hority or physical Foundation, it may be we may like it ne'er the
worse for that; that when God made the Stars and all the Heavenly
Luminaries, the _Devil_, to mimick his Maker and insult his new
Creation, made Comets, in Imitation of the fix'd Stars; but that the
Composition of them being combustible, when they came to wander in the
Abyss, rolling by an irregular ill-grounded Motion, they took Fire, in
their Approach to some of those great Bodies of Flame, _the fix'd
Stars_; and being thus kindled (like a Fire-work unskilfully let off)
they then took wild and excentrick, as also different Motions of their
own, out of Satan's Direction, and beyond his Power to regulate ever
after.

Let this Thought stand by it self, it matters not to our purpose whether
we believe any thing of it, or no; 'tis enough to our Case, that if
Satan had any such Power then, he has no such Power now, and that leads
me to enquire into his more recent Limitations.

I am to suppose, he and all his Accomplices being confounded at the
Discovery of the new Creation, and racking their Wits to find out the
meaning of it, had at last (_no matter how_) discover'd the whole
System, and concluded, _as I have said_, that the Creature, _call'd
Man_, was to be their Successor in the Heavenly Mansions; upon which I
suggest that the first Motion of Hell was to destroy this new Work, and,
if possible, to overwhelm it.

But when they came to make the Attempt, they found their Chains were not
long enough, and that they could not reach to the Extremes of the
System: They had no Power either to break the Order, or stop the Motion,
dislocate the Parts, or confound the Situation of Things; they
traversed, no doubt, the whole Work, visited every Star, landed upon
every Solid, and sail'd upon every Fluid in the whole Scheme, to see
what Mischief they could do.

Upon a long and full Survey, they came to this Point in their Enquiry,
that in short they could do nothing by Force; that they could not
displace any Part, annihilate any Atom, or destroy any Life in the whole
Creation; but that as Omnipotence had created it, so the same
Omnipotence had arm'd it at all Points against the utmost Power of Hell,
had made the smallest Creature in it invulnerable, as to _Satan_; so
that without the Permission of the same Power which had made _Heaven_,
and conquer'd the _Devil_, he could do nothing at all, as to destroying
any thing that God had made, no, not the little diminutive