Reflections on the Works of God, in the Various Kingdoms of Nature, and on the Ways of Providence, Displayed in the Government of the Universe (Volume

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1808. Excerpt: ... Arrangement or me seasons in the planets. O my Creator, what a sublime idea of thy power. doth this consideration excite! How immeasurable is the extent of thy empire! How unfathomable are the wonders of thy power and of thy goodness! When I figure to myself all those planetary worlds, resembling our globe, where thy glory is manifested in an equal, nay, perhaps in a superior degree, I am lost in astonishment, and all I can do, is to adore th.ee with sentiments of the most profound veneration If then no songsof praise were to ascend to thee from the earth, they would undoubtedly though, from their different proportions of heat, it is credible that beings of our make and temperature could not live upon them. However, even that can scarcely be affirmed of all the planets; for the warmest climate on the planet Mars is not colder than many parts of Norway and Lapland are in the spring and autumn. Jupiter, Saturn, and the Georgiutn-Sidus, it must lie granted, are colder than any of the inhabited parts of our globe. The greatest heat otv the planet Venus exceeds the beat in the island of St. Thomas, on the coast of Guinea, or Sumatra in the East Indies, about as much as the lieat in those places exceeds that of the Orkney Islands, or the city of Stockholm, in Sweden: therefore, at CO deg. north latitude on that planet, if its axis were perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, the heat would not exceed the greatest heat on the earth; and, ol course, vegetation Itke ours might be there carried 0:1, and animals of the species on earth might subsist. If Mercury's axis be supposed to have a like position, a circle of'20 degrees diameter round each pole would enjoy the same temperature as the warmer regions of the earth, though in its hottest climate water would con...