Browne: Search while thou wilt

Monday, August 22, 2022
Meditation:
For wisdom will enter your heart,
    and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
Discretion will protect you,
    and understanding will guard you.
    —Proverbs 2:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
Search while thou wilt, and let thy reason go
To ransome truth even to th’ Abyss below;
Rally the scattered Causes; and that line
Which Nature twists, be able to untwine:
It is thy Makers will, for unto none,
But unto reason can he e’er be known...

Give thou my reason that instructive flight,
Whose weary wings may on thy hands still light.
Teach me so to soar aloft, yet ever so,
When near the Sun, to stoop again below.
Thus shall my humble Feathers safely hover,
And, though near Earth, more than the Heavens discover.
And then at last, when homeward I shall drive
Rich with the Spoils of nature to my Hive,
There will I sit like that industrious Flie,
Buzzing thy praises, which shall never die,
Till death abrupts them, and succeeding Glory
Bid me go on in a more lasting story.
    ... Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), Religio Medici [1643], W. Murison, ed., Cambridge University Press, 1922, p. 17-28 (see the book)
    See also Pr. 2:10-11; 1:7; 8:10-11; 24:3-5; 1 Cor. 13:9-12; Phil. 3:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I read Your great glory in nature and the heavens.

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