ters, fince he knows they belong to himself. Then he contemns the narrow bounds of his habitation in this world.-And here at last he learns what he hath long enquired after: there he begins to know God. Y

Illic incipit DEUM noffe.

BOOK

HAVING in the preceding book given a de

monftration of God, from the magnitude of the heavenly bodies, I fhall do the fame in this from their number; a number fo great, that we cannot view and confider them without aftonishment. Were there no more of them than the fun and the planets (both primary and secondary) fuppofed to move about him, there would

be

turned fo as to be viewed by us fideways, or going out of fight.

And lastly, another thing obfervable in and from these spots is, that they defcribe various paths or lines over the fun, fometimes ftrait, fometimes curved towards one pole of the fun, fometimes towards the other, exactly correfponding to the different pofitions of the earth in respect of the fun throughout all parts of the year.

Thus in that vaft mafs, the fun, we have manifeftly fuch a diurnal motion as I fpake of, or circumvolution round its axis; a motion conftant and regular, and doubtlefs of as great ufe to fome office or other, in fome part or other of the universe, as the motions of the earth, are to the inhabitants thereof: and a motion therefore this is, demonftrating the concurrence of the Almighty,

Neither is it the fun alone that undergoes a diurnal rotation, but most, if not all the erraticks about him. Saturn indeed is at fo great a distance from us, that we have not been able to perceive whether or no he hath fuch a rotation; but as the other planets have it, and there is full as much occafion for it in Saturn as in them, so

1

CHA P. II.

THAT THE FIXT STARS ARE SUNS ENCOMPASSED WITH SYSTEMS OF PLANETS.

ALTHOUGH the number of the erratick and

fixt heavenly bodies we fee, are fufficient to fet forth the existence, and praises of their great Creator, yet there is one thing more that I cannot eafily pafs over (though it hath only high probabilities for it) because it gives us a far more noble and agreeable idea of the creation, than the world was ever, that we know of, acquainted with before; and that is, that the beft and most learned modern aftronomers do gene. rally suppose the great multitude of fixt stars we fee, or imagine to be in the universe, to be fo many funs, and each of them encompaffed with a fyftem of planets like our fun.

And that the fixt ftars are funs, or of much the fame nature as our fun, there is great reafon to conclude.

1. Because

1. Because they are bodies no less immenfe (as I have faid) than the fun, but only diminished, in appearance, by their prodigious distances

from us.

2. Because they fhine by their own native light, not by any borrowed from the fun. For fo great are their distances from the fun, and from us also, that it is not poffible their light fhould be received from the fun, and reflected to us, as that of the moon and other planets is.

And withal, fo brisk and vivid is their light, and fo very small their apparent diameters, when divefted of their glaring rays, and made to have their true appearance through our telescopes, that no question is to be made, but that they fhine by their own innate light, as our fun doth.

And if the fixt ftars are fo many funs, certain ly they minister to fome grand ufes in the universe, far above what hath usually been attributed unto them. And what more probable uses, than to perform the office of fo many funs? that is, to enlighten and warm as many fyftems of planets; after the manner our fun doth the erraticks encompaffing it. And that this is the ufe and office of the fixt ftars, is probable.

1. Becaufe