A35538:284
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second, being the five last, chapters of the book of Job being the substance of fifty-two lectures or meditations / by Joseph Caryl ...
London: printed by M. and S. Simmons, 1666
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION WITH Practical Observations UPON The Thirty-eighth, T… › Chapter 38 › Verse 4-6
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Here it may be said, what difficulty is there in this Question, Who laid the measures of the earth? Job might easily answer, God laid them. Therefore I conceive, not only, yea not so much, who laid them, as how they were laid, or what they are, is here intended.
The most learned and studied Mathematicians could never give a right measure of the earth, nor yet agree about that matter. They measure it first as to the depth of it, what the diameter ⟨p. 62⟩of the earth is from top to bottom; but they differ much in opinion what the depth or diameter of the earth is: Some have reckoned it three thousand and fifty miles. Others have said it containeth six thousand and seventy miles. And a third sort have concluded that it is seven thousand one hundred and seventy miles. Thus they guess, but could never yet come to know the true measures of the earth in deepness. And if we consider the Perimeter or circumference of the earth, there hath been as much variety of conjecture about that. Some of the learned have reckoned the earth fifty thousand miles in compass. Others make it thirty and four thousand six hundred twenty five. A third computation gives it to be thirty one thousand and five hundred miles. There are who have brought it down to twenty two thousand five hundred; yea, to twenty thousand and four hundred miles. And they who are judged most exact among the Moderns, have reduced the account of the compass of the whole earth to nineteen thousand and fourscore miles. Thus the learned and wise men of the world, after their greatest studies, know not what the measures, the just measures of the earth are, nor how they were laid: And therefore God might well say to Job, Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Who ever could say to this day without mistake, what the measures of it are?1 That is one thing. A second followeth Or who hath stretched the line upon it?
The most learned and studied Mathematicians could never give a right measure of the earth, nor yet agree about that matter. They measure it first as to the depth of it, what the diameter