HAVING now examin’d and answered all the Pleas, from first to last, for the vulgar Deluge, or the old way of explaining it, we should proceed immediately to propose another Method, and another Ground for an universal Deluge, were it not that an Opinion hath been started by some of late, that would in effect supplant both these Methods, old and new, and take away in a great measure the Subject of the Question. Some Modern Authors observing what straits they have been put to in all Ages, to find out Water enough for _Noah_’s Flood, have ventur’d upon an Expedient more brisk and bold than any of the Ancients durst venture upon: They say, _Noah_’s Flood was not Universal, but a National Inundation, confin’d to _Judea_, and those Countries thereabouts; and consequently, there would not be so much Water necessary for the Cause of it, as we have prov’d to be necessary for an Universal Deluge of that kind. Their Inference is very true, they have avoided that Rock, but they run upon another no less dangerous; to avoid an Objection from Reason, they deny matter of Fact, and such matter of Fact as is well attested by History, both Sacred and Prophane. I believe the Authors that set up this Opinion were not themselves satisfy’d with it; but seeing insuperable Difficulties in the old Way, they are the more excusable in chusing, as they thought, of two Evils the less. BUT the Choice, methinks, is as bad on this Hand, if all things be considered; _Moses_ represents the Flood of _Noah_ as an Overthrow and Destruction of the whole Earth; and who can imagine, that in sixteen or seventeen hundred Years time, (taking the lower Chronology) that the Earth had then stood, Mankind should be propagated no farther than _Judea_, or some neighbouring Countries thereabouts? After the Flood, when the World was renew’d again by eight Persons, they had made a far greater Progress in _Asia_, _Europe_, and _Africa_, within the same space of Years, and yet ’tis likely they were more fruitful in the first Ages of the World, than after the Flood; and they liv’d six, seven, eight, nine hundred Years a Piece, getting Sons and Daughters. Which Longevity of the first Inhabitants of the Earth seems to have been providentially design’d for the quicker Multiplication and Propagation of Mankind; and Mankind thereby would become so numerous within sixteen hundred Years, that there seems to me to be a greater Difficulty from the Multitude of the People that would be before the Flood, than from the want of People: For if we allow the first Couple at the End of one hundred Years, or of the first Century, to have left ten Pair of Breeders, which is no hard Supposition, there would arise from these, in fifteen hundred Years, a greater Number than the Earth was capable of; allowing every Pair to multiply in the same decuple Proportion the first Pair did. But because this would rise far beyond the Capacities of this Earth, let us suppose them to increase, in the following Centuries, in a