BOOK but these things are so particularly made out by those learned authors, especially by Buteo, that I shall rather refer the reader, for further satisfaction, to the authors themselves, than take the pains to transcribe them.

VIII.

V. Grot.
Annot. in

Christ.

Voss. Isa

c. 2. et 3.

Bochart.

Geogr.

August. de

1. xviii.

C. 12. et ibid.

Lud. Viv. nus.

I come now therefore to the evidence of the truth and certainty of this universal deluge, of which we have most clear and concurring testimonies of most ancient nations of the world. For which purpose Grotius and others have at large produced the testi1. i. de Ve- mony of Berosus, the Chaldean, out of Josephus, conrit. Relig. cerning the flood and the ark in which Noah was gog. Chron. preserved; of Abydenus, out of Cyril and Eusebius, dissert. iv. concerning Xisuthrus, or Noah's sending out of the birds to see if the flood was assuaged; and of AlexanSacr. 1. i. der Polyhistor, concerning the preservation of animals C. 4. in the ark; of Plutarch, concerning the sending out Civit. Dei, of the dove; of Lucian de Dea Syria, concerning the whole story; and so of Molon and Nicolaus DamasceBesides, it is manifested by others, how among the Chaldeans the memory of Noah was preserved under the fable of Oannes, which had part of a fish, and part of a man: as is evident from the fragments of Apollodorus, Abydenus, and Alexander Polyhistor, Euseb. Chr. preserved in Eusebius's Greek Chronica; among the p. 5. ed. 2. Scaliger. Chinese, under the name of Puoncuus, who by them is said to have escaped alone with his family out of Is. Voss. the universal deluge, saith Isaac Vossius, who supEpist. ad Colvium, poseth Pu or Pi to be only a prefix to the name; and so that Puoncuus is the same with i Naxos. Martinius Hist. Sinic. tells us, de diluvio multa est apud Sinicos scriptores mentio, that the ancient writers of the Sinic history speak much of the flood. Johannes de Laet tells out Orig. Gent. of Lescharbotus, how constant the tradition of the flood the Indians, both in New France, Peru, and

p. 409.

Martin.

1. i. p. 12.

Joh. de

Laet. de

American. is

1. i. p. 115.

among

IV.

other parts. This being therefore so fully attested by CHAP. the evident and apparent consent of so many writers and historians, which did not own the authority of the Scriptures, I shall suppose this sufficiently proved, and proceed to the main thing which concerns the origin of nations, which is, the certainty of the propagation of mankind from the posterity of Noah. Of which there is this strong and convincing evidence, that in all that account which the Scripture gives of the propagation of nations from the sons of Noah, there is some remainder in the history of that nation to justify the reason of the imposition of the name from the names of the nations themselves, which have preserved the original name of their founder in their own; as the Medes from Madai; the Thracians from Thiras; the Ionians from Javan; the Sidonians from Sidon; the Philistines from Polesthim; the Arcæans, Aradians, Elymæans, Assyrians, Lydians, from Arki, Arad, Elam, Assur, and Lud; and many others produced by Grotius, Montanus, Junius, and especially Bochartus, Gro. Anwho, with admirable industry and learning, hath cleared de Verit. all this part of sacred history which concerns the rea- tan. Phaleg. son of the imposition of the names of the people which Junius in were propagated from the posterity of Noah, and given Geogr. a full and satisfactory account of the several places Sacr. p. 1. where the posterity of Noah seated themselves after the deluge. Instead of that, therefore, I shall consider the pretences which can be brought against it; which are chiefly these three: 1. That the Chaldæan empire seems to have greater antiquity than can be attributed to it by the history of Moses. 2. That the most learned heathen nations pretend to be self-originated, and that they came not from any other country. 3. That no certain account is given from whence America should be peopled.

not. ad l. i.

Ari. Mon

Gen. x.

Bochart.

BOOK
III.

IX.

1. The history of the Assyrian empire seems inconsistent with the propagation of the world, from the sons of Noah; for the reign of Ninus and Semiramis is placed by many chronologers within the first century after the flood, which seems a manifest inconsistency with the propagation of mankind from the sons of Noah; for it seems utterly impossible that the foundations of so great an empire should be laid in so small a compass of time by the posterity of three persons; and besides, Ninus and Semiramis were not the first who began the Assyrian empire, for Belus not only reigned fifty-five years before Ninus, but, according to the Chaldæan antiquities, from Evechous, who they say first reigned among them, are reckoned 495 years. But admit that the beginning of the AsPetav. de syrian empire be placed so low as Petavius and other chronologers would have it, viz. in the year after the 1. ix. c. 14. flood 153, yet the difficulty is only somewhat abated, but not removed; for it seems yet unconceivable, that from three persons, in 150 years, such multitudes should spring, as to make so large an empire as that of Ninus, and that within an hundred years after the flood there should be such vast multitudes for the building the tower of Babel, and dispersion up and down the world; so that, according to the Hebrew computation, in the compass of 300 years, viz. about Abraham's time, the world was so fully peopled, that we read of several kings encountering one another; by which it is evident the world had been peopled some time before, or else there could not have been such potent kings as some of them were at that time. This being the grand difficulty, to it I answer these things:

Doct.

Temp.

tom. ii.

1. There is no such certainty of the beginning of the Assyrian empire, as for the sake of that to question the truth of the propagation of the world by the sons of

IV.

Noah. I have already largely manifested the want of CHAP. credibility in the chronology of the ancient Chaldæans, and that we have no certain grounds to rely upon in reference to it; especially as to those seven first Babylonian kings which are cited out of Africanus, by Eusebius and Georgius Syncellus, viz. Evechous, Chomasbolus, Porus, Nechubes, Abius, Oniballus, Chinzirus, who are said to reign 225 years two months; and alike fabulous, I suppose, is the other dynasty of six Arabian kings, whose empire is said to have stood 215 years, to the time of Belus, who expelled the Arabians, and took the power to himself. And it is much more agreeable to reason to reject these two dynasties, which had no record of them left in any history of the Assyrian empire, but only in Berosus, whose authority in this case hath been discussed already, than to follow our late excellent primate of Armagh, who punctually sets down the reign of the kings of these two dynasties, but cuts off at least eight ages in the time of the Assyrian empire from Ninus to Sardanapalus; which time he confines to 496 years, and placeth Ninus in the 2737th year of the world, according to the Hebrew Usser. Ann. computation, and so to live in the time of the Judges, A. M. 2737. and be contemporary with Deborah: which he builds only on a place in Herodotus, which relates not to the time between Ninias and Sardanapalus, but to the time of the defection of the Medes from the Assyrian em-Castigat. pire, as Isaac Vossius hath already shewed. We can-c. 10. not then find any certainty in the beginning of the Assyrian empire, which may give us cause to question the propagation of the world from the posterity of Noah.

2. We have reason to think that there was a more than ordinary multiplication of the world from the sons of Noah after the flood. For as God had before

Vet. Test.

adv. Horn.

III.

BOOK punished the world by destroying mankind in it by an extraordinary manner, so after the flood he did in a particular manner bless Noah and his sons, and said Gen. ix. 1. unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth; which may well be thought to have then had an extraordinary effect. Several ways have been attempted, by learned men, to make appear to what a vast number the posterity of Noah would increase in the space of two or three hundred years after the Petar, de flood. Petavius supposeth that the posterity of Noah Temp. 1. ix. might beget children at seventeen, and that each of

Doct.

c. 14.

Sacr. c. 5.

Noah's sons might have eight children in the eighth year after the flood, and that every one of these eight might beget eight more; by this means in only one family, as of Japhet in the year after the flood 238, he makes a diagram, consisting of almost an innumerable Uss. Chron. company of men. Johannes Temporarius, as our most learned primate tells us, takes this way; that all of the posterity of Noah, when they attained twenty years of age, had every year twins; on which supposition, by arithmetical progression, he undertakes to make it appear, that in the 102d year after the flood there would be, of males and females, 1,554,420; but taking away the one half, because of the groundless supposition of twins, yet then in that time there would be 388,605 males, besides females. Others suppose

that each of the sons of Noah had ten sons; and, by that proportion, in few generations it would amount to many thousands within a century. Others insist on the parallel between the multiplication of the children of Israel in Egypt; that if from 72 men, in the space of 215 years, there are procreated 600,000, how many will be born of three men in the space of an hundred years? Some have said above 23,000; but with what success in their arithmetic, I shall not determine.