Of these things I the rather take notice, as I perceive, in a late oration, not only the doctrine of the plague being propagated by contagion severely ridiculed, but the scripture itself treated in a most indecent and scandalous manner. “In the earliest ages of the world (says he) when ignorance and superstition led men to attribute all extraordinary phenomena to the direct agency of supernatural beings, pestilence was supposed to be immediately imported from heaven. This is the opinion which appears to have prevailed among the ancient Hebrews, and may be ranked at the head of the catalogue of absurdities on this subject. The dominion of prejudice over the minds of that ignorant and obstinate people appears in this instance particularly striking. Such was the depth of their blind bigotry in favour of the healthfulness of the globe they inhabited, that they would seem to have considered it as even superior to that of the celestial regions. Hence, unwilling to believe that their favourite earth could give origin to an evil so dreadful as the pestilence, they imported the seeds of this calamity from the more unhealthful climate of heaven!!” In this extraordinary paragraph we find the matter so much misrepresented, that every vestige of truth is swallowed up in it. The Hebrews believed that they were under the immediate inspection and government of the Deity; a doctrine which, however our author may _disbelieve_, he cannot _disprove_. But, notwithstanding this immediate inspection and government, the Deity never did bring upon them any plague but by the intervention of natural causes. The agents which he had originally created were sufficiently able to execute his purposes. The Creator never employed any power but what already existed in the world, and the power that he generally did employ was _fire_. This agent he directed to exert its force in such degrees as he pleased, and against whom he pleased. It is a mistake to think that miracles were _immediately_ the effects of supernatural power. They were all accomplished by the very powers which exist in the world at this moment, only these powers were by the Creator at particular times directed to act in a manner that they would not have done had they been left to the mechanism of their own nature. When we read therefore of people being consumed by fire from the Lord, there was neither importation of fire from heaven nor any where else; the element exerted its power on these particular persons, either by lightning proceeding from the cloud which represented the Deity, or their bodies threw out the latent heat which they contained, and consumed of themselves. That in cases of this kind there was no _importation_ supposed, is evident from an expression used about bringing water from the rock. It is not said that the water fell from the stars, or came down with the tail of a comet, but that the rock gave out the water which it previously contained.