Page:Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's life.djvu/149

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used, thumbd over, as they call it, in an extraordinary degree, with frequency of use.

he who was so well acquainted with the laws of our material system, by which the sovereign architect governs, & preserves the whole frame; he knew that the same allgood, & allwise being did not leave the moral world without rule, & law; which law we call religion. but religion is nothing, without practise; & that practise must be public, vizt the sabbatical duty, which is the very basis of all the good we enjoy in this world, either as to the community or to private persons: as well as of the claim it gives us of a future happiness.

Sr. Isaac's great, & extensive mind, to which Providence had given so vast, so intimate a view of his works, must needs tast the most divine pleasure in the public acts of adoration of the omnipotent fountain of all things: especially in the service of the Church of England, which of all others most certainly, & most strongly affects, & influences a rational person, one of learning, & solid piety.

Xthis is the genuin effect of true philosophy; which disdains meager scepticism, anti-christian infidelity, & impious atheism: which excludes blind fatalism, & the hideous train of fruitless, & hopeless absurditys of that sort.

Sr. Isaac was sensible, that the material, & the animal world were govern'd by infallible canons, never deviating; by the great principles of gravitation, & impulse, and by that which we call instinct. but the rational world being perfectly free, must still