were rubbed off with the finger; and were probably occasioned, as in the vegetable disease, by too great heat, and the exclusion of air. See ZOONOMIA, vol. ii. chap. ii. 1. 3. 12. 763. [Ps. lxxviii. 27.] In the year of the world 3505, it rained flesh in Italy. (FUNCTIUS' General Chronological History, vol. i. p. 6.)-See Levit. i. 14, on feathered fowls. Concerning those feathers, which, as the Scythians say, so cloud the atmosphere that they cannot penetrate nor even discern what lies beyond them, my opinion, says HERODOTUS, is this: In those remoter regions there is a perpetual fall of snow, which, as may be supposed, is less in summer than in winter. Whoever observes snow falling continually, will easily conceive what I say; for it has a great resemblance to feathers. These regions therefore, he adds, which are thus situated remotely to the north, are uninhabitable from the unremitting severity of the climate; and the Scythians, with the neighbouring nations, mistake the snow for feathers. Melpomene, c. xxxi. 764. [Exod. xvi. 15.] And when the Israelites saw this, they said one to another, Manna, What is this? For they knew not what it was. The Septuagint, JOSEPHUS, JEROME, FAGIUS, VATABLUS, MERCER, GROTIUS, &c.-See Bib. Research. vol. i. p. 328. As when the Europeans first landed at a certain point of South America, they enquired of the natives the name of their country the natives, not understanding what was said to them, in their own language asked the strangers what they said, the word for which is peru. This the Europeans, in their turn, not understanding, took as a direct answer to their question, and ever after called the place Peru. Ibid. 765. [Exod. xvi. 18.] From 2 Cor. viii. 14, 15, compared with what is written in JOSEPHUS, it appears that the manna that fell daily, and did not putrefy, was to the whole host of Israel an homer a-piece, and no more. (Antiq. b.iii. ch.i. § 6, Note.)-The Hebrew ephah or bushel, and their bath for liquids, were equally large. Exod. xvi. 36. SMITH'S Michaelis, vol. iii. p. 391. 767. Houbigant thinks, that the words before the Lord, and beside the testimony, have no relation to the convention-tent, or testimonial tables; but to a tent, and testimony prior to them." For," argues Bishop Wilson on the same idea, "we must not imagine Israel was till then without a place of public worship, called before the Lord, or Testimony." (See GEDDES' Crit. Remarks on Exod. xvi. 32-34).—We may however safely admit, that, though the direction for laying up the manna might with propriety be given now, it was not absolutely necessary that it should be ultimately fulfilled till the convention-tent, &c, were actually made. As things are generally ordered a considerable time before they can possibly be executed, who can positively say that the order and execution hereafter detailed, were not even prior to the fall of the manna given to Moses, and by him communicated also to Aaron ?-Along with this manna was lain up the rod that budded; which rod with the seething pot of manna, it seems, was afterwards seen by Jeremiah in a way we shall hereafter attempt to describe. See Jer. i. 11, 12, 13: THE ROCK IN HOReb. 768. [Exod. xvii. 6.]` And the LORD said to Moses, Behold I will stand before thee upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. As this rock, visited, drawn, and described by NORDEN, SHAW, POCOCKE, and others, was only a selfblock of red granite, fifteen feet long, ten broad, and twelve high; the water which supplied two millions of persons, could not in any natural way have sprung out of the stoneslab, but must necessarily have descended thereon from the pillar of the cloud above, upon it, as from a water-spout. Accordingly, says Paul, they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them (Exod. xiv. 19); and that Rock was CHRIST. Compare Deut. xxxii. 4, 15, 18, 31, with 1 Cor. x. 4. 769. [Num. xx. 11.] A fragment of a rock, at Malta, constantly distils water from the lower, and most pointed part, and it is very evident that the drops from this porous stone are caused by the vapors it continually absorbs; the weight of which, in their condensed state, naturally forces a passage through the bottom of the rock. BOISGELIN'S Malta, vol. i. p. 76, 770. Moses smote the (same) rock at two dif ferent times: 1, at Rephidim, the eleventh station, in the first year after the Exodus; 2, in the desert of Sin, the thirty-third station, in the fortieth year after the departure from Egypt. Univer. Hist. vol. ii, p. 514. THE LORD APPEARING ON MOUNT SINAI. [Exod. xix. 18.] And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire. 771. [Exod. xx. 18.] Jove with storms Envelop'd Ida; flash'd his lightnings, roar'd COWPER'S Iliad, b. xvii. l. 699. 772. [Exod. xix 18, 19.] The thunder of the torrid zone is much more terrible than that we are generally acquainted with. With us, the flash is seen at some distance, and the noise shortly after ensues; our thunder generally rolls ou one quarter of the sky, and one stroke pursues another. But here it is otherwise; the whole sky, all around, seems illuminated with unremitted flashes of lightning; every part of the air seems productive of its own thunders; and every cloud produces its own shocks. The strokes come so thick, that the inhabitants can scarce mark the intervals; but all is one unremitted roar of elementary confusion. GOLDSMITH'S Hist. of the Earth, &c. procceded from God, is either in a gaseous, fluid, or solid state; and that, to conceive of God as a Being prior to, and distinct from his works, you must not think of particles constructible into gases, fluids, and apparent solids, but of an indivisible unpored Spirit, producing such particles, and filling completely all their substances and interstices as they are variously compounded.—God is called Fire, the father of light; Christ the Light, and the Holy Ghost the Spirit: not only as these things are used for representations, but as they are his agents; their substances, their actions, their glory His, though created and material. Every atom is a solid substance of which some sorts are compounds or solids of substances; other sorts gross fluids of substances; and another sort in grains, spirit of substances: this sort, loose, constitutes the subtilest fluid fire, and light of substances: of the last sort there is a created fluid substance (spirit), in and by which the orbs move. Which system the first Heathens knew to be a machine composed of three parts, yet took it for their God. But in Scripture God claims to himself the machine, and all the attributes the heathens then gave to it. HUTCHINSON'S Principia, part ii. p. 32. 777. [Exod. xvi. 7.] The Apostle says, (Heb. i. 3,) The Lord Jesus is the brightness of the Father's Glory, and the express Image of His Person; and, as no man has scen God at any time, we must necessarily conclude, that Christ, the investing Glory, was the visible agent, in all the extraordinary and miraculous interferences, which took place both in the Patriarchal times, and under the Law. See Dr. A. CLARKE, on Gen. xvi. 7. 778. [Exod. xix. 19. Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice] In this intercourse, the action of speech was from Moses, the reaction from God. We have an evidence of such intercourse within ourselves. When a natural truth suggests itself, it is immediately answered by a spiritual truth in the inner man. This correspondence, however, has no place in the wicked. Having no spiritual mind filled with the influence of God, the Divine reaction is from without them and continually against them: hence their misery 780. [Exod. xx. 4.] Numa forbad the Romans to represent the Deity in the form of either man or beast. Nor was there among them formerly any image or statue of the Divine Being. During the first hundred and seventy years they built temples, indeed, and other sacred domes, but placed in them no figure of any kind, persuaded that it is impious to represent things divine by what is perishable, and that WE can have no conception of God but by the understanding. LANGHORNE'S Plutarch, vol. i. p. 173. [Exod. xx. 4.] Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 781. [Deut. xii. 3.] At first the Law prohibited the Jews from so much as naming the objects of the worship of the heathens by their (respective) names; and (in Deut. xiii. 6-10) we find a decree among the Jews to excommunicate such a should study the (vain) philosophy of the Gentiles. See HUTCHINSON's Introduc. to part ii. of his Principia, p. 9. 782. Their names were appropriate animals, trees, flowers, plants, &c., characterizing in the antient Heraldry, the particular Castes to which their deified HIGHPRIESTS, OF KINGS had in their life-time, respectively belonged. See an account of these animals, Deut. xiv. 783. [Deut. iv. 16-18.] The excavations into the antient person prosper unjustly, though his injustice may not be known, his children may expect to be deprived of that prosperity; and it does not long descend in his family. For instance, a man by undetected fraud acquires wealth; of which Providence deprives his son, or his grandson: now his son, or his grandson, are hereby reduced, only to the level of what in fact they ought to have been originally; they suffer no real or actual loss; they are indeed deprived of what their father acquired, but this deprivation merely places them in that situation which they ought not to have quitted: use a military phrase, they have been unjustly "promoted," but they are now "reduced to the ranks." tombs in Siberia, are (in 1815) continued with diligence, and the antiquities found in them are sent in succession to Peters--By this it appears, argues Sir WILLIAM JONES, that if a burgh. They consist of articles made of massive gold, in drinking vessels, vases, diadems, military decorations, cuirasses, shields, ornaments for the head, idòls, and images of animals. (Public Prints.)—Those animals, when examined and compared, will be found to be such as, manifesting peculiar symptoms at the approach of atmospherical changes, have been lately described by a German naturalist as the Foretellers of Weather. He reckons 20 mammiferæ, 37 birds, 7 amphibia, 1 fish, 20 insects, and 3 worms. He has formed the whole of this augury, or divining system, into thirty-five rules, established, it seems, by his own knowledge; and which he presents to the public as infallible, forming in his opinion an important part of meteorology and rural economy. These probably, and others with similar peculiarities, were the sacred Animals of antiquity, figured or embalmed in cemeteries, and in temples, near the statues, the images, the idols of men thus deified, as it were, in consequence of discovering their respective, their useful instincts. See a reference to this Work in the Month. Mag. for Feb. 1815, p. 59. 787. The seed which is from the father, is the first receptacle of life; but such a receptacle as it was in the father, for it is the form of his love. Hence it follows, that the evils called hereditary are derived from fathers; and therefore from grandfathers and great-grandfathers, succes sively, to their posterity. This also experience teaches; for there is in all nations a similarity, as to their affections, with their first progenitor; a greater similarity in families; a still greater in houses. Such indeed is the similarity, that generations are distinguished from each other, not only by their minds, but by their faces. See SWEDENBORG on Divine Love, n. 269. 792. [Exod. xx. 11.] As the Sabbath was meant to be to the Israelites a sign of their acknowledging the Creator of heaven and earth for their God, so the man who broke the Sabbath was considered as guilty of disowning that God, the worship of whom was a fundamental principle of their polity. SMITH'S Michaelis, vol. iii. p. 167. 788. There are some hereditary strokes of charaeter, by which a family may be as clearly distinguished, as by the blackest features of the human face. JUNIUS. 789. [Exod. xx. 7.] Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy GOD in vain. By the name of God is signified God with all the Divine which is in Him, and proceeds from Him; also the Word, which is the proceeding Divine: and all the spiritual things of the Church, which are from the Word. This name is profaned by those who jest from the Word, and concerning the Word, or from the Divine things of the Church and concerning them; by those who understand and acknowledge Divine truths, and yet live contrary to them; by those who apply the literal sense of the Word to confirm evil loves, and false principles; by those who with their mouths speak things pious and holy, and also in their tone of voice and ges. ture counterfeit affections of the love of such things, and yet in their hearts do not believe and love them; by those who attribute to themselves things Divine; by those who acknowledge the Word, and yet deny the Lord's Divinity; and, lastly, by those who first acknowledge Divine truths and live according to them, but afterwards recede and deny them. When things holy are thus mixed with profane, they cannot otherwise be separated, than by the destruction of the whole. See SWEDENBORG on Divine Pro- 793. The sacred period of seven days, is in use among the Chinese, who seem also aborigines of the elevated plain of Tartary, but who have long had intimate communications with Hindostan and Thibet. HUMBOLDT'S Researches in S. America. The week of seven days was unknown in America, as well as in part of Eastern Asia. Ibid. 794. [Exod. xxxi. 15.] From the testimony of Herodotus there is reason to believe, that the Egyptians of the remotest antiquity reckoned their days by sevens, as was done in the time of Noah, and even by Adam himself. ABBE PLUCHE, Hist. of the Heavens, vol. ii. p. 32. 795. [Exod. xvi. 23.] It hence appears, that the Sabbath was from the beginning obligatory, and observed by the Patriarchs. GEDDES' Critical Remarks, p. 24. 796. [Deut. v. 14, 15.] From Ezek. i. we learn, that the Angelic Sun turns round like the natural sun. The natural sun, we know, from observation, turns any particular spot that is in his atmospheres, once round his axis in 25 days: the spiritual sun, we learn from Ezek,, revolves also on his axis; and from this (Deut. v. 12—16) aud every other precept respecting the sabbath, we may gather that, such revolution being completed in seven days, Jesus Christ, as exhibited in the outermost wheel of that sun, comes regularly round every seventh day, to be to our earth the Lord of the Sabbath, Matt. xii. 8. During the Adamic Church, the Grand Man from our earth as fixed in the innermost wheel, caused the Sabbath to be every Thursday, as it still is in Africa: in the Noaich Church, it was on Friday, as among the Mahometans in the Jewish Church, it was regularly on Saturday; pensation, it necessarily falls on what is called the Lord's and in the Christian Church, advancing a day in every dis day, or Sunday. See No. 579. 803. [Deut. xxxiii. 29.] In the time of Moses, a Theocracy, or Divine Government, was unquestionably very conspicuous: GOD HIMSELF, (through the medium of his Shechinah, the Jehovah of the Hebrews) gave laws to the Israelites, decided difficult points of justice by oracles,—was constantly visible in the pillars of cloud and fire, and inflicted punishments not according to the secret procedure of Providence, but in the most manifest manner. See SMITH'S Michaelis, vol. i. p: 190. "" mercy 804. [Judges xix. 29.] Under this government, and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other;" Ps. lxxxv. 10.-None of the capital punishments, such as burning alive, cutting the body in picces, strangling, or crucifixion, so barbarously inflicted by other nations; have any connexion, says Michaelis, with the Mosaic law. And, as to the appointment even of an executioner of capital punishments; Moscs, he adds, mentions no such office in his laws, although he knew it in Egypt, and though we find it subsequently revived under the Israelitish kings. Ibid. Vol. iii. pp. 408, 409. 1 Kings ii. 25. 805. [Num. xxxv. 19.] When indeed the Goël, the only avenger of blood, found the murderer of his kinsman without the limits of his legal asylum, he had the right of putting him to death, not merely without any formal trial, but even without any warning. In this case the execution of the criminal, though it might sometimes have been a little barbarous, was so far from being considered an ignominious act, that the point of honor had, time immemorial, required it at the hand of the nearest relation; and every thing reprehensible in this antient law was removed, when Moses had duly established the LEGAL TRIAL of every suspected murderer. Ibid., Vol. ii. art. 136. 806. [Num. xxxv. 12,] From Pausanias and from Homer we learn, that, among the Greeks, the next relations to the murderer had a right to claim revenge; so that it was not an usage peculiar to the Jews, Arabs, and other Eastern nations. The custom was, no doubt, established long before Moses; and was probably coeval with man in society. It was merciful however, in GoD, to abate its ferocity as much as possible, by giving temporary asylums to the guilty per son, from the immediate pursuit and warm resentment of the avenger of blood. See GEDDES: S08. The punishment of death has also in Russia been abolished in every case, high treason excepted; and crimes are in that country much rarer than formerly, when this punishment was very common. (St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. iv. p. 329.)—And by the penal laws of Pennsylvania no crime is punishable with death, except murder perpetrated by wilful premeditation, or in attempts to commit rape, robbery, or the like. Every other offence, according to its enormity, is punished by solitary imprisonment of a determined duration. WELD's Trav, through N. America, vol. i. p. 13. |