probably all the planets be of a figure oblately spheriodical, that is to say, having its diameter at the equator, longer than its axis; yet the excess of the equatorial diameter in her is so inconsiderable, that she may well enough pass for a globe. And perhaps this almost spherical figure of the Moon may be the result of her slow motion round her axis; for Jupiter, which moves the swiftest of any round its axis, is of a figure more oblate than any other planet.

Dr. Cheyne observes, if our Moon were bigger, or nearer the earth, or if we had more than one, we should be every now and then in hazard of being drowned. And if our present Moon were less, or at a greater distance, or if there were none at all, we should be in hazard of being stifled with the baneful steams of a stagnated ocean. It isevident our satellite is most wisely contrived for our purposes, by thee, O our gracious God.

The incomparable Sir Isaac Newton has at length obliged the world with a Theory of the Moon, which has performed that which former astronomers thought almost impossible.

Hugenius had glasses in perfection, and wrote: since the accurate maps of the Moon, taken by Hevelius and Ricciolus; but he could.observe no seas and rivers there.. It is also argued, that if any such were there, they could not but raise a mighty atmosphere, and such clouds as must needs darken the body of the Moon, sometimes in one part, sometimes in another. They carry on their inferences; if no waters in the Moon,. then there are no plants, animals, nor men. About the constitution of this queen of the night, there seems a necessity for us to remain in the dark; for

Mr. Derham has confuted Hugenius with his own glasses, and has demonstrated, that there are great collections of waters in the Moon, and by consequence, rivers, vapours, and air; and in a word, a considerable apparatus for habitation. But by what creatures inhabited? A difficulty this, that cannot be solved without revelation.

"My God, I bless thee for that luminary, by which we have the uncomfortable darkness of our night so much abated. That luminary, the influences whereof have such a part in the flux and reflux of our seas; without which we should be very miserable. That luminary, whose influences are so sensibly felt in the growth of our vegetables and animals." These are some of the songs, which God, the maker of us both, has given me in the night.

The influences of the Moon upon sublunary bodies, are very wonderful. A history of them is yet among the desiderata of our philosophy. With my consent, he shall merit more than the title of a Rabbi Solomon Jarchi, who gives it to us. Dr. Grew, in his Cosmologia, has enumerated more than a dozen remarkable heads of effects, motions and changes in the world, over which the Moon has a sensible dominion. Our lunatics are not the only instances. Our husbandmen will multiply instances upon us, till they make a volume, to which neither a Columella, nor a Tom Tusser have reached. The Georges of my neighbourhood just now furnish me with two instances, which have in them something that is notable. If our chesnut wood, whereof we sometimes make fuel, be cut while the Moon is waxing, it will so sparkle in the fire, that there shall be no

sitting by it in safety. If it be cut while the Moon is wanning, there will be no such inconvenience. Moreover, we find, whatever timber we cut, in two wanes of the Moon in a year, the wane in August, and the wane in February, will be for ever free from worms. What Andry relates, confirming the observation of Borellus, about the success of medicines for worms in human bodies, taken in the wane of the Moon, is wonderful.

"I am sure, to be under such influences of the Moon, as to see the great God managing many of his gracious intentions by such an instrument; and to be awakened to his praises in the night, when we see the Moon walking in her brightness; would not be a lunacy, of which the most rational of men could be ashamed."

ESSAY XH. Of RAIN.

We are now coming down to our atmosphere. Here we are quickly surrounded with clouds. And here we quickly find ourselves in the midst of that rain, whereof the great God, in his book, so often claims the glory of being the Maker and giver.

The rain is water by the heat of the sun divided into very small and invisible parts; which ascending in the air, till it encounters with the cold, is by degrees condensed into clouds, and thence descends in drops. A mist is a multitude of little, but solid globules; which therefore descend. A cloud is a collection of little, but concave globules; which therefore ascend to that height, wherein they are of equal weight with the air, where they remain suspended, till by a motion in the air they are broken,-come down in drops;

either smaller, as in a mist; or bigger, when many of them run together, as in a rain.

Though the rain be much of it exhaled from the salt sea, yet by this natural distillation it is rendered fresh and drinkable to a degree, which hardly any artificial distillation has yet effected.

The clouds are so carried about by the winds, as to be so equally dispersed, that no part of the earth wants convenient showers, unless when it pleases God, for the punishment of a sinful people, to withhold rain, by a special interposition of his providence: or, if any land wants rain, they have a supply some other way; as in the land of Egypt, where little rain falls, there is an abundant recompense made for that want, by the annual overflowing of the Nile. Mr. Ray well observes, that this distribution proclaims the providence of God, and is from a divine disposition. Without this, there would be either desolating floods, or such droughts as that of Cyprus in which no rain fell for thirty years together, and the island was deserted, in the reign of Constantine. The gradual falling of the rain by drops, is an admirable accommodation to water the earth. It is the best way imaginable. If it should fall in a continual stream, like a river, every thing would be vastly incommoded with it.

When God gives rain from heaven, he will give also fruitful seasons in our minds, if they be thereby led to due acknowledgments of him. It will bespeak, it will procure, the richest showers of blessings upon us. "How seasonable will it be for us now humbly to acknowledge the witness which our God gives us of his power and goodness! To see the paths of God in the clouds

which drop fatness upon us! To wish for those influences of Heaven, which may come upon ourselves like rain upon the grass, as the showers that water the earth, and rain down righteousness upon the world! To resolve upon an imitation of our merciful God, who sends rain upon the just and the unjust! To send up our desires, that we may not be like the earth, which drinks in the rain that comes often upon it, but bears thorns and briers, rejected, and nigh unto cursing! In fine, to glorify our God with confessions of this importance; can the heavens give showers? Art not thou he, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon thee; for thou hast made all of these things.

"

The archbishop of Cambray shall express our sentiments. "If I lift up my eyes, I perceive in the clouds that fly above us, a sort of hanging seas, that serve to temper the air, break the fiery rays of the Sun, and water the earth when it is too dry. What hand was able to hang over our heads those great reservatories of waters! What hand takes care never to let them fall, but in moderate showers!"

ESSAY XIII. Of the RAINBOW.

WE are called upon, to consider the wondrous works of God; and particularly that, wherein he causes the light of his cloud to shine, that is to say, his rainbow.

A famous clergyman of Spalato, in a book concerning the rays of light, and vision, written before the former century, began mathematically to describe how the interior bow of the iris is formed in round drops of rain, by a refraction of