Here pause, and wonder!-then reflect again. Almighty wisdom nothing makes in vain : The smallest fly, the meanest weed we find, From its creation had some use assign'd, since they alone are the causes of these divisions; so that, God made the stars also, serves indeed to remind us of his being the Creator of all things, but can never imply, that the whole Universe was created, or disposed of in its present order at that time. That there are frequent changes, and perhaps new creations amongst the celestial bodies, is more than probable, from the disappearing of several stars, and the new appearance of others, which have been observed in different parts of the heavens, almost in every age; and if we may have leave to guess, were old worlds destroyed in some places, and new ones created in others. Since then this orb (with all the planets of our system) was created much later than many of the other heavenly bodies, we have no reason to believe that the rest shall partake of all the revolutions it must undergo. Whatever shall become of it, (for that it must change its present appearance, the very nature of things does clearly evince) the rest will still roll on in their appointed courses, till the same God, in his allotted time, shall make them also undergo changes appointed for them. Now, if thou canst the mighty thought sustain, If it not aches thy soul, and racks thy brain, Conceive each STAR, thou seest, another SUN, In bulk, and form, and substance like our own. light to rule the night,) seems to imply as much: for he is here describing whatever was created at the same time with this earth of our's, and the two great lights here mentioned, can only relate to this solar system, since they are far from being great, if considered with the other stars: for the sun itself, if not less, is no larger certainly than many of the fixed stars; and a very small knowledge in astronomy will convince any one, that the moon is less, without comparison, than any fixed star discovered by the naked eye. As to his subjoining, He made the stars also; it indeed attests God to be the creator of all things, but seems, at the same time, to insinuate their former creation: as if he had said, after this manner God created the earth, and made two great lights to give light unto it, even the same God who had created the stars. And in the 17th and 18th verses where it is said, God set them in. the firmament of Heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: still is meant only the sun and moon as may be learnt from verse the 14th, And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the Heavens, to divide the day from the night: and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for years; which every body must acknowledge can be meant of nothing else but the sun and moon, Here pause, and wonder!-then reflect again. Almighty wisdom nothing makes in vain : The smallest fly, the meanest weed we find, From its creation had some use assign'd, since they alone are the causes of these divisions; so that, God made the stars also, serves indeed to remind us of his being the Creator of all things, but can never imply, that the whole Universe was created, or disposed of in its present order at that time. That there are frequent changes, and perhaps new creations amongst the celestial bodies, is more than probable, from the disappearing of several stars, and the new appearance of others, which have been observed in different parts of the heavens, almost in every age; and if we may have leave to guess, were old worlds destroyed in some places, and new ones created in others. Since then this orb (with all the planets of our system) was created much later than many of the other heavenly bodies, we have no reason to believe that the rest shall partake of all the revolutions it must undergo. Whatever shall become of it, (for that it must change its present appearance, the very nature of things does clearly evince) the rest will still roll on in their appointed courses, till the same God, in his allotted time, shall make them also undergo changes appointed for them. Essential to its Being, still the same, Co-eval, co-existent with its frame. And can those everlasting founts of light, Bodies immensely vast! divinely bright! Serve for no end at all?—or, but to blaze Through empty space, and useless spend their rays? Consult with REASON. Reason will reply, *Each lucid point which glows in yonder sky, * That each fixed star we see is a sun, round which a set of planets take their regular courses, and are from thence enlighten'd, as those of our system are by our sun, is an opinion now so generally agreed to by the learned world, that it is almost needless to endeavour its defence. They shine by their own light 'tis_certain : since 'tis not possible the light of the sun should be sent to them, and transmitted again to us. For the sun's rays would be so dissipated, before they reached such remote objects, that the best eyes in the world could not thereby discover them. We see, for all his bulk, how faintly saturn shines in respect of the fixed stars; and yet his distance from the sun is almost nothing compared with that of the nearest of them. Their distance is so immense, that the best telescopes shew them but as mere points, instead of mag ev'ry place, so far from lying waste, life is crouded, and with beauty grac'd: or can those other worlds, unknown by thee, Less stor'd with creatures, or with beauty, be. For GoD is uniform in all his ways, And every where his boundless pow'r displays: Is not restrain'd by time, or limited to place: spread every where through the indefinite expanse, and as far from one another as this sun of our's is from the nearest of them. Were we removed from the sun as we are from the fixed stars, the sun and stars would seem alike: Our planets would not be seen at all, their light being much too weak to affect us at such a distance, and all their orbits would be united in one single point. Hence a spectator who is near any one sun, will only look upon that as a real sun, and the rest but as so many glittering stars fixed in his own heaven or firmament. By the eye, unassisted with glasses, the greatest number of stars we can see at one view, is no more than about five hundred; hence, in both hemispheres, the number would not far exceed a thousand-but by the help of telescopes, a far greater number C |