Presbyterian Church -- Sermons; Sermons, English; Theology -- Early works to 1800; Theology -- History -- 17th century
The following extract will show the holy use to which the pious author
consecrated his knowledge of “physiology,” which, when a Regent he was
bound to teach, by the foundation charter of the University—“We can do
nothing except we have some pattern or copy before us, but now, upon this
ground which God hath laid man may fancy many superstructures. But when he
stretched out the heaven, and laid the foundation of the earth, ‘who,
being his counsellor taught him?’ At whom did his Spirit take counsel?
Certainly, none of all these things would have entered into the heart of
man to consider or contrive, Isa. xl. 12, 13. Some ruder spirits do gaze
upon the huge and prodigious pieces of the creation, as whales and
elephants, &c., but a wise Solomon will go to the school of the ant to
learn the wisdom of God, and choose out such a simple and mean creature
for the object of his admiration. Certainly there are wonders in the
smallest and most inconsiderable creatures which faith can contemplate. O
the curious ingenuity and draught of the finger of God, in the composition
of flies, bees, flowers, &c. Men ordinarily admire more some extraordinary
things, but the truth is, the whole course of nature is one continued
wonder, and that greater than any of the Lord’s works without the line.
The straight and regular line of the wisdom of God, who, in one constant
course and tenor, hath ordained the actions of all his creatures,
comprehends more wonders and mysteries, as the course of the sun, the
motion of the sea, the hanging of the earth in the empty place upon
nothing. These, we say, are the wonders indeed, and comprehend something
in them which all the wonders of Egypt and the wilderness cannot parallel.
But it is the stupid security of men, that are only awakened by some new
and unusual passages of God’s works beyond that straight line of
nature.”(75)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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