314 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



distance from us, which causes the apparent 

 magnitude of the earth's annual course to be- 

 come evanescent. So great, in short, is this 

 divine fabric of the great and good God;"* 

 " this best and most regular artificer of the uni- 

 verse," as he elsewhere speaks. 



Kepler was the person, who by further study- 

 ing " the connexion of the motions and magnitude 

 of the orbs," to which Copernicus had thus drawn 

 the attention of astronomers, detected the laws of 

 this connexion, and prepared the way for the dis- 

 covery, by Newton, of the mechanical laws and 

 causes of such motions. Kepler was a man of 

 strong and lively piety ; and the exhortation 

 which he addresses to his reader before entering 

 on the exposition of some of his discoveries, may 

 be quoted not only for its earnestness but its 

 reasonableness also. " I beseech my reader, that 

 not unmindful of the divine goodness bestowed on 

 man, he do with me praise and celebrate the wis- 

 dom and greatness of the Creator, which I open 

 to him from a more inward explication of the form 

 of the world, from a searching of causes, from a 

 detection of the errors of vision : and that thus, 

 not only in the firmness and stability of the 

 earth he perceive with gratitude the preservation 

 of all living things in nature as the gift of God, 

 but also that in its motion, so recondite, so ad- 

 mirable, he acknowledge the wisdom of the 



* Lib. i. ex. 



