FOOTNOTES:
[a] It is a manifest Sign of the Creator’s Management and Care, in placing the Terraqueous Globe at that very Distance it is from the Sun, and contempering our own Bodies and all other Things so duly to that Distance. For was the Earth farther from the Sun, the World would be starved and frozen with Cold: And was it nigher we should be burnt, at least the most combustible Things would be so, and the World would be vexed with perpetual Conflagrations. For we see that a few of the Rays of the Sun, even no more than what fall within the Compass of half an Inch or an Inch in a Burning-Glass, will fire combustible Bodies, even in our own Climate.
[] Astro-Theology, Book vii. Chap. 7.
CHAP. V.
The Distribution of the Earth and Waters.
The Distribution of the Waters and the dry Land, although it may seem rude and undesigned to a careless View, and is by some taxed as such[a], yet is admirably well adjusted to the Uses and Conveniences of our World.
For in the first Place, the Distribution is so well made, the Earth and Waters so handsomely, so Workman-like laid, every where all the World over, that there is a just æquipoise of the whole Globe. The Northern balanceth the Southern Ocean, the Atlantick the Pacifick Sea. The American dry Land, is a Counterpoise to the European, Asiatick and African.
In the next Place, the Earth and the Waters are so admirably well placed about in the Globe, as to be helpful to one another, to minister to one another’s Uses. The great Oceans, and the lesser Seas and Lakes, are so admirably well distributed throughout the Globe[], as to afford sufficient Vapours[c] for Clouds and Rains, to temperate the Cold[c] of the Northern frozen Air, to cool and mitigate the Heats[d] of the Torrid Zone, and to refresh the Earth with fertile Showers; yea, in some measure to minister fresh Waters to the Fountains and Rivers. Nay, so abundant is this great Blessing, which the most indulgent Creator hath afforded us by means of this Distribution of the Waters I am speaking of, that there is more than a scanty, bare Provision, or mere Sufficiency; even a Plenty, a Surplusage of this useful Creature of God, (the fresh Waters) afforded to the World; and they so well ordered, as not to drown the Nations of the Earth, nor to stagnate, stink, and poison, or annoy them; but to be gently carried through convenient Chanels back again to their grand Fountain[e] the Sea; and many of them through such large Tracts of Land, and to such prodigious Distances, that it is a great Wonder the Fountains should be high enough[f], or the Seas low enough, ever to afford so long a Conveyance. Witness the Danube[g] and Wolga of Europe, the Nile[h] and the Niger[] of Africk, the Ganges[k] and Euphrates of Asia, and the Amazons River[l] and Rio de la Plata of America, and many others which might be named; some of which are said to run above 5000 Miles, and some no less than 6000 from their Fountains to the Sea. And indeed such prodigious Conveyances of the Waters make it manifest, that no accidental Currents and Alterations of the Waters themselves, no Art or Power of Man, nothing less than the Fiat of the Almighty, could ever have made, or found, so long and commodious Declivities, and Chanels for the Passage of the Waters.