THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 



completely baffles the mathematician s skill, and 

 sets the power of numbers at defiance. &quot; Lan 

 guage,&quot; and figures, and comparisons, are &quot; lost 

 in wonders so sublime,&quot; and the mind, over 

 powered with such reflections, is irresistibly led 

 upwards, to search for the cause in that OMNI 

 POTENT BEING who upholds the pillars of the 

 universe the thunder of whose power none can 

 comprehend. While contemplating such august 

 objects, how emphatic and impressive appears 

 the language of the sacred oracles, &quot; Canst thou 

 by searching find out God ? Canst thou find out 

 the Almighty to perfection ? Great things doth 

 he, which we cannot comprehend. Thine, O 

 Lord, is the greatness, and the glory, and the 

 majesty ; for all that is in heaven and earth is 

 thine. Among the gods there is none like unto 

 thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like 

 unto thy works. Thou art great, and dost won 

 drous things ; thou art God alone. Hast thou 

 not known, hast thou not heard, that the ever 

 lasting God, the Lord, the Creator of all things, 

 fainteth not, neither is weary ? there is no search 

 ing of his understanding. Let all the earth fear 

 the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world 

 stand in awe of him ; for, he spake, and it was 

 done; he commanded, and it stood fast.&quot; 



Again, the immense spaces which surround the 

 heavenly bodies, and in which they perform their 

 revolutions, tend to expand our conceptions on 

 this subject, and to illustrate the magnificence of 

 the Divine operations. In whatever point of 

 view we contemplate the scenery of the heavens, 

 an idea of grandeur irresistibly bursts upon the 

 mind ; and, if empty space can, in any sense, 

 be considered as an object of sublimity, nothing 

 can fill the mind with a grander idea of magni 

 tude and extension, than the amplitude of the 

 scale on which planetary systems are construct 

 ed. Around the body of the sun there is allot 

 ted a cubical space, 3,600 millions of miles in 

 diameter, in which eleven planetary globes re 

 volve every one being separated from another, 

 by intervals of many millions of miles. The space 

 which surrounds the utmost limits of our system, 

 extending in every direction, to the nearest fixed 

 stars, is, at least, 40,000,000,000 ,000 miles in 

 diameter ; and, it is highly probable, that every 

 star is surrounded by a space of equal, or even 

 of greater extent. A body impelled with the 

 greatest velocity which art can produce, a can 

 non ball, for instance would require twenty years 

 to pass through the space that intervenes between 

 the earth and the sun, and four millions, seven 

 hundred thousand years, ere it could reach the 

 nearest star. Though the stars seem to be 

 crowded together in clusters, and some of them 

 almost to touch one another, yet the distance be- 

 *ween any two stars which seem to make the 

 nearest approach, is such as neither words can 

 express, nor imagination fathom. These im 

 mense spaces are as unfathomable on the one 



hand, as the magnitude of the bodies which 

 move in them, and their prodigious velocities, are 

 incomprehensible on the other ; and they form a 

 part of those magnificent proportions according 

 to which the fabric of universal nature was ar 

 ranged all corresponding to the majesty of that 

 infinite and incomprehensible Being, &quot; who 

 measures the ocean in the hollow of his hand, and 

 meteth out the heavens with a span.&quot; How 

 wonderful that bodies at such prodigious distances 

 should exert a mutual influence on one another .* 

 that the moon at the distance of 240.CCO miles 

 should raise tides in the ocean, and currents in 

 the atmosphere ! that the sun, at the distance of 

 ninety-five millions of miles, should raise the va 

 pours, move the ocean, direct the course of the 

 winds, fructify the earth, and distribute light, and 

 heat, and colour, through every region of the globe ; 

 yea, that his attractive influence, and fructifying 

 energy, should extend even to the planet Her- 

 schel, at the distance of eighteen hundred millions 

 of miles ! So that, in every point of view in 

 which the universe is contemplated, we perceive 

 the same grand scale of operation by which the 

 Almighty has arranged the provinces of his uni 

 versal kingdom. 



We would now ask, in the name of all that is 

 sacred, whether such magnificent manifestations 

 of Deity ought to be considered as irrelevant in 

 the business of religion, and whether they ought 

 to be thrown completely into the shade, in the 

 discussions which take place in religious topics, 

 in &quot; the assemblies of the saints ?&quot; If religion 

 consists in the intellectual apprehension of the 

 perfections of God, and in the moral effects pro 

 duced by such an apprehension if all the rays 

 of glory emitted by the luminaries of heaven, ai^ 

 only so many reflections of the grandeur of Him 

 who dwells in light unapproachable if they have 

 a tendency to assist the mind in forming its con 

 ceptions of that ineffable Being, whose uncreat 

 ed glory cannot be directly contemplated and if 

 they are calculated to produce a sublime and 

 awful impression on al created intelligences. 

 shall we rest contented with a less glorious idea 

 of God than his works are calculated to afford ? 

 Shall we disregard the works of the Lord, and 

 contemn &quot; the operations of his hands,&quot; and 

 that, too, in the face of all the invitations on ihis 

 subject, addressed to us from heaven ? For thus 

 saith Jehovah : &quot; Lift up your eyes on high, and 

 behold, who hath created these things, &quot;who 

 bringeth forth their host by number. I, the Lord, 

 who maketh all things, who stretcheth forih the 

 heavens alone, and spread abroad the earth by him* 

 self ; all their host have I commanded.&quot; And, if, 

 at the command of God, we lift up our eyes to 

 the &quot; firmament of his power,&quot; surely we ought 

 to do it, not with a brute, unconscious gaze,&quot; not 

 with the vacant stare of a savage, not as if w 

 were still enveloped with the mists and prejudices 

 of the dark ages but as surrounded by that 1&amp;gt;17 



