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took the Surface of the Earth and turned it into Water, &c. (b). This if Substance mean viventem, and Faces Superficiem, is a Limitation, or an Appointment when he would begin to produce the Means, which fhould deftroy all Flesh, and fo haften and fix Noah's time of going into the Ark; and if he had declared before, that he would destroy them with the Earth, this was alfo fixing the Time when he would begin to deftroy the Earth; and though the Rain did not deftroy or diffolve the Earth, the Cause that rais'd the Rain had the first Hand in destroying it.

Ver. 12. The fame Day were all the Fountains of the great Deep broken up and and the Windows of Heaven were opened.

What the great Deep is has been explained; and thofe Inlets, Apertures, or Places, at which the Water went down through the Sphere, or Shell of Earth, or Stone, to let the Dry-Land appear, were now, by the coming up of the Water, at first made Springs, Spouts or Fountains;

(b) Alphonfi Toftati, Tom. 1. p. 74. Quest. 7. Gen. vii. 4.

ànd

and together with the Paffages of Springs,
this Day, by the Force upon, or of, the
Waters, broke up, or broken open up-
wards, to make Paffage for the Water to
afcend. What these Fountains were ap-
pears yet plainer, by the fame Words being
ufed, where the Pfalmift lxxviii. 15. is
fpeaking of Mofes fplitting the Rock, and
making the Sides contract this Way and
that Way, leaving an Opening, through
which the Waters gufh'd out.
"All the

Fountains of the great Deep were broken
up."] "We fhall more readily under-
ftand thefe Words if we enquire into the
meaning of the Word Abyfs or Deep, which
is nothing else than an hidden Place in the
Bowels of the Earth, where the Waters
lie hid and from whence Fountains and
Lakes have their Rife; and it's called the
Great Deep by way of diftinction from fome
leffer Hollows in the Earth; for this is as
it were the Mother of them all, to whom
they are all joined by Veins and Passages :
The Fountains therefore of that Great Abyss
were broken up, is as if he had said, such
a Quantity of Water burst from that great-
Deep that its common Outlets were broke
or burst open, like a Land-flood when it
meets with Resistance, the too great Quan-
tity of Water breaks down the Channels and
Banks

F 3

1

Banks which, as it were, imprisoned it :but not only the Fountains of that Deep were broken open but the Sea came out of its bounds, pouring over the Earth, and the Rivers burft forth with the greatest Violence (c). That is, those Parts of the Shell, whofe Sides or Edges formed those Paffages, were broken, and fo the Paffages opened, or were broken open upward. The Windows of Heaven have been taken for imaginary Falls of Water from above the Heavens, from the Clouds, from the Air turning into Water,.

c.

"The Cataracts of Heaven."] "The Windows, Holes, Openings or Cataracts of Heaven i. e. of the Air, as Gen. i. 7. Ifai. xxiv. 18. (d)". For a Cataract, according to St. Jerom, is a Hole in a Wall, fuch as Smoak gets through. Ifai. lx. 8. as Doves

by Sym. to their Doors אל ארבתיהם

[Jugidas] to their Windows. Ifai. xxiv. 18, The Windows of Heaven were opened— li, 6. the Heavens fhall vanih like Smoak (e).”

Tis plain, Cataracta fignify Windows, Holes, Sluices, or Flood-gates, or Cracks, or Chinks in Walls, or Building, fuch as

(c) Joh. de la Hay. Arbor Vita Concion. in Gen, cap. vii. ver. 11. p. 582.

(d) Synopf. Crit. Tom, 1. p. 97.

(e) Crit, Sacri, Tom. 1, p. 147. Drufius,

Smoak

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Smoak paffes through out of one House or Room into another, or Windows, fuch as Pigeons go in at into Houses, or Cracks, or Holes in the Walls of great Buildings, or Rocks, fuch as Pigeons creep into, and harbour in. This Word is most clearly compared, and is the very fame they say it is. The Airs, and the Abyfs of Waters, are each called God's Storehouse; and the Wall between them is the Sphere of the Earth, or Cruft, or Shell of Strata of Stone, in which there are innumerable Cracks, through which the Fumes, or Vapours, or Mixtures with Air, like Smoak, continually pafs at the fame Paffage, sometimes up for Rain, &c. and fometimes down. Malachi. iii. 10. If I will not open you the Windows of Heaven, and [Heb. Empty out.] pour you out a Bleffing that there fhall not be room enough to receive it. But at this time the Airs were forced down thro' these Sluices in Cataracts into the Abyss, with fuch Violence, as to break or force them and Indeed, I think, to force out the Waters, and poffefs their Place: or, at least, if the first Force was from below, which broke up the Fountains, and alfo forced open these to hurry through them, and fupply the Place of the Water: And fo as Polyglot. "The Waters are gone out of the F 4 Sea,

open;

Sea, and the River fhall be dried up and wafted away. Ibid. Vulg. Lat. How if the Waters retire from the Sea, and the River waft and be dried up (f)." 2 Efdr. viii. 33. Whofe Look drieth up the Depths. If Drufus had known the things, as well as Hieronymus understood the Word, he would have put in the whole Verfe;-Who are thefe that fly as a Cloud, and as the Doves to their Windows? and would alfo have added the Effects of their being forced open, in that and the next Verfe; -For the Windows from on high are open, and the Foundations of the Earth do fhake; the Earth is utterly broke down, the Earth is clean diffolved, the Earth is moved exceedingly. In the fix-hundredth Year of the Years of the Life of Noah, in the fecond Month on the feventeenth Day, of the Month; R. Eliezer fays, that was the seventeenth of Merchefevan, (October) on which the Conftellation n was up in the Day time; that Day the Fountains prevailed; and because Men had changed their Works, the holy bleffed God changed the Order of things that was appointed at the Beginning, and ordered Chima to arife, and took two of the Stars and brought on the

(f) Tom. 3. p. 30. Job. xiv. 11.

Flood

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