systems, is perhaps a question. But if they do not belong to this system, then they were not created at the same time with this; and therefore will not be involved in the consequences of the judgment day.

There is good reason to believe, that all the planets, with all their satellites, all comets and systems, together with their respective suns, be their numbers greater or smaller, are inhabited by intelligent beings. It is improbable that either the sun to this, or the suns to other systems, or even the comets, are fire, as has been supposed. "On the nature of the sun there have been various conjectures. It was long thought that he was a vast globe of fire, 1,384,462 times larger than the earth, and that he was continually emitting from his body innumerable millions of fiery particles, which, being extremely divided, answered the purpose of light and heat, without occasioning any ignition, or burning, except when collected in the focus of a convex lens, or burning glass. Against this opinion, however, many serious and weighty objections have been made; and it has been so pressed with difficulties, that philosophers have been obliged to look for a theory less repugnant to nature and probability. Dr. Herschel's discoveries by means of his immensely magnifying telescopes, have, by the general consent of philosophers, added a new habitable world to our system, which is the sun. Without stopping to enter into a detail of the propriety of the position, it is sufficient to say, that these discoveries tend to prove, that what we call the sun is only the atmosphere of that globe, and that this atmosphere 'consists of various elastic fluids, that are more or less

"

lucid and transparent; that as the clouds belonging to our earth are probably decompositions of some of the elastic fluids belonging to the atmosphere itself, so we may suppose that in the vast atmosphere of the sun, similar decompositions may take place-but with this difference, that the decomposition of the elastic fluids of the sun are of a phosphoric nature, and are attended by lucid appearances, by giving out light. The real opake body of the sun he considers as hidden generally from us, by means of this luminous atmosphere; but what are called the maculæ, or spots on the sun, and have frequently been seen with the naked eye, are real openings in this atmosphere, through which the opake body of the sun becomes visible-that this atmosphere itself is not fiery or hot, but is the instrument which God designed to act on the caloric or latent heat, and that heat is only produced by the solar light acting upon and combining with the caloric, or matter of pure virgin fire, contained in the air, and other substances which are heated by it.

"Where the stars are in great abundance, Dr. Herschel supposes they form primaries and secondaries, i. e. suns revolving about suns, as planets revolve about the sun in our system. He considers that this must be the case in what is called the milky way-the stars be ing there in prodigious numbers. Of this he gives the following proof: On August 22, 1792, he found that in 41 minutes of time, not less than 258,000 stars had passed through the field of view in his telescope."Clark on Gen. 1, 16.

Oh! what a view is this of the great God, who has created countless systems of matter, and are all the

abodes of intelligent beings, whose numbers swell beyond the reach of all finite computation. Well might the Evangelist say, And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Rev. 19, 6. This earth, I have endeavoured to prove, shall be cast into the great lake of fire at the judgment day; but what shall become of the other globes of the system, after having been dissolved by fire, we cannot tell. It is the opinion of Dr. Clark, that at the judgment day they will be decomposed, but not destroyed; consequently, he thinks they may enter again into the composition of a new system. See comment on 2 Pet. 3, 11.

The globes of this system may indeed (except the earth) be arranged, and newly modified into another system, and be placed somewhere in the field of interminable space, which now is void; but the space which they now occupy must be the site of a new creation. Annihilation is abhorrent to the views of many relative to matter, who contend that it is altogether indestructible; from which the conclusion is drawn, that the earth, and all the other globes, shall only be refined by fire, and shall then be renewed again, and thus they make out the new creation. But to me, this opinion appears opposed to the very idea of a new creation, by substituting in its place a renovation, or a new modulation, which cannot, with the proper and original sense of the word, be made to agree.

If we believe that God at first created the worlds out of nothing, then we may not suppose the pre-existence of any particles of matter. out of which he might have

formed them.

This is what we understand by crea tion, when we apply it to the making of the worlds in the first instance; and therefore, by the strictest rules of reasoning, ought to adopt the same sentiment in reference to the new creation.

I know of no data whereon to build the supposition, that God cannot, or that he will not annihilate matter, if he please. The fact that he can bring entity out of nonentity, is sufficient proof that he can, if he please, annihilate the same; for it is equally above our reason to have any conceptions of a power sufficient to make something out of nothing, as it is to conceive how something can be changed to nothing. If the globes of the system, except the earth, are not to be annihilated, it follows that they must be removed to some place in the great field of interminable space, where God has not yet built a system of worlds, to make room for the promised new creation; for it is reasonable to suppose, the same space which now embraces the location of this system, shall also embrace the new creation; because if the first is to be removed, that a second may arise, it strongly implies that the latter shall occupy the place of the former. This new creation, which is prophesied of by the evangelist, (see Rev. xxi. 1,) " And I saw a new HEAVEN and a new EARTH, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was NO MORE SEA," is not to take place till after the great and last judgment, when and where, a general and particular exhibition of the conduct of both the righteous and the wicked, will take place. We ascertain that this very earth, and this very heaven or atmosphere which now surrounds the globe, are to pass

away, by the evangelist's remarkably qualifying words, "AND THERE WAS NO MORE SEA." And farther,' we learn from the following words, in the 15th verse of the same chapter, And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new, that not only the earth, its heaven and the seas, are to pass away, but also the whole solar system, which is the family of the sun. For one earth, and its waters, or sea, is not sufficient in numbers, being expressed in the singular only, to answer the full import of these remarkable words, ALL THINGS,' which allude, therefore to more than one earth and its sea; for the water of the whole earth may very properly be resolved into one idea, a

SEA.

The reason, then, why God has said, by St. John, Behold, 1 make all things new, is, because all things which are referred to in that prophecy, are to be destroyed, and extend to no more nor less, than simply the solar system. It cannot be reasonably doubted, but that the whole system of planets was made, during the same six days in which the earth on which we dwell, was in progress. And although it is stated in Gen. i. 1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and also in Exod. xx. 11, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth;" which relates to but one; yet in Gen. ii. 1, it is stated, "Thus the heavens," &c. (which being in the plural, signifies many, and relates to the several atmospheres which surround the planets of the solar system,) and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them :" i. e. were finished within the six days' work rccoded in Genesis, by Mo