concluded of all, from the conftant fimilitude and confent that the works of nature have with one another. But in what manner these motions are performed, whether by the motion of the heavenly bodies round the Earth, or by the Earth round its own axis, or any other way, it matters not much how to enquire.

2. It is manifeft that the Earth is fet at fuch a due diftance from the heavenly bodies, and the heavenly bodies, at fuch a due distance from one another, as to interfere,clash with, or disorder one another; nay, fo great is their diftance, fo convenient their fituation, that they do not fo much as eclifpe one another, except fuch planets as are called fecondary.

3. It is farther manifest also, that those vast bodies are so far off, as to appear extremely small to our eye, confidering their prodigious magnitudes.

Now for the effecting of this, or any of the other matters, it is neceffary that there be a fufficient space. And that there is fuch, and what that space is, we may make a judgment of, by confidering particulars according to the best obfervations we have of these things.

And

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 faid 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 moft 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."

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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 itself, 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. 9o. 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 so established, 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 those several texts which affert the stability of the world, or Earth, prove nothing against the Earth's motion, in at 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

perform their much larger courfes in? And accordingly fuch fpaces, they and the rest of the planets are all found to have: Saturn an orb of 1641526386 English miles diameter; Jupiter an orb of 895134000 miles; Mars of 262282910 miles; Venus of 124487114 miles; and Mercury an orb of 66621000 English miles : all of them fpaces fo accurately laid out, and diftances fo duly proportioned to their revolutions about the Sun, that abundantly manifeft infinite. wifdom to have been concerned in their appointment, as I intend to fhew in a proper place.

But now after this account of this fo prodigious a space as that of our folar fyftem is, what is it to the nearly infinite expanfum occupied by the rest of the heavenly bodies! Of which we may have a faint adumbration by confidering the distances, which, with the greatest probability of obfervation and reason, are affigned to the fixt ftars. In order to the making an estimate of which matter, let it be fuppofed (which is ufually allowed) that the fixt stars are so many Suns;

Thefe numbers are deduced from the diftance between the Sun and Earth affigned in the preceding note, and Sir Ifaac Newton's distances of the planets from the Sun computed from their periods in his Principia, L. iii. Phænom 4. and are, as I humbly conceive, much more accurate than other calculations that I have met with.

And

that they are of the fame, or nearly the fame magnitude as our Sun is; and that the difference of their magnitudes arifeth from the difference of their distances; if fo, then it will follow, That the fixt ftars are each of them as much farther from us than the Sun, as their apparent diameters are lefs than that of the Sun'. forafmuch as few of them appear otherwife than as points even through our beft telescopes, therefore how prodigiously farther must they needs be from us than the Sun is, to cause their appearance to be so very much lefs than the Sun? For an example, let us take one of the fixt ftars fupposed to be nearest to us, as being the brightest and largeft, namely Syrius. Now this, by accurate obfervations", hath been found to be in appearance 27664 times less than the Sun; and confequently, by the foregoing rule, it is fo many times farther off than the Sun is, which will amount to above two millions of millions of English miles. And if fo, what an immenfurable space is the firmament; wherein a great number of ftars leffer and leffer, and confequent

Compare the fagacious Dr. David Gregory's demonstration of this in his Aftron. L. iii. Prop 56, 60, and 61.

See Mr. Huygens in Cofmotheor. p. 1372

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