Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1677. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... formerly (abating that Concussion which the Perfection of the Humane Nature suffered by the first Fall, and the lhortning of Mens Lives, which is of another Consideration.) And therefore I am not so apt to attribute that firm Consistency of the Heavenly Bodies, their constant uninterrupted and invaried Motion arid those other Indications of Permanency and Perpetuity, barely or singly to the singular and indissoluble Texture of their Nature or Composition, as to that incessant Influx and unintermitted Causality of the Divine Power and Providence, which I so plainly see conserves almost an equal regularity in the Motions, Processes, Succession, and Condition of poor, frail, Sublunary Bodies, which in their little Period belonging to their fpecisical and individual Nature, have the fame regularities and orders now as formerly, and in the whole Systeme of their fpecifical Nature preserved in the successive Individuals for many thousands of years, obtain the fame regularity, order, and method of Existence without decay, as it hath always held. This Supposition therefore of the gradual decay of the state of Humane Nature, though in hypothefi it would strongly infer a late Origination of Man, yet it is false in theft, and so concludes nothing touching the Argument in hand, namely, the Origination of Mankind in some determinate Point of Finite Duration. An Ingenious Person, in a new Essay of Natural Philosophy, Entituled, New Principles of Philosophy, Part. z. Cap. 22. tdls us: That the Sun or Fiery Region gains gradually upon the Inferior Elements, so that the greatest Declination of the Sun in the time of Hipparchu and Ptolemy was observed to be 23 deg. 52 min. but is since found to be reduced to 23 deg. lomin.ox zSmin. which is a necessary Consequent of the Suns gra...