this as one of his principal arguments. for the proof of a Deity (3); The fourth caufe, faith he, and that even the chief, is the Equality of the Motion, and the Revolution of the Heavens; the diftinEtion, utility, beauty and order of the Sun, Moon, and all the Stars: the bare view alone of which things is fufficient to demonftrate them to be no works of Chance. As if any one fhould come into an house, the Gymnafium, or Forum; when he should fee the order, manner and management of every thing, he could never judge these things to be done without an Efficient, but must imagine there was fome Being prefiding over them, and whofe orders they obeyed. So much more in fo great Motions, fuch Viciffitudes, and the Orders of fo many, and great things; --a man cannot but conclude, that fuch great acts of Nature are gover (3) De Nat. Deor. L. 2. c. 5. ned ned by Jome Mind, fome Intelligent Being. AND so again afterwards (Chap. 21.) when, among other things, he had been speaking of the motions of the Planets, he thus argues, I cannot poffibly understand, faith he, how all this conftancy can be among the Stars; this fo great agreement of times through all eternity, among fuch various courfes (how this can be) without fome Mind, Reafon and Counfel. And a little after this, fpeaking of the Fixt Stars, he faith, But the perennial, and perpetual Courses of thofe Stars, 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 errour, or vanity: but on the contrary, there there is all order, truth or exactness, reaJon, and conftancy. And fuch things as are void of thefe are counterfeit, false, and full of error.. He therefore that thinks the admirable celeftial order, and incredible conftancy,on which the confervation and good of all things depends, to be void of a Mind, he himself deferves to be accounted devoid of a Mind. Thus with great Force and reafon Tully's Stoick 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 themselves to have Divinity, and puts them therefore into the number of the Gods. BOOK C BOOK V. OF THE FIGURE Of the several GLOBES of the Universe. CHAP. I. The confonancy of all the GLOBES in their Spherical Figure. AVING in the preceding trivance and Work of GOD, I fhall en enquire in this, whether their Figure be of the fame kind, fuited to the Motions, and in a word, to the whole ftate and convenience of the several Globes ?ol vino bas, das Now as to the Figure; it is obferveable in the first place, that there is a great Confent therein among all the Globes that fall under our view, and that is that they are all Sphærical, or nearly fo, namely Sphæroidal (1). Thus all the Fixt Stars,fo far as we are able to behold them cither with our naked eye,oor four Glaffes. Thus the Sun, and thus all its Planets, and thus the Secondaries, or Moons accompanying Saturn, Jupiter, and our Earth. And although Venus, Mercury, and our Moon have Phafes, and appear fometimes Falcated, fometimes Gibbous, and sometimes more or less round; (1) See Phyfico-Theel, B. a. ch. r. Note r. and |