Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. Subserviency of Heavenly bodies. ^*The Sun, the heart of the world, is not for it self but for the good of the World, as the heart of man is for the good of the body. How conveniently is the Sun placed, at a distance from the Earth, and the upper Heavens, to enlighten the Stars above and enliven the Earth below? If it were either higher or lower, one part would want its influences. Tis not in the higher parts of the Heavens; the Earth then which lives and fructifies by its influence would have been exposed to a perpetual Winter and chilness, unable to have produced any thing for the sustenance of man or beast. If seated lower, the Earth had been parched up, the world made uninhabitable and long since had been consumed to ashes by the strength of its heat. Consider the motion as well as the Situation of the Sun. Had it stood still, one part of the World had been cherished by its beams, and the other left in a desolate Widow-hood, in a disconsolate darkness. Besides, the Earth would have had no shelter from its perpendicular beams striking perpetually and without any remission upon it. The same incommodities would have followed upon its fixedness as upon its too great nearness. By a constant day the beauty of the Stars had been obscured, the knowledge of their motions been prevented, and a considerable part of the Glorious wisdom of the Creator in those choice works of his fingers ^*had been veiled from our eyes. It moves in a fixed line, visits all parts of the Earth, scatters in the day its refreshing blessings in every creek of the Earth, and removes the mask from the other beauties of Heaven in the night, which sparkle out to the glory ⟨p. 23⟩of the Creator. It spreads its Light, warms the Earth, cherisheth the Seeds, excites the Spirit in the Earth, and brings Fruit to maturity. View also the Air, the vast extent between Heaven and Earth, which serves for a Water-course, a Cistern for water, to bedew the face of the Sun-burnt Earth, to satisfy the desolate ground and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth. ^*Could Chance appoint the Clouds of the Air to interpose as fans between the scorching heat of the Sun, and the faint bodies of the Creatures? Can that be the Father of the Rain or beget the drops of dew?