Of the aforementioned vast difference between 10 years and 1,200
years for doubling the people, we make this use, viz.:- To justify
the Scriptures and all other good histories concerning the number of
the people in ancient time. For supposing the eight persons who
came out of the Ark, increased by a progressive doubling in every
ten years, might grow in the first 100 years after the Flood from 8
to 8,000, and that in 350 years after the Flood (whereabouts Noah
died) to 1,000,000 and by this time, 1682, to 320,000,000 (which by
rational conjecture are thought to be now in the world), it will not
be hard to compute how, in the intermediate years, the growths may
be made, according to what is set down in the following table,
wherein making the doubling to be ten years at first, and within
1,200 years at last, we take a discretionary liberty, but
justifiable by observations and the Scriptures for the rest, which
table we leave to be corrected by historians who know the bigness of
ancient cities, armies, and colonies in the respective ages of the
world, in the meantime affirming that without such difference in the
measures and periods for doubling (the extremes whereof we have
demonstrated to be real and true) it is impossible to solve what is
written in the Holy Scriptures and other authentic books. For if we
pitch upon any one number throughout for this purpose, 150 years is
the fittest of all round numbers; according to which there would
have been but 512 souls in the whole world in Moses' time (being 800
years after the Flood), when 603,000 Israelites of above twenty
years old (besides those of other ages, tribes, and nations) were
found upon an exact survey appointed by God, whereas our table makes
12,000,000.
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