Now, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs be
very large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering cause
and effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to suppose
that the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean of
existence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence so
ordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as a
pair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal the
renewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. The
lengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark--a vessel
which must include forests of timber and consume generations in
building; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strange
animals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical old man; not to mention
also the hoary Preacher's own century of exortations: with how great
moral force all this living warning would be calculated to act upon the
world of wickedness and doom! Here was the great ante-diluvian
potentate, Noah, a patriarch of ages, wealthy beyond our
calculations--(for how else without a needless succession of miracles
could he have built and stocked the ark?)--a man of enormous substance,
good report, and exalted station, here was he for a hundred and twenty
years engaged among crowds of unbelieving workmen, in constructing a
most extravagant ship, which, forsooth, filled with samples of all this
world's stores, was to sail with our only good family in search of a
better.
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