Juftice and Gibon or the Nile, with its crocodiles? Temperance and Hiddekel or the Tygris, which, as Mofes 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 loss what virtue to defcribe by the onyx-ftone, 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 defcribing their four correspondent 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 disputes about a drop of gum refin, the nature and production whereof perplex the most learned, we difcover the weakness 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 reason, when the fmall atom that fwims on the furface, baffles our fevereft fcrutiny.

LETTER II

SIR,

To our modern philofophers, who set

up the proud idols of their own fancies in oppofition to the oracles of the Divinity,-and, endeavouring to discover abfurdities in the Chriftian religion, fall into greater, we can, without disclaiming our title to good manners, apply what St. Paul applied to the philofophers of his time: "They "became vain in their imaginations: profef

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fing themselves to be wife, they became "fools." In order to fap the foundations of revealed religion,-and to make man the sport of chance, who neither loft any privilege by Adam's fall, nor gained any thing by Christ's. redemption, they endeavour to obtrude Mofes on the public as an allegorical writer. Examine his character, and acknowledge their folly.

Befides his divine miffion, in what hiftorian does truth fhine more confpicuous? He relates his personal defects, as well as the extraordinary powers with which the Lord invefted him; deduces a long chain of patriarchs from the first man down to his days; traçes a genealogy, in

די

which every chief is diftinguished by his peculiar character. In quitting Egypt, the nursery of fiction, did it comport with the dignity of the legiflator and commander of a chofen people, to write romances? In the fpace of five hundred years, from Noah's death to Mofes' time, could the fall of man and his expulfion from Paradise be forgotten? And, as he had enemies, would not they have charged him with imposture? Or was he the only perfon amongst the Jews, who was inftructed by his father? In a word, it was out of his power to deceive the Jews; much lefs was it his inclination or intereft. All, then, is coherent in Moses; and to his genuine narrative we are indebted for the knowledge of ourselves: for, without the aid of revelation, man would ever be an inexplicable mystery,

In believing my descent from a father created in a state of perfection, from whence he fell, -a father on whofe obedience or difobedience my happiness or mifery depended,-I can account for the corruption of my nature, and all the train of evils which have defcended to Adam's children. Without this clew to direct me, I must be for ever entangled in a labyrinth of perplexities. Let philofophy glory in levelling man with the brute, and say that there was never any difference in his ftate; that he

was

was always the fame, deftined to gratify his appetites, and to die;I am really perfuaded that I must renounce common fense, if I believe that man is now the fame that he was in coming from his Maker's hands. The oppofition between our paffions and reason is too palpable, to believe that we were created in fuch an excess of contradictions. Reafon dictates to be temperate, juft, and equitable; to deal with others as I would fain be dealt by; not to infringe the order of fociety; to pity and relieve the afflicted: my paffions, those tyrants fo eruel, prompt me to raise myself on the ruin of others; to tread in the flowery paths of criminal pleasures; and to facrifice my ene my to my refentment. If God, then, be the author of reafon,and that it is granted to man to regulate and curb his inclinations,mifery and corruption were not our primitive ftate.

Philofophers, in a ftrain of irony, may deride our Bible and catechifm, and laugh at our folly for believing that an apple could entail fuch miferies on mortals: but let them seriously confider the multitude and greatness of the evils that oppress us; and how full of vanity, of illufions, of fufferings, are the first years of our lives; when we are grown up, how we are feduced by error, weakened by pain, inflamed