Varieties: or, A surveigh of rare and excellent matters necessary and delectable for all sorts of persons. Wherein the principall heads of diverse sciences are illustrated, rare secrets of naturall things unfoulded, &c. Digested into five bookes, whose severall chapters with their contents are to be seene in the table after the epistle dedicatory. By David Person, of Loghlands in Scotland, Gentleman.

SECT. 11.

Of the Worlds Continuance and Ending.

THat subtle and excellent Philosopher Leo Hebreus, expatiating in the meditation of this Number of seven, admiring and speaking of the worlds rest, saith; That after six thousand yeares are expired, in the seventh thousand this elementary world shall rest, which God thereafter will renew seven times, betwixt every seven thou∣sand giving one thousand yeares rest; after all which, saith hee, this elementary world, the Earth and all beneath the Moone, the Celestiall world also shall take an end: which Proclus also the Aca∣demick secondeth, when hee saith, that the life of this world is septenary, its parts, proportion, and circles are septenary; and with them many other Philosophers have dived too deepe into these my∣steries; yet I cannot passe by Charon, who in his History bringeth in Elias the Iew (not the Thesbite) affirming, that the world shall last but six thousand yeares: viz. two thousand before the Flood; 2000 from it to the comming of the Messias; and from that two thousand more to the Consummation of all things; which in all amounteth to 6000. Wher∣to S. Augustine in his first Booke on Genesis, ad Manichaos, some way enclineth; yet Hesychius

ingeniously confesseth his ignorance of it, since neither to the Sonne of man (as he was man) nor to the Angels that knowledge was revealed: Origen adheareth to Leo Hehraeus opinion of 7000. yeares continuance in his Homily, Quòd Mundus cum tem∣pore caeperit, in this third Booke 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; and goeth further, saying, that after this world is ended, ano∣ther shall begin; and that before this world, there was another which hee would strive to approve with Authorities out of holy Scripture, which doeth savour a little too much of presumption; for in all the Scripture there is no expresse mention to bee found either of the one or other: But wee are commanded, not to pry too farre in these and the like mysteries which concerne not our salvation, and which God hath kept onely to himselfe.

Mitte arcana Dei, coelumque inquirere quid sit:

Yet indeede this Father in his Homily de fine vel consummatione, ingeniously confesseth, that he only handled those matters by way of reasoning, than any wayes to conclude an infallibility of them; for in the end he acknowledgeth, that hee wrote them in great feare and suspensive trembling.