Thomas Burnet's Battleground of Time - Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time - page 38

the flames (by including so much nurturing air from internal vacuities), and
where the fire will start. The torches of Vesuvius and Aetna specify an Italian
origin, and God also knows the home of antichrist, the Bishop of Rome
(Burnet was nothing if not a committed Anglican). Still, in an ecumenical
spirit, Burnet tells us that Britain, with its deposits of coal, will burn brightly,
if a bit later.
If the conflagration replays the flood in a different manner, the succeeding
earth also reproduces the original paradise, and for the same physical reason:
the descent of burned particles into concentric layers sorted by density
(Figure 2.8). On this earth made perfect again, Christ shall reign for a
thousand years with Satan bound in chains. Following this millennium, Gog
and Magog shall herald the final battle of good against evil; trumpets shall
announce the last judgment; the saints shall ascend (the sinners go
elsewhere); and the superseded earth shall become a star.
Burnetts commitment to explanation by natural law, and his allegiance to
historical narrative, can be best appreciated in explicit contrast with
alternatives proposed by his friend Isaac Newton in a fascinating exchange of
long letters (thank goodness they didn't have a telephone, or even a train)
between London and Cambridge, in January 1681. 5
Newton had made two suggestions that troubled Burnet: first, that the earth's
current topography arose during its initial formation from primeval chaos,
and was not sculpted by Noah's flood; second, that the paradox of creation in
but six days might be resolved by arguing that the earth rotated much more
slowly then, producing a "day" of enormous extent. Burnet excused his long
and impassioned response, stating (in modern orthography):
Your kindness hath brought upon you the trouble of this long letter, which I
could not avoid seeing you have insisted upon two such material points, the
possibility (as you suppose) of
5.I thank Rhoda Rappoport for sending me these documents.