MISCELLANEOUS TIIOUGIITS. 419 divine ceremonies, merely because you know not the meaning of them : Go and affront the God of Israel, and reproach him for sending Moses to teach such forms of worship to the J ews. There is not the least of them but was appointed by the great- est of beings, and has some special design and purpose in the eye of divine wisdom. Many of them were explained by the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews, as types and emblems of- the glories and blessings of the New Testament ; and the rest of them, whose reason has not been discovered to us, remain perhaps to be made known at the conversion of the Jews, when divine light shall be spread over all the ancient dispensations, and a brighter glory diffused over all the rites and forms of religion, which God ever instituted among the race of Adam. Thus far Typiger; while Gelotes was still silent, being pierced to the heart with a conviction of his rashness and folly, and stung inwardly with bitter remorse at the thoughts of his impious and profane raillery. He went home mournful, and -set himself with a sincere and humble enquiry to learn all the successive religions of the bible, which he had ridiculed, and found so much reason in a great part of them, that he submittal to believe the dignity of than all, and professed himself a hearty christian. The hook of nature and the book of providence have sonic obscure pages in them, as well as the book of religion and grace. There are many appearances in tile creation of God, and many More in his government of the world, which are thus impudently arraigned by thoughtless mortals. They discover not the sym- metry and exact proportion between the several parts of them, and therefore they pronounce them the works of chance, and mere caprices Of nature. They Cannot penetrate into the distant designs of the all -wise Creator and Ruler of the universe, and they are ready to conclude that there is no design, no wisdom in them. But he was a much wiser man who tells us, " that God has made every thing beautiful in its season, but man has this world in his heart," that is, he is so intent upon the present little spot of ground on which he stands, and the little incidents of that inch Of time in which he appears, that he cannot discern the work that God does from the begitming to the end thereof; and therefore men are not able to comprehend the admirable beauty of his works; and they are resolved to believe no farther than they can see. Vain animals of flesh and blood ! Proud swelling reptiles of the earth ! As if a company of worms who are just crept out of their native glebe, and retiring into it again after a few moments, should pretend to arraign and censure the motions and phases of the moon, and all the rules and move- ments of the planetary worlds. That man surely should have a stretch of thought equal to deity, and with one single survey
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