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fecond peftilence, and the third famine. The rage for predicting future events is carried ftill farther: other vifionaries combine the events of the former prophecy and affert that a fwarm of locufts is a certain fign, that the country will be afflicted with these three fcourges at one and the fame time. Nay we have seen people mad enough to maintain that they have read on the wings of thefe infects characters fignificant of the above predictions. Ignorance and learning have both contributed to the delufion, there is hardly any thing in life, which does not give notice of fomething good or bad about to happen. Among our domeftic infects there is one that gnaws. and beats with fo much regularity, that it imitates the beating of a watch, and has accordingly got the name of the death-watch, becaufe when it is heard fome foolish people believe that the death of fome perfon in the family will foon happen. To confirm fuch predictions, examples are produced; but what reliance can he had on proofs fo ill founded? When two things happen in fucceffion who hath told us that God meant to point out by the peculiarities of the one, the circumstances that would accompany the other? There have been years in which thofe infects have exceffively abounded, which are confidered as ominous, but which however have neither produced war, nor famine, nor peftilence nor unufual mortality. Thefe accidents may have occurred a long time afterwards, but could not therefore be the confequence of thofe pretended indications. Many people will forego nothing of their prejudices, but obftinately maintain that this effect flows from the cause they attribute it to; but how will they demonstrate the connection? How will they perfuade us that those infects which appear in one country have been the forerunners of calamity in another? The world is a great theatre where the fcene is perpetually occupied by fimilar tragedies; fo that no time perhaps

will ever occur in which fome ftate will not be the place of action. Thus fuperftition can never want a pretext; it will always find means either of predicting truly or of excufing its miftakes.

Merchants likewife make a bad ufe of infects in commerce. We know in what eflimation cochineal is held in the art of dying, on account of the beauty of its colour. Thofe who trade in that article, often mix it with little red beetles, by which means they make a confiderable profit. The trick is as difhoneft, as if a merchant fhould fell wine and water for pure wine. When the dyer comes to make ufe of his purchase, he obtains no more colour, than is produced by the portion of true cochineal contained in the quantity employed.

Are there not many perfons, who flatter their vanity, with the use of filk? Raiment is neceffary for man, not only as a covering, but as a defence against the inclemency of the air. But might not leaves, or the skins of animals anfwer this purpofe? The antients contented themselves with thefe; but, when in course of time, men began to distinguish themselves by magnificent apparel, a thousand ways were invented of miniftering to the luxury of drefs. It was then that they found the way of drawing threads from many plants, of depriving beafts of their hair and their wool, of undoing the cones of the filkworm; it was then that they fabricated linen and cotton cloths, that they dyed them of all forts of colours, and dreffed themselves, not so much from neceffity, as out of prodigality and oftentation. These inventions fuperfeded the fimplicity of nature, every thing was changed, and what ought only to have been used to cover the nakednefs of man, was made an engine of his pride. Every age had its different fashions, and fo much was good taste overftrained

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that it ended in extravagance. The contagion fpread far and wide, and perfons, who might have lived eafily on their eftate, preferred a filken habit to food, and wrapt themselves in poverty like a filk-worm in its cone. Vanity ought fteadily to be refifted; and, if a reasonable man is expofed to it, either by his birth or his ftation, he ought never to lofe fight of the origin of a pompous exterior. The reflection will fortify him against the fuggeftions of pride; it will en gage him to turn to God, and to cry with ESTHER, XIV. 16. Thou knoweft my neceffity; for I abhor the fign of my high eftate which is upon mine head, in the days wherein I fhew myself; and that I abhor it as a filthy rag, and that I wear it not, when "I am private by myself."

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If vanity reigns among men, it domineers in the hearts of women. They not only deck their perfons, with the most precious ornaments that art can devife, but they endeavour to brighten their com plexion in fpite of nature. Miffing the grand fecret of re juvenefcence, they find a remedy for the want of beauty, in artifice and coquetry, and plunder the hives of bees, for wherewithal to efface the ravages of time. Thus, under a mask, borrowed from the filth of the earth, they endeavour to fafcinate the eye, and inveigle the heart.

The people of Lapland are fuperftitiously fond of an azure coloured fly. They carry it about with them as a familiar fpirit, and think they have fuch power over it, that, at their command, it will attack catile, or any perfon they chufe. The Danes have as abfurd a prepoffeffion, in favour of the Ofcabiora. They fuppofe, that whoever fwallows this fea fish, will infallibly fee his wifhes accomplished.

CHAP. VII,

CHAP. VII.

OF THE ABUSE OF INSECTS IN THEOLOGY.

THE Pagans, in making infects the objects of divine, worship, have committed a gross outrage on reafon. We imitate fuch idolators, when we fubftitute the creature for the Creator; or, when we pay thofe honours to the work of men's hands, which are due only to God. Let us go back to the early ages of Paganism, and trace the origin of fuch prepofterous blindness. Man, abandoned to himself, is too fenfible of his dependance, to doubt that there is a fuperior Being, to whom he owes love and refpect; but, as God is in his nature invifible, and difplays himself only by his benefits, man supposes, that he cannot better ferve his Benefactor, than by doing him honour, under the form of thofe objects by which he makes himself known. Thus he came to adore the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the dead and the living, beasts and infects. St. Paul, in his Epiftle to the Romans, Chap. 1. 23. proves this; for, when fpeaking of the Gentiles, he expreffes himself thus;

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They changed the glory of the uncorruptible God, "into an image made like to corruptible man, and "to birds, and four-footed beafts, and creeping

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things." The author of the book of Wisdom, Chap. x1. 15. 16. fays the fame thing of the Jews, who were punished by the very objects of their foolish worship. "But for the foolish devices of their "wickedness,

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"wickedness, wherewith being deceived, they worfhipped ferpents void of reafon, and vile beafts, "thou didst fend a multitude of unreasonable "beafts upon them for vengeance; that they might "know that, wherewithal a man finneth, by the "fame alfo fhall he be punifhed."

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The Pagans, befide their facrifices, made an offering of honey to their idols, which has made fome perfons fuppofe, that this was the reafon of the Jews being forbidden to offer any in their facrifices. If we may believe Aldrovandus, the inhabitants of Tlafcala do not lefs abufe the produce of their bees. They take the wax, and make candles of it, which they offer to their idols in token of fubmiffion. Thefe odious practices are not only ftrengthened by custom, but they have led the way to more criminal exceffes; for folemn feafts have been inftituted in honour of infects. Calius Rhodiginus mentions a day, fet apart for the worfhip of crickets, and fays, that the Pagans of ancient Rome celebrated, with much veneration, the eighth of the calends of December, in order to make thefe falfe deities propitious to their country. So fuperftitious were they, that, whenever a fwarm of bees lighted in the neighbourhood of their city, they confidered it as polluted, and fuppofed it an omen of misfortunes. To ward off thefe, they appointed folemn days, in which they deprecated the wrath of their gods: they did fo, likewife, when they believed the grafshoppers unpropitious.

The Jews relate many wonderful things of infects, but which are confidered as fables at beft, by men of fenfe. It is faid, I. KINGS vi. 7. that, "in building "the house, (i. e. the temple) it was built of stone, "made ready before it was brought thither; so that

there was neither hammer nor ax, nor any tool of

" iron

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