vi The A U T II O R/s PREFAC E. 



upon them to diftinguifh on all occafions, when they undertake 

 a cure of fouls. In the next place, they muft learn to know God 

 from his other great works, which proclaim his being, and attri- 

 butes, as well as from his wife and tender ceconomy in the go- 

 vernment of all his creatures. If they mould prove unacquainted 

 with this branch of knowlege, then they are more ignorant than 

 even the heathens, according to the teftimony of St. Paul himfelf, 

 which is accomplifhed by the writings of Pagans. How admira- 

 bly among others *, Derham, and Nieuwentyt f , have applied 

 natural philofophy to an unanfwerable confirmation of revealed 

 truths, is well known to thofe who have penned their excellent 

 works with attention, and have from fuch perufal, either acquired 

 their firft belief and love of God, or found thofe religious habits 

 greatly ftrengthened and animated. Moreover, a religious man, 

 whofe profeftion turns his attention to other fecular fciences, muft 

 confefs, that the delight of natural enquiries is greatly heightened 

 to him, by an advantage which at firft he did not expect, by the 

 confirmation of his belief, and thus he is encouraged to purfue 

 his refearches, by the repeated fatisfaction with which they are 

 attended. Not to mention the occafion which a naturalift may 

 take from his fcience, to remind himfelf and others of their duty 

 towards God and their neighbour, and this agreeably to the me- 

 thod of the prophets, and the example of the great prophet Jefus 

 himfelf, who referred thofe who are intemperately follicitous 

 about worldly things, to the fowls of the air, and the lillies of 

 the field; the difobedient to the oxen, and affes, which know 

 their mafter; the flothful to the induftrious pattern of the ant; 



* Particularly in his phyfico theology, or a demonftration of the being and attri- 

 butes of God, from the works of creation, being the fubftance of fixteen fermons 

 preached at the lectures founded by the honourable Robert Boyle. 



f In that learned and devout work, the religious philofopher, or a right ufe of the 

 ftudy of nature to the conviction of atheifts and infidels. This convi&ion fhould be 

 an efpecial incentive to further refearches; as, without the leaft hypocrify, I can fay of 

 myfelf, that the y^w ia Qsa the knowlege of the eternal, invifible Being, who is the 

 fcope and fpirit of all the truths delivered by the prophets and apoftles, and the Situ 

 «W? dm TroAoyrrraj, by which others alfo may be gained, not only irrefiftibly drew me 

 into the ftudy of natural hiftory, .but fweetens all the labours with which it feems to 

 be attended, and enlivens the conversation of perfons of the fame tafte, Henkels Pyri- 

 lologie, or hiftory of fire, Cap. v. p. 300. 



and 



