fatal tranfition from original juftice to the corruption of fin, been preferved in the golden and iron ages of the poets, their Hefperian gardens watched by dragons, and in the inchantments and worship of idolatrous nations, in whofe incantations and fuperftitions, the ferpent always bore, as it bears ftill, a principal part. Allegorize Mofes as much as you please; he relates that God promised that the woman's offspring would crush the ferpent's head. This very promise of a Redeemer, and man's victory through his grace, are foretold in the oracles of the Gentiles. Even Tacitus, though a mortal enemy to the Jews and Chriftians, acknowledges, that it was a conftant tradition amongst the Oriental nations, that from the Jews would fpring a conqueror, who would fubdue the world. A tranflator's mistake as to the name of a town or tower, is no plea for scepticism, especially as there are and have been, several towns of the fame name in different places, which might have been the cafe with Syene, and cities which in a long fucceffion of time, have changed their names, or born different names at the fame time, as is the cafe with Conftantinople, which the Turks call Stamboul, and others Byzantium.

But let us fuppofe that the tower of Syene was fituated on the fame line, in an oppofite direction,

direction, with the frontiers of Ethiopia, is there any impropriety in faying, "I will ftrike Egypt "from the tower of Syene to the borders of

Ethiopia?" Solinus relates, that there was a tower called Syene in lower Egypt. Ethiopia borders Egypt on the fouth. In ftriking Egypt, then, from the tower of Syene to the borders of Ethiopia, it is ftruck from north to fouth: that is, from one extremity to the other. The doctor, then, has loft his time in correcting the prophet Ezechiel's map, and fubftituting Arabia for Ethiopia. Yet this paffage of Ezechiel is his chief plea for allegorizing Genesis: with what fuccefs let the reader judge.

A warm fancy, in a paroxyfm of zeal, may indulge its boundless excursions in the path of allegory, when obfcure paffages and mystical expreffions open a field for interpretations and allufions. Mead, Whifton, Wesley, and the doctor himself, may difcover the pope in the beast with ten horns; and Rome in the great city built on feven hills. The Jewish rabbins, after obtaining permiflion to build a synagogue from the prince of Orange, applied to their benefactor, this famous paffage of Ifaiah: "On "that day, feven women will take hold of one 44 man:" alluding to the Seven United Provinces that had elected him ftadtholder; and I

myself,

myfelf, if I were in humour, could, in a longwinded difcourfe, enlarge upon the feven facraments, or the three theological and four cardinal virtues; and compare them to the feven golden candlesticks mentioned in the revelations of St. John. But in a historical narration, giving an account of the origin of the world, of a garden planted with trees, watered with four rivers,-with their names,—the countries through which they flow,—the precious ftones, mines and minerals, to be found in thofe countries, &c.-the introduction of an allegory is the fubverfion of reason.

Even where allegories can be ufed with any propriety, our mafters in rhetoric lay down as a rule," that, in the chain of metaphors conti"nued through the discourse, aptness, refem"blance, and juftnefs of allufion, muft be

ftrictly observed." What juftness of allusion is there between the human mind, and a garden planted eastward in Eden, where God put the man whom be bad created? As much as there is in faying, God made man, and placed him eastward in his mind. What analogy is there between the four rivers and the four cardinal Virtues? Between fortitude and Pifon or the Ganges, with the effeminate natives that inhabit its banks? Between prudence and the Euphrates?

Justice

Juftice and Gibon or the Nile, with its crocodiles? Temperance and Hiddekel or the Tygris, which, as Moses relates, and as geography informs us, goeth towards the east of Affyria, a country famous in former days for the intemperance of its inhabitants? The four cardinal virtues being fet afloat on the four rivers, and the doctor's imagination having spent the fire of his allegory, we are at a lofs what virtue to describe by the onyx-ffone, mentioned by Mofes in the following words: "The name of the "first river is Pifon; that is it which compaff"eth the land of Havilah, where there is gold: "and the gold of that land is good and there "is bdellium and the onyx-ftone." By gold, doubtless, he must mean charity or patience. But of the onyx-ftone there are four kinds; and we would be obliged to our dogmatizing philofophers for describing their four correfpondent

virtues.

tues.

Let them inform us, in like manner, whether the bdellium mentioned by Mofes, be one of the theological or a branch of the cardinal virFor though in difpenfatories, the bdellium be allowed to be a good noftrum of an emollient and difcutient quality, yet the learned, whether commentators of fcripture or natural philofophers, are no more agreed about the true nature of bdellium, than they are about the

manner

manner how it is produced and it is much doubted whether the bdellium of the ancients be the fame with the modern kind.

Thus, in the difputes about a drop of gum refin, the nature and production whereof perplex the most learned, we discover the weaknefs of human reason. We cannot diffect a fly; and we would fain comprehend the ways of Providence. We would fain found the unfathomable ocean of the Chriftian religion, and' arraign its myfteries at the tribunal of a glimmering reafon, when the fmall atom that swims on the furface, baffles our feverest scrutiny.