’TIS the Sacred Writings of Scripture that are the best Monuments of Antiquity, and to those we are chiefly beholden for the History of the first Ages, whether Natural History or Civil. ’Tis true, the Poets, who were the most ancient Writers among the _Greeks_, and serv’d them both for Historians, Divines, and Philosophers, have delivered some Things concerning the first Ages of the World, that have a fair resemblance of Truth, and some Affinity with those Accounts that are given of the same Things by Sacred Authors, and these may be of Use in due Time and Place; but yet, lest any thing fabulous should be mix’d with them, as commonly there is, we will never depend wholly upon their Credit, nor assert any Thing upon the Authority of the Ancients which is not first prov’d by natural Reason, or warranted by Scripture. IT seems to me very reasonable to believe that besides the Precepts of Religion, which are the principal Subject and Design of the Books of Holy Scripture, there may be providentially conserved in them the Memory of Things and Times so remote, as could not be retrieved, either by History, or by the Light of Nature; and yet were of great Importance to be known, both for their own Excellency, and also to rectify the Knowledge of Men in other Things consequential to them: Such Points may be, _Our great Epocha_, or the Age of the Earth, The Origination of Mankind, The First and Paradisiacal State, The Destruction of the old World by an Universal Deluge, The Longevity of its Inhabitants, The manner of their Preservation, and of their Peopling the second Earth; and lastly, The Fate and Changes it is to undergo. These I always look’d upon as the Seeds of great Knowledge, or Heads of Theories fix’d on Purpose to give us Aim and Direction how to pursue the rest that depend upon them. But these Heads, you see, are of a mix’d Order, and we propose to our selves in this Work only such as belong to the natural World, upon which I believe the Trains of Providence are generally laid; and we must first consider, how God hath order’d Nature, and then, how the Occonomy of the Intellectual World is adapted to it; for of these two Parts consist the full System of Providence. In the mean Time, what Subject can be more worthy the Thoughts of any serious Person, than to view and consider the Rise and Fall, and all the Revolutions, not of a Monarchy or an Empire, of the _Grecian_ or _Roman_ State, but of an entire World?