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12 A COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE OF THE Part III. understood by St. Augustin: “ He has, indeed, " (says that learned Father,) said enough con- " cerning the destruction of this world : and “ also, where, in commemorating the deluge before transacted, he seems in a manner to ap- “ prise us, how we are to believe that this world " is to perish at the end of time. For he says, “ that at that time—the body of the earth perished " by the Word of God. But, the heavens and " the earth (says he) which now are, are kept in “ store by the same Word, reserved for fire.— “ Wherefore, this world which was substituted for " the world that perished in the deluge by the water, " is reserved for the final fire at the day of judg- « ment 1 .” We have another, very ancient and very re- , markable, testimony to the same point of tradition ary evidence, in the book of Job; where we read —“ Hast thou marked the old way which wicked " men trod, who were cut down before their time, 1 " Dixit san de perditione mundi hujus satis: ubi etiam comme- " morans factum ante diluvium, videtur admonuisse quodammodo, qua- " tenus in fine hujus seculi mundum istum periturum esse credamus. “ Nam et illo tempore perisse dixit — orbem terra. — Qui autem nunc “ sunt, inquit, cli et terra, eodem verbo repositi sunt, igni reservandi “ Proinde, qui tnundus, pro co mundo qui di/uvio periit ex eudem aqua, repo- “ situs est, ipse igni novissimo reservatur, in diemjudicii." (AUGUSTINI de Civitate Dei, lib. xx. cap. 18.) Here it is manifest, that this learned Father understood the Scriptures to declare, that the earth we now inhabit is a different earth from that which was trodden by the antediluvian generations.
