That the present World, or the present Frame of Nature, will be destroy’d, we have already shewn. In what Manner this Destruction will be, by what Force, or what kind of Fate, must be our next Enquiry. The Philosophers have always spoken of _Fire_ and _Water_, those Two unruly Elements, as the only Causes that can destroy the World, and work our Ruin; and accordingly, they say, all the great and fatal Revolutions of Nature, either past, or to come, depend upon the Violence of these Two; when they get the Mastery, and overwhelm all the rest, and the whole Earth, in a Deluge, or Conflagration. But, as they make these Two the destroying Elements, so they also make them the purifying Elements. And, accordingly in their Lustrations, or their Rites and Ceremonies for purging Sin; Fire and Water were chiefly made use of, both amongst the _Romans_, _Greeks_, and _Barbarians_. And when these Elements over-run the World, it is not, they say, for a final Destruction of it, but to purge Mankind, and Nature from their Impurities. As for Purgation by Fire and Water, the Stile of our Sacred Writings does very much accommodate itself to that Sense; and the Holy Ghost, who is the great Purifier of Souls, is compared in his Operation upon us, and in our Regeneration, to Fire or Water. And as for the external World, S. _Peter_, _1 Ep. iii. 21._ makes the Flood to have been a kind of _Baptizing_ or Renovation of the World. And S. _Paul_, _1 Cor. iii. 13._ and the Prophet _Malachi_, _c. iii. 2, 3._ makes the last Fire, to be a purging and refining Fire. But to return to the Ancients. The _Stoicks_ especially, of all other Sects amongst the _Greeks_, have preserved the Doctrine of the Conflagration; and made it a considerable Part of their Philosophy, and almost a Character of their Order. This is a Thing so well known, that I need not use any Citations to prove it. But they cannot pretend to have been the first Authors of it neither. For, besides that amongst the _Greeks_ themselves, _Heraclitus_ and _Empedocles_, more ancient than _Zeno_, the Master of the _Stoicks_, taught this Doctrine; ’tis plainly a Branch of the Barbarick Philosophy, and taken from thence by the _Greeks_. For it is well known, that the most ancient and mystick Learning amongst the _Greeks_, was not originally their own, but borrowed of the more Eastern Nations, by _Orpheus_, _Pythagoras_, _Plato_, and many more, who travell’d thither, and traded with the Priests for Knowledge and Philosophy; and when they got a competent Stock, returned home, and set up a School, or a Sect, to instruct their Countrymen. But before we pass to the Eastern Nations, let us, if you please, compare the _Roman_ Philosophy upon this Subject, with that of the _Greeks_.