Selected quad for the lemma: life_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A29013
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Of the high veneration man's intellect owes to God, peculiarly for his wisedom and power by a Fellow of the Royal Society.
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Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing B4009; ESTC R10996
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40,294
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119
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Species of the Intellectual kind And the government of one Daemon may be as difficult a work and consequently may as much declare the Wisedom and Power of God as the government of a whole Species of inanimate bodies such as Stones or Metals whose Nature determines them to a strict conformity to those primordial Laws of Motion which were once settled by the great Creatour and from which they have no Wills of their own to make them swerve The Scripture tells us that in the Oeconomy of Man's Salvation there is so much of the manifold Wisedom of God express'd that the Angels themselves desire to pry into those mysteries When our Saviour having told his Apostles that the day and hour of his future coming to Judgment whether of the Jewish Nation or the World I now enquire not was not then known to any subjoyns no not to the Angels of Heaven but to his Father onely he sufficiently intimates them to be endowed with excellent Knowledge Superiour to that of Men and that perhaps may be one of the Reasons why the Scripture styles them Angels of Light It also teaches us that the good Angels are vastly numerous and that as they are of differing Orders some of them being Arch-Angels and some Princes of particular Empires or Nations so that God assigns them very differing and important Employments both in Heaven and in Earth and sometimes such as oblige them in discharge of their respective Trusts to endeavour the carrying on of Interfering designs The same Scripture by speaking of the Devil and his Angels and of the Great Dragon that drew down with his Tail the third part of the Stars from Heaven to Earth and by mentioning a whole Legion of Devils that possessed a single Man and by divers other passages that I shall not now insist on giving us ground to conclude that there is a Political government in the kingdom of darkness that the Monarch of it is exceeding powerfull whence he is styl'd the Prince of this World and some of his officers have the titles of principalities powers rulers of the darkness of this World c. that the subjects of it are exceeding numerous that they are desperate enemies to God and Men whence the Devil is styl'd the Adversary the Tempter and a Murtherer from the beginning that they are very false and crafty whence the Devil is call'd the Father of Lies the Old Serpent and his strategems are styl'd the Wiles and Depths of Satan that their malice is as active and restless as 't is great whence we are told that our Adversary the Devil walks about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour These things being taught us in the Scripture it self though I shall not now add any of the Inferences that may be drawn from them to my present purpose we may rationally suppose that if we were quick-sighted enough to discern the Methods of the Divine Wisedom in the Government of the Angelical and of the Diabolical Worlds or great Communities if I may so call them we should be ravish'd into admiration how such Intelligent Free Powerfull and Immortal Agents should be without violence offer'd to their Nature made in various manners to conspire to fulfill the Laws or at least accomplish the Ends of that great Theocracy that does not alone reach to all kinds of bodies to Men and to this or that rank of Spirits but comprises the whole Creation or the great Aggregate of all the Creatures of God And indeed to make the voluntary and perhaps the most crafty actions of evil Men and of evil Spirits themselves subservient to his Wise and Just Ends does no less recommend the Wisedom of God than it would the skill of a Shipwright and Pilot if he was able to contrive and steer his Ship so as to sail to his designed Port not onely with a side-wind or very near a wind as many doe but with a quite contrary wind and that a tempestuous one too 24. Perhaps you will think it allowable that on this Occasion I antedate what in due time will infallibly come to pass and now briefly take some notice as if it were present of the diffused and illustrious manifestation of the Divine Wisedom as well as Justice and Mercy that will gloriously appear at the day of the general Judgment when every good Christians eyes shall be vouchsafed a much larger prospect than that which his Saviour himself had when he survey'd in a trice and as it were at one view all the Kingdoms of the World and shall behold a much more numerous not to say numberless Assembly than that which is said to have consisted of all People Nations and Languages that flock'd in to the Dedication of Nebuchadnezar's Golden Image At that great decretory Day when the whole Off-spring of Adam shall by the loud voice and trumpet of the Arch-Angel be call'd together from the remotest Ages and the distantest Climates in the World when I say besides the faln Angels all the Humane Actours that ever liv'd shall appear upon the Stage at once when the dead shall be rais'd and the Books shall be open'd that is the Records of Heaven and of Conscience Then the Wisedom of God will shine forth in its Meridian lustre and its full splendour Not onely the Occurrences that relate to the lives and actions of particular Persons or of private Families and other lesser Societies of Men will be there found not to have been overlook'd by the Divine Providence but the Fates of Kingdoms and Commonwealths and the Revolutions of Nations and of Empires will appear to have been order'd and over-rul'd by an incomparable Wisedom And those great Politicians that thought to out-wit Providence by their refin'd subtilties shall find themselves taken in their own craftiness shall have their deepest Counsels turn'd into foolishness and shall not be able to keep the amaz'd World from discovering that whilst they thought they most craftily pursu'd their own Ends they really accomplish'd God's And those subtile Hypocrites that thought to make pretended Religion the Instrument of their Secular Designs shall find those Designs both defeated and made truly subservient to that advancement of Religion which they really never aim'd at 25. To employ and keep in Order a very complicated Engine such as the famous Strasburg's Clock or a Man of War though all the parts of it be inanimate and devoid of purposes and ends of their own is justly counted a piece of skill And this Task is more difficult and consequently does recommend the conduct of the Performer in proportion to the intricate structure and the number of pieces whereof the Engine consists At which rate how astonishing and ravishing will appear that Wisedom and Providence that is able to Guide and Over-rule many thousand Milions of Engins endow'd with Wills so as to make them all be found in the final Issues of things subservient to purposes worthy of Divine Providence Holiness