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beft of critics has left us. The fum of all this difcourfe is, that our clergy have no farther to • look for an example of the perfection they may • arrive at, than to St. Paul's harangues; that when he, under the want of feveral advantages of nature (as he himself tells us) was heard, admired, and made a ftandard to fucceeding ages by the ⚫ beft judge of a different perfuafion in religion : I fay, our clergy may learn, that however inftructive their fermons are, they are capable of receiving a great addition; which St. Paul has given ⚫ them a noble example of, and the Christian Reli⚫gion has furnished them with certain means of ⚫ attaining to.

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Ὁ ἐλαχίσων δεόμεν@ ἔγγισα θεῶν.

SOCRATES apud XEN. The fewer our wants, the nearer we refemble the gods.

IT

T was the common boast of the heathen philofophers, that by the efficacy of their feveral doc trines, they made human nature refemble the divine. How much mistaken foever they might be, in the feveral means they propofed for this end, it must be owned that the defign was great and glorious. The finest works of invention and imagination are of very little weight, when put in the balance with what refines and exalts the rational mind. Longinus excufes Homer very handsomely, when he fays the poet 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 philofophers acted, as Cicero wifhes Homer had done; they endeavoured rather to make men like gods, than gods like men.

According

According to this general maxim in philosophy, fome of them have endeavoured to place men in fuch a state of pleasure, or indolence at leaft, as they vainly imagined the happiness of the Supreme Being to confift in. On the other hand, the moft virtuous fect of philofophers have created a chimerical wife man, whom they made exempt from paffion 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 and a wife man fhould fo arm himself with patience, as not to yield tamely to the violence of paffion and pain; that he should learn fo to fupprefs and contract his defires as to have few wants; and that he fhould cherish so many virtues in his foul, as to have a perpetual fource of pleasure in himself.

The Christian religion requires, that, after having framed the best idea we are able of the Divine Nature, it fhould be our next care to conform ourfelves to it, as far as our imperfections will permit. I might mention feveral paffages in the facred writings on this head, to which I might add many maxims and wife fayings of moral authors among

the Greeks and Romans.

4

I shall only instance a remarkable paffage to this purpofe out of Julian's Cæfars. That emperor having reprefented 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, Auguftus Cæfar, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Conftantine. Each of thefe great heroes of antiquity lays in his claim for the upper place; and, in order to it, fets forth his actions after the most advantageous manBut the gods, instead of being dazzled with the luftre of their actions, enquire, by Mercury, into the proper motive and governing principle

ner.

that

that influenced them, throughout the whole feries of their lives and exploits. Alexander tells them, that his aim was to conquer: Julius Cæfar, that his was to gain the higheft poft in his country; Auguf tus, to govern well; Trajan, that his was the fame as that of Alexander, namely, to conquer. The queftion at length was put to Marcus Aurelius, who replied, with great modefty, that it had always been his care to imitate the gods. This conduct seems to have gained him the most votes, and beft place in the whole affembly. Marcus Aurelius, being afterwards afked to explain himfelf, 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 poffible in himself, 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 juft and perfect idea of that Being whom every reasonable 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 thofe notions of the Deity which prevailed among the common people in the heathen world. Revealed religion fets forth a proper object for imitation, in that Being who is the pattern, as well as the fource, of all fpiritual perfection.

While we remain in this life, we are fubject to innumerable temptations, which, if liftened to, will make us deviate from reafon and goodness, the only things wherein we can imitate the Supreme Being. In the next life we meet with nothing to excite our inclinations that doth not deserve them. I fhall therefore difmifs my reader with this ma xim, viz. Qur happiness in this world proceeds from

the fuppreffion of our defires, but in the next world from the gratification of them.

No 635. MONDAY, DECEMBER 20.

Sentio te fedem hominum ac domum contemplari; quae fi tibi parva (ut eft) ita videtur, haec caeleftia - femper fpectato; illa humana contemnito.

CICERO SOMN. SCIP.

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 defpife earthly.

THE

HE following effay comes from the ingenious author of the letter upon Novelty, printed in a late Spectator: The notions are drawn from the Platonic way of thinking; but as they contribute to raise the mind, and may infpire noble fentiments. of our own future grandeur and happiness, I think it well deferves to be prefented to the public.

IF the universe be the creature of an intelligent mind, this mind could have no immediate regard to himself in producing it. He needed not to make trial of his omnipotence, to be informed what effects were within its reach: The world as exifting in his eternal idea was then as beautiful as now it is drawn forth into being; and, in the immenfe abyfs of his effence, are contained far brighter fcenes than will be ever fet forth to view; it being impoffible that the great author of nature fhould bound his own power by giving existence to a fyftem of creatures fo perfect that he cannot improve upon it by any other exertions of his almighty will Between 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 must be equally fhort of what his power is able to produce as the most imperfect, and may be exceeded with the fame eafe.

This thought hath made fome imagine, (what it must be confeffed is not impoflible) that the unfathomed space is ever teeming with new births, the younger ftill inheriting a greater perfection than the elder. But as this doth not fall within my prefent view, I fhall content myself with taking notice, that the confideration now mentioned proves undeniably, that the ideal worlds in the divine understanding yield a profpect incomparably more ample, various, and delightful, than any created world can do: And that therefore, as it is not to be fuppofed that God should make a world merely of inanimate matter, however diverfified; or inhabited only by creatures of no higher an order than brutes; fo the end for which he defigned his reafonable offspring is the contemplation of his works, the enjoyment of himself, and in both to be happy; having, to this purpose, endowed them with correfpondent faculties and defires. He can have no greater pleasure from a bare review of his works, than from the furvey of his own ideas; but we may be affured, that he is well pleafed in the fatisfaction derived to beings capable of it, and for whofe entertainment he hath erected this immense theatre. Is not this more than an intimation of our immortality? Man who, when confidered as on his probation for a happy existence hereafter, is the moft remarkakle inftance of Divine wisdom, if we cut him off from all relation to eternity, is the most wonderful and unaccountable compofition in the whole creation. He hath capacities to lodge a much greater variety of knowledge than he will be ever mafter of, and an unfatisfied curiofity to tread the fecret paths of nature and providence : But, with this, his organs, in their prefent ftructure, are rather fitted to ferve the neceffities of a

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