Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	lord_n	praise_v	star_n	4,069	5	10.0456	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27428	The folly and unreasonableness of atheism demonstrated from the advantage and pleasure of a religious life, the faculties of humane souls, the structure of animate bodies, & the origin and frame of the world : in eight sermons preached at the lecture founded by ... Robert BOyle, Esquire, in the first year MDCXCII / by Richard Bentley ...	Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.	1699 (1699)	Wing B1931; ESTC R21357	132,610	286

Principle of Gravitation or by impulse of ambient Bodies It is plain here is no difference as to this whether the World be Infinite or Finite so that the same Arguments that we have used before may be equally urged in this Supposition And though we should concede that these Revolutions might be acquired and that all were settled and constituted in the present State and Posture of Things yet we say the continuance of this Frame and Order for so long a duration as the known Ages of the World must necessarily infer the Existence of God For though the Universe was infinite the now Fixt Stars could not be fixed but would naturally convene together and confound System with System because all mutually attracting every one would move whither it was most powerfully drawn This they may say is indubitable in the case of a Finite World where some Systems must needs be Outmost and therefore be drawn toward the Middle but when Infinite Systems succeed one another through an Infinite Space and none is either inward or outward may not all the Systems be situated in an accurate Poise and because equally attracted on all sides remain fixed and unmoved But to this we reply That unless the very mathematical Center of Gravity of every System be placed and fixed in the very mathematical Center of the Attractive Power of all the rest they cannot be evenly attracted on all sides but must preponderate some way or other Now he that considers what a mathematical Center is and that Quantity is infinitely divisible will never be persuaded that such an Universal Equilibrium arising from the coincidence of Infinite Centers can naturally be acquired or maintained If they say that upon the Supposition of Infinite Matter every System would be infinitely and therefore equally attracted on all sides and consequently would rest in an exact Equilibrium be the Center of its Gravity in what Position soever this will overthrow their very Hypothesis For at this rate in an infinite Chaos nothing at all could be formed no Particles could convene by mutual Attraction because every one there must have Infinite Matter around it and therefore must rest for ever being evenly balanced between Infinite Attractions Even the Planets upon this principle must gravitate no more toward the Sun than any other way so that they would not revolve in curve Lines but fly away in direct Tangents till they struck against other Planets or Stars in some remote regions of the Infinite Space An equal Attraction on all sides of all Matter is just equal to no Attraction at all and by this means all the Motion in the Universe must proceed from external Impulse alone which we have proved before to be an incompetent Cause for the Formation of a World And now O thou almighty and eternal Creator having considered the Heavens the work of thy fingers the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained with all the company of Heaven we laud and magnify thy glorious Name evermore praising thee and saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy Glory Glory be to thee O Lord most High A CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM FROM THE Origin and Frame of the World The Third and Last PART The Eighth SERMON preached December 5. 1692. Acts XIV 15 c. That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein Who in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling our hearts with Food and Gladness HAving abundantly proved in our Last Exercise That the Frame of the present World could neither be made nor preserved without the Power of God we shall now consider the structure and motions of our own System if any characters of Divine Wisdom and Goodness may be discoverable by us And even at the first and general View it very evidently appears to us which is our FOURTH and Last Proposition That the Order and Beauty of the Systematical Parts of the World the Discernible Ends and Final Causes of them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Meliority above what was necessary to be do evince by a reflex Argument that it could not be produced by Mechanism or Chance but by an Intelligent and Benign Agent that by his excellent Wisdom made the Heavens But before we engage in this Disquisition we must offer one necessary Caution that we need not nor do not confine and determin the purposes of God in creating all Mundane Bodies merely to Humane Ends and Uses Not that we believe it laborious and painfull to Omnipotence to create a World out of Nothing or more laborious to create a great World than a small one so as we might think it disagreeable to the Majesty and Tranquillity of the Divine Nature to take so much pains for our sakes Nor do we count it any absurdity that such a vast and immense Universe should be made for the sole use of such mean and unworthy Creatures as the Children of Men. For if we consider the Dignity of an Intelligent Being and put that in the scales against brute inanimate Matter we may affirm without over-valuing Humane Nature that the Soul of one vertuous and religious Man is of greater worth and excellency than the Sun and his Planets and all the Stars in the World If therefore it could appear that all the Mundane Bodies are some way conducible to the service of Man if all were as beneficial to us as the Polar Stars were formerly for Navigation as the Moon is for the flowing and ebbing of Tides by which an inestimable advantage accrues to the World for her officious Courtesie in long Winter Nights especiaally to the more Northern Nations who in a continual Night it may be of a whole month are so pretty well accommodated by the Light of the Moon reflected from frozen Snow that they do not much envy their Antipodes a month's presence of the Sun if all the Heavenly Bodies were thus serviceable to us we should not be backward to assign their usefulness to Mankind as the sole end of their Creation But we dare not undertake to shew what advantage is brought to Us by those innumerable Stars in the Galaxy and other parts of the Firmament not discernible by naked eyes and yet each many thousand times bigger than the whole body of the Earth If you say they beget in us a great Idea and Veneration of the mighty Author and Governour of such stupendous Bodies and excite and elevate our minds to his adoration and praise you say very truly and well But would it not raise in us a higher apprehension of the infinite Majesty and boundless Beneficence of God to suppose that those remote and vast Bodies were formed not merely upon Our account to be peept at through an Optick

THese words are a part of that Discourse which St. Paul had at Athens He had not been long in that inquisitive and pragmatical City but we find him encountered by the Epicureans and Stoicks two sorts of people that were very ill qualified for the Christian Faith the one by reason of their Carnal Affections either believing no God at all or that he was like unto themselves dissolv'd in Laziness and Ease the other out of Spiritual Pride presuming to assert that a Wise Man of their Sect was equal and in some cases superior to the Majesty of God himself These men corrupted through Philosophy and vain deceit took our Apostle and carried him unto Areopagus a place in the City whither was the greatest resort of Travellers and Strangers of the gravest Citizens and Magistrates of their Orators and Philosophers to give an account of himself and the new Doctrine that he spoke of For say they thou bringest strange things to our ears we would know therefore what these things mean The Apostle who was to speak to such a promiscuous Assembly has with most admirable Prudence and Art so accommodated his Discourse that every branch and member of it is directly opposed to a known Error and Prejudice of some Party of his Hearers I will beg leave to be the more prolix in explaining the whole because it will be a ground and introduction not only to this present but some other subsequent Discourses From the Inscription of an Altar to the Unknown God which is mentioned by Heathen Authors Lucian Philostratus and others he takes occasion V. 24. to declare unto them that God that made the World and all things therein This first Doctrine though admitted by many of his Auditors is directly both against Epicureans that ascribed the Origin and Frame of the World not to the Power of God but the fortuitous concourse of Atoms and Peripatetics that supposed all things to have been eternally as they now are and never to have been made at all either by the Deity or without him Which God says he seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth dwelleth not in Temples made with hands neither is worshipped with men's hands as though he needed any thing seeing he giveth to all Life and Breath and all things This is opposed to the Civil and Vulgar Religion of Athens which furnish'd and serv'd the Deity with Temples and Sacrifices as if he had really needed Habitation and Sustenance And that the common Heathens had such mean apprehensions about the Indigency of their Gods it appears plainly to name no more from Aristophanes's Plutus and the Dialogues of Lucian But the Philosophers were not concern'd in this point all Parties and Sects even the Epicureans themselves did maintain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the self-sufficiency of the Godhead and seldom or never sacrificed at all unless in compliance and condescension to the custom of their Country There 's a very remarkable passage in Tertullian's Apology Who forces a Philosopher to sacrifice c. It appears from thence that the Philosophers no less than the Christians neglected the Pagan Worship and Sacrifices though what was conniv'd at in the one was made highly penal and capital in the other And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the Earth and hath determin'd the times before appointed and the bound of their habitation This Doctrine about the beginning of Humane Race though agreeable enough to the Platonists and Stoics is apparently levell'd against the Epicureans and Aristotelians one of whom produced their Primitive Men from meer Accident or Mechanism the other denied that Man had any beginning at all but had eternally continued thus by Succession and Propagation Neither were the Commonalty of Athens unconcern'd in this point For although as we learn from Isocrates Demosthenes and others of their Countrymen they professed themselves to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aborigines not transplanted by Colonies or otherwise from any Foreign Nation but born out of their own Soil in Attica and had the same Earth for their Parent their Nurse and their Country and though some perhaps might believe that all the rest of Mankind were derived from Them and so might apply and interpret the Words of the Apostle to this foolish Tradition yet that conceit of deriving the whole Race of Men from the Aborigines of Attica was entertain'd but by a few for they generally allowed that the Egyptians and Sicilians and some others were Aborigines also as well as themselves Then follow the words of the Text That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us For in him we Live and Move and have our Being And this he confirms by the Authority of a Writer that lived above 300 years before As certain also of your own Poets have said For we are also his Off-spring This indeed was no Argument to the Epicurean Auditors who undervalued all Argument from Authority and especially from the Poets Their Master Epicurus had boasted that in all his Writings he had not cited one single Authority out of any Book whatsoever And the Poets they particularly hated because on all occasions they introduced the Ministry of the Gods and taught the separate Existence of humane Souls But it was of great weight and moment to the Common People who held the Poets in mighty esteem and veneration and used them as their Masters of Morality and Religion And the other Sects too of Philosophers did frequently adorn and confirm their Discourses by Citations out of Poets For as much then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by art or man's device This is directly levell'd against the gross Idolatry of the Vulgar for the Philosophers are not concern'd in it that believed the very Statues of Gold and Silver and other Materials to be God and terminated their Prayers in those Images as I might shew from many passages of Scripture from the Apologies of the Primitive Christians and the Heathen Writers themselves And the times of this ignorance God winked at the meaning of which is as upon a like occasion the same Apostle hath expressed it that in times past he suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways but now commandeth every one to repent Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Hitherto the Apostle had never contradicted all his Audience at once though at every part of his Discourse some of them might be uneasie yet others were of his side and all along a moderate silence and attention was