that they may plunder innocent people with greater security. And, like other thieves, they are all fond of darkness. When the Sun goes down, the Lion stalks forth from his den at which time the sheep, under the direction of the shepherd, are retiring to their fold. And when the cattle are climbing up the mountains to their pasture, to meet the rising of the sun, the tyrants of the night are warned back to their hiding-places.

XX. All those were unclean among the inhabitants of the waters, which were without fins and scales. This exception does not only, exclude shell-fish, and the monsters of the deep, but particularly those of the eel or snake kind, which lie grovelling at the bottom, and discover the same impure inclination with the swine. These fish are disturbed by thunder and storms, and swim about when the waters are thick and turbulent: but as soon as the elements are at rest again, they presently slide down to their native mud. Thus the mind, when polluted with impiety and unbelief, cannot be raised to the contemplation of truth, unless it is alarmed by the expectation of divine judgment; on which occasion the greatest reprobates are most violently moved, hurrying themselves as fast as

But the

they can into a state of repentance. effect abides no longer than the cause; and so their terrors and their penitence vanish together. When there was thunder and hail in the land of Egypt, and fire ran along upon the ground, even Pharaoh could recollect himself, and say-I have sinned this time; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked-But when he saw that the rain, and the hail, and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart, he and his servants. Such is the issue of that involuntary repentance, which has no principle to support it. The body, which rises of itself toward the surface of the stream, may continue aloft: but that which is raised only by violence, will sink the deeper for its fall.

XXI. The prohibited Fowls are Eagles, Vultures, Hawks, Cormorants, Ravens, and such like, which persecute and devour those of a more gentle nature; or feed uncleanly upon filth and dead carcases; whose young ones also suck up blood, and where the slain are, there are they. Such were the heathens, whom St. Paul hath described to us as cruel and unmerciful, full of envy, murder, and debate,

given up to the vilest passions, and all the uncleanness of dead works. For the nature of man, unrefined by an infused sense of the true God, and the true Religion, is no more offended with evil than a crow with carrion; but can feed upon it, and delight in it. Yea and Reason itself (if the depravation of Reason deserves that name) will plead for it as the greater good: and such Reason can never be expected to approve of the Christian Purity. The Apostle hath likewise observed, that the. heathens were without natural affection. Fathers have murdered their children; the nearest relations and the dearest friends have destroyed one another, on the ground of some enthusiastic notions of honour and liberty, Besides the superstitious practice of offering their sons and their daughters to Moloch and other diabolical deities, some of them had a custom of exposing such new-born infants as they did not approve of or thought they should not be able to support, to perish in the woods with hunger, or be devoured by wild beasts: and the same practice is now tolerated among the Idolaters of China. This

2

Jesuits Travels, vol. i. p. 85. Edit. ii. of Lockman's Translation.

is like the Ostrich; a foolish bird, which has wings without being able to raise itself from the Earth, and is void of that sogyn, that instinctive tenderness, which other creatures feel for their offspring,-which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers: her labour is in rain without fear; because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding.

XXII. That infidelity and ignorance, into which the heathens had been betrayed by a vain aspiring after wisdom, was the principal source of all the foregoing enormities. They did not like to retain God in their knowledge

-but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. In this respect they were allied to the tribe of Owls and Bats, and other birds of night, all of which the law pronounced to be unclean. In the owl we have a grand image of the Sceptic, who loves darkness rather than light, and is more proud of his artificial ignorance than

a Job xxxix. 14, &c.

E 3

any

any man ought to be of the most useful knowledge: who could never find truth, because he never loved it; as the owl is offended with that glory which the Sun diffuses over the natural Creation. As the day has no charms for the owl, Revelation hath nothing wise or wonderful with the unbelieving Philosopher; who brings with him to the word of God all that prejudice with which the owl flies out into the Sun-shine. Yet he has his admirers; as the hooting of one owl is music in the ears of another. This emblematical bird, when exposed to the Sun against his will, lets down before his sight an inner eyelid or membrane, which in the owl is very conspicuous; as the infidel puts a veil over his heart to intercept and weaken the rays of truth. Some birds respect the light to a degree of Adoration. The cock proclaims the approach of it every morning; on which account his voice was the most proper to remind St. Peter of that true light from which he had apostatized. But the owl has a natural aversion to the Light and if he breaks through his ordinary rules so far as to make his appearance in the day-time, he is pursued and reprimanded by other birds as a monster who is a disgrace to their kind; at least as one who has no business with the Sun.

When