Though there are some, who think Mountaines to be a deformitie to the earth, as if they were either beate up by the Flood, or else cast up like so many heaps of rubbish left at the Creation; yet if well considered, they will bee found as much to conduce to the beauty and conveniency of the universe, as any of the other parts. Nature (saith Pliny) purposely framed them for many excellent uses:1 partly to tame the violence of greater Rivers; to strengthen certaine joynts within the veines and bowels of the earth, to break the force of the Seas inundation, and for the safety of the earths inhabitants, whether beasts or men. That they make much for the protection of beasts, the Psalmist testifies,2 The highest hils are a refuge for the wild goates, and the rocks for conies. The Kingly Prophet had likewise learned the safety of these by his owne experience, when he also was faine to make a mountaine his refuge from the fury of his Master Saul, who persecuted him in the wildernesse.
True indeed, such places as these keepe their neighbours poore, as being most barren, but yet they preserve them safe, as being most strong; witnesse our unconquered Wales and Scotland, whose greatest protection hath beene the naturall strength of their Countrey, so fortified with Mountaines, that these have alwayes beene unto them sure retraites from the violence and oppression of others. Wherfore a good Author doth rightly call them natures bulwarks, cast up at God Almighties owne charges, the scornes and curbes of victorious armies; which made the Barbarians in Curtius so confident of their owne safety, when they were once retired to an inaccessible mountaine, that when Alexanders Legate had brought them to a parley, and perswading them to yeeld, told them of his masters victories, what Seas and Wildernesses he had passed; they replied, that all that might be, but could Alexander fly too? Over the Seas hee might have ships, and over the land horses, but hee must have wings before hee could get up thither. Such safety did those barbarous nations conceive in the mountaines whereunto they were retired. Certainly then such usefull parts were not the effect of mans sin, or produced by the Worlds curse, the Flood, but rather at the first created by the goodnesse and providence of the Almightie.
This truth is usually concluded from these and the like arguments.
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Because the Scripture it selfe, in the description of that generall deluge, tells us, it overflowed the highest mountaines.
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Because Moses who writ long after the Flood, dos yet give the same description of places and rivers, as they had before; which could not well have been if this had made so strange an alteration.
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‘Tis evident that the trees did stand as before. For otherwise Noah could not so well have concluded, that the waters were abated, from this reason, because the Dove brought an Olive leafe in her mouth, when she was sent forth the second time: whereas had the trees been rooted up, she might have taken it the first time, from one of them as it was floating on the top of the waters. Now if the motion of the water was not so violent as to subvert the trees, much lesse was it able to cast up such vast heapes as the mountaines.
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When the Scripture doth set forth unto us the power and immensisitie of God by the varietie or usefulnesse of the creatures which hee hath made, amongst the rest it doth often mention the mountaines. Psal. 104. 8. item. 148. 9. Isai. 40. 12. And therefore ‘tis probable they were created at the first. Unto this I might adde that in other places Divine Wisdome in shewing of its owne antiquitie, (Prov. 8. 25) saith that he was From the beginning, before the earth or the mountains were brought forth. (Psal. 90. 2)
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If we may trust the relations of Antiquitie,3 there were many monuments left undefaced after the Flood.
So that if I intend to prove that the Moone is such a habitable world as this is; ‘tis requisite that I shew it to have the same conveniences of habitation as this hath; and here if some Rabbi or Chymick were to handle the point, they would first prove it out of Scripture, from that place in Moses his blessing, where hee speakes of the ancient mountaines and lasting hills, Deut. 33. […] for having immediately before mentioned those blessings which should happen unto Ioseph by the influence of the Moone, he does presently exegetically iterate them in blessing him with the chiefe things of the ancient mountaines and lasting hills; you may also see the same expression used in Iacobs blessing of Ioseph. (Gen. 49. 26)