In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, just at the time when Newton's great discovery was given to the world, Burnet issued his Sacred Theory of the Earth.

His position was commanding; he was a royal chaplain and a cabinet officer.

Planting himself upon the famous text in the second epistle of Peter,( 142) he declares that the flood had destroyed the old and created a new world.
The Newtonian theory he refuses to accept.

In his theory of the deluge he lays less stress upon the "opening of the windows of heaven" than upon the "breaking up of the fountains of the great deep." On this latter point he comes forth with great strength.

His theory is that the earth is hollow, and filled with fluid like an egg.