirdly, its effects. 
The immenfe quantizy- of water requifite to furnifh an 
univerfal deluge, has eet! feveral authors to fufpe& it 
only partial. An univerfal deluge, they think, had been un- 
neceflary, confidering the end for which it was 
viz. to extirpate the wicked inhabitants. € 
then the people not very m 
ads key making only eight Aaa from am 
It was but a {mall part of the earth that could be 
Va “ahabited 3 the country seu the apie which is 
been the fcene of the fir antediluvian in- 
Provi- 
dence, fay thy, which ever aéts wifely, and frugally, would 
never have difproportioned the means to the end, fo far as to 
verfiow the whole globe, only to drown a little corner of it. 
They add, that, in the Scripture-language, the whole earth 
acent re gions 5 
of land which lies between, the fou 
e, and 
deed, Bedford, in his “Scripture Chronology ,” fuppofes that 
all mane id did not perifh in the deluge ; and he has endea- 
voured to prove, from a peculiar apie n of the curfes of 
Cain and Lamech, that the Africans and Indians are of their 
pofterity. But, if we oe to the language of f Sa aia 
mage conclude that the deluge was univerfal, God decla a 
oah, Gen. vi. . that he was refolved to detroy every 
cas that bad breath under heaven, or had life on t 
earth, by a flood of waters; fuch was the menace; fuch the 
execution. The waters, Mofes affures us, covered the whole 
earth, ured all the mountains, and were no lefs than fifteen 
cubits above the higheft of then: every thing perithed 
there! n; birds, beatts, men, and all that had hfe, pe 
Noah, and thofe with him in the ark, Gen. vil. 19, &c. Can 
an univerfal deluge be more clearly expreffed ? If the eee 
had only been partial, there had been no neceffity to fpend 
undred years in the building of an ark, and fhutting up all 
7 forts of animals therein, in order to re-ftock the world: 
they had been eafily and readily brought from thofe pzrts of 
the world not overflowed, into thofe that were: 
they were T 
arts where the id not reach. If the waters had only 
overflowed the neighbourhood of the Euphrates and Tigris, 
they could not ts above the f{ mountains ; 
and, in that cafe, Mofes, no doubt, would se ine the 
miracle, as he did that of the waters of the Red fea, and the 
river Jordan, which were fuftained in a heap, to give pence 
to the Ifraelites, as RIV ZO — Jofh. iii, “16. Add, 
t 
> 
which many naturalilts are agi ve come 
there but by the pee wolefe we fuppofe with ae that 
thefe organic remains w t the ttrata 
of the earth (fee Sa were formed previoufly to the dee 
luge :—to almoft univerfal tradi. 
tions of this great event in all- countries of the globe. 
. The deluge allowed to be univerfal, the — 
are folicitous to find water to effeet | 
waters of the ocean were not near enough to cover the earth 
fifteen cubits above the tops of the higheft mountains. Ac- 
cording to his dae sbaet no lefs than eight oceans were 
required. Suppofing the fea, therefore, drained quite dry, 
and all the clouds of the atmofphere diffolved into rain, we 
fhould ftill want much the greateft part of the water of 
a delu 
To oeed clear of this embarraffment, many of our beft na- 
are as Steno, Burnet, Woodward, Scheuchzer, &c. 
t Des Cartes’ fyftem of the formation of the earth, 
That philofopher wil have the primitive world to have been 
and_equal, with 
ormation 
he raul fo the primitive ae a have been no more 
an orbicular regular, and uniform, hod 
mountains, and maluueaten inveiting the face of the abyfs, 
or 
