The Christian Face of the Scientific Revolution Issue 76 | 2002 Purchase this issue

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Robert Boyle was not only a brilliant and innovative scientist, but also an accomplished writer on religious subjects. Puritan preacher and theologian Richard Baxter once wrote warmly to Boyle, "Your pious Meditations & Reflections, do call to me for greater Reverence in the reading of them, & make me put off my halt, as if I were in the Church."

What so affected Baxter? No doubt it was Boyle's deep piety, as seen in statements such as these:

"He that made our Souls, and upholds them, can best know what they are, and how long he will have them last."

—The Excellency of Theology (1674)

"We must never venture to wander far from God, upon the Presumption that Death is far enough from us, but rather in the very height of our Jollities, we should endeavour to remember, that they who feast themselves today, may themselves prove Feasts for the Worms tomorrow."

—Occasional Reflections Upon Several Subjects (1665)

"He whose Faith never doubted, may justly doubt of his Faith."

—Diurnall Observations, Thoughts, & Collections (1647)

"The book of nature is a fine and large piece of tapestry rolled up, which we are not able to see all at once, but must be content to wait for the discovery of its beauty, and symmetry, little by little, as it gradually comes to be more and more unfolded, or displayed."

—The Christian Virtuoso, in Thomas Birch, ed. Works (1744)