hundred thousand years before it could reach the nearest of those twinkling luminaries! Can any thing be more wonderful than these observations? Yes: there are truths far more stupendous, there are scenes far more extensive. As there is no end of the Almighty Maker's greatness, so no imagination can set limits to his creat ing hand.-Could you soar beyond the moon, and pass through all the planetary choir; could you wing your way to the highest apparent star, and take your stand on one of those loftiest pinnacles of Heaven; you would there see other skies expanded; another sun, distributing his inexhaustible beams by day; other stars, that gild the horrors of the alternate night; and other †, perhaps nobler, systems established; established, in unknown profusion, through the boundless dimensions of space. -Nor does the dominion of the universal Sovereign terminate there. Even at the end of this vast tour you would find yourself advanced no farther than the suburbs of creation, arrived only at the frontiers of the great Jehovah's kingdom 1. See Religious Philosopher, p. 819. + See Astro-Theology, book ii. chap. 9.-Where the author, having assigned various reasons to support this theory of our modern astronomers, adds," Besides the "fore-mentioned strong probabilities, we have this farther "recommendation of such an account of the universe, "that it is far more magnificent, and worthy of the in"finite Creator, than any other of the narrower schemes," Job, after a most beautiful dissertation on the mighty works of God; as they are distributed through universal nature, from the heights of heaven, to the very depths of hell; closes the magnificent account with this acknow ledgment; Lo! these are parts of his ways: or, as the original word more literally signifies, and may, I think, be more elegantly rendered; These are only the skirts, the very outermost borders of his works: no more than a small preface to the immense volume of the creation. From the Hebrew Typ extremitates, I cannot forbear thinking on the extreme and very attenuated fibres of the root, when compared with the whole substance of the trunk, or on the exquisitely small size of the capillary vessels, when compared with the whole structure of the body. Job xxvi, 14. And do they tell me, that the sun, the moon, and all the planets, are but a little part of His works? How great, then, are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders-And if so, what is the Creator himself! how far exalted above all praise! Who is so high that he looks down on the highest of these dazzling spheres, and sees even the summit of creation in a vale: so great, that this prodigious extent of space is but a point in his presence, and all this confluence of worlds as the lightest atom that fluctuates in air and sports in the meridian ray t! Thou most sublime and incomprehensibly glorious God! how am I overwhelmed with awe! how sunk into the lowest prostration of mind, when I consider thy "excellent greatness" and my own utter insignificancy!-And have I, excessively mean as I am, have I entertained any conceited apprehensions of myself? have I felt the least elatement of thought in the presence of se majestic and adorable a being? How should this wound me with sorrow and cover me with Dan. iv. 3. + This puts me in mind of a very fine remark on a scriptural beauty; and a solid correction of the common translation; made by that learned, sagacious, and devout expositor Vitringa.-Isai. xl. 16. We find it written of the Supreme Being, that he taketh up the isles as a very little thing: which, our critic observes, is neither answerable to the import of the original, nor consonant to the structure of the discourse. The prophet had no intention to inform mankind what the Almighty could do, with regard to the islands, if he pleased to exert uncontrollable power: bis design was to shew, how insignificant, or rather what mere nothings they are, in his esteem, and before his majesty. The islands, says he, though so spacious, as to afford room for the erection of kingdoms, and the abode of nations; though so strong, as to withstand, for many thousands of years, the raging and reiterated assaults of the whole watery world; are yet, before the adored Jehovab, small as the minutest grain, which the eye can scarce discern; light as the feathered mote, which the איים כדק יטול-.least breath hurries away like a tempest Insule sunt ut leve quid, quod avolat: The deep-rooted islands are as the volatile atom, which, by the gentlest undulations of the air, is wafted to and fro in perpetual agitation, confusion!-O my God! was I possessed of all the high perfections which accomplish and adorn the angels of light; amidst all these noble endow. ments, I would fall down in the deepest abasement at thy feet: lost in the infinitely superior blaze of thy uncreated glories, I would confess myself to be nothing; to be less than nothing, and vanity. How much more ought I to maintain the most unfeigned humiliation before thy Divine Majesty, who am not only dust and ashes, but a compound of ignorance, imperfection, and de pravity! While, beholding this vast expanse, I learn my own extreme meanness; I would also discover the abject littleness of all terrestrial things.What is the earth, with all her ostentatious scenes, compared with this astonishingly grand furniture of the skies? what, but a dim speck, hardly per ceivable in the map of the universe? It is observed, by a very judicious writer, that if the sun himself, which enlightens this part of the creation, was extinguished, and all the host of planetary worlds which move about him, were annihilated, they would not be missed by an eye that can take in the whole compass of nature, any more than a grain of sand upon the sea shore: the bulk of which they consist, and the space which they occupy, is so exceedingly little, in comparison of the whole, that their loss would scarce leave a blank in the immensity of God's works. If, then, not our globe only, but this whole system, be so very diminutive, what is a kingdom or a county? What are a few lordships, or the so much admired patrimonies of those who are styled wealthy t? When I measure them with my own little pittance, they swell into proud and * Spect. Vol. viii. No. 565. + Juvat inter sidera vagantem divitum pavimenta ridere, & totam cum auro suo terram. Sen. bloated dimensions; but, when I take the universe for my standard, how scanty is their size, how contemptible their figure! they shrink into pompous nothings. When the keen-eyed eagle soars above all the feathered race, and leaves their very sight below : when she wings her way, with direct ascent, up the steep of Heaven; and, steadily gazing on the meridian sun, accounts its beaming splendors all her own; does she then regard, with any solicitude, the mote that is flying in the air, or the dust which she shook from her feet? And shall this eternal mind, which is capable of contemplating its Creator's glory, which is intended to enjoy the visions of his countenance; shall this eternal mind, endued with such great capacities, and made for such exalted ends, be so ignobly ambitious as to sigh for the tinsels of state, or so poorly covetous as to gasp after ample territories on a needle's point?-No: under the influence of such considerations, I feel my sentiments expand, and my wishes acquire a turn of sublimity: my throbbing desires after worldly grandeur die away; and I find myself, if not possessed of power, yet superior to its charms.-Too long, must I own, have my affections been pinioned by vanity, and immured in this earthly clod: but these thoughts break the shacklest; these objects. open the door of liberty: my soul, fired by such noble prospects, weighs anchor from this little nook, and coasts no longer about its contracted shores, dotes no longer on its painted shells; the *Terrellæ grandia inania. Watts's Her. Lyr. There, disencumber'd from her chains, the ties Night Thoughts, No. IX. immensity of things is her range, and an inf nity of bliss is her aim. Behold this immense expanse, and admire the condescension of thy God.-In this manner an inspired and princely astronomer improved his survey of the nocturnal heavens: When I consider thy heavens, even the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, I am smitten with wonder at thy glory, and cry out in a transport of gratitude, Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? How amazing, how charming, is that "divine benignity, which is pleased to bow down "its sacred regards to so foolish and worthless a "creature! Yea, disdains not, from the height of "infinite exaltation, to extend its kind providen"tial care to our most minute concerns!-This is amazing. But that the everlasting Sovereign "should give his Son, to be made flesh, and be "come our Saviour! Shall I call it a miracle of "condescending goodness? Rather, what are all "miracles, what are all mysteries, to this ineffable "gift!" Had the brightest archangel been commissioned to come down, with the olive-branch of peace in his hand, signifying his eternal Maker's readiness to be reconciled; on our bended knees, with tears of joy, and a torrent of thankfulness, we ought to have received the transporting news: but when, instead of such an angelic envoy, he sends his only begotten Son, his Son beyond all thought illustrious, to make us the gracious overture:sends him, from the "habitation of his holiness "and glory," to put on the infirmities of mortality, and dwell in a tabernacle of clay :sends him, not barely to make us a transient visit, but to abide many years in our inferior and miserable world:-sends him, not to exercise domi Psal. viii. 5, 4. |