proofs of his divine infpiration, in writing his account of the creation of the world, as to vindicate that account from the charge of being puerile, abfurd, unintelligible, and unphilofophical and alfo to clear it from the unhappy illustrations of well-meaning but mistaken critics and commentators. As a specimen of the manner in which Mofes here explains and defends his own system, we shall give an extract from that part where the altercation turns upon the famous paffage (fo often objected to) in which the formation of light is mentioned as prior to that of the fun, &c. Lord B. in the course of this dif pute, takes occafion to compare the Mofaic hiftory of the creation, with the prefent demonftrated fyftem of the univerfe, and a paffage in the 5th volume of his pofthumous pieces, férves as the groundwork of the following objection." They fay, Mofes, you was divinely inspired, and yet you was as ignorant of the true fyftem of the univerfe, as any of the people of your age. To evade the objection, we are told, that you conformed yourself to that of the people. You did not write to inftruct the Ifraelites in natural philofophy, but to imprint ftrongly in their minds, a belief of One God, the Creator of all things. Was it neceffary to that purpose, that you fhould explain to them the Copernican fyftem? No, moft certainly. But it was not neceffary to this purpose neither, that you fhould give them an abfurd one, of the creation of our phyfical, and, I may fay, of our moral fystem. It was not neceffary you fhould tell them, for inftance, that light was created, and the diftinction of night and day, of evening and morning, were made before the fun, and the moon, and the ftars which were fet in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night, and to be for figns and for fe fons, and for days and for years.' It was not neceffary, that you should tell them, how this moral fyftem was deftroyed, by the wiles of a serpent, and by eating of an apple, almost as foon as it began: against the intention, as well as command, of the Creator.'

In reply to this, and fome other objections, Mofes, towards the conclufion of the dialogue, enters on a very elaborate and curious view of the creation of the folar fyftem; in which he takes occafion thus to explain the paffage above alluded to, concerning the fuppofed prior formation of light.-"It was not neceffary, (it feems) I fhould tell the Ifraelites, that light was created, and the diftinction of night and day, of evening and morning, were made before the fun, the moon, and the ftars, which were fet in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day from the night, and to be for figns, and for feafons, and for days, and for years." On the contrary, my lord, my doca E 2

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trine is plainly this; That the bodies of the fun, the moon, and every planet and comet, in the fyftem, were created before light was formed. For it was in the beginning of time, on the beginning of the first day, that they with the earth, came out of the hands of the Creator, mere maffes of matter, each of them a diftinct fluid chaos; without form, and void of motion, light, and heat. That the first act of the Divine Being, in the formation of these bodies, was, his communicating to them a violent motion, round their respective axes: the fecond, which was effected the fame moment of time, was the formation of light, when God faid,-Let there be light, and there was light. This is the paffage on which your lordship has lavished your praifes, for its grandeur and fublimity. Strange! that fublimity fhould be the parent of abfurdity! that the fame paffage fhould be greatly fublime, and fublimely abfurd! But, pray, my lord, in what does the fublimity of this noble paffage confift-not in the diction; (for the words are fo fimple and plain, that no words, in any language, can be more plain and fimple,) but in the fentiment; in the fenfe of the paffage, confidered diftinctly from the language. If I had told the Ifraelites, that God faid, Let there be light, and there was light, before the fun, the moon, and the ftars, were created; instead of, before they were fet in the firmament, &c. the diction would have been the fame; but the fentiment moft abfurd. Whereas, if the fentiment be really fublime, the plainnefs and fimplicity of the diction will greatly enhance its fublimity. For inftance; If, when God faid, Let there be light, and the immense chaotic body of the fun inftantaneously became a globe of fire-and there was light. It is not in the power of language, to exprefs, the grandeur and fublimity of the godlike fentiment.

That this is the true fenfe of this much abufed paffage, is evident, from a notorious, a demonftrated truth, in the prefent philofophy, that the fun is an immenfe globe of fire. And here I cannot omit to put your lordship in mind of a very striking paffage in the divine Plato, who speaking of creation, fays, Das · Eos dumber Deus ipfe folem quafi lumen accendit *.

о

Thus, my lord, did God prepare the light, even the fun †.

"That noble paffage in the book of Genefis, Let there be light, and there was light." Bolin. Vol. III. p. 9.

* Plato, in Timeo, Vol III. p. 39. Edit. ferrani.

+ "The day is thine, the night alfo is thine; thou haft prepared the light, and [even] the fun." Pfal. Ixxiv. 16. For as the light and the fun could not poffibly be two diftin&t things, the connecting particle Vau, is not copulative, but explanatory, and beautifully expreffive of the production of light, by this grand preparation of the chaotic body of the fun, in making it a body of fire. And,

And, at the fame time, by giving the planets a motion round their respective axes, he divided the light from the darkness. This light, God himself called day, and the darkness he called night and the evening and the morning were the first day, to every planet in the fyftem.

Now, three of thefe evenings and mornings were completed on our earth, before any other, than a diurnal, motion was communicated to any body in the fyftem: but our fourth day, that great day of creation, when the folar, or planetary fyftem was finished, opens with a fcene-too grand, too magnificent, to be expreffed, but by words that evidently point out the amazing method which the Almighty took, in putting his immenfe materials together, when he made this world this fyftem of worlds. And God faid, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for figns, and for feafons, and for days, and for years *. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: [and upon every planet] and it was fot. Let there be light-and let there be lights in the firmamentconvey ideas, as different, as the words darknefs, and light: for, when God faid, Let there be light, univerfal darkness prevailed over the whole fyftem, till the fun, in confequence of that commanding fiat, became a globe of fire: but, when He, that on the first day had created, and on the second, had formed firmaments, or atmospheres, to every body in the system; when He faid, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light-the greater light, the fun, and all the leffer lights, or moons, in the fyftem, were at that time actually in the feveral firmaments of thofe planets, that are attended with one, or more moons; and there they must have continued to this day, without dividing the day from the night, in such a manner, as to be for figns, and for feafons, and for days and years, if the Creator had not impreffed the earth, and every, planet, with fuch motions, as could alone produce thefe mighty effects. But, God had made [for the earth] two [for the other planets great lights; the greater lights to rule the day, and the leffer light [or lights] and the ftars, to rule the night. And God fet them 1, placed them, in the firmaments of their refpective

Χρονος δεν μετ' Ουρανο Γεγονεν

-Tempus ergo cum cœlo natun creatum que effe.- Ex hac ergo ratione & concilio Der, temporis genera tionem molientis, ut tempus crearetur, fel & luna, & quinque alia aftra (que planetæ nuncupantur) ad" definitam distinctionem & confervatio"nem temporis" creata funt. Plato, ut fupra, p. 38.

+ Gen. i.

14, 15.

† Σωμαῖα δὲ αυτων ἑκατων [των Πλανητων] ποιησας ὁ Θεός, ΕΘΗΚΕΝ εις τας περιφοράς, ας ή θάτερα περιοδον ήει, έπλα ουσας, ὄντα ἐπλα Ipfarum ergo plas

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refpective heavens, to give light upon the earth, [and upon every primary planet] and to rule over their days, and their nights, and to divide the light of every day, from the darkness of every night, on each of them. And God faw that it was good He faw, that the divifions of time, the difference of feafons, the variety of days, on every planet, were effected, by fetting thefe lights in the firmaments of their respective heavens And the evening and the morning, (on our earth) were the fourth day.

Now, my lord, if the divifions of time, the difference of feafons, the variety of days and nights, on every planet in the fyftem, are effected by, and abfolutely depend upon, the annual motion of the planets, in their refpective orbits, about one, even the fame great light, the fun; then God's fetting thefe lights in their firmaments, and his impreffing the planets, &c. with that compound motion, which carries them round the fun, are but different defcriptions of one, even the fame act of the Divine power, when God laid the corner ftone of the folar, or planetary fyftem.

Thus have I told your lordship what my fyftem is.—I have at your request, ftripped my account of the first principles and. beginning of things, of all that critics and commentators have rendered myfterious; of every thing that they, and they alone, have made dark and confufed, as the chaos itself. Sure, lord Bolingbroke, I may "now be confidered as appointed and infpired by God to write, not only for my own age, but for all future ages, for the most enlightened, as well as for the moft ignorant" What can you now fay, my lord, to my phyfical fyftem?'

How far the learned and inquifitive reader will be fatisfied with this folution of the difficulty in queftion, (which seems partly derived from the old notion of certain of the Rabbins) muft be left to the learned and inquifitive themselves to determine, after a perufal of the whole argument; of which our Jimits will not fuffer us to give a larger extract.—With regard to lord Bolingbroke, he is here, very properly, filenced,

netarum corpora ita fabrefacta & com; ofita, COLLOCAVIT Deus AD MOTUS ET CIRCUITUS quas alterius metus deducit, feptem quidem illos, quum ut i fi planete fint feptem. Plato in Timeo, Tom. III. p. 38.

"Moles must be confidered as appointed and infpired by God, to write, not only for his own age, but for all future ages; for the moft enlightered, as well as for the moft ignorant: in which cafe, that his history might answer the defigns of Eternal Wisdom, it should have been proportioned to the ignorance of the Ifraelites, as little able to underfland one fyllem of philofophy, as another; without giving fo much reafon to people, better informed, to believe him as ignorant as any uninfpired writer could be." Bolin. Vol. V. p. 370 371.

convided,

convicted, and converted, by the invincible reasoning of his opponent; and the dialogue concludes with his lordship's pathetic lamentation for the errors into which he had fallen, and the mifapplication of thofe bright talents, which were, undoubtedly, given him for better purpofes, than that of mifleading the ignorant and unwary, by his witty and agreeable manner of advancing the moft trite and fallacious fcepticilms.

G.

Sermons in Two Volumes. By F. Webb. Smail 8vo. 2 Vols. 5 s. fewed. Henderson,

N the preface to thefe fermons, Mr. Webb acquaints us that they were publifhed at the requeft of his friends; that he was follicited to the publication upon the delivery of the difcourfes in public; and that he has paid a fcrupulous attention in giving his friends to read, what they fo candidly heard, with no alterations, but fuch as were judged neceffary upon the review of hafty productions, compofed without the most diftant apprehenfion of their ever feeing the light. The two firft difcourses in the 2d vol. we are farther told, are an exception to this; the one being entirely compofed, the other materially altered, for publication.

As to the merit of this publication, we can only fay, that it is distinguished from the general run of compofitions of this kind, by feveral lively ftrokes of fancy that are to be found in it, and that Mr. Webb's difcourfes, tho' they are by no means accurate or very elegant productions, fhew clearly that the author is a man of tafte and genius.

The reader may form fome idea of his ftile and manner, from the following fpecimen, taken from his difcourfe upon Job xxviii. 12. But where fhall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding ?-In this difcourfe Mr. Webb briefly delineates the character of a religious and virtuous man, and enquires in what fituation and circumftances he is most probably to be found.

The man, (fays he) whom true religion actuates, and infpires, is pious towards God, and juft, in the largest sense of the word, towards men. No forced constraint through fear, urges him to discharge the duties he owes his great benefactor; a fenfe of his own dependence, and unworthinefs, with the genuine feelings of gratitude, are his principles of obedience. does not fear to withdraw from the world, to hold converfe with God, left he should incur the laugh and fcorn of the foolifh, and profane: he can bear the thought, and indeed it is the fource of his comfort, that the omnifcient eye of God pene

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