Laudator Temporis Acti

Thomas More, Utopia, II (tr. G.C. Richards, rev. Edward Surtz):

They think that the investigation of nature, with the praise arising from it, is an act of worship acceptable to God.

Gratum deo cultum putant naturae contemplationem, laudemque ab ea.

Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, I, 13:

The world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied and contemplated by man: 'tis the debt of our reason wee owe unto God, and the homage wee pay for not being beasts; without this the world is still as though it had not been, or as it was before the sixt day when as yet there was not a creature that could conceive, or say there was a world. The wisedome of God receives small honour from those vulgar heads, that rudely stare about, and with a grosse rusticity admire his workes; those highly magnifie him whose judicious enquiry into his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, returne the duty of a devout and learned admiration.