Astronomical and commercial discourses

Preface

The astronomical objection against the truth of the Gospel, does not occupy a very prominent place in any of our Treatises of Infidelity. It is often, however, met with in conversation — and we have known it to be the cause of serious perolexity and alarm in minds anxious for the solid estabushment of their religious faith.

There is an imposing splendour in the science of Astronomy ; and it is not to'be wondered at, if the light it throws, or appears to throw, over other tracks of speculation than those which are properly its own, should at times dazzle and mislead an inquirer. On this account, we think it were a service to what we deem a true and a righteous cause, could we succeed in dissipating this illusion, and in stripping Infidelity of those pretensions to enlargement, and to a certain air of philosophical greatness, by which it has often become so destructively alluring to the young, and the ardent, and the ambitious.

In my first Discourse, I have attempted a eketch of the Modern Astronomy — nor have I wished to throw any disguise over that comparative littleness which belongs to our planet, and which fi PREFACS.

gives to the argument of Freethinkers all iti

plausibility.

This argument involves in it an assertion and an mference. The assertion is, that Christianity is a religion which professes to be designed for the single benefit of our world ; and the inference is, that God cannot be the author of this religion, for He wouJd not lavish on so insignificant a field, such peculiar and such distinguishing attentions, as are ascribed to Hitn in the Old and New Testament.

Christianity makes no such profession. That it is designed for the single benefit of our world is altogether a presumption of the Infidel himself — and feeling that this is not the only example of temerity which can be charged on the enemies of our faith, I have allotted my second Discourse to the attempt of demonstrating the utter repugnance of such a spirit with the cautious and enlightened philosophy of modern times.

In the course of this Sermon I have offered a tribute of acknowledgment to the theology of Sir Isaac Newton ; and in such terms, as if not farther explained, may be liable to misconstruction. The grand circumstance of applause in the character of this great man, is, that unseduced by all the magnificence of his own discoveries, he had a solidity of mind which could resist their fascination, and keep him in steady attachment to that Book, whose general evidences stamped upon it the impress of A real communication from Heaven. This was the sole attribute of his theology which I had in my eye when I presumed to eulogize it. I do not think, that, amid the distraction and the engross

PREFACE. tH

ment o^ his other pursuits, he has at all times succeeded in his interpretation of the Book ; else he would never, in my apprehension, have abetted the l^iding doctrine of a sect or a system, which has now nearly dwindled away from public observation.

In my third Discourse I am silent as to the assertion, and attempt to combat the inference that is founded on it. I insist, that upon all the analogies of nature and of providence, we can lay no limit on the condescension of God, or on the multiplicity of his regards even to the very humblest departments of creation ; and that it is not for us, who see the evidences of divine wisdom and care spread in such exhaustless profusion around us, to say, that the Deity would not lavish all the wealth of His wondrous attributes on the salvation even of our solitary species.

At this point of the argument, I trust that the intelligent reader may be enabled to perceive, in the adversaries of the Gospel, a twofold dereliction from the maxims of the Baconian philosophy : that, in the lirst instance, the assertion which forms the groundwork of their argument, is gratuitously fetched out of an unknown region, where they are utterly abandoned by the light of experience ; and that, in the second instance, the inference they urge from it is, in the face of manifold and undeniable truths, all lying v/ithin the safe and accessible field of human observation.

In my subsequent Discourses, I proceed to the informations of the Record. The Infidel objection drawn from Astronomy, may be considered as by chis time disposed of; and if we have succeeded in clearing it away, so as to deliver the Christian testimony from all discredit upon this ground, then may we submit, on the strength of other evidences, to be guided by its information. We shall thus learn, that Christianity has a far more extensive bearing on the other orders of creation, than the Infidel is disposed to allow ; and, whether he will own the authority of this information or not, he will at least be forced to admit, that the subjectmatter of the Bible itself is not chargeable with that objection which he has attempted to fasten upon it.

Thus, had my only object been the refutation of the Infidel argument, I might have spared the last Discourses of the Series altogether. But the tracks of Scriptural information to which they directed me, I considered as worthy of prosecution on their own account — and I do think, that much may be gathered from these less observed portions of the field of revelation, to cheer, and to elevate, and to guide the believer.

But in the management of such a discussion as this, though for a great degree of this effect it would require to be conducted in a far higher style than I am able to sustain, the taste of the human mihd may be regaled, and its understanding put into a state of the most agreeable exercise. Now, this is quite distinct from the conscience being made to feel the force of a personal application; nor could I either brin.g this argument to itii close in the pulpit, or offer it to the general notice of the world, without adverting, in the last Discourse, to a delusion, \\hich, I fear, is carrying forward thousands, and tens of thousands, to an undone eternity.

I have closed the Series with an Appendix of Scriptural Authorities. I found that I could not easily interweave them in the texture of the Work, and have, therefore, thought fit to present them in a separate form. I look for a twofold benefit from this exhibition — first, to those more general readers, who are ignorant of the Scriptures, and of the richness and variety which abound in them — and, secondly, to those narrow and intolerant professors, who take an alarm at the very sound and semblance of philosophy ; and feel as if there was an utterly irreconcilable antipathy between its lessons on the one hand, and the soundness and piety of the Bible on the other. It were well, I conceive, for our cause, that the latter could become a little more indulgent on this subject ; that they gave up a portion of those ancient and hereditary prepossessions, which go so far to cramp and to enthral them ; that they would suffer theology to take that wide range of argument and of illustration which belongs to her ; and that, less sensitively jealous of any desecration being brought upon the Sabbath or the pulpit, they would suffer her freely to announce all those truths, which either serve to protect Christianity from the contempt of science, or to protect the teachers of Christianity from those invasions, which are practised both on the sacredness of the office, and on the solitude of its devotional and intellectual labours.

To these Astronomical Discourses, I have adde.J some others, illustrative of the connexion between

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Theology and General Science. The argument on which we have ventured in one of these Discourses, and by which we attempt to reconcile the efificacy of prayer with the constancy of visible nature, was called forth in opposition to the contemptuous treatment, which certain members of the British Senate thought fit to bestow on the proposal for a National Fast, at a time when the fearful epidemic of cholera had broke forth in various pacta of the couutry.

CONTENTS*

DISCOURSE I.

•* When I consider thy heavenu, the work of thy fio^^ro, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; VThafc ii man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him ?" — Psalm viii. 3, 4. . . .11

DISCOURSE 11.

THE MODESTY OF TR0E SCIBMCB. •* And if any man think that he kuoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. " — 1 Coa. viii. S. 41

DISCOURSE III.

ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVINE CONDESCENSIOM. •• Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high? Who humbleth liimself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth 1" — Psalm cxiiL 6, 6. . '38

DISCOURSE IV.

OH THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MOBAL HISTORT UT THE DISTANT PLACES OF CKEATION.

•• Which things the angels desire to look into." — 1 Pet. LIS. 90 DISCOURSE V.

ON THE SYMPATHY THAT IS FELT FOB MAN IN THE DISTANT PLACES OF CBEATION.

••I say unto you. That likewise joy shall be in heaven ovkt one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nino just persons, which need no repentance," — Luke xv. 7. . IIS

ZU CONTENTS.

DISCOURSE VI.

OK THK COXTE8T FOB AN ASCENDANCY OTEB KAN, AMOVaiT

THE HIGHE& OaDERS OF INTELLIGENCE. " And, having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a ■how of them openly, triumphing over them in it."— Co- LOSSIANS ii. 15 .S3

DISCOURSE VII.

ON THE SLENDER INFLUENCE OF MERE TASTE AND SENBUILIT* IN MATTERS OF RELIGION.

** And, lo ! thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument : for tV.ey hear thy words, but they do them not." — EzEKlEL xxxiii. 32, .... .132

APFENDIX . 181

BXKOUBBES OF A KINDRED CHARACTER WITH THE PRECEDING.

DISCOURSE I.

THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS AN ARGUMENT I OR THE

FAITHFULNESS OF GOD IN HIS WORD.

*' For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Tliy faithfulness IS unto all generations : thou liast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants." — Psalm cxix. 89, 90, 91 203

DISCOURSE II.

ON THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE EFFICACY OF FRAYEB» AND THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE.

** Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last dayi scoffers, walking after their own lusts, — and saying, Where it the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were ii-om the beginning of the creation."— 2 Pjetek iii. 3, 4 SS4

CONTEN'i'S. Xil'

DISCOURSE III.

THB TRANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE THINGS.

* The things which are seen are temporal." — 2 Cor. iv. 18. 263 DISCOURSE IV.

ON THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH.

" Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." — 2 Peter iii. 13. . . .... 280

DISCOURSE V.

THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

"For the kingdom of God i's not in word, but in power." — 1 Coa. iv. 20 300

DISCOURSE VI.

HEAVEN A CHARACTER AND NOT A LOCALITY.

*' He that is unjust, let him he unjust still : and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy still."— Rev. xxii. 11. 320

DISCOURSE VII.

ON THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH.

** But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed."— Oalatxans iii. 23 M9

16 SKETCH OF MODEUN ASTRONOMY.

benefit and application from his arguments. WTiea he wrote an Epistle to a m'xed assembly of Christianized Jews and Gentiles, he had often to direct such a process of argument to the former, as the latter would neither require nor comprehend. Now, what should have been the conduct of the Gentiles at the reading of that part of the Epistle which bore almost an exclusive reference to the Jews ? Should it be impatience at the hearing of something for which they had no relish or understanding? Should it be a fretful disappointment, because every thing that was said, was not said for their edification ? Siiould it be angry discontent with the Apostle, because, leaving them in the dark, he had brought forward nothing for them, tiirough the whole extent of so many successive chapters ? Some of them may have felt in this way ; but surely it would have been vastly more Christian to have sat with meek and unfeigned patience, and to have rejoiced that the great Apostle had undertaken the management of those obstinate prejudices, which kept back so many human beings from the participation of the Gospel. And should Paul have had reason to rejoice, that, by the success of his arguments, he had reconciled one or any number of Jews to Christianity, then it was the part of these Gentiles, though receiving no direct or personal benefit from the arguments, to have blessed God, and rejoiced along with him.

Conceive that Paul were at this moment alive, and zealously engaged in the work of pressing the Christian religion on the acceptance of the various classes of society. Should he not still have acted

SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. M

on the principle of being all things to all men? Should he not have accommodated his discussion to the prevailing taste, and literature, and philosophy of the times ? Should he not have closed with the people, whom he was addressing, on some favourite principle of their own ; and, in the prosecution of ihis principle, might he not have got completely beyond the comprehension of a numerous class of zealous, humble, and devoted Christians? Now, the question is not, how these would conduct themselves in such circumstances? but, how should they do it? Would it be right in them to sit with impatience, because the argument of the Apostle contained in it nothing in the way of comfort or edification to themselves ? Should not the benevolence of the Gospel give a different direction to their feelings? And, instead of that narrow, exclusive, and monopolising spirit, which I fear is too characteristic of the more declared professors of the truth as it is in Jesus, ought they not to he patient, and to rejoice, when to philosophers, and to men of literary accomplishment, and to those who have the direction of the public taste among the upper walks of society, such arguments are addressed as may bring home to their acceptance also, " the words of this life ?" It is under the impulse of these considerations that I have, with some hesitation, prevailed upon myself to attempt an argument, which I think fitted to soften an(i subdue those prejudices which lie at the bottom of what may be called the infidelity of natural science; ii possible to bring over to the humility of the Gospel, those who expatiate with delight or. the won-

IS SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY.

ders and the sublimities of creation ; and to coavince them, that a loftier wisdom still than that even ct their high and honourable acquirements, is the wisdom of him who is resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and the appearances of nature. It has the authority of the Sacred Writers upon its side, and even our Saviour himself gives it the weight and the solemnity of his example. " Behold the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet your heavenly Father careth for them." He expatiates on the beauty of a single flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, and be at the same time alive to the charms and the loveliness of nature.

The Psalmist takes a still loftier flight. He leaves the world, and lifts his imagination to that mighty expanse which spreads above it and around it. He wings his way through space, and wanders in thought over its immeasurable regions. Instead of a dark and unpeopled solitude, he sees it crowded with splendour, and filled with the energy of the Divine presence. Creation rises in its immensity before him ; and the world, with all which it inherits, shrinks into littleness at a contemplation so vast and so overpowering. He wonders that he is not overlooked amid the grandeur and the variety vthicli are on every side of him ; and passing upward frona the majesty of nature to the majesty of nature'? Architect, he exclaims, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him ; or the son of man, that thou ghouldest deign to visit him ?"

It is not for us to say, whether inspiration revealed to the Psalmist the wonders of the modern astronomy. But even though the mind be a perfect stranger to the science of these enlightened times, the heavens present a great and an elevating spectacle — an immense concave reposing upon the circular boundary of the world, and the innumerable lights which are suspended from on high, moving with solemn regularity along its surface. It seems to have been at night that the piety of the Psalmist was awakened by this contemplation, when the moon and the stars were visible, and not when the sun had risen in his strength, and thrown a splendour around him, which bore down and eclipsed all the lesser glories of the firmament. And there is much in the scenery of a nocturnal sky, to lift the soul to pious contemplation. That moon, and these stars, what are they ? They are detached from the world, and they lift us above it. We feel withdrawn from the earth, and rise in lofty abstraction from this little theatre of human passions and human anxieties. The mind abandons itself to reverie, and is transferred in the ecstasy of its thoughts, to distant and unexplored regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of her great elements, and it sees the God of nature invested with llie high attributes of wisdom and majesty.

Bat what can these lights be ? The curiosity of iKe hiunan mind is insatiable; and the mechanism of t^ese wonderful heavens has. in all ages, been its

Suoject and Its employment. It has been reserveil for these latter times, to resolve this great and interesting question. The sublimest powers of philosophy have been called to the exercise, and astronomy may now be looked upon as the most certain and best established of the sciences.

We all know that every visible object appears less in magnitude as it recedes from the eye. The lofty vessel, as it retires from the coast, shrinks into littleness, and at last appears in the form of a small speck on the verge of the horizon. The eagle, with its expanded wings, is a noble object; but when it takes its flight into the upper regions of the air, it becomes less to the eye, and is seen like a dark spot upon the vault of heaven. The same is true of all magnitude. The heavenly bodies appear small to the eye of an inliabitant of this earth, only from the immensity of their distance. When we talk of hundreds of millions of miles, it is not to be listened to as incredible. For remember that we are talking of those bodies which are scattered over the immensity of space, and that space knows no termination. The conception is great and difficult, but the truth is unquestionable. By a process of measurement which it is unnecessary at present to explain, we have ascertained first the distance, and then the n.pgnitude of some of those bodies which roll in t lo firmament ; that the sun which presents itself t'* the eye under so diminutive a form, is really a globe, exceeding, by many thousands of times, the dimensions of the earth w hich we inhabit ; that the moon itself has the magnitude of a world ; and that even a few o* those stars, which appear hke so many lucid poiuta to the unassisted eye of the observer, expand into large circles upon the application of the telescope, and are some of them much larger than the ball which we tread upon, and to which we proudly apply the denomination of the universe.

Now, what is the fair and obvious presumption ? The world in which we live, is a round ball of a determined magnitude, and occupies its own place in the firmament. But when we explore the unlimited tracts of that space, which is every where around us, we meet with other balls of equal or superior magnitude, and from which our earth would either be invisible, or appear as small as any of those twinkling stars which are seen on the canopy of heaven. Why then suppose that this little spot, little at least in the immensity which surrounds it, should be the exclusive abode of life and of intelligence ? What reason to think that those mightier globes which roll in other parts of creation, and which we have discovered to be worlds in magnitude, are not also worlds in use and in dignity ? Why should we think that the great Architect of nature, supreme in wisdom, as He is in power, would call these stately mansions into existence and leave them unoccupied ? When we cast our eye over the broad sea, and look at the country on the other side, we see nothing but the blue land stretching obscurely over the distant horizon. We are too far away to perceive the richness of its scenery, or to hear the sound of its population Why not extend this principle to the still more distant parts of the universe ? What though, from iKift remote point of observation, we can see nothing but the naked roundness of yon planetary orbs? Are we therefore to say, that they are so many vast and unpeopled solitudes ; that desolation reigns in every part of the universe but ours ; that the whole energy of the divine attributes is expended on one insignificant corner of these mighty works ; and that to this earth alone belongs the bloom of vegetation, or the blessedness of life, or the dignity of rational and immortal existence ?

But this is not all. We have something more than the mere magnitude of the planets to allege in favour of the idea that they are inhabited. We know that this earth turns round upon itself; and we observe that all those celestial bodies, which are accessible to such an observation, have the same movement. We know that the earth performs a yearly revolution round the sun ; and we can detect, in all the planets which compose our system, a revolution of the same kind, and under the same circumstances. They have the same succession of day and night. They have the same agreeable vicissitude of the seasons. To them light and darkness succeed each other; and the gaiety of summer is followed by the dreariness of winter. To each of them the heavens present as varied and magnificent a spectacle ; and this earth, the encompassing of which would require the labour of years from one of its puny inhabitants, is but one of the lesser lights which sparkle in their firmament. To them, as well as to us, has God divided the light from the darkness, and he has called the light day, and the darkness he has called night He has said, f-aETCH OF UIODERN ASTIIOSOMY. 23

•«l tbere be ligh^^s in the firmament of theif heaven, to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years ; and let them be for hghts in the firmament of heaven, to give hght upon their earth ; and it was so. And God has also made to them great lights. To all of them he has given the sun to rule the day ; and to many of them has he given moons to rule the night. To them he has made the stars also. And God has set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon their earth ; and to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness ; and God has seen that it was good.

In all these greater arrangements of divine wisdom, we can see that God has done the same things for the accommodation of the planets that he has done for the earth which we inhabit. And shall we say, that the resemblance stops here, because we are not in a situation to observe it ? Shall we say, that this scene of magnificence has been called into being merely for the amusement of a few astronomers? Shall we measure the councils of heaven by the narrow impotence of the human faculties ? or conceive, that silence and solitude reign throughout the mighty empire ol nature ; that the greater part of creation is an empty parade ; and that not a worshipper of the Divinity is to be found through the wide extent of yon vast and immeasurable regions ?

It lends a delightful confirmation to the argu- Baent, when, from the growing perfection of our inatruments, ve can discover a new point 0/

24 SKETCH OF MODEUN ASTRONOMY.

resemblance between our Earth and the other }^

dies of the planetary system. It is now ascerta*m» ed, not merely that all of them have then- day ana night, and that all of them have their vicissitudes of seasons, and that some of them have their moons to rule their night and alleviate the darkness of it ; — we can see of one, that its surface rises into inequalities, that it swells into mountains and stretches into valleys; of another,' that it is surrounded by an atmosphere which may support the respiration Df animals ; of a third, that clouds are formed and suspended ovex it, which may minister to it al' the bloom and luxuriance of vegetation ; and of ^ fourth, that a white colour spreads over its aoithern regions, as its winter advances, and that, on the approach of summer, this whiteness is dissipated — giving room to silf^pose, that the element of water abounds in it, that it rises by evaporation into its atmosphere, that it freezes upon the application of cold, that it is precipitated in the form of snov/, that it covers the ground w'th a fleecy mantle, which melts away from the heat of a more vertical sun ; and that other worlds bear a resemblance to our own, in the same yearly round of beneficent and interesting changes.

Who shall assign a limit to the discoveries of future ages? Who can prescribe to science her boundaries, or restrain the active and insatiable curiosity of man within the circle of his present acquirements ? We may guess with plausibility what we cannot anticipate with confidence. The day may yet be coming, when our instruments of observation shall be inconceivably more powerful riiey may ascertain still more decisive points of resemblance. I'hey may resolve the same question by the evidence of sense, which is now so abundantly convincing by the evidence of analogy. They may lay open to us the unquestionable vestiges of art, and industry, and intelligence. We may see summer throwing its green mantle over these mighty tracts, and we may see them left naked and colourless after the flush of vegetation has disappeared. In the progress of years or of centuries, we may trace the hand of cultivation spreading a new aspect over some portion of a planetary surface. Perhaps some large city, the metropolis of a mighty empire, may expand into a visible spot by the powers of some future telescope. Perhaps the glass of some observer, in a distant 4ge, may enable him to construct the map of another world, and to lay down the surface of it in s& its minute and topical varieties. But there is no end of conjecture ; and to the men of other timesi we leave the full assurance of what we can assert with the highest probability, that yon planetary orbs are so marry worlds, that they teem with life, and that the mighty Being who presides in high authority over this scene of grandeur and astonishment, has there planted the worshippers of His glory.

Did the discoveries of science stop here, we have enough to justify the exclamation of the Psalmist, " What is man, that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou shouldest deign to visit him?" They widen the empire of creation far beyond the hmits which were formerly assigned

VOL. vri. B

26 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTUONOMY.

to it. They give us to see thcat yon sun, throned in the centre of his planetary system, gives light, and warmth, and the vicissitude of seasons, to an extent of surface several hundreds of times greater than that of the earth which we inhabit. They lay open to us a number of worlds, rolling in theii respective circles around this vast luminary — and prove, that the ball which we tread upon, with all its mighty burden of oceans and continents, instead of being distinguished from the others, is among the least of them ; and, from some of the more distant planets, would not occupy a visible point in the concave of their firmament. They let us know, ,that though this miglity earth, with all its myriads o^fipople, were to sink into annihilation, there are 'fipme' worlds where an event so awful to us would unnoticed and unknown, and others where it dd be nothing more than the disappearance ot little star which had ceased from its twinkling. We should feel a sentiment of modesty at this just but humiliating representation. We should learn not to look on our earth as the universe of Goo, b>U one paltry and insignificant portion of it ; that it is only one of the many mansions which the Supreme Being has created for the accommodation of His worshippers, and only one of the many worlds rolling in that flood of light which the sun pours around him to the outer limits of the planetary system.