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vide for all cafes, it is better private men should have fome, injustice done them, than that a publick grievance fhould not be redreffed. This is ufually pleaded in defence of all those hardships which fall on particular perfons in particular occasions, which could not be foreseen when a law was made. To remedy this however as much as poffible, the Court of Chancery was erected, which frequently miti. gates, and breaks the teeth of the common law, in cafes of mens properties, while in criminal cafes there is a power of pardoning still lodged in the Crown.

Notwithstanding this, it is perhaps impoffible in a large government to distribute rewards and punishments strictly proportioned to the merits of every action. The Spartan commonwealth was indeed wonderfully exact in this particular; and I do not remember in all my reading to have met with fo nice an example of juftice as that recorded by Plutarch, with which I fhall clofe my paper for this day.

The city of Sparta being unexpectedly attacked by a powerful army of Thebans, was in very great. danger of falling into the hands of their enemies.. The citizens fuddenly gathering themselves into a body, fought with a refolution equal to the néceflìty of their affairs, yet no one fo remarkably diftinguished himself on this occafion, to the amazement. of both armies, as Ifadas the fon of Phoebidas, who was at that time in the bloom of his youth, and veby remarkable for the comeliness of his perfon. He was coming out of the bath when the alarm was given, fo that he had not time to put on his clothes, much lefs his armour; however, tranfported with. a defire to ferve his country in fo great an exigency, fnatching up a spear in one hand and a fword in the other, he flung himfelf into the thickeft ranks of his enemies. Nothing could withstand his fury In what part foever he fought he put the enemies.

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to flight without receiving a fingle wound. Whether, fays Plutarch, he was the particular care of fome god, who rewarded his valour that day with an extraordinary protection, or that his enemies, ftruck with the unufualness of his drefs and beauty of his fhape, fuppofed him fomething more than man, I fhall not determine.

The galantry of this action was judged fo great by the Spartans, that the Ephori, or chief magiftrates, decreed he fhould be prefented with a garland; but as foon as they had done fo, fined him a thousand drachmas for going out to the battle unarmed.

No 565.

** FRIDAY, JULY 9.

·Deum namque ire per omnes

Terrafque, tractufque maris, cœlumque profundum.

VIRG. Georg. iv. ver. 221.

For God the whole created mafs infpires;

Thro' heav'n, and earth, and ocean's depths he

throws

His influence round, and kindles as he goes.

DRYDEN.

I

I WAS yesterday about fun-fet walking in the open fields, until the night infenfibly fell upon me. at first amufed myself with all the richness and variety of colours, which appeared in the weftern parts of heaven: In proportion as they faded away and went out, feveral ftars and planets appeared one after another, until the whole firmament was in a glow. The blueness of the Ether was exceedingly heightened and enlivened by the feafon of the year, and by the rays of all thofe luminaries that paffed through it. The Galaxy appeared in its. most beautiful white. To complete the scene, the full moon rofe at length in that clouded majefty which Milton takes notice of, and opened to the

eye

eye a new picture of nature, which was more finely fhaded, and difpofed among fofter lights, than that which the fun had before discovered to us.

As I was furveying the moon walking in her brightness, and taking her progrefs among the conftellations, a thought rofe in me which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs men of serious and contemplative natures. David himfelf fell into it in that reflexion: When I confider the Heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and the ftars which thou haft ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou regardeft him? In the fame manner, when I confidered that infinite host of stars, or, to fpeak more philofophically, of funs, which were then shining upon me, with those innumerable sets of planets or worlds, which were moving round their refpective funs; when I ftill enlarged the idea, and fuppofed another Heaven of funs and worlds rifing still above this which we difcovered, and these still enlightened by a fuperior firmament of luminaries, which are planted at fo great a diftance, that they may appear to the inhabitants of the former as the ftars do to us; in fhort, while I pursued this thought, I could not but reflect on that little infignificant figure which I myself bore amidst the immenfity of God's works.

Were the fun, which enlightens this part of the creation, with all the hoft of planetary worlds, that move about him, utterly extinguished and annihilated, they would not be miffed more than a grain of fand upon the fea-fhore. The space they poffefs is fo exceedingly little in comparison of the whole, that it would fcarce make a Blank in the creation. The chafm would be imperceptible to an eye, that could take in the whole compafs of nature, and pafs from one end of the creation to the other; as it is poffible there may be fuch a fenfe in ourselves hereafter, or in creatures which are at prefent more exalted than ourselves. We fee many stars by the help of glaffes, which we do not difcover with our naked.

eyes;

eyes; and the finer our telescopes are, the more ftill are out difcoveries. Huygenius carried this thought so far, that he does not think it impoffible there may be stars whofe light is not yet travelled down to us, fince their first creation. There is no queftion but the universe has certain bounds fet to it; but when we confider that it is the work of infinite power prompted by infinite goodness, with an infinite space to exert itself in, how can our imagination fet any bounds to it?

To return therefore to my first thought, I could not but look upon myself with fecret horror, as a being that was not worth the smallest regard of one who had fo great a work under his care and fuperintendency. I was afraid of being overlooked amidft the immenfity of nature, and loft among that infinite variety of creatures, which in all probability fwarm through all these immeasurable regions of matter.

In order to recover myself from this mortifying thought, I confidered that it took its rife from thofe narrow conceptions, which we are apt to entertain of the Divine Nature. We ourfelves cannot attend to many different objects at the fame time. If we are careful to infpect fome things, we muft of courfe neglect others. This imperfection, which we obferve in ourselves, is an imperfection that cleaves in fome degree to creatures of the highest capacities, as they are creatures, that is, beings of finite and limited natures. The prefence of every created being is confined to a certain measure of fpace, and confequently his obfervation is stinted to a certain number of objects. The sphere in which we move, and act, and understand, is of a wider circumference to one creature than another, according as we rife one above another in the scale of existence. But the widest of these our spheres has its circumference. When therefore we reflect on the Divine Nature, we are fo used and accustomed

to

to this imperfection in ourfelves, that we cannot forbear in fome measure. afcribing it to him in whom there is no fhadow of imperfection. Our reafon indeed affures us that his attributes are infinite, but the poornefs of our conceptions is such that it cannot forbear fetting bounds to every thing it contemplates, until our reafon comes again to our fuccour, and throws down all thofe little prejudices which rife in us unawares, and are natural to the mind of man.

We fhall therefore utterly extinguish this melancholy thought, of our being overlooked by our Maker in the multiplicity of his works, and the infinity of thofe objects among which he seems to be inceffantly employed, if we confider, in the first place, that he is omniprefent; and, in the second, that he is omnifcient.

If we confider him in his omniprefence: His being paffes through, actuates, and supports the whole frame of nature. His creation, and every part of it is full of him. There is nothing he has made, that is either fo diftant, fo little, or fo inconfiderable, which he does not effentially inhabit. His fubftance is within the fubftance of every being whether material or immaterial, and as intimately prefent to it, as that being is to itself. It would be an imperfection in him, were he able to remove out of one place into another, or to withdraw himselffrom any thing he has created, or from any part of that space which is diffused and spread abroad to infinity. In fhort, to fpeak of him in the language of the old philofopher, he is a being whofe centre is every where, and his circumference no where.

In the fecond place, he is omnifcient as well as omniprefent. His omnifcience indeed neceffarily and naturally flows from his omniprefence; he cannot but be conscious of every motion that arises in the whole material world, which he thus effentially pervades, and of every thought that is. ftirring in

the

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