without any the leaft Intermiffion, Interruption or Disorder that we know of? What Motion, what Contrivance, what piece of Clockwork was there ever under the whole Heavens, that ever came up to fuch

perfection, and that had not fome Stops or fome Deviations, and many Imperfections? But yet nonę was ever fo ftupid as to conclude fuch a Machine (though never fo imperfect) was made by any other than fome rational Being, fome Artift that had Skill enough for fuch a Work. As he in Cicero (a) argues from his Friend Pofidonius's piece of Watch-work, that fhewed the Motions of the Sun, Moon and five Erraticks; that if it had been carried among the Scythians or Britains, Quis in illà barbarie dubitet, quin

(a) De Nat. Deor. L. 2. c. 34.

ea

ea Sphæra fit perfecta Ratione? with more to the fame purpose: No Man even in that State of Barbarity would make any doubt, whether it was the workmanship of Reason or no (b). And is there less Reason to imagine thofe Motions I have been treating of to be other than the Work of God, which are infinitely more constant and regular than those of Man ! Or to use the laft mentioned Stoick's Argument, can it be thought that Archimedes was able to do more in imitating the Motions of the Heavens (in his Sphere) than Nature in effecting them?

And now to reflect upon the whole, and fo conclude what hath been faid concerning these feveral Motions: We may all along perceive in them fuch manifest signals

(b) See the Place cited at large in my PhyficoTheology, p. 2.

of

of a divine Hand, that they all feem, as 'twere, to confpire in the Demonftration of their infinite CREATOR and ORDERER. For befides what in all probability is in other parts of the Universe, we have a whole Syftem of our own, manifeftly proclaiming the Workmanship of its Maker. For we have not thofe vaft and unwieldy Maffes of the Sun, and its Planets, dropt here and there at random, and moving about the great Expanfum, in uncertain Paths, and at fortuitous Rates and Measures, but in the compleatest manner, and according to the stricteft Rules of Order and Harmony; so as to answer the great Ends of their Creation, and the divine Providence ; to dispatch the noble

Offices of the feveral Globes; to perform the great Works of Nature in them; to comfort and cherifh every thing refiding on them,

by those useful Changes of Day and Night, and the several Seasons of the Year.

These things are fo evident to the Reason of all Men, that Tully might well make his Stoick to alledge this as one of his principal Arguments for the proof of a Deity (c); The fourth Caufe, faith he, and that even the chief, is the Equality of the Motion, and the Revolution of the Heavens; the Diftinction, Utility, Beauty and Order, of the Sun, Moon, and all the Stars: The bare View alone of which things is fufficient to demonftrate them to be no Works of Chance. As if any own should come into an Houfe, the Gymnafium, or Forum ; when he should see the Order, Manner and Management of every Thing, be could never judge these things to be

(c) De Nat. Deor. L. 2. c. 5.

done

done without an Efficient, but must imagine there was fome Being prefiding over them, and whofe Orders they obeyed. So much more in fo great Motions, fuch Viciffitudes, and the Orders of fo many and great things; a Man cannot but conclude, that fuch great Acts of Nature are governed by Jome Mind, fome intelligent Being.

And fo again afterwards (Chap. 21.) when, among other things, he had been speaking of the Motions of the Planets, he thus argues, I cannot poffibly understand, faith he, how all this Conftancy can be among the Stars; this fo great Agreement of Times thro' all Eternity, among fuch various Courfes (how this can be) without fome Mind, Reafon and Counfel. And a little after this, fpeaking of the Fixt Stars, he faith, But the perennial, and perpetual Courfes of thofe Stars, together with their admirable and incredible Conftancy, de

clare