phrafe on that in Pfal. xciii. 1. is, "he who made "the world, will fupport that excellent order "wherein we are fettled; fo that it fhall not be "in the power of man to disturb what he hath eftablished." As for what is said in Pfal. civ. 5. it is manifeft that the pfalmift is there celebrating the works of creation, and that there was as fair an occafion of fpeaking of the Earth's reft, in relation to its own motions, as any where. But yet even here alfo the fecurity and permanency of its ftate is the thing aimed at. The laft most learned com mentator thus paraphrafes on the place: "Who hath fettled the maffy globe of the Earth, even in the liquid air, upon fuch firm foundations, that none of thofe ftorms and tempefts which beat upon it from without, nor any commotions from within, can ever ftir it out of the place he hath fixed for it." As for the two remaining places in Ecclef. and Pfal. cxix. it is plain enough that their defign is to fhew the vanity and inftability of the things of this world, that they are all more fleeting and uncertain than other matters, even than the Earth itfelf, on which they have their refidence. Bishop Patrick's paraph. on Pfal. civ. 5. In Ecclef. the wife man (who had undertaken to prove all things here below to be vanity) begins with the ftate of man himself, and fhews that to be more fickle and tranfitory than the Earth, on which the various generations of men live, and to which their bodies do all return again. The generations of men pafs away; "but the Earth "abideth for ever," in the fame unalterable condition, without fuch going and coming, as that of the generations of men have. In Pfal. cxix. 90. the Pfalmift celebrates God's faithfulness to all the various and fucceeding generations of the world, which he fhews to be as conftant and as unalterable as the Earth itself, which God hath fo eftablished, that it abideth through all the several generations of men, when they at the fame time are fleeting and changing. Thus it appears that all thofe feveral texts which affert the ftability of the world, or Earth, prove nothing against the Earth's motion, in a philofophical fenfe; only exprefs fome moral, theological truths. And fo the fame may be faid of those other places of fcripture, which mention the motion. of of the Sun and other heavenly bodies, that fay, they rife, fet, and perform the motion which the Copernicans afcribe to the Earth. If we should take these expreffions in a philofophical, ftrict, literal fenfe, and not as vulgar expreffions arifing from the appearance of things; we shall find that very odd and unreasonable conclufions. may as well be collected from those scriptures as the Sun's motion: as that the Sun hath annual life, motion, and defire, being faid to act thefé things itself, to rife, to fet, yea to hafte to the place of his rifing, or, as the Hebrew hath it, to pant after, or eagerly to defire it. So in Pfal. xix. the elegant pfalmift giving a poetical description of this noble and admirable work of God, the Sun, faith," God hath, in the Heavens, made a tabernacle for him;" as if the Sun had an house, a refting-place provided for him; from which he comes daily forth with beauty and luftre, as refplendent as that of a bridegroom; and with the fame ardency, joy, and diligence runs his course, as a champion doth his race. And lastly his going forth is faid to be from the end of the Heaven, and his circuit to reach to the ends thereof; as though the Heavens had two extremities, or was, as the ancients fancied the DN Anhelavit, inhiavit, vid, Buxtorf. Lexicon. N Earth Earth to be, a long large plane, bounded by the ocean, under which they imagined the Sun betook himself, and was thence faid tingere fe Oceano, to dip himself in the ocean when he fet, And, as in these places of scripture the Sun is faid to move; fo in the other places he is faid to stand still, and to go backward. But we shall find, that very abfurd conclufions would follow the taking those texts in a strict literal fenfe. For in Joshua, the Sun is ordered to ftand still upon Gibeon, and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon. But it would be very abfurd to take this in a literal fenfe, and imagine those two great luminaries were confined to thofe two places, otherwife than in appearance to the victorious Ifraelites. And if fo confiderable a part of the tranfaction be spoken according to its appearance, why not the whole? Why might not this station as well be an arreft of the Earth's motion as that of the Heavens, if the whole miracle was not (as fome not improbably think) effected by means of fome preternatural refrac tions or extraordinary meteors, &c. And fo for the recess of the Sun, or its fhadow in Hezekiah's cafe, that which in appearance feemed to be the action of the Sun is by divers learned learned men thought to have been the effect of fuch like extraordinary refractions and meteors, as I mentioned in the last cafe: or if it was a real recefs, why not of the Earth, rather than the Sun and whole Heavens ? Thus having answered the particular texts, it doth not appear that the scriptures oppose the Copernican system, but that thofe paffages which feem to do so, are fpoken more according as things appear, than as really they are. For as St. Hieron faith, Confuetudinis fcripturarum eft-It is the custom of the fcriptures, for the historian fo to relate the opinion men had of many matters, as at that time thefe matters were by all people taken to be. And in another place," There are many things in the holy fcriptures, which are spoken according to the opinion of the time in which they were done, and not according to their reality." And this is no other than what is very reasonable, and fuitable to the end and defign of the holy fcriptures, which, as I have faid, is rather to inftruct men in divine and moral doctrines, than philofophical truths. And agreeably Hieron. in Jofh. x. In Jerem. xxviii. N 2 hereto, |