N° 70. MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1713.

―mentisque capacius altæ.

OVID. Met. i. 76.

Of thoughts enlarg'd, and more exalted mind.

As I was the other day taking a solitary walk in St. Paul's, I indulged my thoughts in the pursuit of a certain analogy between that fabric and the Christian church in the largest sense. The divine order and œconomy of the one seemed to be emblematically set forth by the just, plain, and majestic architecture of the other. And as the one consists of a great variety of parts united in the same regular design, according to the truest art, and most exact proportion; so the other contains a decent subordination of members, various sacred institutions, sublime doctrines, and solid precepts of morality digested into the same design, and with an admirable concurrence tending to one view, the happiness and exaltation of human nature.

In the midst of my contemplation, I beheld a fly upon one of the pillars; and it straightway came into my head, that this same fly was a freethinker. For it required some comprehension in the eye of the spectator, to take in at one view the various parts of the building, in order to observe their symmetry and design. But to the fly, whose prospect was confined to a little part of one of the stones of a single pillar, the joint beauty of the whole, or the distinct use of its parts, were incon. spicuous, and nothing could appear but small in

equalities in the surface of the hewn stone, which in the view of that insect seemed so many deformed rocks and precipices.

The thoughts of a free-thinker are employed on certain minute particularities of religion, the difficulty of a single text, or the unaccountableness of some step of Providence or point of doctrine to his narrow faculties, without comprehending the scope and design of Christianity, the perfection to which it raiseth human nature, the light it hath shed abroad in the world, and the close connection it hath as well with the good of public societies, as with that of particular persons.

This raised in me some reflections on that frame or disposition which is called largeness of mind, its necessity towards forming a true judgment of things, and where the soul is not incurably stinted by nature, what are the likeliest methods to give it enlargement.

It is evident that philosophy doth open and enlarge the mind, by the general views to which men are habituated in that study, and by the contemplation of more numerous and distant objects, that fall within the sphere of mankind in the ordinary pursuits of life. Hence it comes to pass, that philosophers judge of most things very differently from the vulgar. Some instances of this may be seen in the Theatetus of Plato,where Socrates makes the following remarks, among others of the like

nature.

When a philosopher hears ten thousand acres mentioned as a great estate, he looks upon it as an inconsiderable spot, having been used to contemplate the whole globe of earth. Or when he beholds a man elated with the nobility of his race, because he can reckon a series of seven rich an

cestors; the philosopher thinks him a stupid ignorant fellow, whose mind cannot reach to a general view of human nature, which would shew him that we have all innumerable ancestors, among whom are crowds of rich and poor, kings and slaves, Greeks and barbarians.' Thus far Socrates, who was accounted wiser than the rest of the heathens, for notions which approach the nearest to Christianity.

As all parts and branches of philosophy, or speculative knowledge, are useful in that respect, astronomy is peculiarly adapted to remedy a little and narrow spirit. In that science there are good reasons assigned to prove the sun an hundred thousand times bigger than our earth, and the distance of the stars so prodigious, that a cannon-bullet continuing in its ordinary rapid motion, would not arrive from hence at the nearest of them in the space of an hundred and fifty thousand years. These ideas wonderfully dilate and expand the mind. There is something in the immensity of this distance, that shocks and overwhelms the imagination; it is too big for the grasp of a human intellect: estates, provinces, and kingdoms, vanish at its presence. It were to be wished a certain prince *, who hath encouraged the study of it in his subjects, had been himself a proficient in astronomy. This might have shewed him how mean an ambition that was, which terminated in a small part of what is itself but a point, in respect to that part of the universe which lies within our view,

But the Christian religion ennobleth and enlargeth the mind beyond any other profession or science whatsoever. Upon that scheme, while the

* Lewis XIV.

earth, and the transient enjoyments of this life, shrink into the narrowest dimensions, and are accounted as 'the dust of a balance, the drop of a bucket, yea, less than nothing,' the intellectual world opens wider to our view. The perfections of the Deity, the nature and excellence of virtue, the dignity of the human soul, are displayed in the largest characters. The mind of man seems to adapt itself to the different nature of its objects; it is contracted and debased by being conversant in little and low things, and feels a proportionable enlargement arising from the contemplation of these great and sublime ideas.

The greatness of things is comparative; and this does not only hold, in respect of extension, but likewise in respect of dignity, duration, and all kinds of perfection. Astronomy opens the mind, and alters our judgment, with regard to the magnitude of extended beings; but Christianity produceth an universal greatness of soul. Philosophy increaseth our views in every respect, but Christianity extends them to a degree beyond the light of

nature.

How mean must the most exalted potentate upon earth appear to that eye which takes in innumerable orders of blessed spirits, differing in glory and perfection! How little must the amusements of sense, and the ordinary occupations of mortal men, seem to one who is engaged in so noble a pursuit, as the assimilation of himself to the Deity, which is the proper employment of every Christian!

And the improvement which grows from habituating the mind to the comprehensive views of religion must not be thought wholly to regard the understanding. Nothing is of greater force to subdue the inordinate motions of the heart, and to regu

late the will. Whether a man be actuated by his passions, or his reason, these are first wrought upon by some object, which stirs the soul in proportion to its apparent dimensions. Hence irreligious men, whose short prospects are filled with earth, and sense, and mortal life, are invited, by these mean ideas, to actions proportionably little and low. But a mind, whose views are enlightened and extended by religion, is animated to nobler pursuits by more sublime and remote objects.

There is not any instance of weakness in the freethinkers that raises my indignation more, than their pretending to ridicule Christians, as men of narrow understandings, and to pass themselves upon the world for persons of superior sense, and more enlarged views. But I leave it to any impartial man to judge which hath the nobler sentiments, which the greater views; he whose notions are stinted to a few miserable inlets of sense, or he whose sentiments are raised above the common taste, by the anticipation of those delights which will satiate the soul, when the whole capacity of her nature is branched out into new faculties? He who looks for nothing beyond this short span of duration, or he whose aims are co-extended with the endless length of eternity? He who derives his spirit from the elements, or he who thinks it was inspired by the Almighty?