MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 417 fling, we are too ready to think ourselves such sons of wisdom as to pronounce puerility and contempt upon the persons and their practice. So hasty are we to pass sudden and rash judg- ments on the present appearances of things, and to imagine every thing is unreasonable when we do not immediately see the reason of it ; as if all reason were ingrassed in our bosoms, and wis- dom had no other abode. Gelotes to shew his own superior genius, treats of the rites of Moses, and the ceremonies of the Jewish religion; in the sane manner ;. he cannot devise what all these bells and pomegranates, and twenty other little fineries, were made l'or upon the garments of the high-priest ; nor can he guess the reason of all the petty punctilios about lambs, and rams, and red heifers, about pigeons, hyssop, and scarlet, sprinklings and washings. He is utterly at a loss what they were de igned for ; and therefore he roundly declares his opinion,' that Moses had little to do, who could employ his mind in contriving such trifles. ft is unaccountable says he, that a person who seems in other things to be a man of sense, should prescribe such an endless ritual with minute directions about a hundred little matters relat- ing to the pins and tacks, the boards and curtains of the taber- nacle, and all that scenery of puerile worship, which a wise man would neither command nor practise. And thus he goes on to shoot his bolts of blasphemy at divine wisdom over the shoulders of Moses, and through his sides to smite the God of Israel with ridicule and reproaches. How often does such a sudden and rash censure discover its own folly when it is passed on the ac- tions of men, by a further insight into their wise designs ; and the man who poured out his laughter and contempt upon others, how justly does he become the object of contempt and ridicule himself, on account of his pride and rashness ? But when the counsels and appointments of the blessed God, when the works of his wisdom, which is vast and deep, beyond our ken and fathom, are thus taken to task by silly mortals, and derided because they do not understand the purpose and intent of them, what flagrant impiety is this ? What impudence added to their rashness ? And how much does it deserve the divine indig- nation ? This very man, this Gelotes, a few days ago was carried by his neighbour Typiger, to see a gentleman of his acquaint- ance ; they found him standing at the window of his chamber, moving and turning round a glass prism, near a round hole which he had made in the window- shutter, and casting all the colours of the rainbow upon the wall of the room; they were unwilling to disturb him, though he amused ,himself at this rate for half an hour together, merely to please and entertain Ida eyesight, as Gelotes imagined, with the brightness and strength of the reds and the blues, the greens anti the purples, in many shifting forms of situation ; while several little implements lay about 1
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