lives related unto the next. For so when the seed of Jacob was under affliction and captivity, that of Ishmael and Esau flourished and grew mighty, there proceeding from the one twelve princes, from the other no less than fourteen dukes and eight kings. And whereas the age of Cain and his posterity is not delivered in the text, some do salve it from the secret method of Scripture, which sometimes wholly omits, but seldom or never delivers the entire duration of wicked and faithless persons, as is observable in the history of Esau, and the kings of Israel and Judah. And therefore when mention is made that Ishmael lived 127 years, some conceive he adhered unto the faith of Abraham, for so did others who were not descended from Jacob, for Job is thought to be an Idumean, and of the seed of Esau.

Lastly, although we rely not thereon, we will not omit that conceit urged by learned men, that Adam was elder than Methuselah; inasmuch as he was created in the perfect age of man, which was in those days 50 or 60 years, for about

that time we read that they begat children; so that if unto 930 we add 60 years, he will exceed Methuselah; and therefore if not in length of days, at least in old age he surpassed others; he was older than all, who was never so young as any. For though he knew old age, he was never acquainted with puberty, youth, or infancy, and so in a strict account he begat children at one year old. And if the usual compute will hold, that men are of the same age which are born within compass of the same year, Eve was as old as her husband and parent Adam, and Cain, their son, coetaneous unto both.

Now that conception, that no man did ever attain unto

Adam was elder.] This phrase, as itt is commonly used, signifies elder in time, and then itt sayes nothing, for who denyes itt? But in lengthe of dayes from the birthe Adam was not soe old as Mathuselah by 20 yeares.- Wr.

6 that no man, &c.] This is most true de facto, though the reason bee but symbolical, and concludes nothing necessarilye. For granting that Adam was created in the perfect age of man, as then itt was, which was rather 100 then 60, yet he lived noe more then 930 in all, viz. solar, sydereal, tropick years. To which if you add those hypothecall 60 yeares (for they are not reall but imaginary only), yet soe Adam would not reach to 1000 by 10 yeares, and therefore the saying is most true.- Wr.

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a thousand years, because none should ever be one day old in the sight of the Lord, unto whom, according to that of David, A thousand years are but one day," doth not advantage Methuselah. And being deduced from a popular expression, which will not stand a metaphysical and strict examination, is not of force to divert a serious inquirer. For unto God a thousand years are no more than one moment, and in his sight Methuselah lived no nearer one day than Abel, for all parts of time are alike unto him, unto whom none are referrible, and all things present unto whom nothing is past or to come; and therefore, although we be measured by the zone of time, and the flowing and continued instants thereof do weave at last a line and circle about the eldest, yet can we not thus commensurate the sphere of Trismegistus, or sum up the unsuccessive and stable duration of God.

CHAPTER IV.

That there was no Rainbow before the Flood.

THAT there shall no rainbow appear forty years before the end of the world, and that the preceding drought unto that great shame shall exhaust the materials of this meteor, was an assertion grounded upon no solid reason; but that there was not any in sixteen hundred years, that is, before the flood, seems deducible from Holy Scripture, Gen. ix., "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." From whence notwithstanding we cannot conclude the non-existence of the rainbow, nor is that chronology naturally established, which computeth the antiquity of effects arising from physical and settled causes, by additional impositions from voluntary determinators. Now by the decree of reason and philosophy, the rainbow hath its ground in nature, as caused by the rays of the sun, falling upon a rorid and opposite cloud, whereof some reflected, others refracted, beget that semicircular

7 sphere of Trismegistus.] Trismegistus sayd God was a circle, whose center, that is, his presentiall and immutable essence, from whence all things have their beinge, is every where, but his circumference, that is, his incomprehensible infinity, is noe where.-Wr.

variety we generally call the rainbow, which must succeed upon concurrence of causes and subjects aptly predisposed. And therefore to conceive there was no rainbow before, because God chose this out as a token of the covenant, is to conclude the existence of things from their signalities, or of what is objected unto the sense, a coexistence with that which is internally presented unto the understanding. With equal reason we may infer there was no water before the institution of baptism, nor bread and wine before the Holy Eucharist.

Again, while men deny the antiquity of one rainbow, they anciently concede another. For beside the solary iris which God showed unto Noah, there is a lunary, whose efficient is the moon, visible only in the night, most commonly called at full moon, and some degrees above the horizon. Now the existence hereof men do not controvert, although effected by a different luminary in the same way with the other. And probably it appeared later, as being of rare appearance and rarer observation, and many there are which think there is no such thing in nature; and therefore by casual spectators they are looked upon like prodigies, and significations made, not signified by their natures.

Lastly, we shall not need to conceive God made the rainbow at this time, if we consider that in its created and predisposed nature, it was more proper for this signification, than any other meteor or celestial appearancy whatsoever. Thunder and lightning had too much terror to have been tokens of mercy. Comets or blazing stars appear too seldom to put us in mind of a covenant to be remembered often, and might rather signify the world should be once destroyed by fire, than never again by water. The galaxia or milky circle had been more probable; for beside that unto the latitude of thirty, it becomes their horizon twice in four and twenty hours, and unto such as live under the equator, in that space the whole circle appeareth, part thereof is visible unto any situation; but being only discoverable in the night, and when the air is clear, it becomes of unfrequent and comfortless signification. A fixed star had not been visible unto all the globe, and so of too narrow a signality in a covenant concerning all. But rainbows are seen unto all the world, and every position of sphere. Unto our own elevation they may

appear in the morning, while the sun hath attained about forty-five degrees above the horizon, which is conceived the largest semidiameter of any iris, and so in the afternoon when it hath declined unto that altitude again, which height the sun not attaining in winter, rainbows may happen with us at noon or any time. Unto a right position of sphere they may appear three hours after the rising of the sun, and three before its setting; for the sun ascending fifteen degrees an hour, in three attaineth forty-five of altitude. Even unto a parallel sphere, and such as live under the pole, for half a year some segments may appear at any time and under any quarter, the sun not setting but walking round about them.

But the propriety of its election most properly appeareth in the natural signification and prognostic of itself; as containing a mixed signality of rain and fair weather. For, being in a rorid cloud and ready to drop, it declareth a pluvious disposure in the air; but because, when it appears, the sun must also shine, there can be no universal showers, and consequently no deluge. Thus, when the windows of the great deep were open, in vain men looked for the rainbow; for at that time it could not be seen, which after appeared unto Noah. It might be therefore existent before the flood, and had in nature some ground of its addition. Unto that of nature God superadded an assurance of its promise, that is, never to hinder its appearance or so to replenish the heavens again, as that we should behold it no more. And thus, without disparaging the promise, it might rain at the same time when God showed it unto Noah; thus was there more therein than the heathens understood when they called it the nuncia of the gods, and the laugh of weeping heaven ;* and thus may be elegantly said, I put my bow, not my arrow in the clouds, that is, in the menace of rain, the mercy of fair weather.

Cabalistical heads, who from that expression in Isaiah,+ do make a book of heaven, and read therein the great concernments of earth, do literally play on this, and from its semicircular figure (resembling the Hebrew letter caph, whereby is signified the uncomfortable number of twenty, at which years Joseph was sold, which Jacob lived under Laban, and

* Risus plorantis Olympi.

Isa. xxxiv. 4.

at which men were to go to war), do note a propriety in its signification; as thereby declaring the dismal time of the deluge. And Christian conceits do seem to strain as high, while, from the irradiation of the sun upon a cloud, they apprehend the mystery of the sun of righteousness in the obscurity of flesh, by the colours green and red, the two destructions of the world by fire and water, or by the colours of blood and water, the mysteries of baptism, and the Holy Eucharist.8

Laudable therefore is the custom of the Jews, who upon the appearance of the rainbow, do magnify the fidelity of God in the memory of his covenant, according to that of Syracides, "Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it." And though some pious and Christian pens have only symbolized the same from the mystery of its colours, yet are there other affections which might admit of theological allusions. Nor would he find a more improper subject, that should consider that the colours are made by refraction of light, and the shadows that limit that light; that the centre of the sun, the rainbow, and the eye of the beholder must be in one right line, that the spectator must be between the sun and the rainbow, that sometime three appear, sometime one reversed. With many others, considerable in meteorological divinity, which would more sensibly make out the epithet of the heathens,* and the expression of the son of Syrach, " Very beautiful is the rainbow, it compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended it."

CHAPTER V.

Of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

CONCERNING the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, that the order of their nativity was according to that of enumeration, and Japheth, the youngest son (as *Thaumancias.

Cabalistical heads, &c.] The present paragraph was first added in the 2nd edition, in which also the same subject was first noticed in the last chapter of book vi.

that the order of their nativity, &c.] Mr. C. T. Beke, in the 5th chapter