A. Good angry-pen'd maid, Your arrears fhall be paid, Nor your perfon fo flighted again; Where obfcurely you dwell, Thus twice to be pafs'd by together, Elfe furely fome ray Of our ever bright day Would have feen thro' the clouds of ill weather. But if he goes by, Nor your lodging can fpy, After long having fought it in vain : Laugh aloud at the fight, Half as brisk as you write, 'And I'll warrant you turn him again. To you I come now for an answer, You'll folve me this jeft, I'll give you a bottle of wine, Sir. The queftion does follow, Why owls in night hollow, And not when bright Phoebus appears, Sir, By folving this fpeedy, You'll much help the needy, And oblige an admirer of yours, Sir. A. Their theft and their prey Thence dares not appear in his light, Q. You fons of Apollo, I'll give you a pot, Agricolus. And And one question more I'll ask of you now, And now I shall end with a few more words, 4. Prithee, Scatterbrains hold: what a bundle of queries? What an infipid heap of impertinence here is!- But tir'd at length with noife and constant care, - A lonely refidence, indulging fcene, Circled with fireams and never-fading green; 4. Oh! happy choice! happy, thrice happy maid! By no delufive modifh vice betray'd, Retir'd from hurries and fatiguing care. To thofe foft pleafures form'd to bless the fair. And make the various fcenes of life.) So So fhall you ever doubly happy live, And taft the richeft joys that heav'n to earth can give, QBy my troth, cousin Phoebus, Tho' in omnibus rebus You're candid, good-natur'd and civil; Your advice came too late, Ah! wretched's my ftate, Fair Silvia's as cross as the devil; · As wav'ring as wind, She affures me that none will down Which much does furprize mes And own my felf one of your debtors. And will follow (perhaps) if you fly her; Since with artifts fhe practising would be: May prove but unlucky, And prone to more trades than fhe should be. Q. Sirs, being in difcourfe with fome Roman Catho licks, they brought me for a proof of fouls being purged by the fire of purgatory, the 15th ver. of the 3 chap. of St. Paul to the Cor. viz. If any man's work shall be burnt, he fhall fuffer loss, but he himself fhall be faved, yet fo as by fire. A. The Greek particle Ad, which we tranflate by, fignifies alfo out ofs and then the paffage is a kind of of proverbial faying, importing with much ado. An expreffion parallel to which we meet with in that excellent comic poet Terence, who fays of a certain perfon, that cibum ex igne, &c. he got his victuals out of the fire, that is, he was hard put to it (as we say) to get a lively hood. The meaning therefore of the Apoftle is, that he fhall be fav'd indeed, but with much ado, he fhall but juft efcape the peril of eternal fire. And this easy and natural interpretation is not only countenanc'd, but enforc'd from the tenor of the context. Q. I defire to know the meaning of the third heaven? 2 Cor. xii. 2. 4. There is a number frequently made use of to denote a fuperiority of degree. Thus ter falix, thrice happy, fignifies no more than very happy. And therefore the third heaven is defign'd by the Apoftle to exprefs the highest heaven, the place where the Shechinah or divine prefence displays it self to the bleffed Angels: not that from hence we can gather any thing of the fituation of heaven, or a local heaven, fince this may be no more than a condefcenfive accommodation to human capacity. Q. The Chinese give an account for 500 years (or thereabouts) before our Bible. Now if their account be true, ours must be falfe, which I am well fatisfied in my felf is not, but that won't do in an argument; fo I beg the favour of you (Gentlemen) to help me out. A. The divine providence for the confirmation of believers, and the conviction of infidels, has fo wifely, and (give us leave to add) fo mercifully, contriv'd the matter, that the Chinese hiftorians ftand felf-condemn'd, and are confuted by themselves. And this is obfervable in remarkable particulars. 1. They speak of a memorable conjunction of the five planets in one of their figns, while the fun and moon were alfo in conjunction, during the reign of their fifth monarch Chuenbio; which obfervation a celebrated aftronomer by a nice calculation has with out out danger of being objected to, plac'd about 500 years later than the tenor of their relations does infer. 2. They fay alfo, that in the time of their feventh Emperor Yao, the winter folftice was about fifty degrees from the place where it was a few years Whence aftronomers acquaint us, that the phænomenon (if the obfervation was accurately taken) muft have neceffarily occurr'd near the foremention'd number of years later than as represented in their chronology. We infift not on the argument drawn from the common period of human life in the reigns of their early monarchs, fince that depends upon a comparifon with Scripture-hiftory, whereas we are confuting those who deny the authority of the Bible. And indeed we have no occafion for the argument, when furnish'd with two so indifputable as thofe above. To point out the original of the Chinese mistake, it is a more than probable hypothefis, that they (as did alfo the Egyptians) reckon'd fome ancient collateral princes in a fucceffive line; for there are remarkable paffages in their hiftories, that evince not only that this obfervation of a great chronologer has a probable foundation, but also that it is impoffible it should be otherwise. And now, fince thofe oppofers of our accounts do yet plead for us, and our very enemies (tho' unwillingly, nay perhaps unknowingly) are at peace with us, fhall we not believe the Scriptures with a steady, an unfhaken mind, and learn for the time to come not to be startled at feeming difficulties? Q. Whether water, if drank from youth, would not be more agreeable to the man than any artificial liquors ? A. The drinking of water may be beneficial to fome conftitutions, but destructive to others, and more efpecially to thofe who inhabit cold countries; nor do we find it agreeable in the hottest countries; for there the tranfpirations are fo great, that the ftrongest |