thoughts as these; what good influences ought I to dispense to those that have dependence on me! The apocryphal Book of Wisdom does wisely, to call the light of the Sun, an image of the divine goodness.

The diameter of the earth is near eight thousand miles; and the diameter of the great orbit ten thousand diameters of the earth. This great orbit or the orbit of the earth, in its annual revolution about the Sun, Dr. Gregory makes the semidiameter of it 94,696,969 English miles: which is the distance of the earth from the Sun. But the semi-diameter of Saturn's orbit is no less than ten times as great. All astronomers before Kepler, supposed this orbit a perfect circle; but he has proved it an ellipsis. If our solar system have such large dimensions, and if every fixed star be a Sun, that has a system, of the like dimensions perhaps, belonging to it: great is our God, and greatly to be praised: his greatness is unsearchable! How is it possible to consider the grandeur of our God, without annihilating ourselves before Him, or without horror at the view of the matchless evil, in sinning against so glorious a majesty !

It is a passage in a little treatise, entitled, the Book of Nature; not unworthy to be transcribed here: "If thou never observe the sky with thine eyes, but to guess at rain and fair weather; or if thy looking up to heaven be bounded with the starry firmament; and if thou removest from thee the love and honour of God, and the contemplation of Him who dwelleth in the heavens, thou hast no cause to raise thyself above the brutes, thy fellow inhabitants of this lower world."

How glorious will the righteous be in that world, when they shall shine as the Sun ?

ESSAY V. Of SATURN.

ALL the primary planets move about the Sun, as their common centre. They move with different velocities: but there is this common law observed in all of them; that the squares of the times of their revolutions, are proportional to the cubes of their distances. And the secondary planets observe the same law in their motions. about their primary planets. And another common law with them, is, that lines drawn from the foci of the curves they move in, to their bodies, will sweep over equal areas in equal times on the planes of other orbits. Who but the great God could make and fix these laws? Lord, they continue this day according to thine ordinances, for all are thy servants.

It is now found, that Saturn, besides his round body, has also a luminous ring, which encompasses him, as the horizons of our artificial globes do usually encompass them; and is flat upon the verge, as they use to be. The ring shews itself in an oval, and at certain times it wholly disappears. It appears not, however, that Saturn revolves upon his own centre.

When this planet appears at 20 deg. 30 min. of Pisces and of Libra, then it is that he appears round; or without his ansæ, as they are called, which is once in fifteen years; or half his course, which every one knows to be completed in thirty years, or 10,950 days.

The ring seems to be opaque and solid, encompassing the planet, but no where touching it. The diameter of it is two and a quarter of Saturn's diameters; and the distance of the ring from the planet is about the breadth of the ring itself. Mr.

Hugens takes the breadth of the ring to be about six hundred German miles.

The proportion of the body of Saturn to the Earth, is that of 30 to 1. The distance of Saturn from the Sun is about ten times as great as the distance of our Earth from him; and by consequence, that planet will not have above an hundredth part of that influence from the Sun, which this Earth enjoys.

The ring of Saturn, being distant from him no more than 2 of his semidiameters, it cannot be seen at the distance of 64 degrees from Saturn's equator, in whose plane the ring is placed. So that there is a zone of almost 53 degrees broad, towards either pole, to which this famous ring does never appear. Saturn is attended with five satellites. The first satellite makes a revolution about Saturn in 1 day, 21 hours, and 19 minutes; and makes two conjunctions with Saturn in less than two days. It is distant from the centre of Saturn 4 of his semidiameters. The second makes his revolution in 2 days, 17 hours, and 43 minutes. It is distant from Saturn 5 semidiameters of the planet. The third is distant from Saturn 8 of his semidiameters, and makes his revolution in almost 4 days. The fourth revolves in 15 days, 22 hours, 41 minutes. It is distant from the centre of Saturn about 18 of his semidiameters. The fifth is distant from the centre of Saturn 54 of his semidiameters, and revolves. about him in 79 days.

Mr. Huygens, who first of all discovered the fourth, (for which cause it is called the Huygenian satellite, though Dr. Halley afterwards corrected the theory of its motion) thinks, the mighty dis

tance between the fourth and fifth satellites to be a ground for suspicion, that there may be a sixth between them, or that the fifth may be attended with some of his own. On the revolutions of the planets, the incomparable sir Richard Blackmore, in his noble poem of Creation, thus moves us to consider the first cause of all:

Saturn in thirty years his ring completes,
Which swifter Jupiter in twelve repeats.
Mars three and twenty months revolving spends,
The Earth in twelve her annual journey ends.
Venus, thy race in twice four months is run:
For his Mercurius three demands; the Moon
Her revolution finishes in one.

If all at once are mov'd, and by one spring,
Why so unequal is their annual ring?

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The motions of the heavenly bodies can be produced and governed by none but an infinite God. It is well argued by Lactantius: "There is indeed a power in the stars, of performing their motions; but that is the power of God who made and governs all things, not of the stars themselves that are moved." And by Plato before him; "Let us think, how it is possible for so prodigious a mass to be carried round for so long a time by any natural cause? For which reason I assert God to be the cause, and that it is impossible it should be otherwise.

ESSAY VI. Of JUPITER.

JUPITER, according to Cassini's measures, must be greater than that of the Earth, by 2460 times. The periodical time of his revolution about the Sun, is 12 years, or 4380 days.

In the body of Jupiter, and over his luminous part, there are observed three darkish belts, like

the spots which appear in the Moon. These belts or girdles are near straight and parallel, and extending from east to west, after the manner of the ecliptic. They make a kind of equinoctial with tropics. The southern is larger a little than the northern, and a little nearer to the south than the other is to the north.

Dr. Hook has observed also a small and a dark filament, and the zones growing a little darker, as they draw nearer to the poles. And some have observed in them something of curvity, though their borders are perfectly round.

Jupiter has four satellites, or little moons, waiting on him. The nearest is distant from him, according to Mr. Flamstead's most accurate observations, a little more than five of his semidiameters; and finishes his course in 1 day, 18 hours, 28 minutes, and a few seconds.

The

second is distant from him about 8 of his semidiameters, and finishes his course in 3 days, 13 hours, 17 minutes, and a few seconds. The third is distant from him about 14 of his semidiameters, and finishes his course in 7 days, 3 hours, 59 - minutes, and some seconds. The fourth is distant from him about 24 of his semidiameters, and finishes his course in 16 days, 18 hours, 5 minutes and some seconds. These guards of Jupiter cast a shadow upon him, when they are found interposed between the sun and him.

The fourth would appear to an eye in Jupiter, as big as the moon does to us. A spectator there would have also four kinds of months. In one of Jupiter's years, which is twelve of ours, there would be 2407 of the least months; half that number for the next satellite: the months of the third