are probably so many funs, it is light they manifeftly dart as far as to our fo diftant globe, as well as what they emit for the enlightening, warming, and cherishing their own respective planets.

But I fhall forbear to launch out into those conjectural matters, and fhall come nearer home into our own system, where we have enough to entertain our eye, to captivate our thoughts, and to excite our highest admiration of these magnificent works of God; whether we furvey the great fountain itself of our light and heat, the fun; its due pofition, and its wonderful use to its planets; and the incomparable provifions that are made to fupply its abfence and greater diftances from them.

And in the first place, as to the fun itself; what power is there that the most extravagant fancy can imagine to itself, that could ever be able to make so prodigious a mafs of fire as the fun is, but only the power of God's almighty hand a body of fo immenfe a bulk as I have fhewn it is, and of fuch an exceffive heat, that no greater number of its rays than what fall within the compass of a two or three inch burning glass, fhall actually burn; and what fall within the

I

compafs

compass of not many feet, fhall far exceed the ftrongest culinary fire in the earth; as is manifeft from its almost inftantaneous burning, and vitrifying the most obdurate incombuftible bodies, fuch as not only green wood, and white bodies, but also stones, bricks, metals, yea gold itself (the hardest of all metals to be wrought upon by fire) which yet is melted down in a few minutes 3.

Thus the infinite power and wifdom of God appear in the appointment and make of that immenfe

The famous burning-concave at Lyons of 30 inches diameter, and others in France and Germany of greater breadths, have been celebrated for their feats in burning, calcining, and vitrifying both metallick and other bodies. But I queftion whether any of them have come up to the burning inftrument contrived by, and made for Sir Ifaac Newton, and by him prefented to the Royal Society. It confifts of feven concave foiled glaffes, each of them 12 inches diameter, which are all fo placed as to have their foci concur in one point. By which means the heat is fo increased, as in a furprising manner to perform the feats here mentioned, and many others furpaffing them.

:

Having mentioned these burning-concaves, it may be of use on feveral occafions, and particularly for the cheap trying of experiments, to take notice of what was related to me by a perfon of very high quality who doing me the honour to talk with me about fuch concaves, told me, that in Germany one Mr. Czhernhaufen, a Silefian gentleman, made divers very large concaves with pafteboard; which were covered over with a kind of paste or foil, that ftrongly reflected the fun's rays. But what their power was, he did not fee.

immenfe body of fire, the fun; a mass wonderful, and worthy of its Maker, whether we confider its immenfity, its exceffive heat, or its abfolute neceffity and great use to us, and to all the reft of its fyftem. But we fhall find yet farther evidences of the great Creator's work in the following chapter.

Vol. II.

Y

CHAP.

CHAP. II.

OF THE DUE POSITION AND DISTANCE OF THE SUN

AND ITS PLANETS.

AS

S the infinite power and wisdom of God appears in the appointment and make of the fun, according to the preceding chapter; fo in this I fhall demonftrate the fame from the due pofition of the fun, among his planets, and his due diftance from each of them.

Now here we may take it for granted, that the fun is the fountain of the light and heat of all the planets, not only of the earth, but of the other planets, that move either about the fun, or the earth: but whether the fun be placed in the centre of its fyftem, or the earth be fo, is of no great confequence here to enquire. But I have all along fuppofed the former to be the most probable hypothefis, and it feems to be ftill more fo, from the confideration we are now upon concerning the community of its light and heat

to all the planets. For fince it is manifeft that what light and heat the planets have, they receive from the fun, it is far more likely that this their fountain of light and heat is placed in the common centre of them, and that they move round about it, rather than it about them.

But be it fo, or not fo, it is however very certain, that all the planets are placed at fuch a due and proper diftance from the fun, that they receive the beneficial rays thereof in a due manner and proportion. There is no great reafon to doubt of this, among the planets that are at greater or leffer diftances from the fun than we, because we find a noble and folemn apparatus anfwerable to their diftances from the fun, which I intend to speak of hereafter. But as for our own terraqueous globe, we have fufficient fignals of the great care and counfel that have been used in the due pofition and distance thereof from the fun. For as to its pofition to the fun, I have heretofore fhewn, that by the inclination of its axis, and its diurnal and periodical revolutions, all parts have a due fhare of light and heat. And as for its diftance, it is fuch as not only prevents, the danger of its interfering with the other globes, as I have formerly obferved, but also it is duly adjusted to the density of the earth and waters, and to the make and tem