and that they take up many years in paffing the reft of their orbs.

And now whether we confider the due fituation of the greatest part of the heavenly bodies, whereby neither they, nor their influences do interfere; or the more unusual pofition and motion of comets, ftill it appears that a wife and careful architect was the contriver and orderer of it all; efpecially if we join what follows in the next chapter.

agine, are difcovered, by the great fagacity and application of our modern aftronomers. The revolution of the first of the three, is supposed to be performed in 75 years, and to have been the fame comet that appeared in the year 1682. The fecond is fupposed to be the comet that was feen in the year 1661, and to revolve round in 129 years. And the third is imagined to be that comet which appeared in 1680 and 1681, whose period is 575 years. And according to Mr. Whiston's determinations, the first of these three comets will again appear in the year 1758, the fecond in 1989, and the third and last not till about the year 2255.

CHAP.

fome mind, reafon, and counfel." And a little after this, fpeaking of the fixt ftars, he faith, "But the perennial, and perpetual courfes of thofe ftars, together with their admirable and incredible conftancy, declare a divine power and mind to be in them. And this he takes to be fo plain a cafe, that he that could not difcern it, he thinks could difcern nothing." And then he thus concludes, "In the Heavens then, there is neither any chance, nor any temerity, nor error, or vanity: but, on the contrary, there is all order, truth or exactnefs, reafon and conftancy. And fuch things as are void, of thefe are counterfeit, falfe, and full of error.-He therefore that thinks the admirable cœleftial order, and incredible conftancy, on which the confervation and good of all things depend, to be void of a mind, he himfelf deferves to be accounted devoid of a mind." Thus with great force and reafon, Tully's Stoic rightly infers the prefence and concurrence of a Divine Being and Power from the motions of the Heavens: only not being aware who that Being was, he erroneously imagines the heavenly bodies themfelves to have divinity, and puts them therefore into the number of the gods; which error is excellently refuted by Lactantius, in his Inftit. Divin. 1. ii. c. 5. &c.

BOOK

BOOK V.

O F THE

FIGURE

O F THE SEVERAL

GLOBES OF THE UNIVERSE.

THE

C-H A P. I.

CONSONANCY OF ALL THE GLOBES IN
THEIR SPHERICAL FIGURE.

HAVING in the preceding Book manifested

the motions of the Earth and Heavens to be the contrivance and work of God, I fhall enquire in this, whether their figure be of the fame kind, wifely fuited to the motions, and, in a word, to the whole state and convenience of the feveral globes, fo as to manifeft itself to be the work of God.

Now as to the figure; it is obfervable in the first place, that there is a great confent therein, among

I A

among all the globes that fall under our view, and that is, that they are all fphærical, or nearly fo, namely, fphæroidal P Thus all the fixt stars, fo far as we are able to behold them, either with our naked eye, or our glaffes. Thus the Sun, and thus all its planets, and thus the fecondaries, or Moons accompanying Saturn, Jupiter, and our Earth. And although Venus, Mercury, and our Moon have phases, and appear fometimes falcated, fometimes gibbous, and fometimes more or less round, and even Mars too, in its quadratures, becomes gibbous: yet at fuch times as these planets fhew their full phafes, they are found to be sphærical, and only lofe this figure by virtue of their pofition to the Sun, to whom they owe their light. And this fphæricity, or rotundity, is manifeft in our Moon, yea, and in Venus 9 too: in whose greatest falcations the dark part of their globes may

P See Phyfico-Theol. B. ii. ch. 1. Note (w)

What I have here affirmed of the fecondary light of Venus, I have been called to an account for, by an ingenious aftronomer of my acquaintance. But I particularly remember, that as I was viewing Venus fome years ago, with a good 34 foot glafs, when the was in her perigee, and much horned, that I could fee the darkened part of her globe, as we do that of the Moon foon after her change. And imagining that in the last total eclifpe of the Sun, the fame might be difcerned, I defired a very curious obferver that was with me, and looked through an excellent glafs, to take notice of it, who 2 ffirmed that he faw it very plainly.

be

be perceived, exhibiting themselves under the ap, pearance of a dull and rufty colour.

And as this fphærical figure holds in every of the globes at a distance from us, fo we may reasonably imagine our own globe to be confonant to the reft. But indeed we have great reason to conclude it to be so from the curvity of its shadow in its eclipfes of the Moon; from the discovery of new constellations in the Heavens, as we change our hemisphere, and make approaches towards either pole; from the furface of the sea, which appears to be of this figure, by our gradually difcerning far diftant objects, mountains, towers, fails of fhips, &c. the parts of which are more and more feen, as we approach nearer and nearer to them: with other arguments to the fame purpose, which I need not enumerate in a cafe now generally owne ed to be true,

CHAP.