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mentioned hath reduced us.

"The LET.

"water at the deluge (fays he) was "either fresh, or falt: now the fea"fish could not have lived in the "former, nor the river-fifh in the "latter."-Clofe and clever!

P. 9. It is argued in the 8th section, that according to the laws of reflection and refraction, established in the system of nature, the phænomenon of the rainbow must have been produced, as at prefent, in certain circumstances, from the beginning of the world; and therefore could not have been first set in the cloud, as a token of God's covenant with man, after the flood.

But do the words neceffarily imply, that the rainbow had never appeared before? Rather, perhaps, the contrary. The following paraphrafe of the paffage is fubmitted, as a juft and N natural

XII.

LET. natural one. "When, in the comXII. "mon courfe of things, I bring a

"cloud over the earth, under certain "circumstances, I do fet my bow in "it. That bow fhall be from hence"forth a token of the covenant I now "make with you to drown the earth "no more by a flood. Look upon "it, and remember this covenant. "As certainly as the bow is formed, "by the operation of phyfical caufes, "in the cloud, and as long as it conti

nues to be thus formed, fo certainly "and fo long fhall my covenant endure, "ftanding faft for evermore, as this "faithful witness in heaven." Jacob, we are told, * "took a stone, and set "it up for a pillar, and faid, This pillar be witness." God, in like manner (if we may fo exprefs it)

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* Gen. xxxi. 45, 52.

"took

XII,

"took the rainbow, and faid, this LET. "bow be witnefs." Neither the ftone nor the rainbow were new created for the purpose. When the Jews behold the rainbow, they blefs God, who remembers his covenant, and is faithful to his promife. And the tradition of this it's defignation to proclaim comfort to mankind was ftrong among the heathen; for according to the mythology of the Greeks, the rainbow was the daughter of Wonder, "a fign "to mortal men, " and regarded, upon it's appearance, as the meffenger of the celestial deities. Can we any where find a more striking instance of the fublime, than in the following fhort description of it? "Look upon "the rainbow, and praise him who "made it: very beautiful it is in the

Τέρας μερόπων ανθρώπων. Hom.

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LET.

XII.

"brightness thereof: it compaffeth "the heaven about with a glorious "circle; and the hands of the most High have bended it!".

66

LET

LETTER

P.

IO.

XIII.

"What anfwer fhall we

give to those who are in"clined to deny, that an all-powerful "and just God could make use of the "most unjustifiable means to attain "his great purpose of aggrandizing "the pofterity of Abraham?"

The anfwer, without doubt, muft be, either that the means in question (all circumstances duly known and confidered) were not unjustifiable; or, that they were used by man, and only permitted by God. For men often

make use of means to attain their own

purposes, by which they unwittingly

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LET.

XIII.

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