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that fancy of Philo the Jew (mentioned before), who thinks that the music of the spheres should supply the strength of food.

Nor can we well conceive how a man should be able to carry so much luggage with him as might serve for his viaticum in so tedious a journey.

2. But if he could, yet he must have some time to rest and sleep in. And I believe he shall scarce find any lodgings by the way. No inns to entertain passengers, nor any castles in the air (unless they be enchanted ones) to receive poor pilgrims or errant knights. And so, consequently, he cannot have any possible hopes of reaching thither.'

The difficulty as to sleep is removed by means of the following ingenious supposition:-'Seeing we do not then spend ourselves in any labour, we shall not, it may be, need the refreshment of sleep. But if we do, we cannot desire a softer bed than the air, where we may repose ourselves firmly and safely as in our chambers.' The necessary supply of food remains, however, to be provided for; and on this subject the author is abundantly amusing. We have room for only a few of his suggestions.

'And here it is considerable, that since our bodies will then be devoid of gravity, and other impediments of motion, we shall not at all spend ourselves in any labour, and so, consequently, not much need the reparation of diet; but may, perhaps, live altogether without it, as those creatures have done who, by reason of their sleeping for many days together, have not spent any spirits, and so not wanted any food, which is commonly related of serpents, crocodiles, bears, cuckoos, swallows, and such like. To this purpose Mendoca reckons up divers strange relations: as that of Epimenides, who is storied to have slept seventy-five years; and another of a rustic in Germany, who, being accidentally covered with a hay-rick, slept there for all the autumn and the winter following without any nourishment.

Or, if this will not serve, yet why may not a Papist fast so long, as well as Ignatius or Xaverius! Or if there be such a strange efficacy in the bread of the Eucharist, as their miraculous relations do attribute to it, why, then, that may serve well enough for their

viaticum.

Or, if we must needs feed upon something else, why may not smells nourish us? Plutarch and Pliny, and divers other ancients, tell us of a nation in India that lived only upon pleasing odours. And 'tis the common opinion of physicians, that these do strangely both strengthen and repair the spirits. Hence was it that Democritus was able, for divers days together, to feed

himself with the mere smell of hot bread.

Or if it be necessary that our stomachs must receive the food, why, then, it is not impossible that the purity of the ethereal air, being not mixed with any improper vapours, may be so agreeable to our bodies, as to yield us sufficient nourishment.'

The greatest difficulty of all, however, is still unremoved; and that is, By what conveyance are we to get to the moon? With what the author says on this point, we shall conclude our extracts from his

work.

[How a Man may Fly to the Moon.]

If it be here inquired, what means there may be conjectured for our ascending beyond the sphere of the earth's magnetical vigour, I answer, 1. It is not perhaps impossible that a man may be able to fly, by the application of wings to his own body; as angels are pictured, as Mercury and Daedalus are feigned, and as hath been attempted by divers, particularly by a Turk in Constantinople, as Busbequius relates.

2. If there be such a great ruck in Madagascar as Marcus Polus, the Venetian, mentions, the feathers in whose wings are twelve feet long, which can soop up a horse and his rider, or an elephant, as our kites do a mouse; why, then, it is but teaching one of these to carry a man, and he may ride up thither, as Ganymede does upon an eagle.

Or if neither of these ways will serve, yet I do seriously, and upon good grounds, affirm it possible to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit, and give such a motion unto it, as shall convey him through the air. And this, perhaps, might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum, and commodities for traffic. It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat.

This engine may be contrived from the same principles by which Archytas made a wooden dove, and Regiomontanus a wooden eagle

I conceive it were no difficult matter (if a man had leisure) to show more particularly the means of com posing it.

DR JOHN PEARSON.

Dr Wilkins was succeeded in the see of Chester by another very learned and estimable divine, Dr JOHN PEARSON (1613-1686), who had previously filled a divinity chair at Cambridge, and been master of Trinity college in that university. He published, in 1659, An Exposition on the Creed, which Bishop Burnet pronounces to be among the best books that our church has produced.' This work has been much admired for the melody of its language, and the clear and methodical way in which the subjects are treated. The author thus illus trates

[The Resurrection.]

actions which flow from us, the consideration of the Beside the principles of which we consist, and the things without us, and the natural course of variations in the creature, will render the resurrection yet hours teacheth thus much, in which there is always a more highly probable. Every space of twenty-four revolution amounting to a resurrection. The day dies in the next morning it appeareth again and reviveth, into a night, and is buried in silence and in darkness; opening the grave of darkness, rising from the dead of night; this is a diurnal resurrection. As the day dies into night, so doth the summer into winter: the sap is said to descend into the root, and there it lies or crusted with frost, and becomes a general sepulchre; buried in the ground; the earth is covered with snow, when the spring appeareth, all begin to rise; the plants and flowers peep out of their graves, revive, and grow, and flourish; this is the annual resurrection. The corn by which we live, and for want of which we perish with famine, is notwithstanding cast upon the earth, and buried in the ground, with a design that it may corrupt, and being corrupted, may revive and multiply: our bodies are fed by this constant experiment, and we continue this present life by succession of resurrections. Thus all things are repaired by corrupting, are preserved by perishing, and revive by dying; and can we think that man, the lord of all these things, which thus die and revive for him, should be detained in death as never to live again? Is it imaginable that God should thus restore all things to man, and not restore man to himself? If there were no other consideration, but of the principles of human nature, of the liberty and remunerability of human actions,

and of the natural revolutions and resurrections of other creatures, it were abundantly sufficient to render the resurrection of our bodies highly probable.

We must not rest in this school of nature, nor settle our persuasions upon likelihoods; but as we passed from an apparent possibility into a high presumption and probability, so must we pass from thence unto a full assurance of an infallible certainty. And of this, indeed, we cannot be assured but by the revelation of the will of God; upon his power we must conclude that we may, from his will that we shall, rise from the dead. Now, the power of God is known unto all men, and therefore all men may infer from thence a possibility; but the will of God is not revealed unto all men, and therefore all have not an infallible certainty of the resurrection. For the grounding of which assurance I shall show that God hath revealed the determination of his will to raise the dead, and that he hath not only delivered that intention in his Word, but hath also several ways

confirmed the same.

DR THOMAS SPRAT.

declares, that few men have deserved it less; and that, upon a review of Sprat's works, his language will sooner give you an idea of one of the insignificant tottering boats upon the Thames, than of the smooth noble current of the river itself.'t How far this is true, let the reader judge for him

self.

besides a volume of Sermons, and one or two minor productions. He published also some poems, which, being in the style of Cowley, have long since fallen into neglect, though still to be found in the early collections of English poetry. The qualities which deserve to be admired in his prose style are strength, neatness, smoothness, and precision. It displays but little of that splendour which the eulogy by Dr Johnson induces a reader to expect, though we can by no means agree with Dr Drake in the opinion that it is wanting in vigour. They who shall study his pages,' says that writer, 'will find no richness, ardour, or strength in his diction; but, on the contrary, an air of feebleness, and a species of imbecile spruceness, pervading all his productions. They must acknowledge, however, much clearness in his construction, and will probably agree that his cadences are often peculiarly well turned, especially those which terminate his paragraphs, and which sometimes possess a smartness which excites attention.'* In our opinion, it would not be easy to find in any contemporary work a better specimen of what is called the middle style, DR THOMAS SPRAT, bishop of Rochester (1636- than the first of the subjoined extracts, forming a 1713), is praised by Dr Johnson as an author whose portion of Sprat's History of the Royal Society. It pregnancy of imagination and eloquence of language is difficult to account for the perversity of Lord have deservedly set him high in the ranks of litera-Orrery, who, after remarking that, among our ture; and although the voice of the literary public English writers, few men have gained a greater has not confirmed so high a eulogium, yet the cele-character for elegance and correctness than Sprat,' brity of the bishop in his own times, added to the merits of his style, which, though not pre-eminent, are unquestionably great, entitle him to be mentioned among the leading prose writers of this period. At Oxford, where he received his academical education, he studied mathematics under Dr Wilkins, at whose house the philosophical inquirers who originated the Royal Society used at that time to meet. Sprat's intimacy with Wilkins led to his election as a member of the society soon after its incorporation; and in 1667 he published the history of that learned body, with the object of dissipating the prejudice and suspicion with which it was regarded by the public. This,' says Dr Johnson, is one of the few books which selection of sentiment and elegance of diction have been able to preserve, though written upon a subject flux and transitory. The history of the Royal Society is now read, not with the wish to know what they were then doing, but how their transactions are exhibited by Sprat.'t Previously to this time he had been appointed And now, if a moderating of these extravagances chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, whom he is must be esteemed profaneness, I profess I cannot said to have aided in writing the Rehearsal. He absolve the experimental philosopher. It must be was made also chaplain to the king. In these cir- granted, that he will be very scrupulous in believing cumstances, ecclesiastical promotion could hardly all manner of commentaries on prophetical visions, in fail to ensue; and accordingly, after several advanc-giving liberty to new predictions, and in assigning ing steps, the see of Rochester was attained in 1684. Next year he served the government by publishing an account of the Ryehouse plot, written by the command of King James. For this work he found it convenient, after the Revolution, to print an apology; and having submitted to the new government, he was allowed, notwithstanding his well-known attachment to the abdicated monarch, to remain unmolested in his bishopric. In 1692, however, he was brought into trouble by a false accusation of joining in a conspiracy for the restoration of James; but after a confinement of eleven days, he clearly proved his innocence. So strong was the impression made by this event upon his mind, that he ever afterwards distinguished the anniversary of his deliverance as a day of thanksgiving. Besides the works already mentioned, Sprat wrote a Life of Cowley (1668), prefixed to the works of that poet; *Johnson's Life of Cowley. + Life of Sprat.

[View of the Divine Government afforded by Experimental Philosophy.]

We are guilty of false interpretations of providences and wonders, when we either make those to be miracles that are none, or when we put a false sense on these that are real; when we make general events to have a private aspect, or particular accidents to have sotme universal signification. Though both these may seem at first to have the strictest appearance of religion, yet they are the greatest usurpations on the secrets of the Almighty, and unpardonable presumptions on his high prerogatives of punishment and reward.

the causes and marking out the paths of God's judg‐ ments amongst his creatures.

He cannot suddenly conclude all extraordinary events to be the immediate finger of God; because he familiarly beholds the inward workings of things, and thence perceives that many effects, which use to affright the ignorant, are brought forth by the com mon instruments of nature. He cannot be suddenly inclined to pass censure on men's eternal condition from any temporal judgments that may befall them; because his long converse with all matters, times, and places, has taught him the truth of what the Scripture says, that all things happen alike to all." He canbot blindly consent to all imaginations of devout men about future contingencies, seeing he is so rigid in examining all particular matters of fact. He cannot

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* Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, &c. i. 69.

+ Orrery's Remarks on the Life and Writings of Swift, ♪ 237. London: 1752.

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be forward to assent to spiritual raptures and revelations; because he is truly acquainted with the tempers of men's bodies, the composition of their blood, and the power of fancy, and so better understands the difference between diseases and inspirations.

But in all this he commits nothing that is irreligious. 'Tis true, to deny that God has heretofore warned the world of what was to come, is to contradict the very Godhead itself; but to reject the sense which any private man shall fasten to it, is not to disdain the Word of God, but the opinions of men like ourselves. To declare against the possibility that new prophets may be sent from heaven, is to insinuate that the same infinite Wisdom which once showed itself that way is now at an end. But to slight all pretenders, that come without the help of miracles, is not a contempt of the Spirit, but a just circumspection that the reason of men be not over-reached. To deny that God directs the course of human things, is stupidity: but to hearken to every prodigy that men frame against their enemies, or for themselves, is not to reverence the power of God, but to make that serve the passions, the interests, and revenges of men.

It is a dangerous mistake, into which many good men fall, that we neglect the dominion of God over the world, if we do not discover in every turn of human actions many supernatural providences and miraculous events. Whereas it is enough for the honour of his government, that he guides the whole creation in its wonted course of causes and effects: as it makes as much for the reputation of a prince's wisdom, that he can rule his subjects peaceably by his known and standing laws, as that he is often forced to make use of extraordinary justice to punish or reward.

Let us, then, imagine our philosopher to have all slowness of belief, and rigour of trial, which by some is miscalled a blindness of mind and hardness of heart. Let us suppose that he is most unwilling to grant that anything exceeds the force of nature, but where a full evidence convinces him. Let it be allowed, that he is always alarmed, and ready on his guard, at the noise of any miraculous event, lest his judgment should be surprised by the disguises of faith. But does he by this diminish the authority of ancient miracles or does he not rather confirm them the more, by confining their number, and taking care that every falsehood should not mingle with them? Can he by this undermine Christianity, which does not now stand in need of such extraordinary testimonies from heaven? or do not they rather endanger it, who still venture its truths on so hazardous a chance, who require a continuance of signs and wonders, as if the works of our Saviour and his apostles had not been sufficient? Who ought to be esteemed the most carnally-minded-the enthusiast that pollutes religion with his own passions, or the experimenter that will not use it to flatter and obey his own desires, but to subdue them? Who is to be thought the greatest enemy of the gospel-he that loads men's faiths by so many improbable things as will go near to make the reality itself suspected, or he that only admits a few arguments to confirm the evangelical doctrines, but then chooses those that are unquestionable? It cannot be an ungodly purpose to strive to abolish all holy cheats, which are of fatal consequence both to the deceivers and those that are deceived: to the deceivers, because they must needs be hypocrites, having the artifice in their keeping; to the deceived, because, if their eyes shall ever be opened, and they chance to find that they have been deluded in any one thing, they will be apt not only to reject that, but even to despise the very truths themselves which they had before been taught by those deluders.

It were, indeed, to be confessed, that this severity of censure on religious things wore to be condemned

in experimenters, if, while they deny any wonders that are falsely attributed to the true God, they should approve those of idols or false deities. But that is not objected against them. They make no comparison between his power and the works of any others, but only between the several ways of his own manifesting himself. Thus, if they lessen one heap, yet they still increase the other; in the main, they diminish nothing of his right. If they take from the prodigies, they add to the ordinary works of the same Author. And those ordinary works themselves they do almost raise to the height of wonders, by the exact discovery which they make of their excellences; while the enthusiast goes near to bring down the price of the true and primitive miracles, by such a vast and such a negligent augmenting of their number.

By this, I hope, it appears that this inquiring, this scrupulous, this incredulous temper, is not the disgrace, but the honour of experiments. And, therefore, I will declare them to be the most seasonable study for the present temper of our nation. This wild amusing men's minds with prodigies and conceits of providence has been one of the most considerable causes of those spiritual distractions of which our country has long been the theatre. This is a vanity to which the English seem to have been always subject above others. There is scarce any modern historian that relates our foreign wars, but he has this objection against the disposition of our countrymen, that they used to order their affairs of the greatest importance according to some obscure omens or predictions that passed amongst them on little or no foundations. And at this time, especially this last year [1666], this gloomy and ill-boding humour has prevailed. So that it is now the fittest season for experiments to arise, to teach us a wisdom which springs from the depths of knowledge, to shake off the shadows, and to scatter the mists which fill the minds of men with a vain consternation. This is a work well becoming the most Christian profession. For the most apparent effect which attended the passion of Christ, was the putting of an eternal silence on all the false oracles and dissembled inspirations of ancient times.

[Cowley's Love of Retirement.]

Upon the king's happy restoration, Mr Cowley was past the fortieth year of his age; of which the greatest part had been spent in a various and tempestuous condition. He now thought he had sacrificed enough of his life to his curiosity and experience. He had enjoyed many excellent occasions of observation. He had been present in many great revolutions, which in that tumultuous time disturbed the peace of all our neighbour states as well as our own. He had nearly beheld all the splendour of the highest part of mankind. He had lived in the presence of princes, and familiarly conversed with greatness in all its degrees, which was necessary for one that would contemn it aright; for to scorn the pomp of the world before a man knows it, does commonly proceed rather from ill manners than a true magnanimity.

He was

He was now weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. satiated with the arts of court; which sort of life, though his virtue had made innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to forego all public employments, and to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, which in the greatest throng of his former business had still called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and of a moderate revenue, below the malice and flatteries of fortune.

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In his last seven or eight years he was concealed in his beloved obscurity, and possessed that solitude which, from his very childhood, he had always most passionately desired. Though he had frequent invitations to return into business, yet he never gave ear to any persuasions of profit or preferment. His visits to the city and court were very few; his stays in town were only as a passenger, not an inhabitant. The places that he chose for the seats of his declining life were two or three villages on the bank of the Thames. During this recess, his mind was rather exercised on what was to come than what was past; he suffered no more business nor cares of life to come near him than what were enough to keep his soul awake, but not to disturb it. Some few friends and books, a cheerful heart, and innocent conscience, were his constant companions.

I acknowledge he chose that state of life, not out of any poetical rapture, but upon a steady and sober experience of human things. But, however, I cannot applaud it in him. It is certainly a great disparagement to virtue and learning itself, that those very things which only make men useful in the world should incline them to leave it. This ought never to be allowed to good men, unless the bad had the same moderation, and were willing to follow them into the wilderness. But if the one shall contend to get out of employment, while the other strive to get into it, the affairs of mankind are like to be in so ill a posture, that even the good men themselves will hardly be able to enjoy their very retreats in security.

DR THOMAS BURNET.

DR THOMAS BURNET (1635-1715), master of the Charter-house in London, and who probably would have succeeded Tillotson as archbishop of Canterbury, had not his heterodoxy stood in the way, acquired great celebrity by the publication of a work entitled The Sacred Theory of the Earth; containing an Account of the Original of the Earth, and of all the General Changes which it hath already undergone, or is to undergo, till the Consummation of all Things. The first edition, which was written in Latin, appeared in 1680; but an English translation was published by the author in 1691. In a geological point of view, this treatise is totally worthless, from its want of a basis of ascertained facts; but it abounds in fine composition and magnificent description, and amply deserves perusal as an eloquent and ingenious philosophical romance. The author's attention seems to have been attracted to the subject by the unequal and ragged appearance of the earth's surface, which seemed to indicate the globe to be the ruin of some more regular fabric. He tells that in a journey across the Alps and Apennines, the sight of those wild, vast, and indigested heaps of stones and earth did so deeply strike my fancy, that I was not easy till I could give myself some tolerable account how that confusion came in nature.' The theory which he formed was the following:-The globe in its chaotic state was a dark fluid mass, in which the elements of air, water, and earth were blended into one universal compound. Gradually, the heavier parts fell towards the centre, and formed a nucleus of solid matter. Around this floated the liquid ingredients, and over them was the still lighter atmospheric air. By and by, the liquid mass became separated into two layers, by the separation of the watery particles from those of an oily composition, which, being the lighter, tended upwards, and, when hardened by time, became a smooth and solid crust. This was the surface of the antediluvian globe. In this smooth earth,' says Burnet, were the first scenes of the world, and

the first generations of mankind; it had the beauty of youth and blooming nature, fresh and fruitful, and not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture in all its body; no rocks nor mountains, no hollow caves nor gaping channels, but even and uniform all over. And the smoothness of the earth made the face of the heavens so too; the air was calm and serene; none of those tumultuary motions and conflicts of vapours, which the mountains and the winds cause in ours. 'Twas suited to a golden age, and to the first innocency of nature.' By degrees, however, the heat of the sun, penetrating the superficial crust, converted a portion of the water beneath into steam, the expansive force of which at length burst the superincumbent shell, already weakened by the dryness and cracks occasioned by the solar rays. When, therefore, the 'appointed time was come that All-wise Providence had designed for the punishment of a sinful world, the whole fabric brake, and the frame of the earth was torn in pieces, as by an earthquake; and those great portions or fragments into which it was divided fell into the abyss, some in one posture, and some in another.' The waters of course now appeared, and the author gives a fine description of their tumultuous raging, caused by the precipitation of the solid fragments into their bosom. The pres sure of such masses falling into the abyss, could not but impel the water with so much strength as would carry it up to a great height in the air, and to the top of anything that lay in its way; any eminency, or high fragment whatsoever: and then rolling back again, it would sweep down with it what-! soever it rushed upon-woods, buildings, living creatures and carry them all headlong into the great gulf. Sometimes a mass of water would be quite struck off and separate from the rest, and tossed through the air like a flying river; but the common motion of the waves was to climb up the hills, or inclined fragments, and then return into the valleys and deeps again, with a perpetual fluctuation going and coming, ascending and descending, till the violence of them being spent by degrees, they settled at last in the places allotted for them; where bounds are set that they cannot pass over, that they ¦¦ return not again to cover the earth.

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Thus the flood came to its height; and it is not easy to represent to ourselves this strange scene of things, when the deluge was in its fury and extremity; when the earth was broken and swallowed up in the abyss, whose raging waters rose higher than the mountains, and filled the air with broken waves, with an universal mist, and with thick darkness, so as nature seemed to be in a second chaos;|| and upon this chaos rid the distressed ark that bore the small remains of mankind. No sea was ever so tumultuous as this, nor is there anything in present nature to be compared with the disorder of these waters. All the poetry, and all the hyperboles that are used in the description of storms and raging seas, were literally true in this, if not beneath it. The ark was really carried to the tops of the highest mountains, and into the places of the clouds, and thrown down again into the deepest gulfs; and to this very state of the deluge and of the ark, which was a type of the church in this world, David seems to have alluded in the name of the church (Psal. xlii, 7.) "Abyss calls upon abyss at the noise of thy cataracts or water-spouts; all thy waves and billows have gone over me.' It was no doubt an extraordinary and miraculous providence that could make a vessel so ill-manned live upon such a sea; that kept it from being dashed against the hills, or overwhelmed in the deeps. That abyss which had devoured and swallowed up whole forests of woods, cities, and provinces, nay, the whole earth, when it had conquered

PROSE WRITERS.

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

all, and triumphed over all, could not destroy this
single ship. I remember in the story of the Argo-
nautics (Dion. Argonaut. l. i. v. 47.), when Jason set
out to fetch the golden fleece, the poet saith, all the
gods that day looked down from heaven to view the
ship, and the nymphs stood upon the mountain-tops
to see the noble youth of Thessaly pulling at the
oars; we may with more reason suppose the good
angels to have looked down upon this ship of Noah's,
and that not out of curiosity, as idle spectators, but
with a passionate concern for its safety and deliver-
ance. A ship, whose cargo was no less than a whole
world; that carried the fortune and hopes of all pos-
terity; and if this had perished, the earth, for any-
thing we know, had been nothing but a desert, a
great ruin, a dead heap of rubbish, from the deluge
to the conflagration. But death and hell, the grave
and destruction, have their bounds.'

We cannot pursue the author into further details,
nor analyse the ingenious reasoning by which he
endeavours to defend his theory from some of the
many insuperable objections which the plainest facts
of geology and natural philosophy furnish against it.
The concluding part of his work relates to the final
conflagration of the world, by which, he supposes,
the surface of the new chaotic mass will be restored
to smoothness, and leave a capacity for another
world to rise from it.' Here the style of the author
rises into a magnificence worthy of the sublimity of
the theme, and he concludes with impressive and
appropriate reflections on the transient nature of
earthly things. The passage is aptly termed by
Addison the author's funeral oration over his globe.

[The final Conflagration of the Globe.]

But 'tis not possible, from any station, to have a full prospect of this last scene of the earth, for 'tis a mixture of fire and darkness. This new temple is filled with smoke while it is consecrating, and none can enter into it. But I am apt to think, if we could look down upon this burning world from above the clouds, and have a full view of it in all its parts, we should think it a lively representation of hell itself; for fire and darkness are the two chief things by which that state or that place uses to be described; and they are both here mingled together, with all other ingredients that make that tophet that is prepared of old (Isaiah xxx.) Here are lakes of fire and brimstone, rivers of melted glowing matter, ten thousand volcanos vomiting flames all at once, thick darkness, and pillars of smoke twisted about with wreaths of flame, like fiery snakes; mountains of earth thrown up into the air, and the heavens dropping down in lumps of fire. These things will all be literally true concerning that day and that state of the earth. And if we suppose Beelzebub and his apostate crew in the midst of this fiery furknow not where they can be else), it will nace (and be hard to find any part of the universe, or any state of things, that answers to so many of the properties and characters of hell, as this which is now before us. But if we suppose the storm over, and that the fire hath gotten an entire victory over all other bodies, and subdued everything to itself, the conflagration will end in a deluge of fire, or in a sea of fire, covering the whole globe of the earth; for, when the exterior region of the earth is melted into a fluor, like molten glass or running metal, it will, according to the nature of other fluids, fill all vacuities and depressions, and fall into a regular surface, at an equal distance everywhere from its centre. This sea of fire, like the first abyss, will cover the face of the whole earth, make a kind of second chaos, and leave a capacity for another world to rise from it. But that is not our present business. Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect, upon this occasion, on the vanity

and transient glory of all this habitable world; how, by
the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest,
all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the
labours of men, are reduced to nothing; all that we
admired and adored before, as great and magnificent,
is obliterated or vanished; and another form and face
of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same,
overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great
empires of the world, and their great imperial cities?
Their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory?
Show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell
me the victor's name! What remains, what impres-
mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great
sions, what difference or distinction do you see in this
city, the empress of the world, whose domination and
superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part
She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were
of the history of this earth, what is become of her now?
But her hour is come; she is
strong and sumptuous: she glorified herself, and
lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen,
and shall see no sorrow.
wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in
perpetual oblivion. But it is not cities only, and
works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills, the
mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax
before the sun, and their place is nowhere found.
Here stood the Alps, a prodigious range of stone, the
load of the earth, that covered many countries, and
reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea;
this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved, as a
tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African moun-
was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the
tains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds. There
mountains of Asia. And yonder, towards the north,
stood the Riphaan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All
these are vanished, dropped away as the snow upon their
heads, and swallowed up in a red sea of fire. (Rev. xv. 3.)
Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Al-
mighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of
Saints. Hallelujah.

Dr Burnet is led by his subject into the following energetic

[Rebuke of Human Pride.]

We must not, by any means, admit or imagine that all nature, and this great universe, was made only for the sake of man, the meanest of all intelligent creatures that we know of; nor that this little planet where we sojourn for a few days, is the only habitable part of the universe: these are thoughts so groundless and unreasonable in themselves, and also so derogatory to the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of the First Cause, that as they are absurd in reason, so they deserve far better to be marked and censured for heresies in religion, than many opinions that have been censured for such in former ages. How is it possible that it should enter into the thoughts of vain man to believe himself the principal part of God's creation; or that all the rest was ordained for him, for his service or pleasure? Man, whose follies we laugh at every day, or else complain of them; whose pleasures are vanity, and his passions stronger than his reason; who sees himself every way weak and impotent; hath no power over external nature, little over himself; cannot execute so much as his own good resolutions; mutable, irregular, prone to evil. Surely, if we made the least reflection upon ourselves with impartiality, we should be ashamed of such an arrogant thought. How few of these sons of men, for whom, they say, all things were made, are the sons of wisdom! how few find the paths of life! They spend a few days in folly and sin, and then go down to the regions of death and misery. And is it possible to believe that all nature, and all Providence, are only,

451

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