Yet Venus not fo abfolutely reigns, Within the empire of our glowing veins, By an alternate stroke, the vices of the age. Q. It is a revived axiom, that when the eye is placed in the finer medium, and the object in the groffer, that will appear bigger than it really is! but contrarywife, when the eye is in the groffer medium, and the object in the finer, I defire to know, how it will appear then? As for example, if a man was to dive to the bottom of a clear river, and Look up to an object placed above him in the air, whether the object would feem to him less than it is? A. As every received truth is not an axiom, fo, if what you alledge were a received truth, yet it could not pass under the denomination of an axiom. Some eminent philofophers have been so far from acknowledging what you fay to be a receiv'd truth, that they have on the contrary maintained the fame phænomenon to proceed from a reverted fituation. For when askt, why the fun and moon appear bigger to the fight when near the horizon, than when in their meridian, they have accounted for the matter from the denfity of the air between the eye and the horizontal luminaries: for as the air does more condenfate near the furface of the earth (as is evident from the noted experiment of bladder, containing a certain portion of air, which continually rarifies and gradually extends the bladder, as it is carried from the foot to the fummit of a mountain) so there are a greater quantity of vapours between the eye and the forefaid horizontal objects. But tho' doctor Wallis confutes this hypothefis, and gives another and truer folution of the matter, fo neither does he establish, what you call a receiv'd axiom; but on the contrary afferts, that refraction in the cafe before us can do no other than elevate the object. For a ray of light falling obliquely upon a groffer medium deflects to a greater diftance from a perpens perpendicular. Whence it is, that we behold the fun and moon, when below our horizon, and defcend from a poffibility of a trait line's being drawn between us and them. And hence alfo it is, that by the help of glaffes we can view diftinct islands, when otherwife by reafon of the convexity of the earth, they wou'd be invisible. But left you may be apt to think, that fince, as a ray falling obliquely upon a groffer medium deflects from a perpendicular, fo a ray falling in the fame manner upon a finer deflects nearer to a perpendicular, therefore in the former pofition the object may. be lefs, fo in the latter it may be bigger than it really is. But in anfwer to this, as the one is contrary to what we have obferv'd from doctor Wallis, fo we beg leave to offer two particulars, 1. If the matter were true, this cou'd affect no other objects than thofe, from which the rays fall obliquely upon the groffer or finer medium. And therefore, where the rays fall perpendicular, the object wou'd be neither bigger nor less than it really is. But you propose the matter in an irreftrictive manner, But, 2. If the rays falling obliquely upon a groffer medium, and therefore deflecting from a perpendicular were actually to leffen the object, as to its appearance, it wou'd not therefore follow, that the rays falling in the foremention'd manner upon a finer medium, and therefore deflecting nearer to a perpendicular, wou'd magnify the object. For if the firft cafe were granted true, the reafon of it wou'd be infer'd from the retufion of the rays by the forefaid reflection. And yet in the latter cafe there is a retution also, tho' proportionably lefs, and therefore in both cafes the object wou'd be lefs, with this only difference, that in the one cafe it wou'd not be fo much lefs as in the other. Q. How must I understand these words, they may receive you into everlasting habitations, what they is there meant? the words are in Luke xvi. 9. 3 4. The A. The antecedent, to which the relative They refers, is the mammon of unrighteousness. But then it may be askt, why the relative be not in the fame number with the antecedent? To which we answer, that the mammon of unrighteoufnefs is a periphrafis for riches, a plural word. And it is a fort of figure to make adjectives, verbs and relatives, to agree with the word coucht under the periphrafis. Q. Marriage, I know, effectually does prove A. In marriage, love is made more firm and strong, By joys, which to no other state belong; Free from remorfe and fcandal, which but fow'r But you prophane the facred name of love, } Q. You will oblige me with the translation of the two following verfes compos'd by Virgil: Nocte pluit totâ ; redeunt fpectacula manè : Divifum imperium cum JOVE CESAR habet. 4. All night it rains; fine fhews the morning gild: CESAR and JOVE a splitted Scepter wield. Or thus, All night it rains; fine fhews bedeckt the morn Q. Why the Traufi, a people near the Thracians, when an infant is newly born, they fit down and cry over it, and carry a dead man out with finging and dancing?. A. The custom might proceed from the opinion they might entertain of this troublesome world; and therefore might conclude it more eligible to dye than. to be bora. Q. In Exod. xxi. 32. we read concerning the plague of bail; that the barley was fmitten, for it was in the ear: But the wheat and the rye were not fmitten, for they were not grown up. Now fince the barley-harvest is. the latest with us, I defire to know the different feafons for thofe different forts of corn. 4. The barley harvest in Egypt was a month sooner than that of wheat and rye. Pliny (the great Roman naturalift, who flourish'd while Egypt was a Roman province) informs us, that barley in thofe countries. began to ripen in March, and wheat in April. Q Pray, Learned Apollo, divulge the fine knack, Is't from foot or from fmall-coal we have our lamp-black?. You'll end a difpute by vouchsafing an answer, And highly oblige yours to command, Sir. 4. From foot of a lamp on a canopy plac'd At a distance, which foon with that tincture is fac❜d. Q. In the xxiii. chapter of Deut. the 18 verfe. Thou fhalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog into the house of God for any vow; for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God.. Now I defire the explanation of this verse, and why the dog is an abomination to the Lord? A. The former part of the verfe implies, that if an immodeft woman prostituted her body for filthy lucre, fhe must not expect that he, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, wou'd accept of an offering (for it was ufual to vow an offering unto the Lord, and therefore it is faid, for any vow) wou'd accept of an offering from fo unwarrantable a gain. And fo great an abomination was a dog reputed by the levitical inftitution, that if any man fold a dog (as the latter part of the verfe acquaints us) he was not permitted to purchase any facrifice with the money, in order to make an oblation to the God of Ifrael. To the queftion, why a dog was in fo distinguishing a manner abominable to God, we anfwer, that (as the great Bochartus very pertinently obferves) the ancient Egyptians paid their homage to their great God 3 Anubis, Anubis, as hieroglyphically reprefented with a head like a dog's. And tho' we cannot be informed from history, whether this particular part of their fuperftitious worship obtain'd fo early as the days of Mofes, yet it cannot be difallow'd, that this paffage in the Mofaick Law makes it not improbable, Q. Does the foul increafe with the body, or is it breath'd into the infant in full perfection? If the former, and the infant die, what lofs of immortality can the foul have ? If the latter, why is not a child capable of reasonable things at the minute of its birth? Since the body ferves only as a repofitory for the foul, and it is actuated by that alone. 4. Which fide foever of the queftion be true, the confequences you feem to draw are easily to be avoided. For, if infants are born with but fmall capacities, but capable of improvement by fenfation and reflexion, it no way follows, that the foul of a dying infant perishes with the body, fince as it will remain after its feparation from the body, with the fame fmall capacities it enjoy'd while in the body; so God, no doubt, will raise those capacities to fo advanc'd a measure of perfection, as may fit it for the eternal enjoyment of himself. But if an infant is born with the fame perfection, with reference to his foul, as it can afterwards enjoy, when arriv'd at manhood, then it naturally follows, that the faculties of the foul lie dormant and unexerted, 'till the organs of the body by advances and degrees be fo particularly conform'd, as no longer to reftrain those manicled, as we may call them faculties. And this cannot feem ftrange to any one, who confiders that the fumes of wine can fo alter the difpofition of the body, as to reduce the most enlarged faculties of the moft ingenious perfon to their primitive unactive dormitance, Q. When Noah's flood was, whether all the world was then covered with water? A. Ducalion's flood indeed was a partial one, and confin'd to the territories of Greece. And tho' the de fcription |