The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3Browne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christianity; Ethics; Religion and medicine
That there shall no Rain-bow appear forty years before the end of the
world, and that the preceding drought unto that great flame shall
exhaust the materials of this Meteor, was an assertion grounded upon no
solid reason: but that there was not any in sixteen hundred years, that
is, before the flood, seems deduceable from holy Scripture, _Gen._ 9. I
do set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be for a token of a Covenant
between me and the earth. From whence notwithstanding we cannot conclude
the nonexistence of the Rain-bow; nor is that Chronology naturally
established, which computeth the antiquity of effects arising from
physical and setled causes, by additionall impositions from voluntary
determinators. Now by the decree of reason and Philosophy, the Rain-bow
hath its ground in Nature, as caused by the rays of the Sun, falling
upon a roride and opposite cloud: whereof some reflected, others
refracted, beget that semi-circular variety we generally call the
Rain-bow; which must succeed upon concurrence of causes and subjects
aptly predisposed. And therefore, to conceive there was no Rain-bow
before, because God chose this out as a token of the Covenant, is to
conclude the existence of things from their signalities, or of what is
objected unto the sense, a coexistence with that which is internally
presented unto the understanding. With equall reason we may infer there
was no water before the institution of Baptism, nor bread and wine
before the holy Eucharist.
[Sidenote: _That there is a Rain-bow of the Moon._]
Again, while men deny the antiquity of one Rain-bow, they anciently
concede another. For, beside the solary Iris which God shewed unto
_Noah_, there is another Lunary, whose efficient is the Moon, visible
only in the night, most commonly at full Moon, and some degrees above
the Horizon. Now the existence hereof men do not controvert, although
effected by a different Luminary in the same way with the other. And
probably appeared later, as being of rare appearance and rarer
observation, and many there are which think there is no such thing in
Nature. And therefore by casual spectators they are lookt upon like
prodigies, and significations made, not signified by their natures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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