9 6

Astronomy.

The most celebrated Hypotheses, orSj^jterns of the World, are three, viz. (*''

T&f

visible at an immense Distance ; but the greater th e sjLtance, the less bright it will appear, and of a nMagnitude: And therefore every Star of every ^ Lnitude may probably be a Sun like our own, if' 01 D (ing a System of Planets or moving Bodies, each .which may be inhabited like our Earth with va r > .Kinds of Animals, and stored with vegetable and 0 ,Substances.

5. In this View of the Universe, an august Idea 3 ^in the Mind, and worthy of the Infinite and

th or of Nature, who can never be supposed to P ^created so many glorious Orbs to answer so trift 1I ’® ) dPurpose as the twinkling to Mortals by Night no*then ; besides that the far greatest Part of the Sta> ? ^|inever seen by us at all, as will be farther shewn *we come to treat of those celestial Bodies. V

6. When therefore Moses tells us, that in the $

ning God created the Heavens and the Earth , it i s 1 $understood in a limited Sense, and to mean on 1 ? $Makings or rather New-making , of our Terra 1 } 11Globe; for’tis expressly said that the Earth in r fState was a Chaos, (in Hebrew “ilD’! 1 ND Shapes fVoid) which probably might be only the Ruins ot 3 ‘ { |i<existent Globe inhabited by rational Creatures ^ i<same manner as since its Renovation. And th° u | sbe said, God made two great Lights , the Sun asl ^Moon, it does not follow they had no Existence v ^that Time, any more than it does that the St arSnot, which he is said to have made also. s/

7. Now if the Stars had no Existence before Qrsftsaic Creation, then were there no other Systems of’before our own ; then must all the Infinity of Sp 3 f.^ {Mibeen one eternal absolute Inane or Empty Space t* JyTime, and God who made the Worlds must be

to have made them all at once: Which SupP®j-e^Jare too extravagant and unreasonable, and ^^!cannot be the Sense of that Passage of Scripture;