Her deftin'd Rule o'er Ocean fhe prefides,
And pours upon the Shores the lagging Tides.

Come forth, O Man, yon azure Round furvey,
And view those Lamps which yield eternal Day.
Bring forth thy Glaffes: clear thy wond'ring Eyes:"
Millions beyond the former Millions rise :
Look farther: - Millions more blaze from re-
moter Skies.

And canft thou think, poor Worm! these Orbs

of Light,

In Size, immenfe, in Number, infinite,
Were made for Thee alone to twinkle to thy Sight?
Prefumptuous Mortal! can thy Nerves descry,
How far from each they roll, from Thee how high?
With all thy boasted Knowledge canft thou fee
Their various Beauty, Order, Harmony?

If not, then sure they were not made for Thee.
What

What is this EARTH, of which thou art so proud? Loft and unknown, in the more glorious Crowd, A Point it scarce appears.† E'er it begun The reft their Courses have,

And shall, when it's no more, for endless Ages run. Correct

+ That this Globe whereon we live, hath, in its present State, exifted but fome few thousand Years, both Scripture and Reafon fufficiently evince. This we may learn from the flow Progress of Arts and Sciences, from its not yet being fully inhabited, from all History and Monuments of ANTIQUITY whatsoever, and from the fresh Remembrance we ftill have of the Golden Age or firft State of Nature; which appears fo much plainer as we defcend to the more early Writers, that we can almoft trace out its Origine. But, on the other Hand, we have no Reason to imagine all the other Orbs around us to be of fo late a Date; for fuppofing the Sun and Planets in this our Syftem, to have been disposed in their present Order, or created all at the fame. Time, (which is the most can juftly be contended for) what Inference can we bring from hence, that all the other heavenly Bodies must have been fo too? Bodies fo remote from this Earth of ours, that we can neither reach them with our Eye nor our Imagination, and which can no more be influenced by our Globe, than a Man at Rome can be joftled by one at London: And we might as well maintain, that all the People now living were born at the fame Minute, as that the whole Universe was created at the fame Time. This erroneous Opinion proceeds from the Vanity of Mankind, in imagining these innumerable immenfe Bodies to have taken their Beginning, only to fill up the Train of Attendants on our earthly Spot; and that the fole Defign of their Creation was to be of ufe to Us: whereas the leaft Confideration may serve to prove how very few are to Us of any ufe at all.

Our Glaffes difcover innumerable more Stars than we can difcern with the naked Eye; and ftill the better our Glasses are, the more we find out, lying beyond the other, and fo on, for any

thing

Correct thy awkard Pride, be wife and know Thofe glitt'ringSpecks Thou fcarce difcern'stbelow, Are Founts of Day, ftupendous Orbs of Light, Thus, by their Distance, leffen'd to thy Sight.

Now

thing we know, indefinitely and inexhauftably. From whence then this vain Opinion of ourselves? May we not more juftly suppose these glorious Orbs inhabited, by thofe numberless Orders of more glorious Beings which are betwixt Us and our Creator? For furely, there are more Gradations, more Ranks of Beings betwixt Us and God Almighty, than there are betwixt Us and the meaneft Infect we know; and as we cannot, with any fhew of Reafon, imagine all thefe glorious Beings were created at the fame Time with ourselves, neither can we believe their Habitations to have been formed at the fame Time with this of ours; but by a Parity of Reafon must suppose them to have been created as long before our World as these other Beings have exifted before Mankind.

MOSES in his Account of the Creation (GENESIS, Chap. i. verse 16. God made two Lights: the greater Light to rule the Day, and the leffer Light to rule the Night,) feems to imply as much for he is here defcribing whatever was created at the fame Time with this Earth of ours, and the two great Lights here mentioned, can only relate to this folar Syftem, fince they are far from being Great, if confidered with the other Stars: for the Sun itself, if not lefs, is no bigger certainly than many of the fixed Stars; and a very small Knowledge in Aftronomy will convince any one, that the Moon is lefs, without Comparison, than any fixt Star difcovered by the naked Eye. As to his fubjoining, He made the Stars alfo: it indeed attefts God to be the Creator of all Things, but feems, at the fame time, to infinuate their former Creation; as if he had faid, After this Manner God created the Earth, and made two great Lights to give Light unto it, even the fame God who had created the Stars. And in the 17th and 18th Verfes, where it is faid, God fet them in the Firmament of Heaven, to give Light upon the

Earth,

Now, if Thou canft the mighty Thought fuftain, If it not akes thy Soul, and racks thy Brain,

Conceive each STAR Thou feeft another SUN,
In Bulk, and Form, and Subftance like thine own.
Here paufe, and wonder !—then reflect again.
Almighty Wisdom nothing makes in vain :
The smallest Fly, the meaneft Weed we find,
From its Creation had some Use affign'd,

Effential to its Being, ftill the fame,

Co-eval, co-exiftent with its Frame.

Earth, and to rule over the Day and over the Night, and to dia vide the Light from the Darkness: ftill is meant only the Sun and Moon, as may be learnt from Verse the 14th, And God faid, let their be Lights in the Firmament of the Heavens, to divide the Day from the Night: and let them be for Signs, and for Seafons, and for Days and for Years; which every body muft acknowledge can be meant of nothing elfe but the Sun and Moon, fince they alone are the Caufes of thefe Divifions; fo that, GOD made the Stars alfo, ferves indeed to remind Us of his being the Creator of all Things, but can never imply, that the Whole Univerfe was created, or difpofed of in its present Order at that fame Time.

That there are frequent Changes, and perhaps new Creations amongst the Celeftial Bodies, is more than probable, from the Difappearing of feveral Stars, and the new Appearance of others, which have been obferved in different Parts of the Heaven, almoft in every Age; and if we may have leave to guefs, were old Worlds deftroyed in fome Places, and new Ones created in others.

Since

And can those everlasting Founts of Light,
Bodies immensely vaft! divinely bright!

Serve for no End at all?—or, but to blaze
Through empty Space, and useless spend their Rays?
Confult with REASON. REASON will reply,
* Each lucid Point which glows in yonder Sky,
Informs a System in the boundless Space,
And fills, with Glory, its appointed Place:

With

Since then this Orb, (with all the Planets of our System) was created much later than many of the other Heavenly Bodies, we have no Reafon to believe the reft fhall partake of all the Revolutions it must undergo. Whatever fhall become of it, (for that it must change its prefent Appearance, the very Nature of Things does clearly evince) the reft will ftill roll on in their appointed Courfes, till the fame GoD, in his allotted Time, fhall make them alfo undergo Changes appointed for them.

* That each fixed Star we fee is a Sun, round which a Set of Planets take their regular Courses, and are from thence enlighten'd, as those of our System are by our Sun, is an Opinion now fo generally agreed to by the learned World, that it is almoft needless to endeavour its Defence. They fhine by their own Light 'tis certain: fince 'tis not poffible the Light of the Sun fhould be fent to them, and tranfmitted again to Us. For the Sun's Rays would be fo diffipated, before they reached fuch remote Objects, that the best Eyes in the World could not thereby discover them. We fee, for all his Bulk, how faintly Saturn fhines in refpect of the fixed Stars; and yet his Distance from the Sun is almoft nothing compar'd with that of the nearest of them. Their Distance, is fo immenfe, that the beft Telescopes fhew them but as meer Points, inftead of magnifying them, as they do any Objects within a measurable Distance, how great foever. Mr. Huygens computes,

that