JOHN Gerhard, Lutheran Professor at Salane in Saxony, published a Comment upon Genesis, wherein he explains the Hebrew Text, proposes and resolves Difficulties, and reconciles seeming Contradictions. This Work was printed in 1675, and afterwards at Lipsick in 1693, in 4to. The Title, which gives a just Idea of it, is as follows; Commentarius in Genesim, in quo Textus Sacer declaratur, quæstiones dubiæ solvuntur, Observationes eruuntur, & loca in speciem pugnantia conciliantur. The Gerhard we are here speakng of is the Father. He was born in 1582, and died at Jena in 1637, being no more than fifty Years of Age. He was infinitely laborious, spending his whole time in Study. He understood the learned Languages, had read the Fathers, and argued like one well skilled in Controversy.
Paul Fagius published an Explanation of the Hebrew Words of the first four Chapters of Genesis, with this Title; Expositio dictionum Hebraicarum litteralis & simplex, in quatuor capita priora Geneseos, Jenæ, 1542, in 4to. He is larger here than in his Notes upon the Pentateuch, whereof we have already said something, as well as of the Author himself, in the fifth Article of this Part.
Abrahami Calovii Luther. Comment. in Genesim. in 4to. Wittembergæ, 1671. To this Comment are added Prolegomena, and Chronological Tables. He examines critically all the Words of the Text, and having settled the literal Meaning of it, he thence draws several moral Instructions. The same Author has written against Grotius, and has undertaken to confute almost all his Explanations of the Scripture, in a Work entituled, Anti-Grotiana annotata in vet. & nov. Testamentum. He is sometimes led away too far, by his too great Inclination to contradict his learned Antagonist. He was of Prussia, born in 1612, a Lutheran, and died in 1686, at 74 Years of Age. He wrote a great deal upon the Scripture; they reckon seventeen Volumes in 4to. of Dissertations only, without computing many others in fol. that we speak of according to the Matter which is the Subject of them. See his Title in the Index.
New Essays, to explain physically the first Chapter of Genesis, by M. St. Rambert, or Ramperg, at Utrecht, 1713, in 12mo. This Author has endeavoured to explain the Creation of the World as related in the first Chapter of Genesis, according to Descartes’s System. If this be not the first Attempt which has been made this way, it is certainly the most ingenious, most elaborate, and best carried on. Saint Rambert protests, in his Preface, and at the End of his Work, that he is ready to relinquish his Opinions and condemn them, if they vary in any thing from the Creed of the Roman Catholick and Apostolick Church. He was was a Frenchman, as F. le Long says. Perhaps he is still living.
John Amerpoel had before published, without Disguise, Cartesius Mosaisans, at Lenwarden, in the Year 1676, in 12mo. It is an Explanation of the first Chapter of Genesis, wherein he seems to follow only Descartes’s Observation, who says in some of his Letters, that upon reading over-again this Chapter, he thought himself able, according to his Principles, to explain very easily whatever Moses had declared therein concerning the Creation of the World. Amerpoel asserts, that the Doctrine of this Philosopher contains nothing contrary to this History. So that his Work is properly nothing more than a Parallel drawn between this Chapter and the Principles of Descartes. He was of Groninguen in Frizeland, a Calvinist, and lived in 1669.
Another Author published afterwards, The World in its Birth, or, The Creation of the World, and of Man, according to the same Principles of Descartes, at Utrecht, 1685, in 12mo. This Treatise, which contains three Parts, is curious: Every thing in it is explained with great Order and Clearness.
Burnetii Archæologia Philosophica, Londini. 1692, in 4to.
Ejusdem Telluris Theoria Sacra. Londini, 1702. This Author proposes a new System on the Creation of the World, and the Manner wherein the Earth subsisted before the Deluge. He also explains how the Deluge was produced, according to his Hypothesis. His Opinions are pretty free, and have been confuted. See Solomon Deyling’s Observat. Sacr. Tom. 1. Observat. 4.
The Title of his two Pieces at full length is as follows: Archæologia Philosophysica, seu Doctrina de rerum originibus, in 4to. Londini, 1692. Telluris Theoria Sacra, Orbis nostri originem & mutationes generales quas aut jam subiit, ant olim subiturus est complectens: Libri duo priores de diluvio & Paradiso, in 4to. ibid. Anglicè, 1681. in fol. 1684. Both at Amsterdam, 1694. in 4to. translated into German, at Hamburg 1698, in 4to. F. le Long says nothing of the Edition of 1702. As he was attacked by Erasmus Warren, he replied in English, ibid. 1690, in fol.
Thomas Burnet, as Bayle says, was an Englishman, and a Physician of the University of Edinburg: But, as F. le Long tells us, he was a Scotchman, and Clerk of the Closet to the King of England.
Christophori Cartwright, Electa Targumico-Rabbinica, sive Annotationes in Genesim ex triplici Targum seu Chaldaica Paraphrasi: Item, ex Rasi, Aben-Ezra, aliisque Englishman, a Calvinist, and Minister in the County of Cumberland. ifque Hebræis excerpta, unâ cum Animadversionibus subinde interspersis. Londini, 1648, in 8vo. It is in the Supplement to the Great Criticks, tom. 2. This Comment is entirely Rabbinical, and very dry. The Author was an Englishman, born at York. He died in 1658, in the 56th Year of his Age. We may judge of the Solidity of his Judgment, and of his great Capacity to understand well the Writings of the Hebrews, by the Works which he has published.
Sixtini Amama Annotata in Genesim, in the first Tome of the Supplement to the Great Criticks.
He was of Frizeland, and a Calvinist. He taught at Franekar; went into England, and died there in 1629, not being very old; but he was worthy of a longer Life.
Petri Artopæi Christiana trium linguarum elementa de prima rerum origine vetustissimaque Theologia ex tribus primis capitibus Geneseos. Basileæ, 1546, in 8vo. Crovæus supposes him to be besides the Author of some Discourses taken from the three first Chapters of Genesis, and printed at Stetin, 1545. This probably is the same Piece, the Title whereof he did not know. The Author was of Pomerania, a Lutheran, and Minister at Stetin. He died, as some say, in 1593. He understood Hebrew very well, but was too much prepossessed against the Vulgate, too fond of his Prejudices, and the Opinions of his Sect.
Robinson published a Philosophical and Theological System concerning the History of the Creation as it is related by Moses, with the Defence of this System, printed in English, at London, 1709, in 8vo.
The Author’s Design is to shew, that what Moses tells us of the Creation may without any Inconveniency be explained philosophically. He first of all gives us a great Idea of this holy Legislator, of his Learning in all the Sciences, and above all, in Philosophy. In the next place, he produces the Text of the first Chapter of Genesis, with his Philosophical and Theological Paraphrase, which fills a second Column, and contains particular Hypotheses, whereof he endeavours to demonstrate the exact Agreement with the Text of Moses. Lastly, he draws from thence a great number of moral Conclusions, which he distributes into several Classes, and forms so many Arguments for supporting the Belief of a God and Providence.
He himself speaks of this Work in his Specimen of the Natural History of Westmorland and Cumberland. He was an Another Author, who is unknown to us, put out Moyse Eclairci, or a Literal and Physical Explanation of the first Chapter of Genesis, at Amsterdam, 1709, in 12mo.
His whole Design is to propose a new System explaining Motion, by the Help whereof he pretends to prove, 1. That God is not made to act but by his own Will. 2. That the Principles of Motion are explained more clearly. 3. That many Difficulties are avoided, which he believes to be inseparable from the Explanations of Motion by the modern Philosophers.
Edmund Dickenson wrote a Treatise upon the Creation of the World, entituled, Physica vetus & vera, sive tractatus de naturali veritate Hexaëmeri Mosaici, at London, 1685, and 1702, in 4to. He has no other Design but to shew that the corpuscular Philosophy of Atoms is plainly established in Genesis. He was an Englishman, and Physician to the King.