of heavenly Things? If so, how far short were the very Apostles of this Character of Sanctity, which these Men would prescribe us? What Traffick, what Commerce, what Government, what secular Employment could be allowed? Where should we at last make an end of refining? What would become of all the Men of Trade themselves, of whom this Age has shewn so many Pretenders to the purest Religion.
Let it only therefore be granted, that we are Men, and not Angels: Let it be confess'd, that there may be an Excess, as well as Defect, in Men's Opinions of Holiness: And then I will make no scruple to say, that the Philosopher defiles not his Mind when he labours in the Works of Nature; that the Diversion they give him, will stand with the greatest Constancy, and the Delight of pursuing them, with the Truth and Reality of Religion. But to say no more, How can it be imagin'd to be a sinful and carnal Thing, to consider the Objects of our Senses; when God, the most spiritual Being, did make them all? Since they first were conceiv'd in his unspotted Mind, why may they not innocently enter into ours? For if there be any Pollution which necessarily flows from thinking of them, it might as well be concluded to stick on the Author, as on the Souls of them that only observe them.
§. XXIII. Experiments not dangerous to the Church of England.And now having insisted so long on the Parts of the Christian Religion in General, it will be less needful that I should be large in vindicating this Design from the Imputation of being prejudicial to the Church of England: For this has the same Interest with that, and differs in nothing from its primitive Pattern, but only in the addition of some Circumstances, which make it fit for this Age, and this Place: And therefore they