Page:Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's life.djvu/156

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useful on many accounts, the starry canopy.

and this perhaps may give us some

being a very distant view of that luminous plain, like the ring of Saturn, extending all around & beyond us.

the plane of Saturns ring the same.

& thus we may be said to have before our eyes an actual view of God's infinite wisdom, power, & goodness: not a mental idea only, but real prospect; and that of the largest scope. & tis to be consider'd withal that God's infinite wisdom shines forth in highest lustre, in this particular construction of the universe. what would have been the consequence had infinite space quaquaversum been disseminated with worlds? we see every night, the inconvenience of it. The whole hemisphere would have had the appearance of that luminous gloom of the milky way. we should have lost the present sight of the beauty & the glory of the starry firmament. & therefore we may well conclude the great architect has herein truly united infinite wisdom, power, & goodness; in thus planning out the worlds; without robbing us of that most magnificent view we enjoy, and no less