I many other Remarks worthy Notice; befides natural and other Evidence, if they needed any; which if I am capable of, have not time to infert now; and I hate Promises. I have been often told by our Undertaker, that Nobody now would read any thing that was plain and true; that was accounted dull Work, except one mixed fomething of the fublime, prodigious, monftrous, or incredible; and then they would read the one for the Sake of other. You know one cannot flourish fo, when one is bound to the Words of difficult Texts, as when one copies or writes a Romance; fo, rather than not be read, I have put in a proportionable Little of the Monftrous. If any thing be found fault with, it is poffible I may explain and add, but to bring the Matter to a fhort Iffue; as long as Gravity ftands, Mofes cannot be explained. So, if he'll fhew, once in a Month, how by any Law before this mentioned, the heavy Nodules and light Shells could both fettle out of the Water, and lodge together near the Surface of the Strata of Chalk, that being nearest, and they fixed, and fo the Fact not to be difputed, I'll renounce the Understanding of Mofes's Sy ftem; provided, if he do not, he will re nounce nounce his, and take that dead Weight off Mofes, and leave him as he found him. I pitch upon this rather than another, that Gravity may have Company, and be knocked o'the Head like a Dog, as that uncircumcifed armed Wight, who defied the Armies of the living God, was, in a rustick Manner, by a naked Youth with a Nodule. And if Gravity, or Properties in Matter once fall, there cannot an Atheist ftand. I am not for plowing with an Ox and an Afs together, Part of Revelation, and Part of Atheism; I find they will not join any more than his Fire and Water. I have attempted, tho' unworthy, to revive the Knowledge of the revealed Powers, which, I doubt not, will answer all the Tefts in view: Every one is still at Liberty to take which they pleafe. Those who believe the Scriptures, of whatever Church will be glad to have them made intelligible: and those who believe them not, as well as those who believe, will be glad to have the Affairs with in Ground fo defcribed, that their Pursuits there may be under fome certain Rules, tho' it be done by a Believer. If there be any Hint, in any Book, of what I advance, which has not come to my Sight, I beg the Author's Pardon for being ignorant ignorant of it; and will, upon producing, acknowledge, in any fit Manner, what he has afferted therein. My chief Reading in these Affairs has been where every Leaf is a Hemifphere, every Line a Vale, and every Point à Mountain: And I remember that excellent Advice, to keep one's Hands from picking and fealing, one's Tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and flandering. |