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this account should satisfy every reader; and that every difficulty is solved: it would be impossible to do this in such a compass as that by which I am necessarily circumscribed; and I have been obliged, for the sake of brevity, to throw into the form of propositions or observations, several points which may appear to demand illustration and proof-for such, I must refer the reader to Astronomical Treatises. Calmet, Scheuchzer, and Saurin, with several of our own countrymen, have spoken largely on this difficult subject; but in such away, as I am obliged to confess, has given me very little satisfaction; and which appears to me, to leave the main difficulties unremoved. Conscious of the difficulties of this subject, I beg leave to address every candid reader, in the often quoted words of an eminent author.

Vive, vale! si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.

Hor. Epist. I. i. E. vi. ver. 67.

Farewell! and if a better system's thine,
Impart it frankly, or make use of mine.

FRANCIS.

ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS ON COMETS.

THE number of Comets is supposed to amount to 450, but they do not all, after the manner of the Planets, revolve in the same direction; for nearly one half of them is observed to go agreeably to the order of the Signs, and the other half in a direction quite opposite. Their revolutions, for which according to the principles of gravitation and projection, it is scarcely possible to account, are known to be performed in very eccentric ellipses, the lower focus of each of which is in or near the sun. Throughout their courses, they are governed by the law of describing equal areas in equal times, which is known to regulate the motions of all the other bodies in the system. All their orbits have considerable inclinations to those of an the other Planets; a circumstance which certainly could never have been the work of chance. Undoubtedly it has been so appointed by the wisdom of the Deity to prevent a possibility of their collision with any of the other circumvolving bodies. This 'admirable contrivance is a convincing proof of the divine foresight; who has ordered all things well: for, were any of these Comets to move in paths coincident, or nearly coincident with the paths of the planets, at the point of intersection, they might, at some time meet and then the consequences of the shock would be fatal.

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Sir Isaac Newton was the first to deduce a series of sound reasoning from the hypothesis of gravitation, by which he clearly demonstrated that one and the same principle, viz. the power of gravity, produced and regulated all the motions of the mundane system.

Dr. Halley knew that on that principle, the time of a comet's return might be foretold almost as certainly as that of a planet, if its period could be but once deduced from previous observations. To this arduous task he therefore applied himself, and from History collected such observations as seemed fully to satisfy him with regard to the periods of two of the Comets, viz. that of 1680, and that of 1682. The former, indeed, of these eccentric bodies proving a period of 575 years, put the observation of its return at so great a distance, as to make the certainty of its revolutionary period of no use for several ages to come. Its heat is supposed, when nearest the sun, to be 2000 times greater than red-hot iron; and that being thus heated, it must retain its heat till it comes round again, although its period should be 20,000 years, instead of 575. How wonderful are thy works,

O Lord God!

The Comet of 1682, having a period the shortest of all, this philosopher, with a becoming confidence, predicted its return, and lived himself, within a few years, to see his own prediction accomplished. At the return of this Comet to the sun, it came so near, and stayed in his neighbourhood so long, as to acquire an accelerated motion by the force of the Sun's heat.

Owing to this cause, when it left the Sun, it, from necessity, went off with greater velocity than at any former period of the revolution, and shot forth into a wider immensity of space: consequently the time of its return was thereby made longer, and occasioned the Doctor to say, that it probably would not return until the end of 1758 or the beginning of 1759. At this time it really did appear, and fixed the æra of perfection in this part of celestial science.

SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENON.

The darkness at our Saviour's crucifixion, supernatural.

[Clarke's Commentary.]

FROM the account given of the nature of eclipses, it plainly appears that the sun can never be eclipsed in a natural way, but at the time of new moon, nor the moon, but when she is

full; and that when the sun is totally eclipsed, the darkness can never continue above five minutes at any place of the earth.

But the three Evangelists, St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, mention a darkness that, continued three hours, at the time of our Saviour's Crucifixion. If their account of that darkness had been false, it would have been contradicted by many who were then present; especially as they were great eneinies both to Christ and his few disciples, as well as to the doctrine he taught. But as none of the Jews have contradicted the Evangelists' account of this most extraordinary phenomenon, it is plain, that their account of it is true. Besides, the Evangelists must have known full well, that it could not be their interest to palm such a lie upon mankind; which, when detected, must have gone a great way towards destroying the credibility of all the rest of the account they gave of the Life, Actions, and Doctrine of their Master: And instead of forwarding the belief of Christianity, it would have been a blow at the very root thereof. We do not find that they have bestowed any panegyric on the life and actions of Christ, or thrown out an invective against his cruel persecutors; but, in the most plain, simple, and artless manner, have told us what their senses convinced them were matters. of fact: So that we have as good reason to believe that there was such darkness, as we have to believe that Christ was then upon earth: and that he was, has never been contradicted even by the Jews themselves.

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But there are other accounts of Christ, besides those which the Evangelists have left us. It is expressly affirmed by the Roman historians, Tacitus and Suetonius, that there was a general expectation spread all over the Eastern nations, that out of Judea should arise a person who should be governor of the world. That there lived in Judea, at the time which the gospel relates, such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, is acknowledged by all authors both Jewish and Pagan, who have written since that time. The star that appeared at his birth, and the journey of the Chaldean wise men, is mentioned by Chalcidius the Platonist. Herod's causing the children in Bethlehem to be slain, and a reflection upon him, on that occasion, by the emperor Augustus, is related by Macrobius. Many of the miracles that Jesus wrought, particularly his healing the lame, and curing the blind, and casting out devils, are owned by these inveterate and implacable enemies of Christianity, Celsus and Julian, and the authors of the Jewish Talmud. That the power of the heathen gods ceased after the coming of Christ, is acknowledged by Porphyry, who attributed it to their being angry at the setting up of the Christian religion, which he calls

impious and profane. The crucifixion of Christ under Pontius Pilate, is related by Tacitus, and the earthquake and miraculous darkness attending it, were recorded in the public Roman Registers, commonly appealed to by the first Christian writers, as what could not be denied by the adversaries themselves; and are in a particular manner attested by Phlegon, the freed man of Adrian.

Some people have said, that the above-mentioned darkness might have been occasioned by a natural eclipse of the sun; and consequently, that there was nothing miraculous in it. If this had been the case, it is plain that our Saviour must have been crucified at the time of new moon. But then in a natural way, the darkness could not possibly have continued for more than five minutes; whereas, to have made it continue for three hours, the moon's motion in her orbit must have been stopped for three hours, and the earth's motion on its axis must have been stopped as long too. And then, if the power of gravitation had not been suspended during all that time, the moon would have fallen a great way towards the earth. So that nothing less than a triple miracle must have been wrought to have caused such a long continued darkness by the interposition of the moon between the sun and any part of the earth which shews that they who make such a supposition, are entirely ignorant of the nature of eclipses. But there could be no natural or regular eclipse of the sun on the day of Christ's crucifixion; as the moon was full on that day, and consequently in the side of the heavens opposite to the sun. And therefore, the darkness at the time of his crucifixion was quite supernatural.

The Israelites reckoned their months by the course of the moon, and their years, (after they left Egypt,) by the revolu tion of the sun, computed from the equal day and night in Spring to the like time again. For we find they were told by the almighty, (Exod. xii. 2,) that the month Abib (or Nisan,) should be to them the first month of the year. This was the month in which they were delivered from their Egyptian bondage, and includes part of March, and part of April in our way of reckoning.

In several places of the Old Testament, we find that the Isrealites were strictly commanded to kill the Paschal Lamb in the evening, (or, as it is in the Hebrew, between the evenings) of the fourteenth day of the first month; and Josephus expressly says, "The passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the mouth Nisan, according to the moon, when the sun was in Aries." And the sun always enters the sign Aries, when the day and night are equal in the spring season.

They began each month on the first day of the moon's being visible, which could not be in less than twenty-four hours after the time of her change; and the moon is full on the fifteenth day reckoned from the time of change. Hence, the fourteenth day of the month, according to the Israelites' way of reckoning, was the day of full moon, which makes it plain that the passover was always kept on a full moon day; and at the time of the full moon next after the equal day and night in the spring; or when the sun was in Aries.

All the four Evangelists assure us, that our Saviour was crucified at the time of the passover: And hence it is plain, that the crucifixion was at the time of full moon, when it was impossible that the moon could hide the sun from any part of the earth. St. John tells us, that Christ was crucified on the day that the passover was to be eaten; and we likewise find, that some remonstrated against his being crucified" on the feast-day, lest it should cause an upróar among the people."

THE PHENOMENON OF LIGHT.

The origin and propagation of Light, according to Moses, the

Prophet.

[Eng. Meth. Mag.]

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let their be light: And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night: And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Ir is reasonable to suppose, that when God created the heavens and the earth he gave existence to all the several elements which now compose this world, and all the other systems that are connected therewith. What is termed chaos or the abyss, seems to have consisted of all the various principles of matter which were at first without order, or particular arrangement. The Hebrew word in this part of the writings of Moses, signifies, to give being to what before was non-existent : and seems to point out the forming of specifical creatures into their particular classes; and to denote the making all things perfect in their kind.

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