THE WISDOM OF GOD Manifested in the WORKS OF THE Creation Being the Substance of some common Places delivered in the Chappel of Trinity-College in Cambridge By John Ray M. A. sometimes Fellow of that and now of the Royal Society LONDON Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Arms in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1691. TO THE Much Honoured and truly Religious LADY THE Lady LETICE WENDY OF Wendy in Cambridgeshire MADAM TWO or three Reasons induce me to present this Discourse to your Ladyship and to make choice of you for its Patroness First because I owe it to the Liberality of your Honoured Brother that I have this leisure to write any Thing Secondly Because also your many and signal Favors seeing I am not in a Capacity to requite them seem to exact from me at least a publick Acknowledgment which such a Dedication gives me an Opportunity to make Thirdly Because of such kind of Writings I know not where to chuse a more able Judge or more candid Reader I am sensible that you do so much abhor any thing that looks like Flattery that out of an excess of Modesty you cannot patiently bear the hearing of your own just Commendations and therefore should I enlarge upon that Subject I know I should have but little Thanks for my Pains Indeed you have much better Motives to do well than the Praise of Men the Favor of God Peace of Conscience the Hope and Expectation of a future Reward of Eternal Happiness and therefore I had rather write of you to others to provoke them to imitate so excellent an Example than to your Self to encourage you in your Christian Course and to fortifie you in your Athletick Conflicts with the greatest of Temporal Evils bodily Pain and Anguish though I do not know why you should reject any consideration that may conduce to support you under so heavy Pressures and of so long continuance of which to ingenuous Natures true Honor that is the concurrent Testimony and Approbation of good Men is not the meanest No less Man than S. Augustine was doubtful whether the extremity of bodily Pain were not the greatest Evil that Humane Nature was capable of suffering Nay saith he I was sometimes compelled to consent to Cornelius Celsus that it was so neither did his Reason seem to me absurd we being compounded of two Parts Soul and Body of which the first is the better the latter the worser the greatest Good must be the best thing belonging to the better Part that is Wisdom and the greatest Evil the worst thing incident to the worser Part the Body that is Pain Now though I know not whether this Reason be firm and conclusive yet I am of accord with him that of all the Evils we are sensible of in this World it is the Sorest the most resolute Patience being baffled and prostrated by a fierce and lasting Paroxysm of the Gout or Stone or Colick and compelled to yield to its furious Insults and confess itself vanquished the Soul being unable to divert or to do any thing else but pore upon the Pain And therefore those Stoical vaunts of their Wise Mans being happy in Perillus his Bull I utterly reject and explode as vain Rhodomontades and Chimerical Figments for that there never was such a wise Man among them nor indeed could be Yet do I not say that the Patience of a good Man can be so far conquered by the sharpest and severest Torments as to be compelled to deny or blaspheme God or his Religion yea or so much as to complain of his Injustice though perchance he may be brought with Job to curse his Day yet not to curse his God as his Wife tempted him to do Now that the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most just Judg and Rewarder would be pleas'd so to qualifie and mitigate your Sufferings as not to exceed the measure of your Strength and Patience or else arm you with such an high Degree of Christian Fortitude as to be able to grapple with the most extreme and when you have finished your Course in this World grant you a placid and easie Passage out of it and dignifie you as one of his Victors with a Crown of Eternal Glory and Felicity is the Prayer of Madam Your Ladyships most devoted in all Service John Ray. THE PREFACE IN all Ages wherein Learning hath Flourished complaint hath been made of the Itch of Writing and the multitude of worthless Books wherewith importunate Scriblers have pestered the World Scribimus indocti doctique And tenet insanabile multos Scribendi Cacoethes I am sensible that this Tractate may likely incur the Censure of a superfluous Piece and my self the blame of giving the Reader unnecessary Trouble there having been so much so well written of this Subject by the most Learned Men of our time Dr. More Dr. Cudworth Dr. Stillingfleet now Bishop of Worcester Dr. Párker late of Oxon and to name no more the Honourable Robert Boyl Esquire so that it will need some Apology First therefore in excuse of it I plead That there are in it some Considerations new and untoucht by others wherein if I be mistaken I alledge Secondly That the manner of Delivery and Expression may be more suitable to some Mens Apprehension and facile to their Understandings If that will not hold I pretend Thirdly That all the particulars contained in this Book cannot be found in any one Piece known to me but lye scattered and dispersed in many and so this may serve to relieve those Fastidious Readers that are not willing to take the pains to search them out and possibly there may be some whose Ability whatever their Industry might be will not serve them to purchase nor their opportunity to borrow those Books who yet may spare Money enough to buy so inconsiderable a Trifle If none of these Excuses suffice to acquit me of blame and remove all prejudice I have two further Reasons to offer which I think will reach home and justify this Undertaking First That all Men who presume to Write at least whose Writings the Printers will venture to publish are of some Note in the World and where they do or have Lived and Conversed have some Sphere of Friends and Acquaintants that Know and Esteem them who it's likely will buy any Book they shall Write for the Authors sake who otherwise would have read none of that Subject though ten times better and so the Book however inferiour to what have been already Published may happen to do much good Secondly By Vertue of my Function I suspect my self to be obliged to Write something in Divinity having Written so much on other Subjects For being not permitted to serve the Church with my Tongue in Preaching I know not but it may be my Duty to serve it with my Hand by Writing And I have made choice of this Subject as thinking my self best qualified to Treat of it If what I have now Written
supplied with Air from thence are by and by convulsed and shortly relaxed and deprived of Motion the rest that were untoucht still retaining it Nay more than all this Plants themselves have a kind of respiration being furnished with plenty of Vessels for the derivation of Air to all their parts as hath been observed nay first discovered by that great and curious Naturalist Malpighius Another use of the Air is to sustain the flight of Birds and Insects Moreover by its gravity it raises the Water in Pumps Siphons and other Engines and performs all those feats which former Philosophers through Ignorance of the Efficient Cause attributed to a Final namely Natures abhorrence of a Vacuity or empty space The Elastick or expansive faculty of the Air whereby it dilates itself when compressed indeed this lower Region of it by reason of the weight of the superincumbent is always in a compressed State hath been made use of in the common Weather-glasses in Wind guns and in several ingenious Water-works and doubtless hath a great Interest in many natural Effects and Operations Against what we have said of the necessity of the Air for the maintenance of the Vital Flame it may be objected That the Foetus in the Womb Lives its Heart Pulsses and its Blood Circulates and yet it draws in no Air neither hath the Air any Access to it To which I Answer That it doth receive Air so much as is sufficient for it in its present state from the maternal Blood by the Placenta uterina or the Cotyledones This Opinion generally propounded viz. That the Respiration of the Dam did serve the Foetus also or supply sufficient Air to it I have met with in Books but the explicit Notion of it I owe to my Learned and worthy Friend Dr. Edward Hulse which comparing with mine own Anatomical Observations I found so consonant to Reason and highly probable that I could not but yield a firm Assent to it I say then That the chief Use of the Circulation of the Blood through the Cotyledones of a Calf in the Womb which I have often dissected and by Analogy through the Placenta uterina in an Humane Foetus seems to be the Impregnation of the Blood with Air for the feeding of the vital Flame For if it were only for Nutrition what need of two such great Arteries to convey the Blood thither It would one might rationally think be more likely that as in the Abdomen of every Animal so here there should have been some lacteal Veins formed beginning from the Placenta or Cotyledons which concurring in one common ductus should at last empty themselves into the vena cava Secondly I have observed in a Calf the umbilical Vessels to terminate in certain Bodies divided into a multitude of carneous papillae as I may so call them which are received into so many Sockets of the Cotyledons growing on the Womb which carneous papillae may without force or laceration be drawn out of those Sockets Now these papillae do well resemble the Aristae or radii of a Fishes Gills and very probably have the same use to take in the Air. So that the maternal Blood which flows to the Cotyledons and encircles these papillae communicates by them to the Blood of the Foetus the Air wherewith it self is impregnate as the Water flowing about the carneous radii of the Fishes Gills doth the Air that is lodged therein to them Thirdly That the maternal Blood flows most copiously to the Placenta uterina in Women is manifest from the great Hemorrhagy that succeeds the separation thereof at the Birth Fourthly After the Stomach and Intestines are formed the foetus seems to take in its whole nourishment by the Mouth there being always found in the Stomach of a Calf plenty of the liquor contained in the Amnios wherein he swims and faeces in his intestines and abundance of urine in the Allantoides So that the foetus in the Womb doth live as it were the life of a Fish Lastly Why else should there be such an instant necessity of Respiration so soon as ever the foetus is fallen off from the Womb This way we may give a facile and very probable account of it to wit because receiving no more Communications of Air from its Dam or Mother it must needs have a speedy supply from without or else extinguish and die for want of it Being not able to live longer without Air at its first Birth than it can do afterward And here methinks appears a necessity of bringing in the agency of some Superintendent intelligent Being be it a Plastick Nature or what you will For what else should put the Diaphragm and all the Muscles serving to Respiration in motion all of a sudden so soon as ever the foetus is brought forth Why could they not have rested as well as they did in the Womb What aileth them that they must needs bestir themselves to get in Air to maintain the Creatures life Why could they not patiently suffer it to die That the Air of it self could not rush in is clear for that on the contrary there is required a great force to remove the incumbent Air and make room for the external to enter You will say the Spirits do at this time flow to the Organs of Respiration the Diaphragm and other Muscles which concur to that action and move them But what rouses the Spirits which were quiescent during the continuance of the foetus in the Womb Here is no appearing impellent but the external Air the Body suffering no change but of place out of its close and warm Prison into the open and cool Air. But how or why that should have such influence upon the Spirits as to drive them into those Muscles electively I am not subtil enough to discern Thirdly Water is one part and that not the least of our Sustenance and that affords the greatest share of Matter in all Productions containing in it the Principles or minute component particles of all Bodies To speak nothing of those inferiour Uses of Washing and Bathing Dressing and preparing of Victuals But if we shall consider the great Conceptacula and Congregations of Water and the distribution of it all over the dry Land in Springs and Rivers there will occur abundant Arguments of Wisdom and Understanding The Sea what infinite variety of Fishes doth it nourish Psalm 104. 25. in the verse next to my Text. The earth is full of thy riches So is this great and wide Sea wherein are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts c. How doth it exactly compose itself to a level or equal Superficies and with the Earth make up one spherical Roundness How doth it constantly observe its Ebbs and Flows its Spring and Nepe-tides and still retain its saltness so convenient for the maintenance of its Inhabitants serving also the uses of Man for Navigation and the convenience of Carriage That it should be defined by Shores and
would he in all likelyhood have made had he seen these incredible small living Creatures How would he have admired the immense subtilty as he phrases it of their Parts for to use Mr. Hook's Words in his Microscopium p. 103. If these Creatures be so exceeding small what must we think of their Muscles and other Parts Certain it is that the Mechanism by which Nature performs the Muscular Motion is exceedingly small and curious and to the performance of every Muscular Motion in greater Animals at least there are not fewer distinct parts concerned than many Millions of Millions and these visible through a Microscope Let us then consider the Works of God and observe the Operations of his Hands Let us take notice of and admire his infinite Wisdom and Goodness in the Formation of them No Creature in this Sublunary World is capable of so doing beside Man and yet we are deficient herein We content our selves with the knowledge of the Tongues and a little skill in Philology or History perhaps and Antiquity and neglect that which to me seems more material I mean Natural History and the Works of the Creation I do not discommend or derogate from those other Studies I should betray mine own Ignorance and Weakness should I do so I only wish they might not altogether justle out and exclude this I wish that this might be brought in Fashion among us I wish men would be so equal and civil as not to disparage deride and vilifie those Studies which themselves skill not of or are not conversant in no Knowledge can be more pleasant than this none that doth so satisfie and feed the Soul in comparison whereto that of Words and Phrases seems to me insipid and jejune That Learning saith a wise and observant Prelate which consists only in the form and pedagogy of Arts or the critical notions upon Words and Phrases hath in it this intrinsical Imperfection that it is only so far to be esteemed as it conduceth to the knowledg of Things being in it self but a kind of Pedantry apt to infect a man with such odd Humors of Pride and Affectation and Curiosity as will render him unfit for any great Employment Words being but the Images of Matter to be wholly given up to the Study of these What is it but Pygmalions Phrenzy to fall in Love with a Picture or Image As for Oratory which is the best skill about Words that hath by some Wise men been esteemed but a voluptuary Art like to Cookery which spoils wholsome Meats and helps unwholsome by the variety of Sawces serving more to the Pleasure of Tast than the Health of the Body It may be for ought I know and as some Divines have thought part of our business and employment in Eternity to contemplate the Works of God and give him the Glory of his Wisdom Power and Goodness manifested in the Creation of them I am sure it is part of the business of a Sabbath-day and the Sabbath is a Type of that eternal Rest for the Sabbath seems to have been first instituted for a commemoration of the Works of the Creation from which God is said to have rested upon the Seventh Day Let it not suffice us to be Book-learned to read what others have written and to take upon trust more Falshood than Truth but let us our selves examine things as we have opportunity and converse with Nature as well as Books Let us endeavour to promote and increase this Knowledge and make new Discoveries not so much distrusting our own Parts or despairing of our own Abilities as to think that our Industry can add nothing to the Inventions of our Ancestors or correct any of their mistakes Let us not think that the bounds of Science are fixed like Hercules his Pillars and inscribed with a Ne plus ultra Let us not think we have done when we have learnt what they have delivered to us The Treasures of Nature are inexhaustible Here is Employment enough for the vastest Parts the most indefatigable Industries the fairest Opportunities the most prolix and undisturbed Vacancies Much might be done would we but endeavour and nothing is insuperable to pains and patience I know that a new Study at first seems very Vast Intricate and Difficult but after a little Resolution and Progress after a man becomes a little acquainted as I may so say with it his Understanding is wonderfully cleared up and enlarged the difficulties vanish and the thing grows easie and familiar And for our Encouragement in this Study observe what the Psalmist saith Psal. 111. 2. The works of the Lord are great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein Which though it be principally spoken of the Works of Providence yet may as well be verified of the Works of Creation I am sorry to see so little Account made of real Experimental Philosophy in this University and that those ingenious Sciences of the Mathematicks are so much neglected by us and therefore do earnestly exhort those that are young especially Gentlemen to set upon these Studies and take some pains in them They may possibly invent something of eminent Use and Advantage to the World and one such Discovery would abundantly compensate the Expence and Travel of one mans whole Life However it is enough to maintain and continue what is already invented neither do I see what more ingenious and manly Employment they can pursue tending more to the Satisfaction of their own Minds and the Illustration of the Glory of God For he is wonderful in all his Works But I would not have any man cross his natural Genius or Inclinations or undertake such methods of Study as his Parts are not fitted to or not serve those Ends to which his Friends upon mature Deliberation have designed him but those who do abound with leisure or who have a natural Propension and Genius inclining them thereto or those who by reason of the Strength and Greatness of their Parts are able to compass and comprehend the whole Latitude of Learning Neither yet need those who are designed to Divinity it self fear to look into these Studies or think they will engross their whole time and that no considerable Progress can be made therein unless men lay aside and neglect their ordinary Callings and necessary Employments No such matter Our Life is long enough and we might find time enough did we husband it well Vitam non accepimus brevem sed fecimus nec inopes ejus sed prodigi sumus as Seneca saith And did but young men fill up that time with these Studies which lies upon their hands which they are incumbred with and troubled how to pass away much might be done even so I do not see but the Study of true Physiology may be justly accounted a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Preparative to Divinity But to leave that It is a generally received Opinion that all this visible world was created for Man that Man is the end of
the Creation as if there were no other end of any Creature but some way or other to be serviceable to man This Opinion is as old as Tully for saith he in his Second Book De Nat. Deorum Principio ipse Mundus Deorum hominumque causâ factus est quaeque in eo sunt omnia ea parata ad fructum hominum inventa sunt But though this be vulgarly received yet Wise Men now adays think otherwise Dr. More affirms That Creatures are made to enjoy themselves as well as to serve us and that it 's a gross piece of Ignorance and Rusticity to think otherwise And in another place This comes only out of Pride and Ignorance or a haughty Presumption because we are encouraged to believe that in some sence all things are made for Man therefore to think that they are not at all made for themselves But he that pronounceth this is ignorant of the Nature of Man and the Knowledge of Things For if a good Man be merciful to his Beast then surely a good God is Bountiful and Benign and takes pleasure that all his Creatures enjoy themselves that have Life and Sense and are capable of Enjoyment For my part I cannot believe that all the things in the world were so made for Man that they have no other use For it is highly absurd and unreasonable to think that Bodies of such vast magnitude as the fixt Stars were only made to twinkle to us nay a multitude of them there are that do not so much as twinkle being either by reason of their Distance or of their Smalness altogether invisible to the naked Eye and only discoverable by a Telescope and it is likely perfecter Telescopes than we yet have may bring to light many more and who knows how many may lie out of the ken of the best Telescope that can possibly be made And I believe there are many Species in Nature which were never yet taken notice of by Man and consequently of no Use to him which yet we are not to think were Created in vain but it 's likely as the Doctor saith to partake of the overflowing Goodness of the Creator and enjoy their own beings But though in this sence it be not true that all things were made for Man yet thus far it is that all the Creatures in the world may be some way or other useful to us at least to exercise our Wits and Understandings in considering and contemplating of them and so afford us Subject of Admiring and Glorifying their and our Maker Seeing then we do believe and assert that all things were in some sence made for us we are thereby obliged to make use of them for those purposes for which they serve us else we frustrate this End of their Creation Now some of them serve only to exercise our Minds many others there be which might probably serve us to good purpose whose Uses are not discovered nor are they ever like to be without Pains and Industry True it is many of the greatest Inventions have been accidentally stumbled upon but not by men supine and careless but busie and inquisitive Some Reproach methinks it is to Learned Men that there should be so many Animals still in the World whose outward shape is not yet taken notice of or described much less their way of Generation Food Manners Uses observed If Man ought to reflect upon his Creator the Glory of all his Works then ought he to take notice of them all and not to think any thing unworthy of his Cognizance And truly the Wisdom Art and Power of Almighty God shines forth as visibly in the Structure of the Body of the minutest Insect as in that of a Horse or Elephant Therefore God is said to be maximus in minimis We men esteeming it a more difficult Matter and of greater Art and Curiosity to frame a small Watch than a large Clock And no man blames him who spent his whole time in the consideration of the Nature and Works of a Bee or thinks his subject was too narrow Let us not then esteem any thing contemptible or inconsiderable or below our notice taking for this is to derogate from the Wisdom and Art of the Creator and to confess our selves unworthy of those Endowments of Knowledge and Understanding which he hath bestowed on us Do we praise Daedalus and Architas and Hero and Callicrates and Albertus Magnus and many others which I might mention for their cunning in inventing and dexterity in framing and composing a few dead Engines or Movements and shall we not admire and magnifie the Great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Former of the World who hath made so many yea I may say innumerable rare Pieces and those too not dead ones such as cease presently to move so soon as the Spring is down but all living and themselves performing their own Motions and those so intricate and various and requiring such a multitude of Parts and subordinate Machins that it is incomprehensible what Art and Skill and Industry must be employed in the Framing of one of them But it may be objected That God Almighty was not so selfish and desirous of Glory as to make the World and all the Creatures therein only for his own Honour and to be Praised by Man To assert this were in Des Cartes his Opinion an absurd and Childish thing and a resembling of God to proud Man It is more worthy the Deity to attribute the Creation of the World to the exundation and overflowing of his Transcendent and Infinite Goodness which is of its own Nature and in the very notion of it most Free Diffusive and Communicative To this I shall answer in two Words First The Testimony of Scripture makes God in all his Actions to Intend and Design his own Glory mainly Prov. 16. 4. God made all things for himself How for Himself He had no Need of them he hath no Use of them No he made them for the manifestation of his Power Wisdom and Goodness and that he might receive from the Creatures that were able to take notice thereof his Tribute of Praise Psal. 50. 14. Offer unto God thanksgiving and in the next verse I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me And again in the last Verse Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me So Praise is called a Sacrifice and the Calves of the Lips Hosea 14. 2. Esay 42. 8. I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give to another Esay 48. 11. And I will not give my glory to another And to me it seems that where the Heavens and Earth and Sun and Moon and Stars and all other Creatures are called upon to Praise the Lord the meaning and intention is to invite and stir up Man to take notice of all those Creatures and to Admire and Praise the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God manifested in the Creation and Designations of them Secondly It is most reasonable that God Almighty