CONFERENCE .IV. 517v the workmanship of God, or so considerable a portion of his extensive dominions ? And since we are a sinful race of crea- tures, who have fallen from our original state of holiness, and felicity, why may not the blessed God think fit to make the great- est part of our rebellious world a monument of his just resent - ment against sin, while other numerous ranks of beings abide firm in their duty and in their happiness, and perhaps are con- firmed in their allegiance and felicity, partly by the warning they receive from the revoltand punishment of the inhabitants of this earthly globe. It is generally now agreed by philosophers, that the planet. ail, worlds; such as Mars, Venus, Jupiter, andSaturn; are re- plenishedwith inhabitants, as well as this earth, which is a planet- ary body like themselves. They are placed in such a situation to the sun, which is a central fire, and are carried round it in cer- tain periodsof time, so as to receive light and heatfrom it in pro- pertion to their distances and their revolutions, just as our earth does and they seem to be as proper habitations for a variety of unknown creatures, as the globe on which we tread. Can we suppose, thatthe air, the earth, andthe water all round this our world should be thus replenished every where as it is, with mul- titudes of inhabitants, and all, in some measure, under the domi- nion ofmankind, whose race is propagated and spread all around it, and is there not a much reason to conceive, that these vast bulky bodies, theplanets, which are so well fitted -for`the residence of, animal and intellectual creatures, should be mere waste wil- dernesses, huge solitudes` of lifeless matter, without any vital beings to replenish, possess,and adorn them ? Without any intel- lectual tenants there, who may give God the glory of his works? This seems not only contraryto the dictates of reason, and to the appearances of nature round about us, but to the words of scrip- ture itself ; for the prophet Isaiah tells us, chapter xlv. verse 18, That the God who created the heavens, and formed the earthy and made it, he created it not in - vain; he formed it to-be'inha- bited : Whence the inference is very natural and obvious, that had he not formed it to be the habitation of some creatures, it hadbeen made in vain. And may we not make the same inference concerning those huge planetary globes of Saturn and 'dupiter,`which, perhaps, are two hundred times as big as this earth ? They, surely, are made to be inhabited, and designed for some better and nobler purpose, than merely to give us mortals a little glimmering light in the absence of the moon, to direct a wandering shipat mid- night, and to entertain the curiosity of an astronomer and his spying-glass. These seem to be purposes too low and mead, too little and inconsiderable for-the prodigious vastness of those hea, venly bodies, and the regularity of their situations and motiona xk3
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