Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A28966
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The excellency of theology compar'd with natural philosophy (as both are objects of men's study) / discours'd of in a letter to a friend by T.H.R.B.E. ... ; to which are annex'd some occasional thouhts about the excellency and grounds of the mechanical hypothesis / by the same author.
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Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
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1674
(1674)
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Wing B3955; ESTC R32857
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109,294
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312
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as an ordinary Recompense may exceed a cup of cold water And indeed God's Goodness is so Great and his Treasures so Unexhausted that as He is forward to recompence even the least Services that can be done Him so He is able to give the Greatest a proportionable Reward Solomon had an Opportunity such as never any Mortal had that we know of either before or since of satisfying his Desires whether of Fame or any other Thing that he could wish Ask what I shall give thee was the proffer made him by Him that could give All things worth Receiving and yet the Wisdom even of Solomon's choice approv'd by God Himself consisted in declining the most ambition'd things of this Life for those things that might the better qualifie him to serve and please God And to give you an example in a Greater than Solomon we may consider that He who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God and who by leaving Heaven did to dwell on earth quit more than any Inhabitant of the Earth can to gain Heaven and deny'd more to become Capable of being tempted than he did when he was tempted with an offer of All the Kingdoms of the world and the Glory of them This Saviour I say is said in Scripture to have for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross and despised the shame as if Heaven had been a sufficient Recompence for even His Renouncing Honours and Embracing Torments He that declines the Acquist of the Applause of men for the Contemplation of the Truths of God does but forbear to gather that whilst 't is immature which by waiting God's time he will more seasonably gather when 't is full ripe and wholesome and sweet That immarcescible Crown as St. Peter calls it which the Gospel promises to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour will make a rich amends for the declining of a Fading Wreath here upon Earth where Reputation is oftentimes as undeservedly acquir'd as lost Whereas in Heaven the very having Celestial Honours argues a Title to them And since 't is our Saviour's Reasoning That His Disciples ought to rejoyce when their Reputation is pursued by Calumny as well as their Lives by Persecution because their reward is great in Heaven we may justly infer That the Grounded Expectation of so illustrious a Condition may bring us more Content even when 't is not attended with a present Applause than this Applause can give those who want that comfortable Expectation So that upon the whole matter we have no reason to despond or to complain of the Study of Theology for but making Us decline an empty and transitory Fame for a solid and eternal Glory The Conclusion BY this time Sir I have said as much as I think fit and therefore I hope more than upon your single account was necessary to manifest that Physeophilus had no just cause to undervalue the study of Divinity nor our Friend the Doctor for addicting himself to it I hope you have not forgotten what I expressly enough declar'd at the beginning of this Letter That both your Friend and you admitting the holy Scriptures I knew my self thereby to be warranted to draw Proofs from their Authority And if I need not remind you of this perhaps I need not tell you by way of Apology that I am not so unacquainted with the Laws of Discoursing but that if I had been to argue with Atheists or Scepticks I should have forborn to make use of divers of the Arguments I have imploy'd as fetch'd from unconceded Topicks and substituted others for such as yet I think it very allowable for me to urge when I deal with a Person that as your Friend does onely undervalue the study of the Scriptures not reject their Authority And if the prolixity I have been guilty of already did forbid me to increase it by Apologies not absolutely necessary I should perchance rather think my self obliged to excuse the plainness of the Style of this Discourse which both upon the Subject's score and yours may seem to challenge a richer Dress But the matter is very serious and you are a Philosopher and when the things we treat of are highly important I think Truths clearly made out to be the most perswasive pieces of Oratory And a Discourse of this Nature is more likely to prove Effectual on Intelligent Perusers by having the Reasons it presents perspicuously propos'd and unprejudic'dly entertain'd than by their being pathetically urg'd or curiously adorn'd And I have the rather forborn expressions that might seem more proper to move than to convince because I foresee I may very shortly have occasion to employ some of the former sort in another Letter to a Friend of yours and mine who will I doubt make you a sharer in the trouble of reading it But writing this for you and Physeophilus I was far more sollicitous to give the Arguments I imploy a good temper than a bright gloss For even when we would excite Devotion if it be in rational men the most effectual pieces of Oratory are those which like Burning-glasses inflame by nothing but numerous and united Beams of Light If this Letter prove so happy as to give you any satisfaction it will thereby bring me a great one For prizing you as I do I cannot but wish to see you Esteem those things now which I am confident we shall always have cause to esteem and then most when the Light of Glory shall have made us better Judges of the true worth of things And it would extremely trouble me to see you a Disesteemer of those Divine things which as long as a man undervalues the Possession of Heaven it self would not make him happy And therefore if the Blessing of Him whose Glory is aim'd at in it make the Success of this Paper answerable to the Wishes the Importance of the Subject will make the Service done you by it suitable to the Desires of SIR Your most Faithful most Affectionate and most Humble Servant FINIS ERRATA IN the Introduction p. 2 l. 18. point thus else our p. 51. l. 17. r. Corpuscularian p. 114. l. 3. r. Theology for Philosophy p. 133. l. 10. r. yet many of ibid. l. 19. r. else do but. p. 201. l. 12. point thus predecessors did unanimously teach ABOUT THE EXCELLENCY AND GROUNDS Of the MECHANICAL HYPOTHESIS Some Considerations Occasionally propos'd to a Friend By T. H. R. B. E. Fellow of the Royal Society LONDON Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman at the Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange 1674. The Publisher's ADVERTISEMENT THe following Paper having been but occasionally and hastily pen'd long after what the Author had written by way of Dialogue about the Requisites of a good Hypothesis it was intended that if it came forth at all it should do so as an Appendix to that Discourse because though one part of it
seems to be but as it were the Crust or Scurf But what the Internal part of this Globe is made up of is no less disputable than of what Substance the remotest Stars we can descry consist For even among the modern Philosophers some think the internal Portion of the Earth to be pure and Elementary Earth which say they must be found there or no where Others imagine it to be Fiery and the Receptacle either of Natural or Hellish Flames Others will have the Body of the Terrestrial Globe to be a great and solid Magnet And the Cartesians on the other side though they all admit store of Subterraneal Loadstones teach that the same Globe was once a Fix'd Star and that though it have since degenerated into a Planet yet the Internal part of it is still of the same Nature that it was before the change it has received proceeding onely from having had its outward parts quite cover'd over with thick spots like those to be often observ'd about the Sun by whose Condensation the firm Earth we inhabit was form'd And the mischief is that each of these jarring Opinions is almost as difficult to be demonstratively prov'd False as True For whereas to the Centre of the Earth there is according to the modestest account of our late Cosmographers above three thousand and five hundred miles my Inquiries among Navigators and Miners have not yet satisfi'd me that mens Curiosity has actually reached above one mile or two at most downwards and that not in above three or four places either into the Earth or into the Sea So that as yet our Experience has scarce grated any thing deep upon the Husk if I may so speak without at all reaching the Kernel of the Terraqueous Globe And alas what is this Globe of ours of which it self we know so little in comparison of those vast and Luminous Globes that we call the Fix'd Stars of which we know much less For though former Astronomers have been pleased to give us with a seeming accurateness their Distances and Bignesses as if they had had certain ways of measuring them yet Later and Better Mathematicians will I know allow me to doubt of what Those have deliver'd For since 't is confess'd that we can observe no Parallax in the Fix'd Stars nor perhaps in the highest Planets men must be yet to seek for a Method to measure the distance of those Bodies And not onely the Copernicans make it to be I know not how many hundred thousands of miles greater than the Ptolomeans and very much greater than even Tycho but Ricciolus himself though a great Anti-Copernican makes the distance of the Fix'd Stars vastly greater than not onely Tycho but if I mis-remember not than some of the Copernicans themselves Nor do I wonder at these so great Discrepances though some amount perhaps to some millions of miles when I consider that Astronomers do not measure the distance of the Fix'd Stars by their Instruments but accommodate it to their particular Hypotheses And by this uncertainty of the remoteness of the Fix'd Stars you will easily gather that we are not very sure of their Bulk no not so much as in reference to one another since it remains doubtful whether the differing Sizes they appear to us to be of proceed from a real Inequality of Bulk or onely from an Inequality of Distance or partly from one of those causes and partly from the other But 't is not my design to take notice of those Things which the famous Disputes among the Modern Astronomers manifest to be dubious For I consider that there are divers things relating to the Stars which are so remote from our knowledge that the Causes of them are not so much as disputed of or inquired into such as may be among others Why the number of the Stars is neither greater nor lesser than it is Why so many of those Celestial Lights are so plac'd as not to be visible to our naked eyes nor even when they are help'd by ordinary Telescopes which extraordinary good ones have assured me of Why among the familiarly visible Stars there are so many in some parts of the Sky and so few in others Why their Sizes are so differing and yet not more differing Why they are not more orderly plac'd so as to make up Constellations of regular or handsome Figures of which the Triangle is perhaps the single Example but seem to be scatter'd in the Skie as it were by Chance and have as confus'd Configurations as the Drops that fall upon ones Hat in a shower of Rain To which divers other Questions might be added as about the Stars so about the Interstellar part of Heaven which several of the Modern Epicureans would have to be empty save where the beams of Light and perhaps some other Celestial Effluvia pass through it and the Cartesians on the contrary think to be full of an Aethereal matter which some that are otherwise favourers of their Philosophy confess they are reduc'd to take up but as an Hypothesis So that our knowledge is much short of what many think not onely if it be consider'd Intensively but Extensively as a Schoolman would express it For there being so great a disproportion between the Heavens and the Earth that some Moderns think the Earth to be little better than a Point in comparison even of the Orb of the Sun and the Cartesians with other Copernicans think the great Orb it self which is equal to what the Ptolomeans call'd the Sun's Orb to be but a Point in respect of the Firmament and all our Astronomers agree that at least the Earth is but a Physical Point in comparison of the Starry Heaven Of how little extent must our knowledge be which leaves us ignorant of so many things touching the vast Bodies that are above us and penetrates so little a way even into the Earth that is beneath us that it seems confin'd to but a small share of the superficial part of a Physical Point Of which consideration the natural result will be that though what we call our Knowledge may be allowed to pass for a high Gratification to our minds it ought not to puff them up and what we know of the System and the Nature of things Corporeal is not so perfect and satisfactory as to justifie our despising the Discoveries of Spiritual things One of the former parts of this Letter may furnish me with one thing more to evince the Excellencies and Prerogatives of the knowledge of the Mysteries of Religion and that One thing is such that I hope I shall need to add nothing More because it is not possible to add any thing Higher and that is That the Preeminence above other Knowledge adjudg'd to that of Divine Truths by a Judge above all Exception and above all Comparison namely by God himself This having been but lately shown I shall not now repeat it but rather apply what hath been there evinc'd by representing that if He