1. Because this is a far more probable and fuitable use for fo many funs, fo many glorious bodies, than to fay they were made only to enlighten and influence our leffer, and I may say our inferior globe; which another moon or two, one or two of thofe very funs fet nearer to us, would have better done, than all the whole train of heavenly bodies now doth. But inftead of this, many of them, nay, perhaps the greatest number of them, are at fuch immenfe diftances (as fhall be fhewn under the next head) that they are out of the reach of our naked eye. In which cafe, what use is it likely fuch great numbers of fuch immenfe, unfeen, far diftant bodies can be to our world, when there are fo many already of divers magnitudes of those that fall under view, that (befides other much greater uses they may serve in the universe) do minister to our help and comfort here upon earth in fupplying the absence of the fun and moon by night?

2. From the parity, and conftant uniformity obfervable in all God's works, we have great reafon to conclude that every fixt ftar hath a fyftem of planets, as well as the fun. For it is certain that the fun is a fixt star to the fixt stars, as they are to the fun. And in this case, if (as the

juftly

Thus having taken a profpect of the diurnal motions of the great globes of the universe, that fall beft under the cognizance of our instruments, and found that many, and probably all of them, have a rotation round in a determinate time; if to this we add the convenience and prodigious ufe of this motion to the feveral respective globes, we fhall find that an infinitely wife and kind, as well as omnipotent Being, was the orderer thereof. For were thofe globes always to ftand ftill, especially the erraticks that owe their light and heat to the fun, in this cafe, one half of them would be dazzled and parched with everlasting day, whilft the other would be involved in everlafting night and darkness. And what the confequences would be, we may best judge from what would befal our own globe, without the kindly alterations of day and night; and that is, that it, at least a great part of it, would scarce be habitable, it would neither agree to the ftate of man, or any other animals; nor to that of vegetables, or indeed any other creature. For one half of the globe would be burning up, at leaft too much drying, and exhaufted with the beams of the fun, whilst the other would be immerged in, and deadened with too long night. And in fuch a cafe, how would the great works of nature, so serviceable to the world, be per$ 3

formed?

3. Befides those strong probabilities, we have this farther to recommend thofe imaginations to us, that this account of the universe is far more magnificent, worthy of, and becoming the infinite Creator, than any other of the narrower fchemes. For here we have the works of the creation, not confined to the more fcanty limits of the orb, or arch of the fixt stars, or even the larger fpace of the primum mobile, which the ancients fancied were the utmost bounds of the univerfe, but they are extended to a far larger, as well as more probable, even an indefinite fpace as was fet forth in the first book. Alfo in this profpect of the creation, as the earth is difcarded from being the centre of the univerfe, fo neither do we make the ufes and offices of all the glorious bodies of the universe, to centre therein, nay, in man alone, according to the old vulgar opinion, that "all things were made for But in this our scheme we have a far more extenfive, grand, and noble view of God's works: a far greater number of them not those alone that former ages faw, but multitudes of others that the telescope hath difcovered fince; and all these far more orderly placed throughout the heavens, and at more due and agreeable dif

See Phpfico-Theol. B. ii. c. 6. n. 3.

tances,

as the rest of the globes have their fhares in the like motion, fo we may very reasonably imagine that it is no lefs ufeful and beneficial to them than it is to us, and that the inconveniences of the want of it would be as great.

СНАР. IV.

OF THE ANNUAL OR PERIODICAL MOTION OF THE PRIMARY PLANETS.

BESIDES the motion treated of in the preceding chapter, there is another, which is as clear a manifeftation of the great Creator as that, namely the periodical or annual, which is vifible in fome of the great globes, and probable in many others. Among the fixt ftars it is highly probable fomething of this nature is as appears from thofe new ftars which I have before taken notice of, which, as I have faid, fometimes become vifible to us, in one part of their orbits, and again disappear in other parts of them. But these fyftems being out of the reach of our beft glaffes, I fhall pafs them by, efpecially because in our own folar fyftem we have abundantly enough to entertain us in this demonstration of God.

For it is very vifible, without the help of the telescope, that every planet of the folar fyftem hath