This needs no comment, after what has been said of the Hermetic Trinity. The subject is curious, and might be carried on much farther, but it would break in too much upon our present design. That young scholars may not be deceived with false appearances, and the specious refinements of Deism, which too often fall in the way of students in philosophy, I have judged it useful to set before them, as briefly as I could, this grand mystery of the Pagan theology, this medley of philosophy and divinity; which has been called in by those who did but half understand it, to corrupt the doctrines of Christianity, which have no relation to it, and are wholly of a spiritual intention.

Poppy-heads, why offered to Ceres.

Concerning the structure of the Earth, we find nothing more curious amongst the mythologists, than the poppy-heads which they offered to Ceres, as she signified the earth, the mother of all vegetation; in which сараcity she was called Anunnp, all-sufficient mother. This instance may serve, like many others, to shew how ingenious they were in

τα είδη φησιν είναι• το δε τρίτον, όπερ εστι ψυχικόν, μετέχειν T8 Evos naι Twv Eidwy. Simpl. in Phys. Arist. fol. 50.

accommodating emblems and illustrations to the views of their philosophy and theology. Phurnutus, a mythological author, gives us the rationale of the custom. "Poppies," says he, are offered to Ceres for these "reasons; because their heads are round or

spherical like the globe of the earth; and "their surface has prominences, and irregu"larities, analogous to the hills and vallies

on the face of the earth: within they are "hollow and cellular, like the body of the "earth, which has caverns under ground: "and these cells contain an infinite number "of small seeds, resembling the fertility of "the earth, which inwardly abounds with "the seeds and principles of all its produc"tions*.

How far the Cosmogony of the Heathens symbolizes with the Cosmogony of Moses.

If we look back to what has been collected

from

* Ανατιθεασι δ' αυτή και τας μηκωνας, κατα τον λοίον. Τα δε γαρ στρογυλον και περιφερες αυτών παρίστησι το σχήμα της γης, σφαιροειδες 8σης η τε ανωμαλια τας κοιλοτητας και τας εξοχας των όρων. Τα δε ενίος τοις ανθρώδεσι και υπονόμοις ἔοικεν σπερμαία δε αναρίθμητα γεννωσιν ωσπερ η γη. Phurn. in Cerere. This author is supposed to be the Cornutus men, tioned by the poet Persius; his name having been cor rupted by Aldus Manutius.

from the Heathens, we shall find that their traditions agree with the sacred account in these following particulars: first, that the earth was originally in a formless state; secondly, that its materials floated confusedly in a watery abyss; thirdly, that the matter of the heavens was dark and stagnant; fourthly, that the night was prior to the day, or that Erebus, the evening, was before the day-light; fifthly, that the world, as an egg, was subject to a sort of incubation from the wind; sixthly, that water was held most sacred by the Gods, because it was first of all things. These several particulars of resemblance between the sacred and profane accounts are very remarkable: they are out of the reach of human reason, and could not have been invented by the Heathens; therefore they were borrowed, and, as such, may be considered as so many testimonies to the authenticity of the sacred account, though not preserved with any such intention. the course of my reading, I have found that there is scarcely any one miraculous fact, from the beginning of Moses to the end of the Prophets, to which the Heathens have not given their testimony, by pretending to something of the same kind among themselves ;

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selves; a step which they would never have thought of taking, unless they had been tempted to it by the vanity of competition. Whoever reads the Greek and Roman poets and mythologists with this view, will soon find enough to convince him of the truth of what I have advanced *.

See this subject farther considered in a Volume of Letters from a Tutor to his Pupils. Letter XIV,

393

DISCOURSE IX.

On the Appearances, Causes, and Prognostic Signs of the Weather.

THE

HE philosophy of which I have undertaken to treat being chiefly that of the elements, all such observations as relate to the weather ought to have a place in it.

By the weather, we mean the temperature of the air with respect to heat, cold, wind, rain, and other meteors. It is a subject in which all men are interested; and they seldom fail to signify their anxiety by that general practice of bringing it into conversation where no other subject is already in possession. The farmer conforms to it in the course of his labours; the traveller endeavours to regulate his motions by it; and to the navigator it is a matter of life and death.

After

The word weather in English seems to be derived from the Greek anp, ather, which is used by the Greeks