The Divine Architect appointed the sun and moon the places of their rising, the circuits they were to run, and where they were to go down: he marked out the line in which they were to move through all the different climates of the earth. They instantly obeyed his all-powerful word, and have ever since acted faithfully to his command. In their operations, they measure out our days and nights, distinguish between different periods of time, and produce the several seasons of the year. “With what an awful world-revolving power Were first th’ unwieldy planets launched along Th’ illimitable void! Thus to remain Amid the flux of many thousand years, That oft has swept the toiling race of men And all their labored monuments away, Firm, unremitting, matchless in their course; To the kind tempered change of night and day, And of the seasons ever stealing round, Minutely faithful.” God is the supreme ruler in the kingdom of nature, and the constant changes of day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, are appointed and regulated by his providential influence. This wonderful and stupendous system, consisting of matter, is preserved by motion. Deprive it of motion, and, as a system, it must expire. Who, then, breathed into this amazing combination of things acting together, the life of motion? What power impelled the planets to move, since motion is not a property of the matter of which they are composed? Did not annual observation familiarize it to us (to speak unphilosophically), who that observes the sun going in appearance further from us during six months in succession, and all that time decreasing in light and heat, could ever think that he would again return to us? What hinders his projection into boundless space, till he should appear no larger than a star, or get beyond the reach of our powers of vision? What, but the immediate control of God! for this is a work superior to all created strength, and only to be effected by almighty energy.[126]