so neither would they agree to your Future one; for if that dead lump could revive and become habitable again, it would however retain all the imperfections of the former Earth, besides some scars and deformities of its own. Wherefore if you would cast the Earth into a new and better mould, you must first melt it down; and the last Fire, being as a Refiner's fire, will make an improvement in it, both as to matter and form. To conclude, it must be reduc'd into a fluid Mass, in the nature of a Chaos, as it was at first; but this last will be a Fiery Chaos, as that was Watery; and from this state it will emerge again into a Paradisiacal World. But this being the Subject of the following Book, we will discourse no more of it in this place.

CHAP. X

Concerning the beginning and progreβ of the Conflagration, what part of the Earth will first be Burnt. The manner of the future destruction of Rome. The last state and consummation of the general Fire.

HAving remov'd the chief obstructtions to our design, and drawn a method for weakning the strength of Nature, by draining the Trench, and beating down those Bulwarks, wherein she seems to place her greatest confidence: we must now go to work; making choice of the weakest part of Nature for our first attack, where the fire may be the easiest admitted, and the best maintain'd and preserv'd.

And for our better direction, it will be of use to consider what we noted before, viz. That the Conflagration is not a pure Natural Fatality, but a mixt Fatality; or a Divine Judgment supported by Natu