p. 10 | The Firmament by Stackhouse

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 7, 1864

The Firmament.

By Stackhouse

LET us cast our eyes up to the firmament, where the rich handiwork of God presents itself to our sight, and ask ourselves some such questions as these: What power built over our heads this vast magnificent arch, and spread out the heavens like a curtain? Who garnished these heavens with such a variety of shining objects, a thousand and ten thousand times ten thousand different stars, new suns, new moons, new worlds, in comparison with which this earth of ours is but a point, all regular in their motions, and swimming in their liquid ether? Who painted the clouds with such a variety of colors, and in such diversity of shades and figures as is not in the power of the finest pencil to emulate? Who formed the sun of such a determinate size, and placed it at such a convenient distance, as not to annoy, but only to refresh us, and nourish the ground with its kindly warmth? If it were larger, it would set the earth on fire; if less, it would leave it frozen; if it were nearer to us, we should be scorched to death; if further from us, we should not be able to live for want of heat. Who then hath made it so commodious a tabernacle, (I speak with the Scriptures and according to the common notion,) out of which it cometh forth, every morning, like a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course? For so many ages past it never failed rising at its appointed time, nor once missed sending out the dawn to proclaim its approach. But at whose voice does it arise, and by whose hand is it directed in its diurnal and annual course, to give us the blessed vicissitudes of day and night, and the regular successions of different seasons? That it should always proceed in the same straight path, and never once be known to step aside; that it should turn at a certain determinate point, and not go forward in a space where there is nothing to obstruct it; that it should traverse the same path back again, in the same constant and regular pace, to bring on the seasons by gradual advances; that the moon should supply the office of the sun, and appear, at set times, to illuminate the air, and give a vicarious light when its brother is gone to carry the day into the other hemisphere; that it should procure, or at least regulate the fluxes and refluxes of the sea, whereby the water is kept in constant motion, and so preserved from putrefaction, and accommodated to man's manifold conveniences, besides the business of fishing and the use of navigation—in a word, that the rest of the planets, and all the innumerable host of heavenly bodies, should perform their courses and revolutions with so much certainty and exactness as never once to fail, but, for almost these 6000 years, come constantly to the same period, in the hundredth part of a minute—is a clear and incontestable proof of a Divine Architect, and of that counsel and wisdom wherewith he rules and directs the universe.—Stackhouse.