vent a fimilar impofition" [i. e. in order that the infallible Church may not again miftake the fex of her popes], "the new-elected Pontiff is properly examined, by the junior deacon, at the time of his holiness's first enthronement in St. Peter's chair; the feat whereof is perforated for that purpose." Thus far the Nuremburgh Chronicle. To which I add the following indifputable particulars. 1. This faid Mrs. Joan (who called herfelf John VIII.) was fucceffor, in the popedom, to Leo IV. who died, A. D. 855. and she herself was succeeded by Benedict III. 2. Not only do many grave Roman Catholic hiftorians affert the fact; but the fact itself has alfo exercised the wits of more than a few ingenious poets of that communion. Witness the following epigrammatic verfe: Papa pater patrum peperit papisa papellum. Not to mention those lines of Mantuan, who was himself a Carmelite friar, and who reprefents pope Joan and her lover hanging in the ante-chamber of hell: Hic pendebat adhuc, fexum mentita virilem, Famina, cui triplici Phrygiam diademate mitram 3. The ftatue of this fhe-pope remained, in the cathedral church of Sienna, fo low down, as until about the year 1677: when it was demolished, in order to stifle all memory of an incident fo difafterous and dishonourable to the holy fee. The reader fhould be apprized, that a wooden print, reprefenting the faid lady and her child, was inferted originally, and ftill remains, in the Nuremburgh Chronicle above-mentioned. Was not at least this pope the whore of Babylon? CONTEM A CONTEMPLATION on SNOW. "Haft thou entered into the Treafures of Snow? THE 'HE whole world of nature, no less than thofe of grace and of glory, is under the abfolute dominion and the never ceafing direction of God. Every wind that blows, is of his breathing; and every drop, whether fluid or condenfed, that falls from the fky, is of his fending. At this very time, muft the adoring nations confefs, that he giveth fnow like wool; and he scattereth the hoar froft, like afhes; he cafteth forth his ice, like morfels: who can ftand before his cold? Pfalm cxlvii. 16, 17.He faith to the fnow, Be thou on the earth; likewife to the small rain, and to the great rain of his ftrength. Job xxxvii. 6. Let the fame queftion be put to my readers, which fpeaking Omnipotence once put to Job (chap. Xxxviii. 22). "Haft thou entered into the treafures of the fnow?" Haft thou confidered its nature, its properties, and its uses? Dew, mift, rain, fnow, hail, and clouds, are no more than coalitions of watery vapours, which have been partly forced towards the furface of our terraqueous globe, by the latent fires with which its bowels are fraught; and partly drawn up from it, by the infinuating, attractive agency of the fun. The humid particles, thus exhaled, naturally afcend; as being, in their uncombined ftate, lighter than the furrounding air and perfift to foar, until they arrive at a region of the atmosphere, where their flight is ftopt by other preceding vapours, already exhaled and condenfed into clouds. Thus arrefted and de tained, tained, they unite (like co-alefcing fphærules of quickfilver, or like the contacting globules of water in a containing veffel) into floating maffes; and remain in a state of literal fufpence and fluctuation, until, by accumulated compreffion, and by their own collected weight, they become fpecifically hea vier than the sustaining air, and fall in larger or fmaller drops to the earth and ocean from whence they fprung.-Striking representation of man, in his beft eftate of mortal excellence! Are you rich, or exalted, or profperous, or gay? remember, that you are under as abfolute obligation to Providence for thefe glittering diftinctions, as a rifing vapour is indebted, for its tranfitory elevation, to the action of the folar beams. And, vapour like, you too must fall, after having hovered your few deftined moments for, duft thou art, and unto duft shalt thou return. An infpired pen has both started and refolved the queftion; What is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanilheth away. James iv. 14. If so, Why all this toil, for triumphs of an hour? your affec Be wife, therefore, to flip the cable of tions from the world's evanid fhore. Supplicate the Holy Spirit to make you rich towards God. And, under the fweet breezes of his gracious influence, fet fail in good earneft for the kingdom of heaven. When the watery treasures of the sky descend to their native earth, more like refpectful vifitants, than like rude invaders, i. e. in moderate quantities, and with not too impetuous force, we call them, fhowers. When they greatly exceed in those two particulars, we give them the hoftile name of ftorms. Thus the human paffions, if rectified and regulated by fupernatural grace, are inftruments of happiness, happiness, and productive of the most beneficial effects. But, if unreftrained by Providence, and unrefined by the Holy Ghoft, they operate like the deadly Egyptian tempeft, which fmote both man and beaft, and deftroyed every herb, and brake all the trees of the field. Exod. ix. 25. While the middle regions of the air are impregnated with froft, the falling drops catch cold (if the expreffion may be allowed), and are congealed, in the courfe of their defcent. Hail, and fnow, 'are but other names for different modifications of frozen rain. Hail is, rain confolidated into an hard and heavy mass. Snow is a multitude of fmall, hooked icicles, which, interfering with each other in their fall, become mutually entangled and interlinked : and cohere in delicate but irregular flakes, of very light, because of very expanfive and fuperficial texture. If fnow is no more than particles of water, congealed in their paffage to the earth, it affords but too juft an emblem of our affections, when, inftead of afpiring to God in Chrift, they fubfide and gravitate towards a perishable world. Under fuch * fpiritual declenfion, our comforts are chilled, and our graces benumbed: until a fresh rifing of the fun of righteousness upon our fouls diffolves the moral froft, and again warms us into the meltings of penitential love. His beams ftrike upon the rock, and then the waters flow. VOL. V. (28.) Hh REFLEC REFLECTIONS ON THUNDER STORM. WHEN the lightening flashes and when the thunder rolls, do we, as it were, hear the Almighty speak in the one, and fee a glimpse of his tremendous glory in the other! If, when the clouds pour out water, when the air thunders, and the arrows of his lightening are fent abroad, it is natural for the guilty to tremble, for the juft to pray, and for all to look up to him whofe voice is thus mighty in operation; where will the ungodly, where will the unbeliever, where will the habitual finner appear, when the Lord himself defcends from heaven with a fhout, a fhout that shall unbar the gates of death, recall the scattered duft of all mankind, and wake that duft to life? May we ever liften to the Almighty when he speaks in in thunder, or or looks in lightening, and call to mind that mind that awful period when the final trump fhall fummon us to the bar! may every fuch feafon, be improved to this beneficial purpose! And though thunder and other effects are under God, owing to natural caufes, and may be accounted for on natural principles; yet let us remember, that natural caufes are caufed by the God of nature, and that the effects which they produce, are in truth the effects of his all active, all governing providence. And this is the glorious God that maketh the thunder. Such a view of things will render the most obvious events leffons of the highest inftruction, and means of fpiritual improvement. Thus confidered, thunder teaches, and lightening holds the lamp to knowledge: nature be comes |