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mies, wherewith Ninus invaded Zoroaster, at 1,700,000 footmen, and 200,000 horsemen; and the stories generally shew, that though Zoroaster's army was far short of this, yet it was greater than any that those parts of the world ever since beheld. But to what end should I seek for foreign authority? for no man doubteth but that Egypt was possessed by Mizraim, the son of Ham; and that it was an established kingdom, filled with many cities in Abraham's time, the scriptures tell us. And sure to prepare and cultivate a desolate and overgrown ground, to beautify it with many cities, laws, and policies, cannot be esteemed a labour of a few days; and therefore it must be inhabited in a less time than 200 years after the flood; and in the same time, if not in a shorter, before the flood. For if so many millions of men were found within 300 years after the general flood, so as not only Babylon, and Assyria, Bactria, Armenia, Media, Arabia, Egypt, Palestina, yea, the far-off Libya on the one side, and India on the other, and Scythia, inferior to neither, were all filled; into what small corners could then all those nations be compressed, which 1656 years brought forth before the flood? Even necessity, which cannot be resisted, cast the abundance of men's bodies into all parts of the known world; especially, where death forbare the father, and made no place for the son, till he had beheld living nations of his own body.

§. 5.

Of some other reasons against the opinion of Pererius. FOR what a strange increase did the long lives of the first age make, when they continued 800 or 900 years. Surely, we have reason to doubt that the world could not contain them, rather than that they were not spread over the world. For let us now reckon the date of our lives in this age of the world; wherein if one exceed fifty years, ten for one are cut off in that passage, and yet we find no want of people; nay, we know the multitude such, as if by wars or pestilence they were not sometimes taken off by many thousands, the earth with all the industry of mancould not give them food.. What strange heaps then of

souls had the first ages, who enjoyed 800 or 900 years as aforesaid! These numbers, I say, cannot be counted or conceived. For it would come to the same reckoning in effect, as if all those which have been born in Britain since three or four hundred years before the Norman conquest (saving such as by accident or by violence were cut off) were now alive; and if to these there were added as many as by polygamy might have been increased. For (to omit that the giants and mighty ones of the first age observed no law of matrimony) it is to be thought, that those lovers of the world and of pleasure, when they knew the long and liberal time which nature had given them, would not willingly or hastily present themselves to any danger which they could fly from or eschew. For what human argument hath better persuasion to make men careless of life and fearless of death, than the little time which keeps them asunder, and that short time also accompanied with so many pains and diseases, which this envious old age of the world mingleth together, and soweth with the seeds of mankind ?

Now if that Berosus or Annius may be alleged for sufficient authors, whom Pererius himself in this question citeth, then is it by them affirmed, and by Josephus confirmed, that the city of Enoch was seated near Libanus in Syria: and if other parts of Syria were peopled in Cain's time, I see no cause why Palestina (which is also a province of Syria) and Egypt, which neighboureth it, could be left desolate both all the lifetime of Cain, and all those times between his death and the flood, which were by estimation 700 or 800 years. And sure, though this fragment of Berosus, with Annius's comment, be very ridiculous in many places, (the ancient copies being corrupted or lost,) yet all things in Berosus are not to be rejected. Therefore St. Jerome for such authors gives a good rule: Bona eorum eligamus, vitemus contraria; "Let us choose what is good "in them, and reject the rest." And certainly in the very beginning of the first book, Berosus agreeth, in effect, with Moses, touching the general flood; and in that first part Berosus affirmeth, that those mighty men and giants which

inhabited Enoch, commanded over all nations, and subjected the universal world: and though that phrase, of all the world, be often used in the scriptures for a part thereof, as in the second of the Acts; That there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, men that feared God, of every nation under heaven; yet by words which follow in Berosus, it is plain that his words and sense were the same; for he addeth, from the sun's rising to the sun's setting, which cannot be taken for any small part thereof. Again, we may safely conjecture that Noah did not part and proportion the world among his sons at adventure, or left them as discoverers, but directed them to those regions which he formerly knew had been inhabited. And it cannot be denied that the earth was more passable and easy to travel over before the flood, than after it. For Pererius himself confesseth, that Attica (by reason of mud and slime which the water left upon the earth) was uninhabited 200 years after Ogyges's flood, whereby we may gather that there was no great pleasure in passing into far countries after the general deluge, when the earth lay, as it were, incopsed for 100 or 130 years together. And therefore was the face thereof in all conjecture more beautiful and less cumbersome to walk over in the first age, than after the general overflowing.

§. 6.

Of the words of Moses, Gen. x. verse the last, whereupon Pererius grounded his opinion.

LASTLY, whereas Pererius draws this argument out of the last verse of the tenth of Genesis, And out of these were the nations divided after the flood: Quo significatur talem divisionem non fuisse ante diluvium; "By which it.

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appeareth,” saith Pererius, " that there was no such di❝vision before the flood;" which he also seeketh to confirm out of the 11th of Genesis, because the division of tongues was cause of the dispersion of the people. This consequence, Quo significatur, &c. seemeth to me very weak; the text itself rather teacheth the contrary: For out of these, saith Moses, were the nations divided in the earth after the RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. I.

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flood; inferring, that before the flood the nations were divided out of others, though after the flood out of these only. But whatsoever sense may be gathered from this place, yet it can no way be drawn to the times before the flood, or to any plantation or division in that age; for if there were none else among whom the earth could be divided after the flood, but Noah's sons, wherein doth that necessary division control the planting of the world before it? And whereas it is alleged that the confusion of speech was the cause of this dispersion, it is true that it was so for that present; but if Babel had never been built, nor any confusion of languages at all, yet increase of people, and time, would have enforced a farther-off and general plantation; as Berosus, lib. 3. says well, that when mankind were exceedingly multiplied, ad comparandas novas sedes necessitas compellebat; "they were driven by necessity to seek new habitations." For we find, as it is before said, that within 300 years after the flood, there were gathered together into two armies such multitudes, as the valley about Babylon could not have sustained those numbers with their increase for any long time: all Asia the Greater and the Lesser; all Scythia, Arabia, Palestina, and Egypt, with Greece, and the islands thereof; Mauritania and Libya, being also at that time fully peopled. And if we believe Berosus, then not only those parts of the world, but (within 140 years after the flood) Spain, Italy, and France were also planted; much more then may we think, that within 1656 years before the flood, in the time of the chief strength of mankind, they were replenished with people. And certainly seeing all the world was overflown, there were people in all the world which offended,

§. 7.

A conclusion resolving of that which is most likely, touching the Egyptian antiquities; with somewhat of Phut, (another son of Ham,) which peopled Libya.

THEREFORE for the antiquity of the Egyptians, as I do not agree with Mercator, nor judge with the vulgar, which give too much credit to the Egyptian antiquities; so

I do not think the report of their antiquities so fabulous, as either Pererius or other men conceive it. But I rather incline to this, that Egypt being peopled before the flood, and two or three hundred years more or less after Adam, there might remain unto the sons of Mizraim some monuments (in pillars or altars of stone or metal) of their former kings or governors; which the Egyptians having added to the list and roll of their kings after the flood, in succeeding time, (out of the vanity of glory, or by some corruption in their priests,) something beyond the truth might be inserted. And that the memory of antiquity was in such sort preserved, Berosus affirmeth it of the Chaldeans, and so doth Epigenes. For they both write, that the use of letters and the art of astronomy was known to the Babylonians 3634 years before Alexander's conquest; and this report Annius findeth to agree and reach to the time of Enoch, who was born 1034 years before the flood, and wrote of the world's destruction both by water and fire, as also of Christ's coming in judgment, as St. Jude hath witnessed. But leaving these antiquities to other men's judgments, and every man to his own reason, I will conclude this plantation of Egypt. It is agreed by all, that it was peopled by Mizraim, and that it took the name of Egypt from Ægyptus, the son of Belus, as aforesaid. Being divided into two regions, that part from Memphis or Nicopolis to the Mediterranean sea was called the inferior Egypt, surnamed also Delta; because the several branches of Nilus breaking asunder from one body of the river, gave it the form of the Greek letter delta, which is the form of a triangle. That branch which ran toward the north-east, and embraced the sea, next unto the deserts of Sur and Pharan, had on it the city of Pelusium, where Sennacherib was repulsed; the other branch, which yielded itself to the salt water towards the north-east, is beautified by that famous city of Alexandria; the upper part of Egypt is bounded between Memphis and Syene near Ethiopia, and had the name of Thebaida, of that ancient city of Thebes, which, according to Homer, was adorned with 100 gates, and therefore called civitas centum por

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