here called the Gift of God the seed of it is laid in our Nature but there must be a proper disposition of body a right figure of brain and a due temper of blood to give it scope and materials These must also be cultivated by an exact education so that when all these things are laid together it is plain in how many respects Wisdom comes from God There are also particular happy flights and bright minutes which open to men great Landskips and give them a fuller prospect of things which do often arise out of no previous Meditations or chain of thought and these are flashes of light from its Eternal source which do often break in upon pure minds They are not Enthusiasms nor extravagant pretensions but true views of things which appear so plain and simple that when they come to be examined it may be justly thought that any one could have fallen upon them and the simplest are always the likest to be the truest In short a pure mind is both better prepared for an enlightning from above and more capable of receiving it the natural strength of mind is awakened as well as recollected false Biasses are removed and let prophane minds laugh at it as much as they please there is a secret commerce between God and the Souls of good men They feel the influences of Heaven and become both the wiser and the better for them Their thoughts become nobler as well as sreer and no man is of so low a composition but that with a great deal of goodness and a due measure of application he may become more capable of these than any other that is one the same level with him as to his natural powers could ever grow to be if corrupted with Vice and Defilement Knowledge comes next This is that which opens the mind and fills it with great Notions the viewing the Works of God even in a general survey gives insensibly a greatness to the Soul But the more extended and exact the more minute and severe the Enquiry be the Soul grows to be thereby the more inlarged by the variety of Observation that is made either on the great Orbs and Wheels that have their first motion as well as their Law of moving from the Author of all or on the composition of Bodies on the Regularities as well as the Irregularities of Nature and that Mimickry of its heat and motion that Artificial Fires do produce and shew This Knowledge goes into the History of Past Times and Remote Climates and with those livelier Observations on Art and Nature which give a pleasant entertainment and amusement to the mind there are joined in some the severer studies the more laborious as well as the less-pleasant study of Languages on design to understand the sense as well as the discoveries of former Ages and more particularly to find out the true sense of the sacred Writings These are all the several varieties of the most useful parts of Knowledge and these do spread over all the powers of the Soul of him that is capable of them a sort of nobleness that makes him become thereby another kind of Creature than otherwise he ever could have been He has a larger size of Soul and vaster thoughts that can measure the Spheres and enter into the Theories of the Heavenly Bodies that can observe the proportion of Lines and Numbers the composition and mixtures of the several sorts of Beings This World this Life and the mad Scene we are in grow to be but little and inconsiderable things to one of great views and noble Theories and he who is upon the true scent of real and useful Knowledg has always some great thing or other in prospect new Scenes do open to him and these draw after them Discoveries which are often made before even those who made them were either aware or in expectation of them These by an endless Chain are still pointing at or leading into further Discoveries In all those a man feels as sensibly and distinguishes as plainly an improvement of the strength and compass of his powers from the feebleness which ignorance and sloth bring upon them as a man in health of Body can distinguish between the life and strength which accompany it and the flatness and languidness that Diseases bring with them This enlarges a Man's Empire over the Creation and makes it more intirely subject to him by the Engines it invents to subdue and manage it by the dissections in which it is more opened to his view and by the observation of what is profitable or hurtful in every part of it from which he is led to correct the one and exalt the other This leads him into the knowledge of the hidden Vertues that are in Plants and Minerals this teaches him to purify these from the Allays that are wrapped about them and to improve them by other mixtures In a word this lets a man into the Mysteries of Nature It gives him both the Keys that open it and a Thread that will lead him further than he durst promise himself at first We can easily apprehend the surprising joy of one born blind that after many years of darkness should be blest with sight and the leaps and life of thought that such a one should feel upon so ravishing a change so the new Regions into which a true Son of Knowledge enters the new Objects and the various shapes of them that do daily present themselves to him give his mind a flight a raisedness and a resined joy that is of another nature than all the soft and bewitching Pleasures of sense And tho the highest reaches of knowledge do more clearly discover the weakness of our short-sighted powers and shew us difficulties that gave us no pain before because we did not apprehend them so that in this respect he that increases knowledge increases sorrow Yet it is a real pleasure to a Searcher after Truth to be undeceived to see how far he can go and where he must make his stops It is true he finds he cannot compass all that he hath proposed to himself yet he is both in view of it and in the way to it where he finds so many noble Entertainments that though he cannot find out the whole work of God which the Preacher tells us that though a wise man thinks he may know it yet even he shall not be able to find it out yet he has this real satisfaction in himself that he has greater Notions nobler Views and finer Apprehensions then he could have ever fallen upon in any other method of life This knowledge though it may seem to be meerly the effect of thought of labour and industry yet it is really the gift of God The capacity of our Powers and the disposition of our Minds are in a great measure born with us The circumstances and accidents of our lives depends so immediately upon Providence that in all these respects Knowledge comes at least in the
A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE HONOURABLE Robert Boyle AT St. MARTINS in the Fields JANUARY 7. 1691 2 By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARUM LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Iohn Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCII ECCLES II. 26. For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom knowledge and joy WHEN the Author of this Book the Wisest of Men applied his heart to know and to search to seek out wisdom and the reason or nature of things and summed up the Account of all Article by Article one by one to find out the thread of Nature and the Plann of its great Author tho his Soul sought after it yet the Riddle was too dark he even he could not discover it But one man among a thousand he did find and happy was he in that discovery if among all the Thousands that he knew he found One counting Figure for so many Cyphers which tho they encreased the Number yet did not swell up the Account but were so many Nothings or less and worse than Nothings according to his estimate of Men and Things We have reason rather to think that by a Thousand is to be meant a vast and indefinite number otherwise it must be confessed that Solomon's Age was indeed a Golden one if it produced one Man to a Thousand that carry only the name and figure but that do not answer the end and excellency of their being The different Degrees and Ranks of Men with relation to their inward powers and excellencies is a surprizing but melancholy Observation Many seem to have only a Mechanical Life as if there were a moving and speaking Spring within them equally void both of Reason and Goodness The whole race of men is for so many years of Life little better than encreasing Puppits many are Children to their Lives end The Soul does for a large portion of Life sink wholly into the Body in that shadow of death Sleep that consumes so much of our time the several disorders of the Body the Blood and the Spirits do so far subdue and master the Mind as to make it think act and speak according to the different ferments that are in the humours of the Body and when these cease to play the Soul is able to hold its tenure no longer all these are strange and amazing speculations and force one to cry out Why did such a perfect Being make such feeble and imperfect Creatures Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain The Secret is yet more astonishing when the frowardness the pride and ill-nature the ignorance folly and fury that hang upon this poor flattered Creature are likewise brought into the Account He that by all his observation and encrease of knowledge only encreaseth sorrow while he sees that what is wanting cannot be numbred and that which is crooked cannot be made straight is tempted to go about and with Solomon to make his heart to despair of all the labour wherein he has travelled But as there is a dark side of Humane Nature so there is likewise a bright one The flights and compass of awakened Souls is no less amazing The vast croud of Figures that lie in a very narrow corner of the Brain which a good memory and a lively imagination can fetch out in great order and with much beauty The strange reaches of the Mind in abstracted Speculations and the amazing progress that is made from some simple Truths into Theories that are the admiration as well as the entertainment of the thinking part of mankind The sagacity of apprehending and judging even at the greatest distance The elevation that is given to Sense and the Sensible powers by the invention of Instruments and which is above all the strength that a few thoughts do spread into the mind by which it is made capable of doing or suffering the hardest things the Life which they give and the Calm which they bring are all so unaccountable that take all together a Man is a strange huddle of Light and Darkness of Good and Evil and of Wisdom and Folly The same Man not to mention the difference that the several Ages of Life make upon him feels himself in some minutes so different from what he is in the other parts of his Life that as the one fly away with him into the transports of joy so the other do no less sink him into the depressions of sorrow He scarce knows himself in the one by what he was in the other Upon all which when one considers a Man both within and without he concludes that he is both wonderfully and also fearfully made That in one side of him he is but a little lower than Angels and in another a little a very little higher than Beasts But how astonishing soever this Speculation of the medly and contrariety in our composition may be it contributes to raise our esteem the higher of such persons as seem to have arisen above if not all yet all the eminent frailties of humane nature that have used their Bodies only as Engines and Instruments to their Minds without any other care about them but to keep them in good case fit for the uses they put them to that have brought their souls to a purity which can scarce appear credible to those who do not imagine that to be possible to another which is so far out of their own reach and whose Lives have shined in a course of many years with no more allay nor mixture than what just served to shew that they were of the same humane nature with others who have lived in a constant contempt of Wealth Pleasure or the Greatness of this World whose minds have been in as constant a pursuit of Knowledge in all the several ways in which they could trace it who have added new Regions of their own discoveries and that in a vast variety to all that they had found made before them who have directed all their enquiries into Nature to the Honour of its great Maker And have joyned two things that how much soever they may seem related yet have been sound so seldom together that the World has been tempted to think them inconsistent A constant looking into Nature and a yet more constant study of Religion and a Directing and improving of the one by the other and who to a depth of Knowledg which often makes men morose and to a heighth of Piety which too often makes them severe have added all the softness of Humanity and all the tenderness of Charity an obliging Civility as well as a melting kindness when all these do meet in the same person and that in eminent degrees we may justly pretend that we have also made Solomon's observation of one man but alas the Age is not so fruitful of such that we can add one among a thousand To such a man the Characters given in the words of my
Text do truly agree That God giveth to him that is good in his sight Wisdom Knowledg and Joy The Text that is here before us does so agree to this that I have read that the Application will be so easie that it will be almost needless after I have a little opened it A man that is good in the sight of God is a Character of great extent Goodness is the probity and purity of the mind shewing it self in a course of sedate Tranquility of a contented state of Life and of Vertuous and Generous Actions A good man is one that considers what are the best Principles of his Nature and the highest powers of his Soul and what are the greatest and the best things that they are capable of and that likewise observes what are the disorders and depressions the inward diseases and miseries which tend really to lesson and to corrupt him and that therefore intends to be the purest the wisest and the noblest Creature that his nature can carry him to be that renders himself as clean and innocent as free from designs and passions as much above appetite and pleasure and all that sinks the Soul deeper into the body that is as tender and compassionate as gentle and good natured as he can possibly make himself to be This is the good man in my Text that rises as much as he can above his body and above this world above his senses and the impressions that sensible objects make upon him that thinks the greatest and best thing he can do is to awaken and improve the seeds and capacities to Vertue and Knowledge that are in his nature to raise those to the Noblest objects to put them into the rightest method and to keep them ever in tune and temper and that with relation to the rest of Mankind considers himself as a Citizen of the whole world and as a piece of Humane Nature that enters into the concerns of as many persons as come within his Sphere without the narrowness or partiality of meaner regards that thinks he ought to extend his care and kindness as far as his capacity can go that stretches the Instances of this to the utmost corners of the earth if occasion is given for it and that intends to make mankind the better the wiser and the happier for him in the succeeding as well as in the present Generation This is the truly Good man in God's sight who does not act a part or put on a Mask who is not for some time in a constraint till the design is compast for which he put himself under that force but is truly and uniformly good and is really a better man in secret than even he appears to be since all his designs and projects are worthy and great And Nature Accidents and Surprizes may be sometimes too quick and too hard for him yet these cannot reach his heart nor change the setled measures of his life which are all pure and noble And tho the errors of this good man's conduct may in some things give advantages to bad men who are always severe censurers yet his unspeakable comfort is That he can make his secret Appeals to God who knows the whole of his heart as well as the whole of his life and tho here and there things may be found that look not quite so well and that do indeed appear worst of all to himself who reflects the oftenest and thinks the most heinously of them yet by measuring Infinite Goodness with his own proportion of it and by finding that he can very gently pass over many and great defects in one whose principles and designs seem to be all pure and good he from that concludes That those allowances must be yet infinitely greater where the Goodness is infinite so being assured within himself that his vitals his inward principles and the scheme and course of his life are good he from thence raises an humble confidence in himself which tho it does not as indeed it ought not free him from having still low thoughts of himself yet it delivers him from all dispiriting fear and sorrow and gives him a firm confidence in the love and goodness of God out of which he will often feel an incredible source of satisfaction and joy springing up in his mind A man who is thus good in the sight of God has as one may truly think happiness enough within himself But this is not all his reward nor is it all turned over into a Reversion We have here a fair particular given us by one that dealt as much both in Wisdom and Folly as ever man did who run the whole compass of pleasure business and learning with the freest range and in the greatest variety and who by many repeated Experiments knew the strong and the weak sides of things He then who had sound the vanity the labour the sore travel and the vexation of spirit that was in all other things the many disappointments that were given by them and the painful reflections that did arise out of them so sensibly that they made him hate life for the sake of all the labour that belonged to it and even to make his heart despair of all the travel he had undergone gives us in these words another view of the effect of true Goodness and of the happy consequences that follow it The first of these is Wisdom not the art of craft and dissimulation the cunning of deceiving or undermining others not only the views that some men may have of the springs of humane nature and the art of turning these which is indeed a Nobler Scene of Wisdom by which Societies are conducted and maintained But the chief acts and instances of true Wisdom are once to form right Judgments of all things of their value and of their solidity to form great and noble thoughts of God and just and proper ones of our selves to know what we are capable of and fit for to know what is the true good and happiness of Mankind which makes Societies safe and Nations flourish This is solid Wisdom that is not mis-led by false appearances nor imposed on by vulgar opinions This was the Wisdom that first brought men together that tamed and corrected their natures and established all the art and good Government that was once in the world but which has been almost totally defaced by the arts of Robbery and Murder the true names for Conquest a specious colour for the two worst things that humane nature is capable of Injustice and Cruelty Wisdom in gross is the forming true Principles the laying good Schemes the imploying proper Instruments and the chusing fit seasons for doing the best and noblest things that can arise out of humane nature This is the defence as well as the glory of Mankind Wisdom gives life to him that hath it it is better than strength and better than weapons of war it is in one word The Image of God and the Excellency of Man It is