Philosophical Transactions/Volume 4/Epistle Dedicatory

To the Right Reverend Father in God
SETH Lord Bishop of SARUM.

 

My LORD,
IApprehended it my Duty in many respects to dedicate to your Lordship this small Volume of the Philosophical Transactions. For We ought to rememher, that 'tis now about 15 or 16 years, since your Lordship Geometrized Astronomy, which did oblige the chief Astronomers of this Learned Age. And that you added Life to the Oxonian Sparkles, I mean that Meeting, which may he called the Embryo or First Conception of the Royal Society: And that to vindicate Universities from a general Deluge, when many had a sinister mind against them, You appeared publickly, even in the rough times, Academiarum Vindex. Whence we may justly inferr, that you will receive much comfort to see both Universities contribute so effectually by their valuable Works to the Advancement of Solid Learning: In Oxford for the Mathematicks and Mechanicks; as you my find here in the Abreviation of Mechanica sive de Motu &c. And we had here also given you the brief of a Noble Argument from Cambridge concerning Opticks, if we had not waited for some Geometrical Lectures from the same Worthy Author, proper to be publisht with those his Opticks. And if in the fore-going Volume some of the chief Branches of the Mathematicks, Algebra, and other parts of real Philosophy (in which your Lordship with much affection and success hath these many years been happily concerned) were diligently sollicited for the benefit of the Studious in those excellent Sciences; I hope, we may not immodestly say, that in their Volume we have given an Accompt of some further Improvements in the same kind (N. 45. 46. 49;) and of a foundation laid, and in some Tables commenced for the rectifying of Astronomy by observing Celestial Appearances in our English Horizon, by a Learned and Ingenuous Person, who professeth good respects and readiness of service to the R. Society N. 55.

My Lord, I must hear forbear at large to represent, How much you have contributed to the promoting all parts of considerable knowledge, both by your own private studies, and in Juncture with the said Society since its Institution. I must be rather careful, that this my free Address may have no appearance of uncomly obsequiousness, but may he supported by firm grounds of sober and generally acknowledged Truth. And in this Age of Calumny we have good cause to rejoyce in the Conspicuous Examples of such, as have personally assisted, and therein proved their fitness to officiate, at the highest Altars, for the Government, and for the Safety and Ornament of the Church, and who withall have made the deepest Researches into the Works of God, of Nature, and of Art. This it was in the first Model of the World, before fruitless Controversies and verbal Altercations had made a wide difference between the Works of God and the Notions of Men. Antiquity attributes the first Monumental Hieroglyphicks to Seths Pillars; the first Naval Architecture to Noah; the Syderal Arts to Abraham; the Holy Utensils, fittest for a portable Tabernacle, to Moses; the Architecture of the fairest Temple to Solomon; and generally the most Useful Sciences, to the no less Devout than Wise Men of the East. And those Illustrious Propagators of the Gospel, who in the Primitive conflicts and distresses of the Church were enabled to dispell the darkness of the Gentiles, both by their Writings and Sufferings, were many of them the best Philosophers of those Ages; at least of those Countryes, where they dispensed the Heavenly Mysteries.

This Congratulation we owe more particularly to your Lordship for those Divine Discourses, in which you have publickely refuted Atheisme, and with it those Men, who stand in their own light, in denying the best Evidences of their own Priviledges and their surest Titles to an Happy Eternity. And hence also the Sensualists and Men of Animosities and of a endless Contentions may learn, that they, who follow closest to the streight Line, and are in the nearest approaches to the Center of Truth, and to the Fountain of Purity, as they are more secur'd from Deviations, and the loss of Time, so they have freer Spirits and better leisure to advance the General Benefit of Mankind. And hence I account myself well assured of your Lordships countenance, whilst I am faithfully devoted to these ends, being always

My LORD

Your Lordships

Very Humble and much Obliged Servant

Henry Oldenburg Soc. Reg. Sec.