The reasonableness and certainty of the Christian religion by Robert Jenkin ...

CHAP. X. Of other Habitable Worlds be∣sides this Earth.

THose who think that there must be other Worlds inhabited besides this Earth, where we dwell, or that else the Planets would be useless, and the Stars, which are like so many Suns, would shine to little purpose, do not consider, that

I. It is as easy for Omnipotence to make a Planet or Star, as it is to make the least thing in Nature.

II. The Glory of God Almighty in mani∣festing his Power and Wisdom, by making and preserving such vast Bodies in their several Orbs and Motions may be a sufficient Reason

for their Creation, tho' his Wisdom should see it fit not to have them inhabited. For tho' every thing be equally easy for God to per∣form, yet men are apt to admire the Works of this kind most. They employ the Wits of many Men in all Ages to consider their End and Nature, and to calculate their Distances and Motions, whose Curiosity might other∣wise be very ill employed: there are some Ge∣nius's design'd, as it were, for these Studies, and they would want Matter to work upon without such Objects.

III. As the Satellites of Jupiter and Sa∣turn, and many of the fixt Stats were not dis∣covered, till the Invention of Telescopes; so there are admirable Marks of Wisdom in ma∣ny other Parts of Nature, which were never known till of late, and never could have been discovered, but by the help of Mycroscopes. But Men are not the only Creatures, which are capable of praising and magnifying God for his wonderful Works: Angels, who know them more perfectly, do it much more; and they have need of no Artificial Instruments to make Discoveries of the Divine Wisdom and Power.

IV. The Stars may be of great Benefit and Usefulness in the World, tho' they neither have that Influence which Astrologers vainly sup∣pose, nor are as Suns to other Earths: For they serve to keep the circumjacent Air or Ae∣ther in Motion, which otherwise would con∣geal

or stagnate; and to maintain that per∣petual Circulation or Fluid Matter, which pas∣ses from Orb to Orb, through the Universe, and gives Life to all Things.

V. Tho' this Earth be but small in compa∣rison of the Ambient Heavens; yet the Inha∣bitants of it, from the Beginning of the World to this time have been exceeding nu∣merous, and may be still vastly more numer∣ous before the end of it. And we must con∣sider the Earth, not as it is at one particular Time, but as it is the Seat of Mankind, and the Habitation of all Generations for all Suc∣cessions of Ages. And under this Notion the Earth is no such contemptible Place, tho' it be very small in respect of the Heavens that sur∣round it. Nor is it strange that the Material World, how capacious soever it be, should be made for Mankind, to whom the Angels are Ministring Spirits, and for whom the Son of God himself was pleased to die.

VI. There are few or none of the Planets, but what by reason of their too near or too remote Distance from the Sun, seem incapable of being inhabited. M. Huygens in his Con∣jectures concerning the Planetary Worlds, says, that this (x) Water of our Earth would in Saturn and Jupiter be frozen up immediately, and in Venus and Mercury it would be evapo∣rated; and he concludes, that every Planet must have its Waters of such a Temper, as to be proportioned to its Heat; Jupiter's and

Saturn's must be of such a Nature, as not to be liable to Frost, and Venus's and Mercuries of such, as not to be easily evaporated by the Sun. He says, (xx) That the Heat of the Sun is nine times greater in Mercury than with us: in Venus it is twice as hot as with us, the Light and Heat in Mars is twice, and sometimes three∣fold less than ours. If there were any Inhabi∣tants in Jupiter, they would have but the five and twentieth Part of the Light and Heat, that we receive from the Sun, and those in Saturn but the hundreth Part. Upon which account he is very hard put to it to furnish out Inhabitants for the rest of the Planets: but as for the Moon, and the Satellites's moving about Saturn and Jupiter, he does as good as give up the Cause, by reason that they are neither Seas, nor Rivers, nor Clouds, nor Atmosphere or Vapours, nor any kind of Water. Besides, that the time of Light and Darkness in the Moon being equal to fifteen of our Days, if the Bodies of the Inhabitants were such as ours are, he observes, that those who had the Sun pretty high in their Horizon must be like to be burnt up in such long days, and those that liv'd under the Poles of the Moon, would be as much pinch'd with Cold; as our Whale fishers are about Ice-Land and Nova Zembla in the Summer-time. And the Summer and Winter in the Moons or Satellites of Saturn are fifteen Years long; and therefore they may well be concluded to be unhabitable: But because it may be alledg'd,

that the same thing was believed of the Fri∣gid and Torrid Zones, before Experience con∣vinced Men of their Mistake; and that, how∣ever, there may be other Planets or Earths yet undiscovered, at convenient Distances from some of the fixt Stars: I observe, that tho it should be granted, that some Planets be habita∣ble, it doth not therefore follow, that they must be actually inhabited, or that ever they have been. For they might be design'd, if Man∣kind had continued in Innocency, as Places for Colonies to remove Men to, as the World should have encreased, either in Reward to those that had excell'd in Vertue and Piety, to en∣tertain them with the Prospect of New and Better Worlds; and so by degrees, to advance them in proportion to their Deserts, to the Heigth of Bliss and Glory in Heaven; Or as a necessary Reception for Men (who would then have been immortal) after the Earth had been full of Inhabitants. And since the Fall and Mortality of Mankind, they may be either for Mansions of the Righteous, or Places of Punishment for the wicked, after the Resur∣rection, according as it shall please God, at the End of this World to new modify and transform them. And in the mean time, be∣ing placed at their respective Distances, they do by their several Motions contribute to keep the World at a Poise, and the several Parts of it at an Aequilibrium in their Gravitation up∣on each other, by Mr. Newton's Principles.

VII. It has been suggested by (x) Learned Men, that the Planets may possibly be inha∣bited by Rational Creatures of a different Na∣ture from Mankind: their Souls may be of an inferior or superior Order to ours, and their Bodies of a different Form and Composition, and there may be different Laws of Union and Communication between the Operations of their Souls and the Motions of their Bodies: For there is no necessity to believe, that there can be no sort of Rational Animals but Man∣kind.

But I offer most of what I have said on this Subject, only as Conjectures, which have at least so much Probability in them, as to si∣lence the Objections brought against the Scri∣ptures on these Accounts. For unless a Man can prove these or the like Conjectures false, which I am perswaded no man can ever do, he must forbear urging Objections, that will be insignificant, if these Conjectures, or such as these, should be true. It is hard to assign e∣very particular End and Use of many other wonderful Things in Nature, but lately dis∣covered by Microscopes, as of any thing ob∣servable in the Heavens, either by the naked Eye, or by Telescopes. And when the Scri∣ptures mention those Uses of the Heavenly Bodies, which more immediately concern our Earth, this doth not deny or exclude any other Uses, for which they may be design'd.

Notes

• (x)

  Lib. 1.
• (xx)

  Lib. 2.
• (x)

  Cam∣panella Bp. Wilkins, &c. Huy∣gens, &c.