The places of the fixed Stars, or their relative situations one from another, have been carefully observed by astronomers, and digested into catalogues. The first among the _Greeks_, who reduced the Stars into a catalogue, was _Hypparchus_, who, from his own observations, and of those who lived before him, inserted 1022 Stars into his catalogue, about 120 years before the Christian _Æra_: This catalogue has been since enlarged and improved by several learned men, to the number of 3000, of which there are a great many telescopical, and not to be discerned by the naked eye; and these are all ranked in the catalogue as the Stars of the seventh magnitude.
It may seem strange to some, that there are no more than this number of Stars visible to the naked eye; for sometimes in a clear night they seem to be innumerable: but this is only a deception of our sight, arising from their vehement sparkling, while we look upon them confusedly, without reducing them into any order; for there can seldom be seen above 1000 Stars in the whole Heavens with the naked eye at the same time; and if we should distinctly view them, we shall not find many but what are inserted upon a good _Celestial_ Globe.
Altho’ the number of Stars that can be discerned by the naked eye are so few, yet it is probable there are many more which are beyond the reach of our optics, for through telescopes they appear in vast multitudes, every where dispersed throughout the whole Heaven; and the better our glasses are, the more of them we still discover. The ingenious Dr. _Hook_ has observed 78 Stars in the _Pleiades_, of which the naked eye is never able to discern above 7; and in _Orion_, which has but 80 Stars in the _British_ catalogue (and some of them telescopical) there has been numbered 2000 Stars.
Those who think that all these glorious bodies were created for no other purpose than to give us a little dim light, must entertain a very slender idea of the Divine Wisdom; for we receive more light from the _Moon_ itself, than from all the _Stars_ put together. And since the _Planets_ are subject to the same laws of motion with our _Earth_, and some of them not only equal, but vastly exceed it in magnitude, it is not unreasonable to suppose, that they are all habitable Worlds. And since the _Fixed Stars_ are no ways behind our _Sun_, either in bigness or lustre, is it not probable, that each of them have a system of _Planetary Worlds_ turning round them, as we do round our Sun? And if we ascend as far as the smallest Star we can see, shall we not then discover innumerable more of these glorious bodies, which now are altogether invisible to us? And so _ad infinitum_, thro’ the boundless space of the universe. What a magnificient idea must this raise in us of the _Divine Being_! Who is every where, and at all times present, displaying his Divine Power, Wisdom and Goodness, amongst all his Creatures!