present Earth, 'tis reasonable we should endeavour to
make a more full discovery and description of it; Especially seeing Paradise was there; that seat of pleasure
which our first Parents lost, and which all their posterity have much ado to find again.
In the First Book we so far describ'd This newfound World, as to show it very different in form
and fabrick from the present Earth; there was no
Sea there, no Mountains, nor Rocks, nor broken
Caves, 'twas all one continued and regular mass,
smooth, simple and compleat, as the first works of
Nature use to be. But to know thus much only,
doth rather excite our curiosity than satisfie it; what
were the other properties of this World? how were
the Heavens, how the Elements? what accommodation for humane life? why was it more proper to be
the seat of Paradise than the present Earth? Unless
we know these things, you will say, it will seem but
an aery Idea to us; and 'tis certain that the more properties and particularities that we know concerning
any thing, the more real it appears to be.
As it was our chief design therefore in the precedent Book to give an account of the Universal Deluge, by way of a just Theory; so we propose to our
selves chiefly in this Book, from the same Theory to
give a just account of Paradise; and in performing
of this we shall be led into a more full examination
and display of that first Earth, and of its qualities.
And if we be so happy, as by the conduct of the same
principles and the same method, to give as fair an
account, and as intelligible of the state of Paradise in
that Original Earth, as we have done of the Deluge
by the dissolution of it, and of the form of this Earth
which succeeded, one must be very morose or melancholy to imagine that the grounds we go upon all
this while are wholly false or fictitious. A foundation which will bear the weight of two Worlds without sinking, must surely stand upon a firm Rock.
And I am apt to promise my self that this Theory of
the Earth will find acceptance and credit, more or
less, with all but those, that think it a sufficient answer to all arguments, to say it is a Novelty.
