And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also. Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Ver. 16,17. He made also the stars.] To be receptacles of that first light, whence they are called "stars of light," Psa 148:3 and to work upon inferior bodies, which they do by their motion, light, and influence, efficiendo imbres, ventos, grandines, procellas, sudum, &c., by causing foul or fair weather, as God appoints it. Stars are the storehouses of God's good treasure, which he openeth to our profit. Deu 28:12 By their influence they make a scatter of riches upon the earth, which good men gather, and muckworms scramble for. Every star is like a purse of gold, out of which God throws down riches and plenteousness into the earth. "The heavens" also are "garnished" by them; Job 26:13 they are, as it were, the spangled curtain of the bridegroom's chamber, the glorious and glittering rough-cast of his heavenly palace, the utmost court of it, at least, from the which they twinkle to us, and teach us to remember our and their Creator, who in them makes himself visible, nay "palpable" ψηλφησειαν , Act 17:27 His wisdom, power, justice, and goodness are lined out unto us in the brows of the firmament; the countenance whereof we are bound to mark, and to discern the face of the heavens, which therefore are somewhere compared to a scroll that is written. "The heavens," those catholic preachers, "declare the glory of God," &c.; "their line," saith David; Psalms 19:1 ; קילם , Hab 3:3 "their voice," saith Paul, citing the same text φηογγος , Rom 10:18 is gone out throughout all the earth; they are real postils of his divinity. These, nay, far meaner creatures, teach us, as Balaam's ass did that mad prophet; 2Pe 2:16 to this school are we now put back, as idle truants to their A B C. Only let us not, as children, look most on the babies on the backside of our books; gaze not, as they do, on the gilded leaves and covers, never looking to our lessons; but as travellers in a foreign country, observe and make use of everything, not content with the natural use of the creature, as brute beasts, but mark how every creature reads us a divinity lecture, from the highest angel to the lowest worm.