Mofes, Numb. ii. 32. reckons of all the Tribes of the Children of Ifrael, that were able to bear Arms, 603,550. to which if we add the old Men, the Women, and the Children, they will treble the Number, fo as to make 1,810,650; which is almoft half the Number of the People then in the World, viz. 3,750,000, which it is pretty ftrange, that a Parcel of Fugitives out of Egypt, fo inconfiderable a Corner of the World, fhould do. Besides, let us run back two Periods farther, and then we fhall come within twenty or thirty Years of the Deluge, fo that then there must be in the World nine hundred thirty feven thousand five hundred; a good round Company of Noah's Grand-Children, all to be born in nine and twenty Years at the moft. I will not teize you any farther, to find out Armies for Belus and Ninus, fo nigh the Flood; for upon this Computation, I am confident you will be hard put to it, to do it for Xerxes

and Hannibal.

Cred. Sir, You go now upon a very great Mistake, as The World if I afferted that three hundred and fixty Years was the increased common Period of Doublings, for the Increase of the more for

now.

World, for all Ages of it. It is plain from Hiftory, merly than that the Increase proceeds flower now than it did formerly. Greece increased more between the Trojan and the Peloponnesian War, than it has done fince: So did Italy from Eneas's Time to the firft Confuls. And if prophane History would fuffer us to go much higher, we should find the Increase ftill the quicker. Three hundred and fixty Years, I believe, is the Term of doubling now; it was formerly but half the Time, and at firft not a quarter. Indeed it is very difficult to make an exa& Table of this, and accurately to fix each different Period of Doubling; but Sir William Pettyt has attempted it in the aforefaid Effay, and for your farther Satisfaction thither I refer you.

Phil. Nay, pray, good Sir, excufe me now. This feems to be all Banter, a perfect Popish Nofe of Wax, You make your Periods as you please, and Mankind muft either double or treble as you have a Mind to it,

to

by Scripture and

Reafon.

to ferve your Hypothefis. Sir, I believe the Genera tion, like the Age and Stature of Mankind, is governed by a steady unalterable Law, and is not to be turn'd about to go either faft or flow like a Dukes-Place Clock. I find all of you when you have but a new Hypothefis to advance, will take Nature as well as your Bibles by the Nofe, and lead them which Way you please, to ferve

a Turn.

Cred. This is not, Sir, an empty Hypothefis, but a neceffary Truth, to confute the Calumnies of Unbelievers This proved against the Mofaical Books; which is not only confonant to the Tenour of thofe Writings themselves, but to Experience and good Reafoning. There was a peculiar Bleffing of Increase given to thofe firft Ages after the Flood." God bleffed Noah and his Sons, and faid unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the Earth, Gen. ix. 1. And therefore, we Chriftians, who acknowledge the Authority of Divine Writ, are bound to believe this Bleffing took Effect. Befides this is agreeable to all the Reafon in the World, that the firft Ages fhould be moft prolifick, the World being to be stocked by a few Perfons: For the World lay wafte, till there were a confiderable Number of Inhabitants born to cultivate it. Men wanted fufficient Affociates and Affiftants, and the Benefit of mutual Kindneffes and Artifices; but when Mankind arrived to a competent Frequency, when the Earth was divided into diftinct Proprieties, and Men were of fufficient Number to be ferviceable to one another, there was not fuch Need of a multitudinous Production as was before; and therefore, as the World was more peopled, the Increase did proportionably flacken. Befides, if the World had kept on its former Increase without Abatement, the Earth must have been over-ftocked before this Time, or at leaft before the Time which God had allotted for it. Your Inftances of Famines, Wars, and Deluges are only Affertions without Proof, and therefore I fhall forbear fpeaking to them; efpecially fince we find they have done no great Mifchief to the Increase of Mankind, as far as Hiftory goes.

Phil. Have you any Thing farther to urge upon this Point?

the late In

Cred. Yes, Sir, The late Invention of Arts, and the Arg. IV. Shortness of the Hiftory of the World, are invincible From HiArguments against its Eternity. If the World was from tory and Eternity, you must needs make them an eternal Race of vention of the moft ftupid Blockheads imaginable, without the leaft Arts. Drachm almoft of Wit, or Contrivance, or indeed common Sense; and that none of thefe Qualifications ever were known in the World, till within thefe two or three thousand Years laft paft. For there is hardly any useful Art or Science, but we know its Original and Progrefs, and its firft Inventor, or at least its firft Introducer into fuch a Part of the World; which were abfolutely impoffible to do, if there had been eternal Inhabitants there. For who can imagine, that amongst an Infinity of rational Men, after fo many Millions of Hints and Opportunities, none fhould, before these last Ages, have lighted upon thofe ordinary Arts, which it was fo uneafy to be without, and were fo eafy and appofite to be found? Could the World, or at leaft Greece, be from all Eternity, without the common Tools of the Carpenter, the Saw, the Augre, the Plane, and the Plumb-Line, till Dedalus had the Happiness to invent them? Did Mankind for ever live upon Roots and Herbs, till Ceres, or (which is all one) the Egyptian Ifis found out the fowing Wheat and Barley! How could they be Strangers to fuch eafy Inventions as thofe of Wine and Honey, till Bacchus fhewed them to the World? Should no one know how to cut and polish Stone till Cadmus taught it? How fhould the Art of Dialling be fo late found out, to mention nothing of Clocks and Watches? The Romans had not fo much as a Sun-Dial, till the fecond Pu nick War, and when they had one, they were forced to make use of that alone, being placed in the Forum *, for an hundred and one Years; although Pliny tells us, it never went right all the time. What a fad Shift was poor King

Plin, Nat. Hift. Lib. 7. Cap. 60. .

Alfred

Alfred put to, to meafure the Hours by the * Burning of a Candle marked into twelve Parts; and to be forced to invent the Lanthorn to fecure it from the Wind of the Windows, because Glazing was not then in ufe? I fhall not trouble you with the Invention of Guns, Printing, &c. For, to be fhort, if the World be eternal, as you pretend, to be fure moft of our Arts would have an higher Origi nal than you fee they have; but it is monftroufly incredible, that Mankind fhould have continued fo many Millions of Ages, and never found out any Thing useful to themselves, but only in thefe latter Times.

Then as to the fecond Part of the Argument, who can imagine, if the World was eternal, that we fhould have no Hiftory above 3000 Years ftanding; but that all the remarkable Acts of fo many Millions of Ages fhould be buried in eternal Oblivion, and not the leaft Memoirs in Hiftory concerning them? What unhappy Men were thofe eternal Inhabitants, to have all their Actions forgot,s whilft Hiftory is crowded up with fo many minute inconfiderable Actions, which have been done in a few Ages laft paft? How fhould it come to pass, that in fo many Myriads of Ages, only Grecce it felf fhould have afforded us nothing of Hiftory but a little poetick Banter, 'till the Time of Herodotus and Thucydides? That Egypt, the School of Greece, not long before, knew nothing, but a filly hyperbolical Chronology, and fome myftical Hieroglyphicks? This is fo ftrangely inconfiftent with pretended Eternity of the World, that it affords moft evident Marks of the Lateness of it.

your

Phil. Your Argument from the late Invention of vul gar Arts is not fo conclufive as you would make it: For thofe Arts which are fuppofed to be invented in these last Times, were in all Probability only revived after a long Time of Difufe, or they might have feveral Times been loft, and as many Times re-invented: Juft as Painting in Glafs has been loft for an Age or two, and now is by fome Artificers, as is reported, re-gained in its ancient Per

Spelman in Vit. Alfr.

fections

fection. So we have loft the Art of making Napkins which would burn off their Soil in the Fire inftead of washing, made of the famous Asbestos, mentioned by Pliny, Lib. 19. Cap. 1. We know nothing of the Art of making Glafs malleable, which was invented in Tiberius's Time, mentioned by the fame Author, Lib. 36. Cap. 26. Therefore when they tell us of the Inventions of Cadmus, and Ceres, and Daedalus, we must esteem them only as the Retrievers of fome former, altho' long difufed Invention. As for As for your Hiftory-Argument, it is true Lucreting has bestowed fome handfome Verfes upon it;

Praterea fi nulla fuit genitalis origo

Terrarum & Cæli, femperque aterna fuere ;
Cur fupra bellum Thebanum & funera Troja
Non alias alii quoque res cecinere Poeta ? &c.

If of the World there's no Original,
And if there always was this fpacions All;
How should we never hear a Poet's Lyre
Beyond the War of Thebes and Trojan Fire?
What has of fuch renowned Acts became,
Ne'er to be enter'd in the Books of Fame ?

But then this is a better Argument for a Poet than a Controvertift. Because we know well enough the Reafon, why History defcribes but a few of thofe innumeorable Ages to us; which is, because the use of Letters is but a late Invention, and therefore it is no Wonder, that Men fhould not write Hiftories when they could not write at all. Had but the Inhabitants of the World, in thofe first Ages, been fo happy as to have found out Wri ting before, the World would have been fill'd with Hiftory and Chronology; we fhould have had Era's upon Ara's for thousands of Years, even beyond your Julian Period; nay your whole Epocha ab An. Creationis, would not have taken up fo great a Part of that long Account, as that from the late great Froft does in the Almanack Chro-nology.

Cred