Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	creation_n	day_n	sabbath_n	8,102	5	9.9122	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29031	Some considerations touching the vsefulnesse of experimental naturall philosophy propos'd in familiar discourses to a friend, by way of invitation to the study of it.	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Sharrock, Robert, 1630-1684.	1663 (1663)	Wing B4029; ESTC R19249	365,255	580

the Foundation though all the Boyes be concern'd in the benefit yet because most of them are too young to be sensible of it or too unlearned to be able to make the retribution of a handsome acknowledgment either the Master or that other person of the Society who is most capable and the best spoakesman is by a kind of natural right engag'd to the duty of returning praise and thanks not for himself alone but in the name of all the rest So in the World where there are so many inanimate and irrational Creatures that neither understand how much they owe to their Creator by owing him even themselves nor are born to a condition inabling them to acknowledg it Man as born the Priest of Nature and as the most oblig'd and most capable member of it is bound to returne Thanks and Praises to his Maker not only for himselfe but for the whole Creation In which sense we may reconcile those two current Assertions That God made all things for His own Glory and that God made all things for Man and Man for himselfe Since whether or no Man be a Microcosme or Little World in Paracelsus's sense if not as a resembler yet as a representer of the Macrocosme or Great World he presents with his own adorations the Homages of all the Creatures to their Creator though they be ignorant of what is done as Infants under the Law were of the sacrifices offered on their account And in this Relation may the Creatures answer the Solemn invitation made them in the whole 148 Psalm and numerous other Scriptures which they may do to borrow a barbarous but significant School-terme objectively though not formally I mean by proving occasions though not singers of his praises and being such objects as prompt and invite Man to pay God that praise upon their score which they cannot actually pay him themselves even God's mutest works being capable of being said to praise him in the same sense though in an incomparably transcendenter degree that Solomon saies of his virtuous Woman in the last Verse of the Proverbs Let her own VVorks praise her in the Gates that is give the considerers of them occasion to extol her and thus by man's referring the knowledg of the Creature to the Creator's Glory it becomes in some sense and congruously to its own Nature the praiser of its Maker as may seem intimated in this OEconomy of the Last part of one of the Psalmes Blesse the Lord all ye His Hosts the Ministers of His that do His pleasure Blesse the Lord all His VVorks in all places of His Dominion Blesse the Lord O my Soule Where by shutting up the rest of God's Creatures betwixt Angels and Man's Soule he seems to insinuate that the irrational Creatures blesse the Lord by the mouth of those that are Intelligent And truly Pyrophilus I fear it may relish a little of selfishnesse to make such a disparity betwixt Perfections all of them equal because all of them infinite as to let God's mercy because it most advantages us so to ingrosse our thoughts and wonder as to make us neglect the contemplation of those other Glorious Attributes his Power and his VVisdome which were those that exacted both Man and Angels adoration before sin gave occasion to the exercise of the first And I shall not scruple to confesse unto you that I dare not confine the Acts of Devotion to those which most men suppose to comprise the whole exercise of it not that I at all undervalue or would depreciate any even the meanest practises of Devotion which either Scripture or reason consonant to it recommends but that I esteem that God may be also acceptably and perhaps more nobly serv'd and glorifi'd by our entertaining of high rational and as much as our nature is capable of worthy notions attended with a profound and proportionable admiration of those divine Attributes and Prerogatives for whose manifesting he was pleas'd to construct this vast Fabrick To which purpose I consider that in the Life to come when we shall questionless glorifie God exactliest we shall have little either need or use of Faith Prayer Liberality Patience and resembling Graces but our Worship will chiefly consist in elevated Notions and a prostrate Veneration of Gods Omnipotence Wisdom Goodness and other Perfections and such a one as this is represented in the Apocalyps to be the present employment of the Blest Spirits in Heaven where the Elders that assist about the Throne of God are describ'd casting their Crowns before it and saying to him that sits on it Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honor and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created By this time Pyrophilus I hope you begin to think that the Doctrine that tends to deter Men from enquiring into Nature is as well derogatory from Gods Glory as prejudicial to Mans Interests And indeed I purpos'd to content my self with the having disperst throughout the past Discourse the grounds of answering their Objection against the study of Physiology who pretend it is apt to make Men Atheists But because I am much concern'd to have you satisfied of so important a Truth as that which we have hitherto been laboring to evince I must beg your leave Pyrophilus to adde ex abundanti as they speak to what has been already alledg'd some things that may more directly answer the Objection of our Adversaries and manifest how little their severity is befriended either by Scripture Reason or Experience And first it seems not at all probable That if the Omniscient Author of Nature knew that the study of his Works did really tend to make Men dis-believe his Being or Attributes he would have given Men so many Invitations and almost Necessities to study and contemplate the Nature of his Creatures Of these Invitations divers have been mention'd already and more might be added to them if we thought it requisite But what has been above alledg'd will make us forbear the annexing of any save that of the ancient Institution of the Sabbath which many eminent Divines do not groundlesly hold to have been ordain'd to commemorate the Creation and give Men the opportunity every Seventh Day to contemplate God in his Works as he himself was pleas'd to rest on the first Seventh Day and contemplate Himself in the works of the first six And though our Western Churches for certain Reasons not here to be inquir'd into have long since disus'd the Solemnizing of the Saturday and appointed the Sunday for the Celebration of both the Works of the Redemption and Creation of the World together yet 't is evident enough that the Primitive Christians did for the most part keep the Saturday as Holy-day as well as the Sunday For that ancient Book whoever be resolv'd to have written it which goes under the Name of Clement's Constitutions affords us among others these two memorable Passages to our purpose And first

according to his Principles the Man as well Soul as Body consisted onely of divers Particles of the Universal Matter by various Motions brought together and dispos'd after a certain manner And consequently he must ground his perswasion that 't is impossible to redintegrate the Engine once spoil'd by death upon this That as Chance cannot with the least probablity be presum'd to have produc'd such a strange Effect so according to him there can be no Cause assign'd knowing and powerful enough to rally and bring together again the disbanded and scattered parcels of Matter or substitute other equivalent ones that together with the remaining Carcase compos'd the dead Man so to reunite them to the rest and lastly so to place and put into Motion both the one and the other as were requisite to make a living Man once more result from them I know that this Example reaches not all the Circumstances of the Controversie we have been debating but yet if I mistake not it will serve the turn for which I propose it For not now to insist upon this inference from it That a considering Man may confidently reject a thing that is not absolutely impossible provided it be highly incredible not to insist on this I say the thing I aim at in the mention of it is onely to shew That such things may possibly be effected by Matter and Motion as no wise Man will believe to have been produc'd by a bare Agitation of the Particles of Matter not guided by the superintendency of a Powerful and Knowing Director Now that the Atoms or Particles of Matter of which the World consists made no agreement with each other to convene and settle in the manner requisite to constitute the Universe Lucretius does not so properly confess as affirm in that fore-cited Passage where he judiciously tells us That Certè neque consiliis Primordia rerum Ordine se quaeque atque sagaci mente locarunt Nec quos quaeque darent Motus pepigêre profecto And the thing it self is manifest enough from the Nature of Atoms confessedly inanimate and devoid of understanding So that although we should grant Pyrophilus the possible Emergency of the innumerable Effects we admire in the World from the various Properties and Coalitions of Atoms yet still you see the formerly mention'd difficulty touching the Resulting of All things from Matter left to it self would recur and it would as well be incredible that an innumerable multitude of insensible Particles as that a lesser number of bigger Parcels of Matter should either conspire to constitute or fortuitously justle themselves into so admirable and harmonious a Fabrick as the Universe or as the Body of Man and consequently it is not credible that they should constitute either unless as their motions were at least in order to their seminal Contextures and primary Coalitions regulated and guided by an intelligent Contriver and Orderer of things And I should so littte think it a Disparagement to have but so much said of any Hypothesis of mine that I suppose I may affirm it without offending either the most sober or the generality of the Atomical Philosophers to whom and to their Doctrine my Writings will manifest me to be no otherwise affected then I ought ESSAY V. Wherein the Discourse interrupted by the late Digression is resumed and concluded IT remains now Pyroph that we at length return into the way from whence the foregoing Digression has I fear too long diverted us and that to prosecute and finish our Discourse we take it up where we left it and were tempted to digress namely at the end of the III Essay betwixt which and the beginning of this V all that has been interpos'd may be look'd upon but as a long Parenthesis In the third place then I consider That whether or no it be true which our Antagonists suggest that there are some things in Nature which tempt Philosophers more then they doe the Vulgar to doubt or deny a God yet certainly there are divers things in Nature that do much conduce to the evincing of a Deity which Naturalists either alone discern or at least discern them better then other Men For besides the abstruse Properties of particular Bodies not discover'd by any but those that make particular Enquiries into those Bodies there are many things in Nature which to a superficial Observer seem to have no relation to one another whereas to a knowing Naturalist that is able to discern their secret Correspondencies and Alliances these things which seem to be altogether Irrelative each to other appear so Proportionate and so Harmonious both betwixt themselves and in reference to the Universe they are parts of that they represent to him a very differing and incomparably better Prospect then to another Man As he that looks upon a Picture made up of scatter'd and deform'd pieces beholding them united into one Face by a Cylindrical Looking-glass aptly plac'd discerns the skill of the Artist that drew it better then he that looks onely on the single parts of that Picture or upon the whole Picture without the uniting Cylinder Which brings into my minde That whereas in the Sacred Story of the Creation when mention is made of Gods having consider'd the Works of each of the first six Days at the end of it it is said of the Work of every Day That God saw that it was good except of the second Day because the separation of the Waters was but imperfectly made on that day and compleated in the next on which it is therefore twice said That God saw that it was good whereas I say when God look'd upon his Works in particular it is onely said That he saw that they were good when He is introduc'd at the close of the Creation as looking upon and surveying his Creatures in their Harmony and entire System it is emphatically said That he saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good And if Aristotle be indeed the Author of the Book De Mundo ad Alexandrum which passes for his and is said to have been Written by him towards the end of his Life it would not be unworthy our Observation to take notice how he that in his other Writings is wont to talk of Gods Interest in the Creatures darkly and hesitantly enough is wrought upon by the Contemplation of the Universe as it is an orderly Aggregate or System of the Works of Nature to make Expressions of the Divine Architect which are not unworthy of Aristotle though being meerly humane they cannot be worthy of God Amongst many I shall single out some and I hope Pyrophilus you will excuse me if in this Essay and some of the precedent ones I do contrary to my custom employ pretty store of Passages taken out of other Authors For first the nature of my Design makes it requisite for me to shew what Opinion the Heathen Philosophers had of the Study of Physiology and what Power their Contemplation of Nature