miracle; and that is, not only how the distinct pieces
of the world, and divided islands, should be first planted
by men, but inhabited by tigers, panthers, and bears.
How America abounded with beasts of prey, and
noxious animals, yet contained not in it that necessary
creature, a horse, is very strange. By what passage
those, not only birds, but dangerous and unwelcome
beasts, come over. How there be creatures there
(which are not found in this triple continent). All
which must needs be strange unto us, that hold but one
ark; and that the creatures began their progress from
the mountains of Ararat. They who, to salve this,
would make the deluge particular, proceed upon a
principle that I can no way grant; not only upon the
negative of Holy Scriptures, but of mine own reason,
whereby I can make it probable that the world was as
well peopled in the time of Noah as in ours; and
fifteen hundred years, to people the world, as full a
time for them as four thousand years since have been
to us. There are other assertions and common tenets
drawn from Scripture, and generally believed as Scrip-
ture, whereunto, notwithstanding, I would never betray
the liberty of my reason. 'Tis a paradox to me, that
Methusalem was the longest lived of all the children of
Adam; and no man will be able to prove it; when,
from the process of the text, I can manifest it may be
otherwise. That Judas perished by hanging himself,
there is no certainty in Scripture: though, in one
place, it seems to affirm it, and, by a doubtful word,
hath given occasion to translate<32> it; yet, in another