THOUGH in the preceding Chapter we may seem to have given a fair Trial to the common Opinion concerning the State of the Deluge, and might now proceed to Sentence of Condemnation: Yet having heard of another Plea, which some have us’d in its Behalf, and another way found out by recourse to the Supream Power, to supply all Defects, and to make the whole matter intelligible, we will proceed no farther ’till that be consider’d; being very willing to examine whatsoever may be offer’d, in that or any other way, for resolving that great Difficulty which we have proposed, concerning _the Quantity of Water requisite for such a Deluge_. And to this they say in short, that _God Almighty created Waters on purpose to make the Deluge, and then annihilated them again when the Deluge was to cease_; and this, in a few Words, is the whole account of the Business. This is to cut the Knot when we cannot loose it; they shew us the naked Arm of Omnipotency; such Arguments as these come like Lightning, one doth not know what Armour to put on against them, for they pierce the more, the more they are resisted: We will not therefore oppose any thing to them that is hard and stubborn, but by a soft Answer deaden their Force by degrees. And I desire to mind those Persons, in the first Place, of what St. _Austin_ hath said upon a like Occasion, speaking concerning those that disproved the Opinion of Waters above the Heavens (which we mention’d before) by natural Reasons. “We are not, saith he, to refute those Persons, by saying, that according to the Omnipotence of God, to whom all things, are possible, we ought to believe there are Waters there, as heavy as we know and feel them here below; for our Business is now to enquire according to his Scripture, how God hath constituted the Nature of Things, and not what he could do or work in these Things by a Miracle of Omnipotency.” I desire them to apply this to the present Argument for the first Answer. _Secondly_, LET them consider, that _Moses_ hath assign’d Causes of the Deluge; _Forty Days Rain, and the Disruption of the Abyss_; and speaks nothing of a new Creation of Water upon that Occasion. Those were Causes in Nature which Providence had then dispos’d for this extraordinary Effect, and those the Divine Historian refers us to, and not to any Productions out of nothing. Besides, _Moses_ makes the Deluge increase by degrees with the Rain, and accordingly makes it cease by degrees, and that the Waters _going and returning_ as the Waves and great Commotions of the Sea use to do, retir’d leisurely from the Face of the Earth, and settled at length in their Channels. Now this manner of the Beginning or Ceasing of the Deluge doth not at all agree with the instantaneous Actions of Creation and Annihilation.