world; it is a miracle that Noah should have found fodder for them during ten months; it is a miracle that all the creatures, with their provisions, could be contained in the ark; it is a miracle that most of them did not die there; it is a miracle that, at going out of the ark, sustenance could be found for man and beast; it is likewise a miracle, that one Pelletier should have conceited that he had explained how all the several kinds of creatures might very naturally be contained and fed in the ark.

Now, the history of the deluge being the most miraculous thing ever heard of, it is idle (1) to

go

(1) Our author is mistaken, when he says it is idle to go about elucidating the history of the deluge, and that the whole must be resolved into a miracle. That the divine assistance must be called in on this occasion may be allowed; but that every part of the history is miraculous we cannot assent to. The difficulty of finding out such a prodigious quantity of water as was requisite for covering all the globe to fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, has made some modern writers imagine, that this deluge overwhelmed only one part of the earth. But all antiquity believed that the deluge was universal, and the Scripture expresses it in the strongest terms. Had not all the earth been covered with the waters of the deluge, the building of the ark would have been needless. It would have been sufficient for God to have warned Noah to go to some other country, which was not to have been overwhelmed with water. Besides, it would have required no less a miracle to keep up the waters in one part of the earth, than to drown the whole. As to the difficulty of finding out waters sufficient to overflow the world, without having re

course

1

go about elucidating it; there are mysteries which we believe through faith; and faith consists in believing what reason does not believe: which again is another miracle.

Thus the story of the universal deluge is like that of the tower of Babel, of Balaam's ass, of the fall of Jericho at the blowing of the trumpets, of the waters turned into blood, the passage of the Red Sea, and all the miracles which God was pleased to perform in behalf of his chosen people. These are depths unfathomable by the line of human reason.

DESTINY.

course to a miracle, is it not very rational to make answer, that as, in the beginning, the whole mass of the earth was covered with waters, which retired into cavities of the earth, or were drawn up in clouds; so those cavities having thrown out those waters by the motion of the earth, and the clouds being dissolved into water, the same quantity of water meeting, might again cover the globe of the earth. This is what Moses meant, when he said, "That the foun"tains of the deep and the cataracts of heaven were "opened." It must be owned, indeed, that to draw this quantity of water out of the abyss on the surface of the earth required the exertion of the Divine Power. The other difficulties about Noah's ark may be easily solved. That the space in such a vessel was abundantly sufficient to contain both Noah and his family, as well as the animals, and all necessary provi sions for them, appears most evidently, whatever our author may pretend, from the geometrical calculations of learned men, as Bishop Wilkins and others. See the Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 220. as also Wilkins's Essay towards a real character, and Peletier Dissert. sur l'Arche de Noè.

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DESTINY.

Fall the books which have reached our times, the most ancient is (1) Homer: here we become acquainted with the manners of profane antiquity, with heroes and gods, as rude and unpolished as if made in the likeness of man; but there, on the other hand, we meet with the elements of philosophy, and especially the notion of Destiny, no less lord of the gods, than the gods are lords of the world.

Jupiter would fain save Hector; he consults the destinies; he weighs the fates of Hector and Achilles in scales; and finding that the Trojan must absolutely be slain by the Greek, he is sensible all opposition to it would be fruitless and from that moment Apollo, Hector's guardian genius, is obliged to forsake him (Iliad, lib. xxii.) and though Homer, according to the privilege of antiquity, often interlards his poem with quite opposite ideas, yet is he the first in whom the notion of destiny occurs; so that it must be supposed to have been current in his time.

This notion of destiny was not received by

the

(1) This is a mistake, the history of Moses is the most ancient book in the world: for whether Moses was cotemporary with Inachus, the first king of Argos, who lived 600 years before the Trojan war; ‹or whether he did not live till the days of Cecrops, king of Athens, who reigned 300 years before that war, it is certain he is much more ancient than Homer or Hesiod.

the Jewish Pharisees till several ages after; for the Pharisees themselves, who, among that insignificant people, were the principal literati, were but of a modern date. At Alexandria they adulterated the ancient Jewish opinions with many Stoic tenets. St. Jerom even says, that their sect is but little prior to our vulgar

æra.

Philosophers never stood in need of Homer, or the Pharisees, to be convinced that every thing is done by immutable laws, that every thing is settled, and that every thing is a necessary effect.

Either the world subsits by its own nature, by its physical laws, or a Supreme Being has formed it by his primitive laws; in either case, these laws are immutable; in either case every thing is necessary: heavy bodies gravitate towards the center of the earth, and cannot tend to remain in the air; pear-trees can never bear pine-apples; the instinct of a spaniel can never be the instinct of an ostrich; every thing is arranged, set in motion, and limited.

Man can have but a certain number of teeth, hairs, and ideas; and a time comes when he necessarily loses them: it is a contradiction that what was yesterday has not been, and what is to-day should not be; no less a contradiction is it that a thing which is to be should not come to pass.

If thou couldest give a turn to the destiny of a fly, I see no reason why thou mightest not as well determine the destiny of all other flies, of all other animals, of all men, and of all nature; so that, at last, thou wouldest be more powerful than God himself.

It is common for weak people to say, such a physician has cured my aunt of a most dangerous illness; he has made her live ten years longer than she would. Others as weak, but, in their own opinion, very wise, say, the prudent man owes his fortune to himself.

"Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia, sed nos "Te facimus fortuna Deam cœloque locamus."

But the prudent man oftentimes is crushed by his destiny, instead of making it; it is their destiny that renders men prudent.

Some profound politicians affirm, that, had Cromwell, Ludlow, Ireton, and about a dozen more parliamentarians, been made away with a week before the cutting off Charles the First's head, that king might have lived longer, and have died in his bed. They are in the right, and may farther add, that, had all England been swallowed up by the sea, that monarch would not have ended his days on a scaffold at Whitehall, near the Banqueting-house; but by the arrangement of occurrences Charles was to have his head cut off.

Cardinal d'Ossat was unquestionably a man of more prudence than yon lunatic in Bedlam; but is it not manifest that the wise d'Ossat's organs were of another texture than that madman's? So a fox's organs differ from those of a crane or a lark.

The physician has saved thy aunt. Allowed; but herein he certainly did not reverse the order of nature; he conformed to it. It is evident that thy aunt could not hinder her being born in such a town, and having a certain illness at

such