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]
When we have seen that glorious lamp of heaven, the great ruler of the day, gone so far from us that we scarcely knew how to stand before the cold, how has his return revived and cheered us, visiting the frozen earth with his friendly beams, infusing a genial warmth into every creature, and inspiring us with the pleasing hope of once more enjoying those various fruits of the earth, which are the liberal gifts of an indulgent Providence! It is the Divine Being who commands the sun to rise, who, “coming out of his chamber” in the east, rejoices as a strong man to run a race. Again, he bids this glorious orb to withdraw, and obscure his beauty behind thick clouds, or sink below the western ocean; when, behold, the day is covered with darkness, and night succeeds. At his sovereign command, the glowing summer recedes, and winter approaches with chilling aspect. “He sends his snow like wool, and scattereth his hoar frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?” He then recalls the solar influence, scatters the inauspicious clouds, thaws the frozen ridges of the field; the corn springs up and flourishes, and the heart of man rejoices with the pleasing hope of a plenteous harvest. Thus does the almighty Creator, and beneficent Governor of the world, order and regulate the constant succession of the seasons; his Providence over-rules and directs the whole movement, and nothing can come to pass without his superintendence.
Reason, as well as supernatural revelation, asserts the reality of a Divine providence. The happiest inquirers into the phenomena of nature have discovered that every thing is made with the justest proportion, and that the whole machine is directed according to the most exact rules: but they have also perceived a power above and beyond the energy of natural principles, and which could not possibly be accounted for any other way than by admitting an immediate act or influence of the supreme Being. In the revolving of the celestial orbs, we observe an exact agreement with the established laws of mechanism: but, yet, there is a force demonstrable in them which is altogether immechanical; and, consequently, immediately issuing from God himself.
The remarks made by Dr. A. Clarke on this point, will, it is presumed, gratify the intelligent reader. “The double motion of a primary planet, namely, its annual revolution and diurnal rotation, is one of the greatest wonders the science of astronomy presents to our view.—The laws which regulate the latter of these motions are so completely hid from man, notwithstanding his present great extension of philosophic research, that the times which the planets employ in their rotations can only be determined by observation. How is it that two motions, so essentially different from each other, should be in the same body, at the same time, without one interfering at all with the other?—No astronomer, since the foundation of the world, has been able to demonstrate that the earth’s motion in the heavens is at all accelerated or retarded by the diurnal rotation; or, on the other hand, that the earth’s motion on its axis experiences the least irregularity from the annual revolution.”
The rotation of the earth round its own axis, from west to east, once in 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds, is the cause of the distinction between day and night, by bringing the different parts of the earth’s surface successively into, and from under the solar rays. And the revolution of the earth round the sun, from any equinox or solstice to the same point again, in 365 days, 48 minutes, 48 seconds, produces the agreeable vicissitudes of the seasons, and measures the length of our year. For though the revolution is that of the earth, yet both the hours of the day and night, the different lengths of the days and nights, and the seasons of the year, cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies. Thus the earth has a two-fold motion, like a chariot-wheel; for while it goes forward on its annual journey, it is still in its diurnal motion turning upon its own centre. But it differs from the motion of a chariot-wheel in this: that its hourly motion in its orbit is 75,222 miles; and that by the motion upon its axis, the inhabitants on the equator are carried after the rate of 1,042 miles an hour, and those upon the parallel of London 580 miles.
The Dr. proceeds, “How wonderful is this contrivance! and what incalculable benefits result from it! The uninterrupted and equable diurnal rotation of the earth gives us day and night in their succession, and the annual revolution causes all the varied scenery of the year. If one motion interfered with the other, the return of the day and night would be irregular; and the change of seasons attended with uncertainty to the husbandman. These two motions are, therefore, harmoniously impressed upon the earth, that the gracious promise of the great Creator might be fulfilled, ’While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.’
“The double motion of a secondary planet is still more singular than that of its primary; for (taking the moon for an example) besides its particular revolution round the earth, which is performed in 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 4½ seconds; it is carried round the sun with the earth once a year. Of all the planetary motions, with which we have a tolerable acquaintance, that of the moon is the most intricate: upwards of twenty equations are necessary, in the great majority of cases, to reduce her mean to her true place; yet not one of them is derivable from the circumstance that she accompanies the earth in its revolution round the sun. They depend on the different distances of the earth from the sun in its annual revolution, the position of the lunar nodes, and various other causes, and not on the annual revolution itself, a motion which, of all others, might be expected to cause greater irregularities in her revolution round the earth than could be produced on that of the latter by the planetary attractions. Who can form an adequate conception of that influence of the earth which thus draws the moon with it round the sun, precisely in the same manner as if it were a part of the earth’s surface, notwithstanding the intervening distance of about 240,000 miles; and, at the same time, leaves undisturbed the moon’s proper motion round the earth? And what beneficent purposes are subserved by this harmony? In consequence of it, we have the periodical returns of new and full moon; and the ebbing and flowing of the sea, which depend on the various lunar phases, with respect to the sun and earth, (as if demonstrable from each of these phases being continually contemporaneous with the particular phenomenon of the tides,) always succeed each other with a regularity necessarily equal to that of the causes which produce them. Thus we see that God is continually present, supporting all things by his energy, and that, while his working is manifest, his ways are past finding out.”
Thomson, in his descriptive, philosophical, moral, and religious poem, admirably well delineates the revolving seasons.