_Whether the world were created in Autumn, Summer, or the Spring_, etc.] In this matter there is a consent between two learned Poets, _Lucretius_ and _Virgil_, that it begins in _Spring_. _At novitas mundi nec frigora dura ciebat, Nec nimios æstus, nec magnis viribus auras._ Lucretius. Which he would have to be understood of _Autumn_, because that resembles old age rather than Infancy. He speaks expresly of the Fowls. _Principio genus alituum variæq; volucres Ova relinquebant exclusæ tempore verno._ Lucret. Then for _Virgil_. _Non alios prima nascentis origine mundi Illuxisse dies aliumve habuisse tenorem Crediderim, ver illud erat, ver magnus agebat Orbis, et hibernis parcebant flatibus Euri._ Virgil 2. Georgic. But there is a great difference about it betwixt Church-Doctors; some agreeing with these Poets and others affirming the time to be in Autumn: but truly, in strict speaking, it was not created in any one, but all of the seasons, as the Author saith here, and hath shewed at large. _Pseudodox. Epidemic._ lib. 6. cap. 2. _Sect. 22. Pag. 35._ _'Tis ridiculous to put off or down the general floud of_ Noah _in that particular inundation of_ Deucalion,] as the Heathens some of them sometimes did: _Confuderunt igitur sæpe Ethnici particularia illa diluvia, quæ longe post secuta sunt, cum illo universali quod præcessit, ut ex fabulis in Diluvio Deucalionæo sparsis colligere licet; non tamen semper nec ubique. Author. Observat. in Mytholog. Nat. Com._ Then amongst those that confound them, he reckons _Ovid_ and _Plutarch_. _How all the kinds of Creatures, not onely in their own bulks, but with a competency of food and sustenance, might be preserved in one Ark, and within the extent of 300 Cubits, to a reason that rightly examines it will appear very feasible._] Yet _Apelles_ the Disciple of _Mercion_, took upon him to deride the History of _Moses_ in this particular, alledging that it must needs be a fable, for that it was impossible so many creatures should be contain'd in so small a space. _Origen_ and St. _Aug._ to answer this pretended difficulty, alleadge that _Moses_ in this place speakes of Geometrical (and not vulgar) cubits, of which every one was as much as six vulgar ones; and so no difficulty. But _Perer. l. 10. com. in Genes, quest. 5. de arca_, rejects this opinion of _Origen_, as being both against reason and Scripture. 1. Because that sort of Cubit was never in use amongst any people, and therefore absurd to think _Moses_ should intend it in this place.