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equity and sincerity. I have no other design than to
contribute my endeavours to find out the truth in a
subject of so great importance, and wherein the
World hath hitherto had so little satisfaction: And
he that in an obscure argument proposeth an Hypothesis that reacheth from end to end, though it be not
exact in every particular, 'tis not without a good effect; for it gives aim to others to take their measures
better, and opens their invention in a matter which
otherwise, it may be, would have been impenetrable
to them: As he that makes the first way through a
thick Forest, though it be not the streightest and
shortest, deserves better, and hath done more than he
that makes it streighter and smoother afterwards.
Providence that ruleth all things and all Ages, after the Earth had stood above sixteen hundred Years,
thought fit to put a period 'to that World, and accordingly, it was reveal'd to Noah, that for the wickedness and degeneracy of men, God would destroy
mankind with the Earth (Gen. 6. 13.) in a Deluge of
water; whereupon he was commanded, in order to
the preserving of himself and family, as a stock for
the new World, to build a great Vessel or Ark to
float upon the waters, and had instructions given him
for the building of it both as to the matter and as to
the form. Noah believed the word of God, though
against his senses, and all external appearances, and
ser himself to work to build an Ark, according to the
directions given, which after many years labour was
finish'd; whilst the incredulous World, secure
enough, as they thought, against a Deluge, continu'd
still in their excesses and insolencies, and laught at the
admonition of Noah, and at the folly of his design of
building an extravagant machine, a floating house, to
save himself from an imaginary Inundation; for they
thought it no less, seeing it was to be in an Earth
where there was no Sea, nor any Rain neither in
those parts, according to the ordinary course of Nature; as shall be shown in the second Book of this
Treatise.
But when the appointed time was come, the Heavens began to melt, and the Rains to fall, and these
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