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No. 635.

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THE SPECTATOR.

rational mind. Longinus excuses Homer very handsomely; when he says he made his gods like men, that he might make his men appear like the gods. But it must be allowed that feveral of the ancient philosophers acted, as Cicero wishes Homer had done: they endeavoured rather to make men like gods, than gods like men.

According to this grand general maxim in philofophy, fome of them have endeavoured to place men in such a state of pleasure, or indolence at leaft, as they vainly imagined the happiness of the Supreme Being to confist in. On the other hand, the most virtuous sect of philosophers have Created a chimerical wife man, whom they made exempt from passion and pain, and thought it enough to pronounce him all-fufficient.

This last character, when divested of the glare of human philofophy that furrounds it, fignifies no more, than that a good wife man should fo arm himself with patience, as not to yield tamely to the violence of passion or pain; that he should learn so to suppress and contract his defires as to have but few wants; and that he should cherish so many virtues in his foul, as to have a perpetual pleasure in himself.

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The christian religion requires, that after having framed the best idea, we are able, of the divine nature, it should be our next care to conform ourselves to it, as far as our imperfections will permit. I might mention several passages in the facred writings on this head, to which I might add many maxims and wife fayings of moral au thors among the Greeks and Romans.

I shall only instance a remarkable passage, to this púrpofe; out of Julian's Cæfars. That emperor having represented all the Roman emperors, with Alexander the Great, as paffing in review before the gods, and striving for the fuperiority, lets them all drop, excepting Alexander, Julius Cæfar, Augustus Cælar, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Constantine. Each of these great heroes of antiquity lays in his claint for the upper place, and, in order to it, sets forth his actions after the most advantageous manner. But the gods, inftead of being dazzled with the luftre of their actions, enquire by Mercury, into the proper motive and governing principle that influenced them throughout the whole feries of their lives and exploits.lexanoer tells them, that his aim was to conquer; Julius Cæfar, that his was to gain the highest post in his country; Auguftus, to govern well Trajan, that his was the fame as that of Alex ander, namely, to conquer. The question, at Fength was put to Marcus Aurelius, who replied, with great modesty, that " it had been always his " care to imitate the gods." This conduct seems to have gained him the most votes and best place in the whole assembly. Marcus Aurelius being afterwards asked to explain himself, declares, that by imitating the gods, he endeavoured to imitate them in the use of his understanding, and of all other faculties; and, in particular, that it was always his study to have as few wants as possible in himfelf, and to do all the good he could to others.

Among the many methods by which revealed religion has advanced morality, this is one, that it has given us a more just and perfect idea of that Being whom every reafonable creature ought to imitate. The young man, in a heathen comedy, might justify his lewdness by the example of Jupiter; as, indeed, there was scarce any crime that might not be countenanced by those notions sehe deity which prevailed among the common

people in the heathen world. Revealed religion 397 fets forth a proper object for imitation, in that Being who is the pattern, as well as the source, of all spiritual perfection.

innumerable temptations, which if liftened to While we remain in this life, we are subject to the only things wherein we can imitate the Suwill make us deviate from reason and goodness preme Being ing. In the next life we meet with no thing to excite our inclinations that doth not deserve them. I shall therefore dismiss my reader with this maxim, viz. "Our happiness in

this world proceeds from the fuppreffion of our "defires, but in the next world from the gratiof fication of them."

I perceive you contemplate the feat and habitation of men; which if it appears as little to you as it really is, fix your eyes perpetually upon heavenly objects, and despise earthly.

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HE following essay comes from the ingenious author of the letter upon novelty, printed in a late Spectator i the notions are drawn from the platonic way of thinking; but as they contribute to raife the mind, and may inspire noble sentiments of our own future grandeur and happiness, I think it well deferves to be presented to the public. F the universe be the creature of an intelligent mind, this mind could have regard to himself in producing it. no immediate He needed formed what effects were within its reach: the not to make trial of his omnipotence, to be inworld as exifting is his eternal idea was then as beautiful as now it is drawn forth into being; and in the immenfe abyss of his effence are contained far brighter scenes than will be ever fet forth to view; it being impossible that the great author of nature should bound his own power by giving exiftence to a system of creatures, so perfect that he cannot improve upon it by any other exertions of his almighty will. Betweent finite and infinite there is an unmeasured interval; not to be filled up in endless ages; for which reafon, the most excellent of all God's works mu be equally short of what his power is able to pro duce as the most imperfect, and may be exceeded with the fame ease.

it must be confefled, is not impoffible) that the This thought hath made some imagine, (what unfathomed space is ever teeming with new births, the younger still inheriting a greater perfection than the elder. But as this doth not fall within taking notice, that the confideration now menmy present view, I shall content myfelf with tioned proves undeniably, that the ideal worlds in the divine understanding yield a profpect inthan any created world can do: and that therefore comparably more ample, various, and delightful, as it is not fupposed that God should make a world merely of inanimate matter, however diversified, order than brutes; to the end for which he deor inhabited only by creatures of no higher an figned his reasonable offspring is the contemplation of his works, the enjoyment of himselfs and in both to be happy; having, to this pur

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Pose endowed them with correspondent faculties and defires. He can have no greater pleasure from ▲ bare review of his works, than from the furvey of his own ideas; but we may be affured that he is well pleased in the fatisfaction derived to beings capable of it, and for whose entertainment he hath erected this immenfe theatre. Is not this more than an intimation of our immortality? Man, who when con fidered as on his probation for a happy exiflence hereafter, is the most remarkable instance of divine wisdom, if we cut him off from all relation to eternity, is the most wonderful and unaccountable composition in the whole creation. He hath capacities to lodge a much greater variety of knowledge than he will be ever master of, and an unfatisfied curiofity to tread the fecret paths of nature and providence: but, with this, his organis, in their present structure, are rather fitted to serve the necessities of a vile body, than to minister to his understanding; and from the little spot to which he is chained, he can frame but wandering guesses concerning the innumerable worlds of light that encompass him, which, though in them selves of a prodigious bigness; do but just glimmer in the remote spaces of the Heavens; and, whien with a great deal of time and pains he hath laboured a little way up the steep afcent of truth, and be holds with pity the groveling multitude beneath, in a moment his foot slides, and he tumbles down headlong into the grave.

Thinking on this, I am obliged to believe; in justice to the Creator of the world, that there is another state when man shall be better situated for contemplation, or rather have it in his power to remove from object to object, and from world to world; and be accommodated with senses, and other helps, for making the quickest and most amazing difcoveries. How does such a genius as Sir Ifaac Newton, from amidst the darkness that involves human understanding, break forth, and appear like one of another species! the vast machine, we inhabit, lies open to him; he seems not unacquainted with the general laws that go

whence refults the harmony of the universe. In eternity a great deal may be done of this kind. I find it of use to cherish this generous ambition; for besides the secret refreshment it diffuses through my foul, it engages me in an endeavour to improve my faculties, as well as to exercise them conformably to the rank I now hold among rea-' fonable beings, and the hope I have of being once advanced to a more exalted station.

The other, and that the ultimate end of man, is the enjoyment of God, beyond which he cannot form a wish. Dim at best are the conceptions we have of the Supreme Being, who, as it were, keeps his creatures in suspence, fufpence, neither discovering, ine nor hiding himself, felf, by which means, the libertine hath a handle to difpute his existence, while the most are content to speak him fair, but in their heart prefer every trifling fatisfaction to the favour of their Maker, and ridicule the good man for the fingularity of his choice: Will there not a time come, when the free-thinker shall fee his impious schemes overturned, and be made convert to the truth he hates; when deluded mortals shall be convinced of the folly of their pursuits, and the few wife who followed the guidance of Heaven, and seorning the blandishments of sense and the fordid bribery of the world, afpired to a celestial abode, shall stand poffefied of their utmost with the vision of the Creator? Here the mind heaves a thought now and then towards him, and hath some tranfient glances of his presence: when, in the instant it thinks itself to have the fastest hold, the object cludes his expectations, and it falls back tired and baffled to the ground: Doubtless there is fomie more perfect way of converfing with heavenly beings. Are not spirits capable of mutual intelligence, unless immersed in bodies, or by their intervention? muit fuperior natures depend on inferior for the main privilege of sociable beings, that of conversing with and knowing each other? what would they have done had matter never been created? I suppose, not have lived in eternal folitude. As incorporeal substances are of a nobler order, so be sure, their

vern it; and while with the transport of a philo-manner of intercourse is answerably more expedite

fopher he beholds and admires the glorious work, he is capable of paying at once a more devout and more rational homage to his Maker. But alas! how narrow is the prospect even of such a mind? and how obscure to the compass that is taken in by the ken of an angel, or of a foul but newly escaped from its imprisonment of the body! For my part I freely indulge my foul in the confidence of its future grandeur; it pleases me to think that I who know so small a portion of the works of the Creator, and with flow and painful steps creep up and down on the surface of this globe, shall ere long shoot away with the swiftness of imagination, trace out the hidden springs of nature's operations; be able to keep pace with the heavenly bodies in the rapidity of their career, be a spectator of the long chain of events in the natural and motal worlds, vifit the several apartments of the creation, know how they are furnithed and how inhabited, comprehend the order, and measure the magnitudes and distances of those oros, which to us feem dispoted without any regular design, and set all in the same circle; observe the dependance of the parts of each system, and (if our minds are big enough to grasp the the ory) of the several systems upon one another, from

and intimate. This method of communication, we call intellectual vision, as something analogous to the sense of feeing, which is the medium of our acquaintance with this visible world. And in some fuch way can God make himself the object of im mediate intuition to the blessed; and as he can, it is not improbable that he will, always condefcending, in the circumstances of doing it, to the weakness and proportion of finite minds. His works but faintly reflect the image of his perfections; it is a second hand knowledge: to have a just idea of him, it may be neceffary that we see him as he is. But what is that? it is something that never entered into the heart of man to conceive; yet, what we can easily conceive; will be a fountain of unspeakable, and everlasting rapture. All created glories will fade and die away in his prefence. Perhaps it will be my happiness to compare the world with the fair exemplar of it in the divine mind; per haps, to view the original plan of those wife designs that have been executing in a long fuc ceffion of ages. Thus employed in finding out his works, and contemplating their author, how shall I fall proftrate and adoring, my body swallowed up in the immensity of matter, my mind in the infinitude of his perfections!

THE

INDEX

TO THE

VOLUME.

Delight and furprize, properties effential to wit, Heroes in an English tragedy generally lovers,

politics, T