BOOK hath not wanted some among the Heathen moralists, III. who have made it their design to vindicate it; which, setting aside what Simplicius on Epictetus and many others have done, is fully performed by Seneca, in his tract on this subject, Cur bonis male sit, cum sit Providentia, (as Muretus restores the title of that book ;) wherein these following accounts are given of it.

1. God brings them up as his children, under sharp discipline, for their future benefit. A good man, in Seneca's Senec. de language, is, Discipulus Dei, æmulatorque, et vera proProvid. c. 1. genies; which in the language of the Scripture is, one taught of God, and a follower of God, and one born of him. Now, saith he, Parens ille magnificus, virtutum non lenis exactor, sicut severi patres, durius educat. God, who is the great Father of good men, keeps them under discipline while under age, and by hardship fits them for the practice of virtue. Thence he bids us take notice of the different indulgence of fathers and mothers to their children: the father he hastens them to school, suffers them not to be idle on their play-days, makes them toil, and sometimes cry; the mother she is all for holding them in her lap, keeping them out of the sun, and from catching cold, would not willingly have them either cry or take pains. Ibid. c. 2. Patrium habet Deus adversus bonos animum, et illos fortiter amat. God bears the indulgence of a father towards his children, and loves them with greater severity.

2. Good men receive benefit by their sufferings; Quicquid evenit in suum colorem trahit, saith Seneca of a good man; which in the language of the Apostle is, Every thing works together for his good. The sea loseth nothing, saith he, of its saltness, by the rivers running into it; neither doth a good man by the current of his sufferings. And of all benefits which he receives, that of the exercise and trial of his virtue and patience is most discernible. Marcet sine adversario virtus; as soon as Carthage was destroyed, Rome fell to luxury. True wrestlers desire to have some to try their strength upon them; Cui non industrio otium poena est? An active spirit hates idleness and cowardice; for, etiamsi ceciderit, de genu pugnat, though his legs be cut off, he will fight on his knees.

3. It redounds to God's honour, when good men bear up under sufferings. Ecce par Deo dignum, virtus fortis cum mala fortuna compositus. It is a spectacle God delights to see, a good man combat with calamities. God doth, in Seneca's phrase, quosdam fastidio transire, pass them

III.

by in a slight. An old wrestler scorns to contend with a CHAP. coward, one who is vinci paratus, ready to yield up presently. Calamitates sub jugum mittere proprium magni viri est. It argues a noble spirit to be able to subdue

miseries.

4. It tends to the trial and increase of their strength. Seneca highly extols that speech of the philosopher Demetrius, Nihil infelicius eo cui nihil unquam evenit adversi; non licuit enim illi se experiri. He is the most unhappy man who never knew what misery meant; for he could never know what he was able to bear. And, as he saith, to pass one's life way sine morsu animi, without any trouble, it is ignorare rerum naturæ alteram partem, not to know what is upon the reverse of nature. Idem licet fecerint qui integri revertuntur ex acie, magis spectatur qui saucius redit. Though he that comes home sound, might fight as well as he that is wounded; yet the wounded person hath the more pity, and is most cried up for his valour. The pilot is seen in a tempest, a soldier in the battle, and a good man in sufferings. God doth by such as masters do by scholars, qui plus laboris ab his exigunt, quibus certior spes est; who set the best wits the hardest tasks.

5. God exerciseth good men with sufferings, to discover the indifferency of those things which men value so much in the world, when he denies them to good men.

Blindness

would be hateful, if none were blind but such whose eyes were put out; and therefore Appius and Metellus were blind. Riches are no good things, therefore the worst as well as the best have them. Nullo modo magis potest Deus concupita traducere, quam si illa ad turpissimos defert, ab optimis abigit. God could not traduce or defame those things more which men desire so much, than by taking them away from the best of men, and giving them to the

worst.

6. That they might be examples to others of patience and constancy: for, as Seneca concludes, Nati sunt in exemplar, they are born to be patterns to others. If to these things we add what the word of God discovers concerning the nature, grounds, and ends of afflictions, and that glory which shall be revealed, in comparison with which exceeding weight of glory, these light and momentary afflictions are not at all to be valued; then we have a clear and full vindication of Divine Providence as to the sufferings of good men, as well as to the impunity of such as are wicked. But however, from hence we see how far the

BOOK mere light of reason hath carried men in resolving these difficulties concerning God's providence in the world, and what a rational account may be given of them, supposing evil of punishment to arise from sin, and that there is a God in the world, who is ready to punish the wicked, and to reward the good: which was the thing to be shewed.

CHAP. IV.

Of the Origin of Nations.

1. All Mankind derived from Adam, if the Scriptures be true. II. The contrary Supposition an Introduction to Atheism. III. The Truth of the History of the Flood. The Possibility of an universal Deluge proved. IV. The Flood universal as to Munkind, whether universal as to the Earth and Animals; no Necessity of asserting either. V. Yet supposing the Possibility of it demonstrated without Creation of new Waters. VI. Of the Fountains of the Deep. The Proportion which the Height of Mountains bears to the Diameter of the Earth. No Mountains much above three Miles perpendicular. Of the Origin of Fountains. The Opinion of Aristotle and others concerning it discussed. The true Account of them from the Vapours arising from the Mass of subterraneous Waters. VII. Of the Capacity of the Ark for receiving the Animals, from Buteo and others. VIII. The Truth of the Deluge from the Testimony of Heathen Nations. Of the Propagation of Nations from Noah's Posterity. IX. Of the Beginning of the Assyrian Empire. The Multiplication of Mankind after the Flood. Of the Chronology of the LXX. Of the Time between the Flood and Abraham, and the Advantages of it. X. Of the Pretence of such Nations, who called themselves Aborigines. XI. A Discourse concerning the first Planters of Greece: the common Opinion propounded and rejected. Hellens were not the first Inhabitants of Greece, but the Pelasgi. The large Spread of them over the Parts of Greece. XII. Of their Language different from the Greeks. XIII. Whence these Pelasgi came; that Phaleg was the Pelasgus of Greece, and the Leader of that Colony, proved from Epiphanius. XIV. The Language of the Pelasgi in Greece Oriental: thence an Account given of the many Hebrew Words in the Greek Language, and the Remainders of the Eastern Languages in the Islands of Greece; both which not from the Phoenicians, as Bochartus thinks, but from the old Pelasgi. XV. Of the Ground of the Affinity between the Jews and Lacedæmonians. Of the peopling of America.

The

IV.

THE next thing we proceed to give a rational account CHAP. of, in the history of the first ages of the world contained in Scripture, is the peopling the world from Adam; which is of great consequence for us to understand, not only for the satisfaction of our curiosity as to the true origin of nations, but also in order to our believing the truth of the

26.

III.

:

BOOK Scriptures, and the universal effects of the fall of man: neither of which can be sufficiently cleared without this. For as it is hard to conceive how the effects of man's fall should extend to all mankind, unless all mankind were propagated from Adam; so it is unconceivable how the account of things given in Scripture should be true, if there were persons existent in the world long before Adam was; since the Scripture doth so plainly affirm, Acts xvii. That God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth. Some Greek copies read it ἐξ ἑνὸς, leaving out αἵματος, which the vulgar Latin follows the Arabic version, to explain both, reads it ex homine, or, as De Dieu renders it, ex Adamo uno; there being but the difference of one letter in the Eastern languages between and N, the one denoting blood, and the other man. But if we take it as our more ordinary copies read it, vòs aluaros, yet thereby it is plain that the meaning is not that all mankind was made of the same uniform matter, as the author of the Præ-Adamites weakly imagined, (for by that reason not only mankind, but the whole world might be said to be ivòs aiuatos, of the same blood, since all things in the world were at first formed out of the same matter;) but alua is taken there in the sense in which it occurs in the best Greek authors, for the stock out of which men come: so Homer,

Hom. Odyss. w. V. 300.

Virg. Æn.

1. i. v. 23.

Εἰ ετεόν γ' ἐμὸς ἐσσὶ καὶ αἵματος ἡμετέροιο.

Thence those who are near relations are called in Sophocles oi agos aiparos, thence the name of consanguinity for nearness of relation; and Virgil useth sanguis in the same sense,

Trojano a sanguine duci.

So that the Apostle's meaning is, that however men now are so dispersed in their habitations, and differ so much in language and customs from each other, yet they were all originally of the same stock, and did derive their succession from that first man whom God created. Neither can it be conceived on what account Adam in the Scrip1 Cor. xv. ture is called the first man, and that he was made a living soul, and of the earth, earthy, unless it were to denote that he was absolutely the first of his kind, and so was to be the standard and measure of all that follows. when our Saviour would reduce all things to the beginning, he instanceth in those words which were pronounced Mark x. after Eve was formed. But from the beginning of the

45, 47.

6,7.

And