P. 49. Piso ib. From the Root Mandihoca that abounds with a very potent Poison there is made not onely excellent Aliment but even Antidote too P. 50. Ex Augustino You ought not to use your Eyes as a Bruit onely to take notice of Provisions for your Belly and not for your Minde Use them as a Man Pry up into Heaven See the things made and enquire the Maker Look upon those things you can see and seek after Him whom you cannot see and believe on Him you cannot see because of those things you see And be not like the Horse and Mule c. P. 75. Epicurus in Epist ad Herod in Laertio As to the Meteors you ought not to believe that there is either Motion or Change or Ecclipse or the rise or setting of them because of any superior President which doth or hath so disposed of it and himself possesses all the while Happiness and Immortal Life Wherefore you must think that when the World was made those implications and foldings of Atoms happen'd which caused this necessity that these Bodies should pass through these Motions There are infinite Worlds some like this some unlike it For since Atoms are infinite as I newly shewed from the infiniteness of the Spaces some in one others in others distant parts of these Spaces far from us variously concur to the making of infinite Worlds P. 75. Lucretius Lib. 5. But how at first when Matter thus was whirl'd Heav'n Earth and Sea the high and lower World The Sun and Moon and all were made I 'le shew For sure the first rude Atoms never knew By sage Intelligence and Councel grave T' appoint the places that all Beings have Nor will I think that all the Motions here Order'd at first by fixt Agreements were But th' Elements that long had beat about Been buffeted now in now carryed out Screw'd into every hole and try'd to take With any thing in any place to make Somewhat at last after much time and coyl Motions and Meetings and a world of toyl Made up this Junto And thus being joyn'd And thus in kinde Embraces firmly twin'd And link'd together they alone did frame Heav'n Earth and Sea and th' Creatures in the same P. 77. Aristot Metaph 12. c. 6. How shall things be mov'd if there be no actual cause For Matter cannot move it self but requires to be mov'd by a Tectonic ' thing-creating Power P. 78. Ciceronis de Thalete He said Water was the Principle of all things but God was that Intelligence that made all things out of Water Ejusdem de Anaxagorâ The delineation and manner of all things he thought to be design'd and made by the power and reason of an infinite Intelligence P. 80. Garcias ab Horto L. 1. simp c. 47. Diamonds which ought to be brought to perfection in the deepest Bowels of the Earth and in a long tract of Time are almost at the top of the Ground and in three or four Years space made perfect For if you dig this Year but the depth of a Cubit you will finde Diamonds and after two Year dig there you will finde Diamonds again P. 93. Arist de Mundo cap. 6. It remains that we speak briefly concerning that 〈◊〉 whose Power preserves and supports all things in like manner as we have compendiously handled other matters For it would seem criminal to pass over the chief part of the World untouch'd having design'd to discourse of the Universe in a Treatise which if less accurate yet certainly may be sufficient for a rough platform of Doctrine Ibid. For God is both the Preserver of all things contain'd in the Universe and likewise the Producer of every thing whatsoever which is any wise made in this World Yet not so as to be sensible of labor after the manner of a Workman or a Creature which is subject to weariness for he is indued with a power which is inferior to no difficulty and whereby he contains all things under his authority even such as seem most distant from him 'T is more magnificent and agreeable to conceive God so resident in the Highest Place that nevertheless his Divine Energy being diffus'd throughout the whole World moves both the Sun and Moon turns round the whole Globe of Heaven and affords the causes of Safety and Preservation of such things as are upon the Earth But to sum up all in brief what the Pilot is in a Ship what the Driver in a Chariot what the chief Singer is in a Dance finally what Magistracy is in a Commonwealth and the General in an Army That is God in the World Unless there be this difference That much toil and manifold cares perplex them but all things are perform'd by God without labor or trouble P. 98. Galen de Plac Hipp Plat Lib. 7. Whereas therefore saith he all Men ascribe that to Art which is made aright in all respects but that which is so only in one or two not to Art but Fortune The structure of our Body gives us cause to admire the excellent Art exactness and power of Nature which fram'd us For our Body consists of above Two hundred Bones to each of which tends a Vein for conveying of nourishment in like manner as to the Muscles which is accompanied with an Artery and a Nerve and the parts are exactly pairs and those plac'd in the right side of an Animal are wholly alike to those in the other Bone to Bone Muscle to Muscle Vein to Vein Artery to Artery and Nerve to Nerve excepting onely the Bowels and some other parts which seem to have a peculiar construction So that the parts of our Body are double and altogether alike among themselves both in greatness and shape as also in consistence which I place in the diversity of softness and hardness As therefore we use to judge of things made by Men acknowledging the skill of a Work-man by the building of a Ship with extraordinary Art so also it behoveth to do in those of God and to admire the Framer of our Body whosoever of the Gods he were although we do not see Him P. 101. Arist de Mundo Cap. 6. 'T is an ancient Tradition saith he diffus'd amongst all Mankinde from our Ancestors That all things were made and produc'd of God and by God and that no Nature can be sufficiently furnish'd for its own safety which is left without the support of God to its own protection P. Ead Thus therefore we ought to conceive of God If we consider His Power He is Omnipotent if His Shape most Beautiful if His Life Immortal and finally if His Virtue most Excellent Wherefore though undiscernable by any corruptible Nature yet He is perceiv'd by such in His Works and indeed those things which are produc'd in the Air by any mutation whatsoever in the Earth or in the Water we ought deservedly to term the Works of God which God is the absolute and soveraign Lord of the World and out of whom
have been deservedly stiled The New World And that whereas the Common Account makes the circuit of this Terrestrial Globe to be no lesse then 22600 Italian miles consisting each of 1000 Geometrical Paces which number the more recent account of the accurate Gassendus makes amount to 26255 Miles of the same measure whereas I say this Globe of Earth and Water seems to us so vast Astronomers teach us that it is but a Point in comparison of the Immensity of Heaven which they not irrationally prove by the Parallaxis or Circular difference betwixt the place of a Star suppos'd to be taken by two Observations the one made at the Centre and the other on the surface of the Earth which Gassendus confesseth to be undiscernable in the fixt Stars as if the Terrestrial Globe were so meer a Point that it were not material whether a fixt Star be look'd upon from the Centre or from the surface of the Earth This may lessen our wonder at the Ptolomaeans making the Sun which seems not half a Foot over to be above a hundred sixty and six times bigger then the Earth and distant from it One thousand one hundred sixty and five Semi-Diameters of the Earth each of which contains according to the afore-mentioned computation of Gassendus 4177 Miles and at their supposing the fixt Stars whose distance the same Author as a Ptolomaean supput's to be 19000 Semi-Diameters of the Earth so great that they conclude each of the fixt or smallest Magnitude to be no less then 18 times greater then the whole Earth each Star of the First or Chief Magnitude to exceed the Tâ—rrestrial Globe 108 times And as for the Coperricans that growing Sext of Astronomers they as their Hypothesis requires suppose the vastness of the Firmament to be exceedingly greater then the Ancients believed it For Philippus Lansbergius who ventur'd to assign Distances and Dimensions to the Planets and Fixt Stars which Copernicus forbore to do supposes as well as his Master that the Great Orb it self as the Copernicans call that in which they esteem the Earth to move about the Sun though its Semi-Diameter be suppos'd to be 1500 times as great as that of the Earth is but as a Point in comparison of the Firmament or Sphere of the Fixt Stars which he supposes to be distant from the Earth no less then 28000 Semi-Diameters of the Great Orb that is 42000000 of Semi-diameters of the Earth or according to the former Computation of common Miles 175434000000 which is a Distance vastly exceeding that which the Ptolomaeans venâ—ur'd to assign and such as even imagination it self can hardly reach to I confess indeed that I am not so well satisfied with the exactness nor perhaps with the Grounds of these kinde of Computations by reason of the Difficulty I have met with in making exact Celestial Observations with either Telescopes or other Instruments sufficiently witness'd by the great disparity remarkable betwixt the Computations of the best-Artists themselves But on the other side I am not sure but that even the Copernicans ascribe not too great a distance to some of the Fixt Stars since for ought we yet know those of the sixth Magnitude and those which our Telescopes discover though our bare Eyes cannot are not really less then those of the first Magnitude but onely appear so by reason of their greater Distance from our Eyes as some Fixt Stars seem no bigger then Venus and Mercury which are much lesser then the Earth And therefore upon such Considerations and because the modestest Computation allows the Firmament to be great enough to make the Earth but a Point in comparison of it it will be safe enough as well as just to conclude with the Psalmist Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable The next Attribute of God that shines forth in his Creatures is his Wisdom which to an intelligent Considerer appears very manifestly express'd in the World whether you contemplate it as an Aggregate or System of all Natural Bodies or consider the Creatures it is made up of both in their particular and distinct Natures and in Relation to each other and the Universe which they constitute In some of these the Wisdom of God is so conspicuous and written in such large Characters that it is legible even to a vulgar Reader But in many others the Lineaments and Traces of it are so delicate and slender or so wrapt up and cover'd with Corporeity that it requires an attentive and intelligent Peruser So numberless a multitude and so great a variety of Birds Beasts Fishes Reptiles Herbs Shrubs Trees Stones Metals Minerals Stars c. and every one of them plentifully furnish'd and endow'd with all the Qualifications requisite to the Attainment of the respective Ends of its Creation are productions of a Wisdom too limitless not to be peculiar to God To insist on any one of them in particular besides that it would too much swell this Discourse might appear injurious to the rest which do all of them deserve that extensive Exclamation of the Psalmist How manifold are thy works O Lord in Wisdom hast thou made them all And therefore I shall content my self to observe in general That as highly as some Naturalists are pleased to value their own knowledge it can at best attain but to understand and applaud not emulate the Productions of God For as a Novice when the curiosest Watch the rarest Artist can make is taken in pieces and set before him may easily enough discern the Workmanship and Contrivance of it to be excellent but had he not been shown it could never have of himself devised so skilful and rare a piece of Work So for instance an Anatomist though when by many and dexterous Dissections of humane Bodies and by the help of Mechanical Principles and Rules without a competent skill wherein a Man can scarce be an Accomplish'd and Philosophical Anatomist he has learn'd the Structure Use and Harmony of the parts of the Body he is able to discern that matchless Engine to be admirably contriv'd in order to the exercise of all the Motions and Functions whereto it was design'd And yet this Artist had he never contemplated a humane Body could never have imagin'd or devis'd an Engine of no greater Bulk any thing near so fitted to perform all that variety of Actions we daily see perform'd either in or by a humane Body Thus the Circular motion of the Blood and structure of the Valves of the Heart and Veins The consideration whereof as himself told me first hinted the Circulation to our Famous Harvey though now Modern Experiments have for the main the Modus seeming not yet so fully explicated convinc'd us of them we acknowledge them to be very expedient and can admire Gods Wisdom in contriving them Yet those many Learned Anatomists that have for many succeeding Ages preceded both Dr Harvey and Columbus Caesalpinus Padre Paulo and Mr Warner
very earnestly Labour to Disswade you from it For I that had much rather have Men not Philosophers then not Christans should be better content to see you ignore the Mysteries of Nature then deny the Author of it But though the Zeale of their Intentions keep Me from harbouring any unfavourable Opinion of the Persons of these Men yet the Prejudice that might redound from their Doctrine if generally received both to the Glory of God from the Creatures and to the Empire of Man over them forbids Me to leave their Opinion unanswer'd though I am Sorry that the Necessity of Vindicating the Study I recommend to You from so Heinous a Crime as they have accus'd it of will compel me to Theologize in a Philosophical Discours Which that I may do with as much Brevity as the Weight and Exigency of my Subject will permit I shall Content my selfe onely in the Explication of my own Thoughts to hint to you the grounds of Answering what is alledg'd against them And First Pyrophilus I must premise That though it may be a Presumption in Man who to use a Scripture Expression Is but of Yesterday and knows Nothing because his Dayes upon the Earth are but as a shadow precisely and peremptorily to define all the Ends and Aimes of the Omniscient God in His Great Work of the Creation Yet perhaps it will be no great venture to suppose that at least in the Creating of the Sublunary World and the more Conspicuous Stars two of God's Principal Ends were the Manifestation of His own Glory and the Good of Men. For the First of these The Lord hath made all things for himselfe saies the Preacher For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things saies the Apostle And Thou hast Created all things and for Thy Pleasure they are and were Created say the Twenty foure Prostrate Elders Representatives perhaps of the whole Church of both Testaments propagated by the Twelve Patriarchs and the like number of Apostles to their Creatour which Truth were it requisite might be further confirmed by several other Texts which to decline needlesse prolixity I here forbear to insist on Consonantly to this we hear the Psalmist Proclaiming that The Heavens Declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his Handy-Works To which purpose we may also observe that though Man were not Created till the close of the Sixt Day the Resident's Arrival being Obligingly Suspended till the Palace was made ready to entertain Him yet that none of God's works might want Intelligent Spectators and Admirers the Angels were Created the First Day as Divines generally infer from the Words of God in Job Where wast thou when I laid the Foundations of the Earth and a little after When the Morning Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for Joy Where by the Morning Stars and Sons of God are suppos'd to be meant the newly Created Angels one of whose earliest exercises was it seems to applaud the Creation and take thence occasion to sing Hymnes to the Almighty Author of it I should not Pyrophilus adde any thing further on this subject but that having since the writing of these thoughts met with a Discourse of Seneca's very consonant to some of them I suppose it may tend to your delight as well as to their advantage if I present you some of the Truths you have seen in my courser Languag drest up in his finer and happier Expressions Curiosum nobis saith he natura ingenium dedit artis sibi pulchritudinÃsque conscia spectatores nos tantis rerum spectaculis genuit perditura fructum sui si tam magna tam clara tam subtiliter ducta tam nitida non uno genere formosa solitudini ostenderet Ut scias illam spectari voluisse non tantum aspici vide quem locum nobis dedit nec erexit tantummodo hominem sed etiam ad contemplationem Viae facturum ut ab ortu sidera in occasum labentia prosequi posset vultum suum circumferre cum toto Sublime illi fecit caput collo flexibili imposuit Deinde sena per diem sena per noctem signa produxit nullam non partem sui explicuit ut per haec quae obtulerat ejus oculis cupiditatem faceret etiam caeterorum nec enim omnia nec tanta visimus quanta sunt sed acies nostra aperit sibi investigando viam fundamenta veri jacit ut inquisitio transeat ex apertis in obscura aliquid ipso Mundo inveniat Antiquius And least you might be offended at his mentioning of Nature and silence of God give me leave to informe you that about the close of the Chapter immediately preceding that whence the Passage you come from Reading is transcrib'd having spoken of the Enquiries of Philosophers into the Nature of the Universe he adds Haec qui contemplatur quid Deo praestat ne tanta ejus Opera sine teste sint And to proceed to that which we have formerly assign'd for the Second End of the Creation That much of this Visible World was made for the use of Mâ—n may appear not only from the time of his Creation already taken notice of and by the Commission given to the first Progenitors of Mankind to replenish the Earth and subdue it and to have Dominion over the Fish of the Sea and over the Fouls of the Air and over all the Earth and over every living thing that creepeth or moveth on the Earth But also by God's making those noble and vast Luminaries and other Bodies that adorn'd the Skie to give light upon the Earth though inferiour to them in Dimensions and to divide between the Day and between the Night and to be for Signes and for Seasons and for Daies and for Years To this agrees that Passage in the Prophet Thus saith the Lord that Created the Heavens God himselfe that form'd the Earth and made it He hath estabâ—ished it He Created it not in Vaine He formed it to be Inhabited c. And the Inspired Poet speaks of Man's Dignity in very comprehensive Termes For thou saies he to his Maker hast made him little lower then the Angels and hast Crowned him with Glory and Honour Thou madest him to have Dominion over the Works of thy Hands thou hast put all things under his Feet The same truth may be confirm'd by divers other Texts which it might here prove tedious to insist on And therefore I shall rather observe that consonantly thereunto God was pleased to consider man so much more then the Creatures made for him that he made the Sun it selfe at one time to stand still and at another time to goe back and divers times made the parts of the Universe forget their Nature or Act contrary to it And ha's in summe vouchsafed to alter by Miracles the Course of Nature for the instruction or reliefe of Man As when the Fire suspended
for each of these four last are suppos'd by some to have had some notion of the Circulation by all their diligent contemplation of humane Bodies never dream'd for ought appears of so advantagious an use of the Valves of the Heart nor that nimble Circular motion of the Blood of which our modern Circulators think they discern such excellent Use not to say Necessity And though it be true that the greater Works of God do as well declare his great Wisdom as his Power according to that of the Inspired Philosopher The Lord by Wisdom hath founded the Earth by Understanding hath he establish'd the Heavens By his Knowledge the depths are broken up and the Clouds drop down the Dew Yet does not his Wisdom appear less in lesser Creatures for there is none of them so little but it would deserve a great deal of our Wonder did we attentively enough consider it And as Apelles in the Story was discover'd by the skilful Protagoras by so neat and slender a Line that Protagoras by being scarce able to discern it discern'd it to have been drawn by Apelles So God in these little Creatures oftentimes draws traces of Omniscience too delicate to be liable to be ascrib'd to any other Cause I have seen Elephants and admir'd them less then the structure of a dissected Mole which hath better Eyes then those that will not see a designation in the dimness of its Eyes made onely to see the Light not other Objects by the help of it and the unwonted posture of its Feet given it not to run on the Ground but to dig it self a way under Ground And as despicable as their Littleness makes the Vulgar apt to think some Creatures I must confess my wonder dwell not so much on Natures Clocks if I may so speak as on her Watches and is more exercis'd in the coyness of the sensitive Plant and the Magnetical Properties of a small and abject Load-stone then the bulk of the tallest Oakes or those vast Rocks made famous by Shipwracks I have pass'd the Alpes and have seen as much to admire at in an Ant-hill and have so much wondred at the Industry of those little Creatures themselves that inhabited it that I have ceas'd to wonder at their having given a Theme to Solomon's Contemplation Those vast Exotick Animals which the Multitude flocks to see and which Men give Money to be allow'd to gaze on have had many of them lesse of my Admiration then the little Catterpillar as Learned Naturalists esteem it to which we are beholden for Silk For not to mention all the Observables crouded by Nature in that little Worm I thought it very well deserv'd my wonder when not long since I kept some of them purposely to try Experiments how this curious Spinster after he had buryed himself alive in the precious Tomb he had wrought for himself out of his own Bowels did cast off his former Skin and Legs and in shew his former Nature appearing for divers days but an almost movelesse Magot till at length divesting this second Tegument also in which Nest Phenix-like he had been regenerated out of his own Remains he came forth if I may so speak out of this attiring Room under another form with Wings Eyes and Leggs c. to act a new part upon the Stage of the World which having spent some days without feeding that I could observe in providing for the propagation of his Species he forsakes and dies And I the rather mention the Silk-Worm because that there have been of late divers subtle Speculators who would fain perswade us That Animals do nothing out of Instinct or if you please innate or seminal Impressions but Spin build Nests and perform all the other Actions for which they are admir'd barely by Imitation of what they have seen done by others of the same Kinde But in the Silk-Worm at least here in England this plausible Opinion will not hold For the Silk-worms I kept were not hatch'd but in the Spring out of Eggs laid some Days in the Sun and the Worms that laid those Eggs being every one of them dead the Winter before it was impossible these new Silk-Worms when they first began to spin their scarce imaginable fine Web and inclose themselves in Oval Balls of a very Artificial Figure and Texture should have wrought thus by Imitation there not having been for many Moneths before in the place where they were hatch'd nor perhaps in the whole Country any Silk-Worms alive which they might imitate But I must leave these curious Spinsters to their Work and proceed to tell you That Seas and Mountains with the other Hyperboles of Nature if I may so term them proclaim indeed Gods Power but do not perhaps more manifest his Wisdom then the contrivance of some living Engines and if I may so call them Breathing Atoms that are so small that they are almost all Workmanship so that as before in the Psalmists Expression we truly said of Gods Greatnesse That it was unsearchable we may now as truly say of his Wisdom in the Prophets Words and in the same Text where he represents him as the Creator of the ends of the Earth That there is no searching of his Understanding And if I durst Pyrophilus make this part of this Essay of a length too disproportionate to the rest I could easily as well as willingly represent to you divers things which might serve to Illustrate the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 manifold Wisdom of God as St. Paul speaks on another occasion But though I dare not expatiate on this Subject yet neither dare I altogether conceal from you that I have sometimes admired to see what scarce imaginable variety of living Engines his Plastick skill if I may so speak has been able to produce especially in the Waters without scarce any other resemblance betwixt them then that they are each of them excellent in its own Kinde and compleatly furnish'd according to the exigency of its Nature And that which much encreases this Wonder is the disproportion of those living Engines wherein the great Yotzêr hakkôl Former of all things as the Scripture justly calls God has been pleas'd to display an almost equally skilful Contrivance Amongst Terrestrial Animals we have the Elephant of whose stupendious vastness such strange things are related even by eminent Writers that I know not well how either to dis-believe them or give credit to them And therefore we shall content our selves to mention that which is left on Record by the accurate Gassendus in the Life of Peireskius For this matchless Gentleman having caus'd an Elephant in the Year 1631 to be weigh'd in a Scale purposely provided he was found to weigh of the Roman Pounds consisting of twelve Ounces apiece very near Five thousand And yet surely that this Elephant was very far from being one of the largest of that sort of Beasts he that shall consider the bigness and length of some of their
Ears that he scruples not to affirm that There is no Speech nor Language where their voice is not heard or as Junius and Tremellius render it without violence to the Hebrew Text There is no Speech nor Words yet without these their Voice is understood and that their Line is gone throughout all the earth that is as the Learned Diodati expounds it their Writing in gross and plain Draughts and their Words to the end of the World Their Language having so escap'd the confusion of Tongues that these Natural and Immortal Preachers give all Nations occasion to say of them as the Assembly at Pentecost did of the Inspir'd Apostles We do hear them speak in our Tongues the wonderful Works of God Nor can we without listning to these Sermons derive the entire perhaps not the chiefest Benefit design'd us in the Creatures For sure that God who hath compos'd us both of Body and Soul hath not confin'd the uses of so many admirable Creatures and so much inimitable Workmanship to that ignoble part of Man which coupleth him to the Beasts with the neglect of that Diviner Portion which allies him to the Angels vouchsafing to the Lord of the Creatureâ— in the fruition of this his Palace no higher Prerogative then he is pleas'd to allow to the Brutes that serve but to compleat the variety requisite for its embellishment Of this Opinion I lately found that excellent Writer St Austine to have been before me For Non debes uti oculis says he ut pecus tantum ut videas quae addas ventri non menti utere ut homo intende Coelum intende Facta quaere Factorem aspice quae vides quaere quem non vides crede in eum quem non vides propter ista quae vides Nolite fieri sicut equus mulus c. Nor can the Creatures onely inform Man of Gods Being and Attributes as we have already seen but also instruct him in his own Duties For we may say of the World as St Austin did of the Sacraments that it is Verbum visibile And certainly God hath never so confin'd himself to instruct Men by Words or Types as not to reserve himself the liberty of doing it by things Witness his appointing the Rainbow to Preach his Goodness to all Nations and fortifie the Faith of Mankinde against the fear of a second Deluge 'T is something to high a saying for an Heathen that of Plato where he teaches That the World is Gods Epistle written to Mankinde For by Solomon God sends the Sluggard to school to the Ant to learn a provident Industry Christ commands his Disciples to learn of Serpents and Pigeons prudence and inoffensiveness The same Divine Teacher enjoyns his Apostles to consider the Lilies or as some would have it the Tulips of the Field and to learn thence that difficult Virtue of a distrustless relyance upon God And St Paul seems almost angry with the Corinthians That their Faith in so abstruse Mysteries as that of the Resurrection was not inform'd and strengthned by considering the meliorating death of Corn committed to the Earth And the Royal Poet learns Humility by the Contemplation of the most elevated parts of Nature When I consider says he the Heavens the work of thy Fingers the Moon and Stars which thou hast ordained What is Man that thou visitest him Thus you may see that God intended the World should serve Man not onely for a Palace to live in and to gaze on but for a School of Virtue to which his Philanthropy reserves such inestimable Rewards that the Creatures can on no account be so beneficial to Man as by promoting his Piety by a competent degree of which Gods goodness hath made no less then Eternal Felicity attainable ESSAY III. Containing a Continuation of the Former HAving thus Pyrophilus endeavored to evince that the Opinion that would deter Men from the scrutiny of Nature is not a little prejudicial to Mans Interests and does very much lessen the Advantages he may derive from the Creatures both in relation to his accommodation in this Life and his Felicity in the next Let us proceed to consider whether the Doctrine we oppose do not likewise tend in its own nature though not in the Intentions of its Patrons to defeat God of much of that Glory which Man both ought and might ascribe to him both for himself and the rest of the Creatures How unlikely is it that we should be able to offer to God that Glory Praise and Admiration he both expects and merits from such a contemplation of the Creatures as though it be requisite to the true knowledge of their Nature and Properties is yet suppos'd either pernicious or at least dangerous You Pyrophilus or any other impartial Person may easily determine For the Works of God are not like the Tricks of Juglers or the Pageants that entertain Princes where concealment is requisite to wonder but the knowledge of the Works of God proportions our admiration of them they participating and disclosing so much of the inexhausted Perfections of their Author that the further we contemplate them the more Foot-steps and Impressions we discover of the Perfections of their Creator and our utmost Science can but give us a juster veneration of his Omniscience And as when some Country Fellow looks upon a curious Watch though he may be hugely taken with the rich Enamel of the Case and perhaps with some pretty Landskip that adorns the Dial-plate yet will not his Ignorance permit him so advantageous a Notion of the exquisite Makers skill as that little Engine will form in some curious Artist who besides that obvious Workmanship that first entertains the Eye considers the exactness and knows the use of every Wheel takes notice of their proportion contrivance and adaptation altogether and of the hidden Springs that move them all So in the World though every Peruser may read the existence of a Deity and be in his degree affected with what he sees yet is he utterly unable to descry there those subtler Characters and Flourishes of Omniscience which true Philosophers are sharp-sighted enough to discern The existence of God is indeed so legibly written on the Creatures that as the Scripture speaks in another sense He may run that reads it that is even a perfunctory Beholder that makes it not his business may perceive it But that this God has manifested in these Creatures a Power a Wisdom and a Goodness worthy of himself needs an attentive and diligent Surveyor to discover How different notions of Gods Wisdom do the Eggs of Hens produce in the ordinary Eaters of them and in curious Naturalists who carefully watch and diligently observe from time to time the admirable progress of Nature in the Formation of a Chick from the first change appearing in the Cicatricula or little whitish speck discernable in the Coat of the Eggs Yolk to the breaking of the Egg-shell by the perfectly hatched Bird
with among the Atheists Upon consideration of all the Premises I confess Pyrophilus that I am enclined to think there may perhaps be more cause to apprehend that the delightfulness of the Study of Phisiology should too much confine your Thoughts and Joys to the Creatures then that your Proficiency in it should bring you to dis-believe the Creator For I have observ'd it to be a fault incident enough to Ingenious Persons to let their mindes be so taken up and as it were charm'd with that almost infinite variety of pleasing Objects which Nature presents to their Contemplation that they too much dis-relish other Pleasures and Employments and are too apt to undervalue even those wherewith the improv'd Opportunities of serving God or holding Communion with Him are capable of Blessing the Pious Soul But Pyroph though comparatively to Fame and Mistresses and Baggs and Bottles and those other transient unsatisfactory in a word deluding Objects on which the greatest part of mistaken Mortals so fondly dote the entertaining of our Noblest Faculties with Objects suited to them and proper both to gratifie our Curiosity and to enrich our understandings with variety of acceptable and useful Notions affords a satisfaction that very well deserves the choice and preferrence of a rational Creature Yet certainly Pyrophilus as God is infinitely better then all the things that he has made so the Knowledge of Him is much better then the knowledge of them and he that has plac'd so much delightfulness in a Knowledge wherein he allows his very Enemies to become very great Proficients has sure reserv'd much Higher and more contenting Pleasures to sweeten and endear those Disclosures of Himself which He vouchsafes to none but those that love Him and are lov'd by Him And therefore Pyrophilus though I will allow you to expect from the Contemplation of Nature a greater satisfaction then from any thing you need decline for it yet I would not have you expect from it any such satisfaction as you may entirely acquiess in for nothing but the enjoyment of Him that made the Soul for Himself can satisfie it the Creatures being as well uncapable to afford us a compleat Felicity by our Intellectual Speculations of them as by our sensual Fruitions of them for though the knowledge of Nature be preferrable by odds to those other Idols which we have mention'd as inferior to it yet we here attain that knowledge but very imperfectly and our acquisitions of it cost us so dear and the Pleasures of them is so allay'd with the disquieting Curiosity they are wont to excite that the wisest of Men and greatest of Philosophers among the Antients scruples not upon his own experience to call the addicting of ones heart to seek and search out by Wisdom concerning all things that are done under the Heaven a sore travel given by God to the sons of Men to be exercis'd or as the Original hath it to afflict themselves therewith And the same experienc'd Writer elsewhere tells us That he that encreases knowledge encreases sorrow And 't was perhaps for this reason that Adam was form'd out of Paradice and afterwards by God brought into it to intimate That Felicity is not a thing that Man can acquire for himself but must receive as a free gift from the liberal Hand of God And as the Children of the Prophets sought translated Elias with very great diligence but with no success so do we as Fruitlesly as Industriously seek after perfect Happiness here both they and we missing of what we seek for the same reason because we seek for that on Earth which is not to be found but in Heaven And this I forewarn you of Pyrophilus not at all to discourage you from the study of Physiology but to keep you from meeting with that great Discouragement of finding in it much less of satisfaction then you expected and over-great expectation from it being one of the disadvantagiousest Circumstances with which it is possible for any thing to be enjoyed But at length Pyrophilus though late I begin to discern into how tedious a digression my zeal for Natural Philosophy and for you has mis-led me and how it has drawn from my Pen some Passages which may seem to relish more of the Preacher then the Naturalist yet I might alledge divers things to justifie or at least extenuate what I have done As first That if in making this Excursion I have err'd I have not done so without the Authority of great Examples for not onely Seneca doth frequently both season his Natural Speculations with Moral Documents and Reflections and owns that he purposely does so where he says Omnibus rebus omnibusque sermonibus aliquid salutare miscendum est cum imus per Occulta Naturae c. but even Pliny as far as he was from being guilty of over-much Devotion does from divers Passages in his Natural History allow himself to take occasion to inveigh against the Luxury Excesses and other Epidemical Vices of his time And I might next represent that perhaps the endeavoring to manifest that the knowledge of the Creatures should and how it may be referr'd to the Creators Glory is not altogether impertinent to the design I have of promoting Physiology for it seems consonant both to Gods Goodness and that repeated Axiome in the Gospel which tells us That he that improves his Talents to good uses shall be intrusted with more That the imploying the little Knowledge I have in the service of Him I owe it to may invite Him to encrease that little and make it less despicable And perhaps it is not the least cause of our ignorance in Natural Philosophy it self that when we study the Great Book of Nature call'd The Universe we consult peradventure almost all other Expositors to understand its Mysteries without making any address for instruction to the Author who yet is justly stil'd in the Scripture That Father of Lights in the plural Number from whom descends every good and every perfect Gift not onely those supernatural Graces that relate to another World but those intellectual Endowments that qualifie Men for the prosperous Contemplation of this And therefore in the Evangelical Prophet he is said to instruct even the Plough man and teach him the skill and understanding he displays in his own Profession And though I dare not affirm with some of the Helmontians and Paracelsians that God diâ—closes to Men the Great Mystery of Chymistry by Good Angels or by Nocturnal Visions as he once taught Jacob to make Lambs and Kids come into the World speckled and ring-streaked yet perswaded I am that the favor of God does much more then most Men are aware of vouchsafe to promote some Mens Proficiency in the study of Nature partly by protecting their attempts from those unlucky Accidents which often make Ingenuous and Industrious endeavors miscarry and partly by making them dear and acceptable to the Possessors of Secrets by whose Friendly