And there would have been about 8,000 in David's time,
when were found 1,100,000, of above twenty years old (besides
others, as aforesaid) in Israel, upon the survey instigated by
Satan, whereas our table makes 32,000,000. And there would have
been but a quarter of a million about the birth of Christ, or
Augustus's time, when Rome and the Roman Empire were so great,
whereas our table makes 100,000,000. Where note, that the
Israelites in about 500 years, between their coming out of Egypt to
David's reign, increased from 603,000 to 1,100,000.
On the other hand, if we pitch upon a less number, as 100 years, the
world would have been over-peopled 700 years since. Wherefore no
one number will solve the phenomena, and therefore we have supposed
several, in order to make the following table, which we again desire
historians to correct, according to what they find in antiquity
concerning the number of the people in each age and country of the
world.
We did (not long since) assist a worthy divine, writing against some
sceptics, who would have baffled our belief of the resurrection, by
saying, that the whole globe of the earth could not furnish matter
enough for all the bodies that must rise at the last day, much less
would the surface of the earth furnish footing for so vast a number;
whereas we did (by the method afore mentioned) assert the number of
men now living, and also of those that had died since the beginning
of the world, and did withal show, that half the island of Ireland
would afford them all, not only footing to stand upon, but graves to
lie down in, for that whole number; and that two mountains in that
country were as weighty as all the bodies that had ever been from
the beginning of the world to the year 1680, when this dispute
happened.
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