who doubt or disbelieve a providence, and I have known some valuable minds to be much affected by such an impression. In opposition to this, let us advert to the probability, for the reasons which have been adduced, that there are no human beings in the universe but on our globe. And if not, then the special creation of them on our earth only, is an indication of some special design in our existence, and a reason for the particular notice and care of our Creator. But the absence of all certainty that there are intelligent beings superior to us in any of the radiant orbs we see, or anywhere else, except the ministerial angels, who are always exhibited as in immediate attendance on the Sovereign of all, or in the execution of his commands, should also operate to hinder us from concluding, that there is any thing in creation that is likely to divest us of the regard and care of our provident Maker, or that has any natural claim to preferring consideration from him, or that can make us less important in his sight than any other of his works. Distrust all philosophers who inculcate such ideas; and be on your guard against those who separate nature from its God, or teach its laws and phenomena without reference to him. Philosophers are as apt to err, in many of their opinions, as other people, and have continually been doing so." *

'n this as the Egyptian theorists were, who deduced human creatures from the mud of their Nile, or as the Arcadians and Athenians, from the earth for these believed that they sprung out of the ground as they thought grasshoppers did, and therefore wore one of these insects as an ornament in their hair, made of gold and silver. So the Babylonians were taught, that from chaos arose first hideous beings-men with two faces and wings; one body, but two heads; other human figures, with the legs and horns of goats; some with half the body like a horse; others with the heads and bodies of horses, and tails of fishes.--BerosBus. Sync. Ch. 228; Cory's Anc. Fr. 24.

Pliny gives us an amusing instance of something more than an erroneous opinion in his account of Dionysodorus. "I will not omit this paramount example of Grecian vanity: he was a Melian, distinguished for his geometrical science, and died in his own country in old age. His relations, to whom his inheritance descended, buried him, and a few days afterward declared that they had found in his tomb a letter, written in his name to those above. It stated, that he had gone down from his grave to the lowest part of the earth, and that his passage had been 42,000 stadia. GEOMETRICIANS were not wanting (nec defuere geometra) who inferred that this epistle had been sent from the centre of the earth, and expressed the farthest space from that to the surface; from which computing, they pronounced that the earth was 252,000 stadia in circuit." -Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. ii. c. 112.

Which shall we most admire? the strange and palpable imposture, or

LETTER VI.

Sacred History comprises the Plan, the Purposes, and the Results of the Divine System, as to Mankind-Outlines of the Great Events which have accrued in Human Affairs.

THE sacred history of the world, as it relates to mankind, may be considered under three divisions of our inquiry. The PLAN on which it has been carried on; the REASONS and PURPOSES for which that particular plan has been adopted, and its execution pursued; and the RESULTS or ends which have already been accomplished by it, or which seem evolving from it..

Our knowledge of the PLAN must be derived from a study of the events which have taken place; for it is in these that it will be indicated, as the movements of a great army, and their consequences and effects, enable the attentive observer to perceive the scheme and objects of the commander in the conduct of his campaign.

That a plan has been devised and selected by our Creator for his human world, and steadily acted upon by him in the course of its affairs, seems to be as certain as any fact that is deducible from what we know of him, and from its analogies with the certainties of his physical creations. We assume that our material world has been a reasoned production of his intelligence. But if so, then human life, and the concerns which most affect it, must be directed and governed by him, because the inorganic portions of our earthly system have been visibly made with express reference to what is living and sentient; and all that is so has been manifestly formed with a peculiar consideration of man,. the most sentient and intellectual of all. But nothing was more requisite to his welfare and intellectual improvement, than that the great incidents of his social history, and of the course of his earthly life, should be such, and be from time to time so regulated, as to prevent his destruction or degenthat any ancient mathematicians, men whose leaders we are so accustomed to revere, should seriously calculate upon it as authentic informa tion?

it never will be either an undesirable or an improper exercise of the mind to do so, if we pursue the inquiry in a reverential and deferent spirit, and do not attempt to assert our individual notions to be unquestionable truth. Our best conclusions will still be but our own single judgment, and must be always left to the consideration of others, how far they are likely to be true. The greatest point will be to take care, that they be always in accordance with that which alone is authority on such topics. The sacred volume must be our compass and our intellectual pilot in these: nothing that is in contradiction, to this, in what concerns the laws and dealings of its grand object towards mankind, ought to be regarded as entitled to our belief. It is my earnest desire that my inferences should never be at variance with it, as it is the only safe guide we can obtain on such subjects. Divested of this, we should have no criterion of any truth upon them; but every thing would be in as much doubt and obscurity, as it was in the days of Carneades and Epicurus: and our opinions on God and nature, if it had not enlightened the human mind, would have continued to be as absurd as they were, before the dissemination of divine truth had given new light to the judgment, new principles to the reason, and new motives and sympathies to the human heart.

A new form of human nature from that time began to arise, in individual after individual, which enlarged in every subsequent age, until it attained those new features which distinguished the sixteenth century, and which have been increasing in beauty, dignity, and expansion ever since. Compare now the enlightened men of Europe with those of the greatest nations of antiquity, and you will find the contrast to be most striking.*

* The Phenicians were distinguished before the Greeks, who derived their letters from them; and yet the Tyrians, when attacked by enemies, chained the images of their gods to their altars, that they might not abandon their city. Others, when they sent their divinities to be washed, or to undergo a purifying lustration, exacted sureties for their return. The Romans, as wise, are alleged by some of their historians to have had chants and incantations, by which they could draw away to themselves the gods of their enemies.--Plut. Roin. Quæst. c. 61.

Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Metrodorus, thought the sun a mass of iron, or a stone on fire.--Plut. Plac. 1. ii. c. 20. Anaximander talked of his having respiration, c. 21. The Stoics mentioned his passing through a tract for his aliment, and this was the ocean or the earth, on whose exhalations he feels, c. 23. '

On surveying the events of human history from the creation, the great outlines of what has occurred to mankind in the ages before us, may be distinguished into some general heads, of which the following shall be the first subjects of our consideration.

The geological construction of the body of the globe, as

The Pythagoreans believed the moon to be inhabited, but maintained that the living creatures in it were much larger than ours, and at least

en times stronger, The plants also as inuch more beautiful, c. 30, While Plutarch himself thought that our souls were made out of the Bad would therefore return to it. He disclaims the imputation that he thought the moon to be dend matter, without either soul or mind, p 1723. ite also tells us that some think its inhabitants bang by the head to it, or, like Ixion, ar tied fast to it, that its motions may not #toxice them from it, and that it ought not to seem surprising that a lion feil out of it into the Peloponnesus, De Pac, Lun, v. in. p. 1728.

As to the stars, Anaxagoras supposed the sky in its revolution to catch up stones from the earth, and then setting them on fire. they becking the stars While Xenophanes contended that they were inflamed clouds, quenched during the dễ, and lighted again like coals every might, and tist tips explained their betting and rising, e. 13. Archelaus made ther rednot curtheg plates Stob. 14, 6, 25. 53. Heraclitus insisted that they were living creatures, nourished by exhalations from the earth -Put Lie 17. Arystotie auserted that celestial bodies did not require Dour.shment; but Plato thought the stars did receive it. Ib.

In ke manner Pencen ways, "From the earth arise aliments to all Birral, to all plants, and to all the stars. Hence it is that so many stars are talutuined; as eager for their pasture as they are hard worked both by day and night."--Nat. Qu, ii, e, 5, Lucan ways, "We believe that the sun and pole feed on the ocean." Pliny had no doubt about it. "Midera, vero, haud dubić, humore terreno pmsci," L... c. 6. And even Ptolemny mentions that the body of the moon is thoister and cooler than that of the other planeta, from the vapours that are exhaled to it out of the earth. - 1 Apostel

We have arraigned the fathers and some bishops for opposing the Antiporles, but Aristotle and Pliny alike demed them. Ho did Fueretius. Bo Putarch makes one of lils speakers ank, as a great falsehood, * Do they not way that it is thabited by Antipodea, who cling to it by the lower part of their bodies, like worms or cats?". De Fac. Lun. 1703.

We laugh at wone modern savages who, with drums, and cymbals, and shoutings, make all the noise they can when the moon is in an e pse, to hunder some wupposed monster from devouring it. But the Romans were not more philosophandl; for they thought the moon was then in maternal babour, and sounded all their brazen instruments, and presented to her ail the fires they could make by torches and lamps, to ease her in ber suffering" Plut Vit. Eoil. Propertius alludes to this, So does Ond, Met Live; and Piny, 1. 1. c. 12. It must have continued almost down to Juvenal's time, as he alludes to it,

"Jam nemo tubas atque era satiget; Una laboranti poterit succurrere Lunas,"