to nature; but there is ftill in it fomething miraculous.

We read in the fixteenth Chapter of Exodus, 19, 20, that Mofes exprefsly prohibited the children of Ifrael from leaving the manna till the morning, and that when, notwithstanding his prohibition, they kept it, it bred worms and ftank. We fee on the contrary. 22. 23, that on the fixth day, the eve of the Sabbath, they gathered twice as much bread, and preserved it without its corrupting. I ask is there any thing like this in the regular and common courfe of Nature? A fingle day of the week excepted, a day fo distinguished fromthe reft of fo fhort a period, is undoubtedly a prodigy which confounds the laws of nature. For how is it poffible that it fhould rain manna for fix fucceeding days, while on the feventh there fhould not fall a fingle drop? How could it happen that from Monday to Friday an article of food fhould corrupt in a night, while from Saturday to Sunday, it fhould remain unchanged?

Let us turn to the twenty third chapter of Exodus where it is faid, verfe 28, that if the people of Ifrael would hearken to the voice of God," he would fend hornets before them, which should drive Gut the Hivite, the Canaanite and the Hittite from before them." The promife is renewed by Mofes, DEUTR. vii. 20. "Moreover the Lord thy God will fend the hornet among them, until they that are left and hide themfelves from thee, be deftroyed." We cannot doubt that God performed what he had promifed to his people. Joshua afferts it in the laft fpeech he pronounced to the tribes of Ifrael. Chap. xxiv. 12. "And I fent the hornet before you which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites: but not with thy fword or with thy bow."

Mm 3

7

This

This is another miracle. That hornets fhould affault and put to flight the nations of the heathen, and that only the people of Ifrael fhould efcape from their fting, is unaccountable, except by referring it to the power of the most high.

The book of Jonah, Chap. iv. 5, 6, 7, informs us that the prophet" went out of the city and fat on the eaft fide thereof, and made him a booth and fat under it in the fhadow, till he might fee what would become of the city." And the Lord prepared a gourd, and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a fhadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief; and that God prepared a worm when the morning rofe, and it fmote the gourd that it withered." Though it is not miraculous that a worm fhould devour a plant, we cannot help acknowledging in the growth and deftruction of Jonah's gourd a fupernatural direction of providence; for in order to convince the prophet that he erred in murmuring against God for having preserved Nineveh, he caused the gourd to grow in a fingle night, fo as to prove a fhade to the booth, and to defend it from the extreme heat of the fun; and in the morning, caufed a worm to deftroy it. Upon Jonah's murmuring at the deftruction of the gourd, God takes occafion to fay, "Thou wouldst that the gourd had been fpared, for the which thou haft not laboured, neither madeft it grow; And fhould not I fpare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than fix fcore thousand perfons?

The fate of Herod, as it is defcribed in Acts xii. 21. 22. 23. is as terrible, as it is incomprehenfible in itself. "And upon a fet day, Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, fat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a fhout, faying, it is the voice of a god, and not of a man.

And

And immediately the Angel of the Lord fmote him, because he gave not God the glory; and he was eaten of worms, and he gave up the ghoft." Antiochus perished in the fame manner, being ftruck by an invifible hand, "fo that the worms rofe out of the body of that wicked man, and while he lived in forrow and pain, his flesh fell away, and the filthinefs of his fmell was noifome to all his army. And the man that thought a little afore, he could reach to the ftars of heaven, no man could endure to carry, for his intolerable flink." II. Maccab. ix. 9. 10. This is that Antiochus, king of Syria, that tyrant, that monster, filled with pride, and drunk with the blood of the Ifraelites, whofe death, as above related, is confirmed by Polybius. He confeffes, that he was eaten by worms, though he attributes the cause to his having conceived the defign of pillaging the temple of Diana at Elymais; but Jofephus, with more reafon, afcribes it to his intention of destroying the temple of Jerufalem. Of what nature thofe infects were, is of no confequence to my argument; it is fufficient for me, that the Scripture hath declared, that they were eaten of worms: that the first was ftruck by an Angel of the Lord, and that the other, humbled to the earth, fhewed to all, the avenging hand of God.

NOTES.

な

NOTES.

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*THE most feilful artif. Artifts have indeed executed pieces of mechanifm which we cannot enough admire for their defigu and beauty. Curious inftances of these may be feen defcribed by Baier, Derham, Neickel, &c. but when these performances are examined by the microscope, and compared with infects, the difference appears exceedingly ftriking. By that inftrument, the parts appear polished and wrought with the moft confummate art; the mafterpieces of human ingenuity appear grofs and rugged. The interior mechanifin of infects, it is impoffible for man to i'mitate, and puts them beyond all comparison.

PAGE 2, 1. 17.

The lion is unconscious of his firength. This must be understood, merely of that knowledge which is the result of reflection and reafoning, of which man alone is capable; for as to the knowledge acquired from sensation, it does not appear that this can be denied to brutes, fince it is in confequence of fenfation alone, that they act. Would the lion, for inftance, attack with fo much courage, if he were not confcious of the fuperiority of his ftrength? or, would the nightingale pafs whole hours in finging, if it did not feel pleafure in the exercife of its voice?

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