The
motion and situation of the planets, are they not admirable for
use and order? Were those (miscalled
) globes once known
to stray, in their repeated journeys through the pathless void?
Do they not measure areas round the sun ever proportioned to the
times? So fixed, so immutable are the laws by which the unseen
Author of nature actuates the universe. {211} How vivid and
radiant is the lustre of the fixed stars! How magnificent and
rich that negligent profusion with which they appear to be
scattered throughout the whole azure vault! Yet, if you take the
telescope, it brings into your sight a new host of stars that
escape the naked eye. Here they seem contiguous and minute, but
to a nearer view immense orbs of fight at various distances, far
sunk in the abyss of space. Now you must call imagination to your
aid. The feeble narrow sense cannot descry innumerable worlds
revolving round the central fires; and in those worlds the energy
of an all-perfect Mind displayed in endless forms. But, neither
sense nor imagination are big enough to comprehend the boundless
extent, with all its glittering furniture.
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