the seven spirits that stand before God, to the seven lamps of the tabernacle, to the seven candlesticks of the Apocalypse, to the seven pillars of wisdom, to the seven children of the barren woman, to the seven women who took one man for their hufband, to the feven brothers of the Maccabees; obferves, that St Paul mentions that number as a privileged number; which, fays he, is the reason why he did not write but to seven churches. Pope Gregory, writing in favour of the four councils, viz. Nice, Conftantinople, Ephefus, and Calcedon, reasons thus: "That as there

are four evangelifts, there ought also to "be four councils." What would he have faid, if he had lived 100 years later, when there were many more than four? In administering the facrament of the Lord's fupper, it was ordered, that the host should be covered with a clean linen cloth; because, fays the Canon law, the body of our Lord Jefus Chrift was buried in a clean linen cloth. Jofephus, in his answer to Appion, urges the following argument for the temple of Jerufalem: "As there is "but one God, and one world, it holds "in analogy, that there fhould be but one VOL. III. G g temple,"

"temple." At that rate, there fhould be but one worshipper. And why should that one temple be at Jerufalem rather than at Rome, or at Pekin? The Syrians and Greeks did not for a long time eat fifh. Two reafons are affigned: one is, that fish is not facrificed to the gods; the other, that being immerfed in the fea, they look not up to heaven (a). The first would afford a more plaufible argument for eating fish. And if the other have any weight, it would be an argument for facrificing men, and neither fish nor cattle, In juftification of the Salic law, which prohibits female fucceffion, it was long held a conclufive argument, That in the fcripture the lilies are faid neither to work nor to fpin. Vieira, termed by his countrymen the Lufitanian Cicero, publifhed fermons, one of which begins thus, "Were "the Supreme Being to fhow himself vi

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fibly, he would chufe the circle rather "than the triangle, the fquare, the pen

tagon, the duodecagon, or any other "figure." But why appear in any of thefe figures? And if he were obliged to appear in fo mean a fhape, a globe is un(a) Sir John Marfham, p. 221. doubtedly

doubtedly more beautiful than a circle. Peter Hantz of Horn, who lived in the laft century, imagined that Noah's ark is the true construction of a ship; which," faid he," is the workmanship of God, " and therefore perfect;" as if a veffel made merely for floating on the water, were the best alfo for failing. Sixty or feventy years ago, the fafhion prevailed, in imitation of birds, to fwallow fmall ftones for the fake of digeftion; as if what is proper for birds, were equally proper for men. The Spaniards, who laid waste a great part of the Weft Indies, endeavoured to excufe their cruelties, by maintaining, that the natives were not men, but a fpecies of the Ouran Outang; for no better reafon, than that they were of a copper colour, fpoke an unknown language, and had no beard.. The Pope iffued a bull, declaring, that it pleafed him, and the Holy Ghost to acknowledge the Americans to be of the human race. This bull was not received cordially; for in the council of Lima, ann. 1583, it was violently difputed, whether the Americans had so much understanding as to be admitted to the facraments of the church.

In the 1440, the Portuguese folicited the Pope's permiffion to double the Cape of Good Hope, and to reduce to perpetual fervitude the negroes, because they had the colour of the damned, and never went to church. In the Frederician Code, a propofition is laid down, That by the law of nature no man can make a teftament. And in fupport of that propofition the following argument is urged, which is faid to be a demonstration: "No deed can be a testament while a man is alive, "because it is not neceffarily his ultima "voluntas; and no man can make a te"stament after his death." Both premifes are true, but the negative conclufion does not follow: it is true a man's deed is not his ultima voluntas, while he is alive but does it not become his ultima voluntas, when he dies without altering the deed?

Many reasonings have paffed current in the world as good coin, where the premifes are not true; nor, fuppofing them true, would they infer the conclufion. Plato in his Phodon relies on the following argument for the immortality of the foul. "Is not death the oppofite of life? "Certainly,

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"after death."

Certainly. And do they not give birth to each other? Certainly. What then "is produced from life? Death. And "what from death? Life. It is then "from the dead that all things living proceed; and confequently fouls exist God, fays Plato, made but five worlds, becaufe according to his definition there are but five regular bodies, in geometry. Is that a reafon for confining the Almighty to five worlds, not one lefs or more. Ariftotle, who wrote a book upon mechanics, was much puzzled about the equilibrium of a balance, when unequal weights are hung upon it at different distances from the centre. Having obferved, that the arms of the balance defcribe portions of a circle, he accounted for the equilibrium by a notable argument: All the properties of the circle are "wonderful: the equilibrium of the two

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weights that defcribe portions of a circle "is wonderful. Ergo, the equilibrium "must be one of the properties of the "circle." What are we to think of Ariftotle's Logic, when we find him capable of fuch childish reasoning? And yet that work has been the admiration of all the

world