after the flood, into all other remote regions and countries. And if it be a generous desire in men, to know from whence their own forefathers have come, and out of what regions and nations; it cannot be displeasing to understand the place of our first ancestor, from whence all the streams and branches of mankind have followed and been deduced. If then it do appear by the former, that such a place there was as paradise, and that the knowledge of this place cannot be unprofitable, it followeth in order, to examine the several opinions before remembered, by the truth itself; and to see how they agree with the sense of the scripture and with common reason; and afterward to prove directly, and to delineate the region in which God first planted this delightful garden.

SECT. V.

That the flood hath not utterly defaced the marks of paradise, nor caused hills in the earth.

AND first, whereas it is supposed by Aug. Chysamensis, that the flood hath altered, deformed, or rather annihilated this place, in such sort, as no man can find any mark or memory thereof; (of which opinion there were others also, ascribing to the flood the cause of those high mountains, which are found on all the earth over, with many other strange effects:) for mine own opinion, I think neither the one nor the other to be true. For although I cannot deny but that the face of paradise was after the flood withered, and grown old, in respect of the first beauty; (for both the ages of men and the nature of all things time hath changed:) yet if there had been no sign of any such place, or if the soil and seat had not remained, then would not Moses, who wrote of paradise about 850 years after the flood, have described it so particularly, and the prophets, long after Moses, would not have made so often mention thereof. And though the very garden itself were not then to be found, but that the flood, and other accidents of time, made it one common field and pasture with the land of Eden, yet the place is

still the same, and the rivers still remain the same rivers. By two of which, (never doubted of,) to wit, Tigris and Euphrates, we are sure to find in what longitude paradise lay; and learning out one of these rivers, which afterward doth divide itself into four branches, we are sure that the partition is at the very border of the garden itself.

For it is y written, that out of Eden went a river to water the garden; and from thence it was divided, and became into four heads: now, whether the word in the Latin translation, inde, from thence, be referred to Eden itself, or to paradise; yet the division and branching of those rivers must be in the north or south side of the very garden; (if the rivers run as they do, north and south;) and therefore these rivers yet remaining, and Eden manifestly known, there could be no such defacing by the flood as is supposed. Furthermore, as there is no likelihood that the place could be so altered, as future ages knew it not; so is there no probability that either these rivers were turned out of their courses, or new rivers created by the flood which were not, or that the flood (as aforesaid) by a violent motion, when it began to decrease, was the cause of high hills or deep valleys. For what descent of waters could there be in a spherical and round body, wherein there is nor high nor low? seeing that all violent force of waters is either by the strength of wind, by descent from a higher to a lower, or by the ebb or flood of the sea. But that there was any wind, (whereby the seas are most enraged,) it appeareth not; rather the contrary is probable: for it is written, Therefore God made a wind to pass upon the earth, and the waters ceased. So as it appeareth not, that, until the waters sank, there was any wind at all; but that God afterward, out of his goodness, caused the wind to blow, to dry up the abundant slime and mud of the earth, and make the land more firm, and to cleanse the air of thick vapours and unwholesome mists: and this we know by experience, that all downright rains do evermore dissever the violence of outrageous

Ꮓ

winds, and beat down and level the swelling and mountainous billows of the sea: for any ebbs and floods there could be none, when the waters were equal, and of one height, over all the face of the earth; and when there were no indraughts, bays, or gulfs to receive a flood, or any descent, or violent falling of waters in the round form of the earth and waters, as aforesaid: and therefore it seemeth most agreeable to reason, that the waters rather stood in a quiet calm, than that they moved with any raging or overbearing violence. And for a more direct proof that the flood made no such destroying alteration, Josephus avoweth that one of those pillars erected by Seth, the third from Adam, was to be seen in his days; which pillars were set up above 1426 years before the flood, counting Seth to be an hundred years old at the erection of them, and Josephus himself to have lived some forty or fifty years after Christ: of whom, although there be no cause to believe all that he wrote, yet that which he avouched of his own time cannot (without great derogation) be called in question. And therefore it may be possible, that some foundation or ruin thereof might then be seen. Now that such pillars were raised by Seth, all antiquity hath avowed. It is also written in Berosus, (to whom, although I give little credit, yet I cannot condemn him in all,) that the city of Enoch, built by Cain about the mountains of Libanus, was not defaced by length of time; yea, the ruins thereof Annius (who commented upon that invented fragment) saith were to be seen in his days, who lived in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile. And if these his words be not true, then was he exceeding impudent: for, speaking of this city of Enoch, he concludeth in this sort: Cujus maximæ et ingentis molis fundamenta visuntur, et vocatur ab incolis regionis, civitas Cain, ut nostri mercatores et peregrini referunt; "The foundation of which huge mass is now to be seen, and the place is called by the people of that region "the city of Cain, as both our strangers and merchants re"port." It is also avowed by Pomponius Mela, (to whom I give more credit in these things,) that the city of Joppa was

66

built before the flood, over which Cepha was king: whose name, with his brother Phineus, together with the grounds and principles of their religion, was found graven upon certain altars of stone. And it is not impossible, that the ruins of this other city, called Enoch by Annius, might be seen, though founded in the first age: but it could not be of the first city of the world, built by Cain; the place rather than the time denying it.

And to prove directly that the flood was not the cause of mountains, but that there were mountains from the creation, it is written, that the waters of the flood overflowed by fifteen cubits the highest mountains. And Masius Damascenus, speaking of the flood, writeth in this manner: Est supra Minyadam excelsus mons in Armenia, (qui Baris appellatur,) in quo confugientes multos, sermo est, diluvii tempore liberatos; "And upon Minyada there is an high mountain "in Armenia, (called Baris,) unto which it is said that 66 many fled in the time of the deluge, and that they saved "themselves thereon." Now, although it is contrary to God's word that any more were saved than eight persons, (which Masius doth not avouch but by report,) yet it is a testimony, that such mountains were before the flood, which were afterwards, and ever since, known by the same names, and on which mountains it is generally received that the ark rested; but untruly, as I shall prove hereafter. And again it appeareth, that the mount Sion (though by another name) was known before the flood; on which the Talmudists report that many giants saved themselves also; but (as Annius saith) without all authority, either divine or human.

Lastly, it appeareth that the flood did not so turn upside down the face of the earth, as thereby it was made past knowledge after the waters were decreased, by this, that b when Noah sent out the dove the second time, she returned with an olive-leaf in her mouth, which she had plucked, and which (until the trees were discovered) she found not for otherwise she might have found them floating on the water;

a Gen. iv. 17.

RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. I.

b Gen. viii. 11.

G

a manifest proof that the trees were not torn up by the roots, nor swam upon the waters, for it is written, folium olivæ raptum, or decerptum, a leaf plucked; which is, to take from a tree, or to tear off. By this it is apparent (there being nothing written to the contrary) that the flood made no such alteration as was supposed, but that the place of paradise might be seen to succeeding ages, especially unto Moses, by whom it pleased God to teach the truth of the world's creation, and unto the prophets which succeeded him: both which I take for my warrant, and to guide me in this discovery.

SECT. VI.

That paradise was not the whole earth, as some have thought: making the ocean to be the fountain of those four rivers.

с

THIS conceit of Aug. Chysamensis being answered, who only giveth his opinion for reason, I will in a few words examine that of the Manichees, of Noviomagus, Vadianus, Goropius Becanus, and all those that understood that by paradise was meant the whole earth. But in this I shall not trouble the reader with many words, because, by those places of scripture formerly remembered, this universality will appear altogether improper. The places which Vadianus allegeth, Bring forth fruit and multiply, Fill the earth and subdue it, Rule over every creature, &c. with this of the Acts, d And hath made of one blood all mankind to dwell on all the face of the earth, do no way prove such a generality: for the world was made for man, of which he was lord and governor, and all things therein were ordained of God for his use. Now, although all men were of one and the same fountain of blood originally, and Adam's posterity inhabited in process of time over all the face of the earth; yet it disproveth in nothing the particular garden assigned to e Adam to dress and cultive, in which he lived in so blessed an estate before his transgression. For if there had been

с

e Gen. i. 28.

d Acts xvii. 26.

• Gen. ii. 8.