the chief intention undoubtedly was to typify inward purity and cleanliness of heart by those outward washings. We read several injunctions of this kind in the Book of Deuteronomy, which confirm this truth; and which are but ill accounted for by saying, as some do, that they were only insti-tiful constellation in the heavens was composed tuted for convenience in the desert, which other wise could not have been habitable for so many years. I shall conclude this essay with a story which I have somewhere read in an account of Mahometan superstitions. A dervise of great sanctity one morning had the misfortune as he took up a crystal cup, which was consecrated to the prophet, to let it fall upon the ground, and dash it in pieces. His son coming in some time after, he stretched out his hands to bless him, as his manner was every morning; but the youth going out stumbled over the threshold and broke his arm. As the old man wondered at these events, a caravan passed by in its way from Mecca; the dervise approached it to beg a blessing; but as he stroked one of the holy camels, he received a kick from the beast that sorely bruised him. His sorrow and amazement increased upon him until he recollected that, through hurry and inadvertency, he had that moruing come abroad without washing his hands. No. 632.] MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1714. Then to obscurity, well pleas'd, retreat. THE love of symmetry and order, which is natural to the mind of man, betrays him sometimes into very whimsical fancies. "This noble principle," says a French author, loves to amuse itself on the most trifling occasions. You may see a profound philosopher," says he, "walk for an hour together in his chamber, and industriously treading, at every step, upon every other board in the flooring." Every reader will recollect several instances of this nature without my assistance. I think it was Gregorio Leti, who had published as many books as he was years old; which was a rule he had laid down and punctually observed to the year of his death. It was, perhaps, a thought of the like nature which determined Homer himself to divide each of his poems into as many books as there are letters in the Greek alphabet. Herodotus has in the same manner adapted his books to the number of the Muses, for which reason many a learned man hath wished that there had been more than nine of that sisterhood. Several epic poets have religiously followed Virgil as to the number of his books; and even Milton is thought by many to have changed the number of his books from ten to twelve for no other reason; as Cowley tells us it was his design, had he finished his Davideis, to have also imitated the Eneid in this particular. I believe every one will agree with me that a perfection of this nature hath no foundation in reason; and, with due respect to these great names, may be looked upon as something whimsical. I mention these great examples in defense of my bookseller, who occasioned this eighth volume of * This voluminous writer boasted that he had been the author of a book and the father of a child for twenty yea s successively. Swift counted the number of steps he had made from London to Chelsea. And it is said and demonstra ed in the Parentalia, that Bishop Wren walked round the earth Lile a prisoner in the Tower of London. Spectators, because, as he said, he thought seven a very odd number. On the other side several grave reasons were urged on this important subject; as, in particular, that seven was the precise number of the wise men, and that the most beauof seven stars. This he allowed to be true, but still insisted that seven was an odd number; suggesting at the same time that, if he were provided with a sufficient stock of leading papers, he should find friends ready enough to carry on the work. Having by this means got his vessel launched and set afloat, he hath committed the steerage of it, from time to time, to such as he thought capable of conducting it. The close of this volume, which the town may now expect in a little time, may possibly ascribe each sheet to its proper author. It were no hard task to continue this paper a considerable time longer by the help of large contributions sent from unknown hands. I cannot give the town a better opinion of the Spectator's correspondents than by publishing the following letter, with a very fiue copy of verses upon a subject perfectly new: "MR. SPECTATOR, Dublin, Nov. 30, 1714. "You lately recommended to your female readers the good old custom of their grandmothers, who used to lay out a great part of their time in needlework. I entirely agree with you in your sentiments, and think it would not be of less advantage to themselves and their posterity, than to the reputation of many of their good neighbors, if they passed many of those hours in this innocent entertainment which are lost at the tea-table. I would, however, humbly offer to your consideration the case of the poetical ladies; who, though they may be willing to take any advice given them by the Spectator, yet cannot so easily quit their pen and ink as you may imagine. Pray allow them, at least now and then, to indulge themselves in other amusements of fancy when they are tired with stooping to their tapestry. There is a very particular kind of work, which of late several ladies here in our kingdom are very fond of, which seems very well adapted to a poetical genius; it is the making of grottoes. I know a lady who has a very beautiful one, composed by herself; nor is there one shell in it not stuck up by her own hands. I here send you a poem to the fair architect, which I would not offer to herself, until I knew whether this method of a lady's passing her time were approved of by the British Spectator; which, with the poem, I submit to your censure, who am, 66 Your constant Reader "and humble Servant, A grotto so complete, with such design, Where can unpolish'd nature boast a place Charm'd with the sight, my ravish'd breast is fir'd Th' enthusiastic Muse believes are true, O, were I equal to the bold design, " 'Cambridge, Dec. 12. "It was a very common inquiry among the ancients why the number of excellent orators, under all the encouragements the most flourishing states could give them, fell so far short of the number of those who excelled in all other sciences. A friend of mine used merrily to apply to this case an observation of Herodotus, who says that the most useful animals are the most fruitful in their generation; whereas the species of those beasts that are fierce and mischievous to mankind are but scarcely continued. The historian instances a hare, which always either breeds or brings forth; and a lioness which brings forth but once, and then loses all power of conception. But leaving my friend to his mirth, I am of opinion that in these latter ages we have greater cause of complaint than the ancients had. And since that solemn festival is approaching, which calls for all the power of oratory, and which affords as noble a subject for the pulpit as any revelation has taught us, the design of this paper shall be to show, that our moderns have greater advantages toward true and solid eloquence, than any which the celebrated speakers of antiquity enjoyed. The first great and substantial difference is, that their common-places, in which almost the whole force of amplification consists, were drawn from the profit or honesty of the action, as they regarded only this present state of duration. But Christianity, as it exalts morality to a greater perfection, as it brings the consideration of another life into the question, as it proposes rewards and punishments of a higher nature and a longer continuance, is more adapted to affect the minds of the audience, naturally inclined to pursue what it imagines its greatest interest and concern. If Pericles, as historians report, could shake the firmest resolutions of his hearers, and set the passions of all Greece in a ferment, when the present welfare of his country, or the fear of hostile invasions, was the subject; what may be expected from that orator who warns his audience against those evils which have no remedy, when once undergone, either from prudence or time? As much greater as the evils in a future state are * Christmas. than these at present, so much are the motives to persuasion under Christianity greater than those which mere moral considerations could supply us with. But what I now mention relates only to the power of moving the affections. There is another part of eloquence which is indeed its masterpiece: I mean the marvelous, or sublime. In this the Christian orator has the advantage beyond contradiction. Our ideas are so infinitely enlarged by revelation, the eye of reason has so wide a prospect into eternity, the notions of a Deity are so worthy and refined, and the accounts we have of a state of happiness or misery so clear and evident, that the contemplation of such objects will give our discourse a noble vigor, an invincible force, beyond the power of any human consideration. Tully requires in his perfect orator some skill in the nature of heavenly bodies; because, says he, his mind will become more extensive and unconfined; and when he descends to treat of human affairs he will both think and write in a more exalted and magnificent manner. For the same reason that excellent master would have recommended the study of those great and glorious mysteries which revelation has discovered to us; to which the noblest parts of this system of the world are as much inferior as the creature is less excellent than its Creator. The wisest and most knowing among the heathens had very poor and imperfect notions of a future state. They had indeed some uncertain hopes, either received by tradition, or gathered by reason, that the exist ence of virtuous men would not be determined by the separation of soul and body; but they either disbelieved a future state of punishment and misery; or, upon the same account that Apelles painted Antigonus with one side only toward the spectator, that the loss of his eye might not cast a blemish upon the whole piece; so these represented the condition of man in its fairest view, and endeavored to conceal what they thought was a deformity to human nature. I have often observed, that whenever the above-mentioned orator in his philosophical discourses is led by his argument to the mention of immortality, he seems like one awaked out of sleep; roused and alarmed with the dignity of the subject, he stretches his imagination to conceive something uncommon, and, with the greatness of his thoughts, casts, as it were, a glory round the sentence. Uncertain and unsettled as he was, he seems fired with the contemplation of it. And nothing but such a glorious prospect could have forced so great a lover of truth as he was to declare his resolution never to part with his persuasion of immortality, though it should be proved to be an erroneous one. But had he lived to see all that Christianity has brought to light, how would he have lavished out all the force of eloquence in those noblest contemplations which human nature is capable of, the resurrection, and the judgment that fol lows it! How had his breast glowed with pleas ure, when the whole compass of futurity lay open and exposed to his view! How would his imagination have hurried him on in the pursuit of the mysteries of the incarnation! How would he have entered, with the force of lightning, into the affec tions of his hearers, and fixed their attention in spite of all the opposition of corrupt nature, upon those glorious themes which his eloquence hath painted in such lively ard lasting colors! "This advantage Christians have; and it was with no small pleasure I lately met with a fragment of Longinus, which is preserved, as a testimony of that critic's judgment, at the beginning of a manuscript of the New Testament in the Vatican library. After that author has numbered they made human nature resemble the divine. How much mistaken soever they might be in the several means they proposed for this end, it must be owned that the design 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 excuses Homer very handsomely, when he says the poet made his gods like men, that he might make his men appear like the gods. But it must be allowed that several of the ancient philosophers acted as Cicero wishes Homer had done: they endeavored rather to make men like gods than gods like men. According to this general maxim in philosophy, some of them have endeavored to place men in such a state of pleasure, or indolence at least, as they vainly imagined the happiness of the Supreme Being to consist in. On the other hand, the most virtuous sect of philosophers have created a chimerical wise man whom they made exempt from passion and pain, and thought it enough to pronounce him all-sufficient. This last character, when divested of the glare of human philosophy that surrounds it, signifies no more thar that a good and wise man should so arm himself with patience as not to yield tamely to the violence of passion and pain; that he should learn so to suppress and contract his desires as to have few wants; and that he should cherish so many virtues in his soul as to have a perpetual source of pleasure in himself. up the most celebrated orators among the Grecians, he says, 'add to these Paul of Tarsus, the patron of an opinion not yet fully proved.' As a heathen he condemns the Christian religion; and, as an impartial critic, he judges in favor of the promoter and preacher of it. To me it seems that the latter part of his judgment adds great weight to his opinion of St. Paul's abilities, since, under all the prejudice of opinions directly opposite, he is constrained to acknowledge the merit of that apostle. And, no doubt, such as Longinus describes St. Paul, such he appeared to the inhabitants of those countries which he visited and blessed with those doctrines he was divinely commissioned to preach. Sacred story gives us, in one circumstance, a convincing proof of his eloquence, when the men of Lystra called him Mercury, because he was the chief speaker,' and would have paid divine worship to him, as to the god who invented and presided over eloquence. This one account of our apostle sets his character, considered as an orator only, above all the celebrated relations of the skill and influence of Demosthenes and his cotemporaries. Their power in speaking was admired, but still it was thought human; their eloquence warmed and ravished the hearers, but still it was thought the voice of man, not the voice of God. What advantage then had St. Paul above those of Greece or Rome? I confess I can ascribe this excellence to nothing but the power of the doctrines he delivered, which may have still the same influence on the hearers, which have still the power, when preached by a skillful orator, to make us break out in the same expressions as the disciples who met our Savior in their way to Emmaus made use of: 'Did not our hearts burn within us when he talked to us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?' I may be thought bold in my judgment by some, but I must affirm that no one orator has left us so visible marks and footsteps of his elo- I shall only instance a remarkable passage, to quence as our apostle. It may perhaps be won- this purpose, out of Julian's Cæsars. The emdered at, that, in his reasonings upon idolatry at peror having represented all the Roman emperors, Athens, where eloquence was born and flourished, with Alexander the Great, as passing in review he confines himself to strict argument only; but before the gods, and striving for the superiority, my reader may remember, what many authors of lets them all drop, excepting Alexander, Julius the best credit have assured us, that all attempts Caesar, Augustus Cæsar, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, upon the affections, and strokes of oratory, were and Constantine. Each of these great heroes of expressly forbidden by the laws of that country antiquity lays in his claim for the upper place; in courts of judicature. His want of eloquence and, in order to it, sets forth his actions after the therefore here was the effect of his exact conform- most advantageous manner. But the gods, inity to the laws; but his discourse on the resur- stead of being dazzled with the luster of their rection to the Corinthians, his harangue before actions, inquire by Mercury into the proper moAgrippa upon his own conversion, and the neces- tive and governing principle that influenced them sity of that of others, are truly great, and may throughout the whole series of their lives and exserve as full examples to those excellent rules for ploits. Alexander tells them that his aim was to he sublime, which the best of critics has left us. conquer; Julius Caesar, that his was to gain the The sum of all this discourse is, that our clergy highest post in his country; Augustus, to govern have no further to look for an example of the per- well; Trajan, that his was the same as that of fection they may arrive at, than to St. Paul's Alexander, namely, to conquer. The question, at harangues; that when he, under the want of sev-length, was put to Marcus Aurelius, who replied, eral advantages of nature, as he himself tells us, was heard, admired, and made a standard to succeeding ages, by the best judges of a different persuasion in religion; I say, our clergy may learn, that however instructive their sermons are, they are capable of receiving a great addition: which St. Paul has given them a noble example of, and the Christian religion has furnished them with certain means of attaining to." No. 634.] FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1714. The fewer our wants, the nearer we resemble the gods. Ir was the common boast of the heathen philosophers, that by the efficacy of their several doctrines, The Christian religion requires that, after having framed the best idea we are able of the divine na ture, it should be our next care to conform our selves to it as far as our imperfections will permit. I might mention several passages in the sacredwritings on this head, to which I might add many maxims and wise sayings of moral authors among the Greeks and Romans. with great modesty that it had always been his care to imitate the gods. This conduct seems to have gained him the most votes and best place in the assembly. Marcus Aurelius being afterward asked to explain himself, declares that, by imitating the gods, he endeavored 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 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 just and perfect idea of that Being whom every reasonable creature ought to imitate. The young man, in a heathen conedy, might justify his lewdness by the example While we remain in this life we are subject to innumerable temptations, which, if listened to, will make us deviate from reason 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 shall therefore dismiss my reader with this maxim, viz: "Our happiness in this world proceeds from the suppression of our desires, but in the next world from the gratification of them.” of Jupiter; as, indeed, there was scarce any crime erected this immense theater. Is not this more that might not be countenanced by those notions than an intimation of our immortality? Man, who, of the deity, which prevailed among the common when considered as on his probation for a happy people in the heathen world. Revealed religion existence hereafter, is the most remarkable instance sets forth a proper object for imitation in that Be- of divine wisdom; if we cut him off from all relaing who is the pattern, as well as the source, of all tion to eternity, is the most wonderful and unac spiritual perfection. countable 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 unsatisfied curiosity to tread the secret paths of nature and providence; but with this. his or gans, 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 b.t wandering guesses concerning the innumerable worlds of light that encompass him; which, though in themselves of a prodigious bigness, do but just glimmer in the remote spaces of the heavens; and when, with a great deal of time and pains, he hath labored a little way up the steep ascent of truth, and beholds with pity the groveling multitude beneath, in a moment his foot slides, and he tumbles down headlong into the grave. No. 635.] MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1714. Sentio te sedem hominum ac domum contemplari; quæ si tibi parva (ut est) ita videtur, hæc coelestia semper spectato; illa humana contemnito.-CICERO Somn. Scip. I perceive you contemplate the seat 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 THE following essay 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 inspire noble sentiments of our own future grandeur and happiness, I think it well deserves to be presented 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 each; the world, as existing in his eternal idea, was then as beautiful as now it is drawn forth into being; and in the immense abyss of his essence are contained far brighter scenes than will be ever set forth to view; it being impossible that the great author of nature should bound his own power by giving existence to a system of creatures so perfect that he cannot improve upon it by any other exertions of his almighty will. Between finite and infinite there is an unmeasurable interval not to be filled up in endless ages; for which reason the most excellent of all God's works must be equally short of what his power is able to produce as the most imperfect, and may be exceeded with the same ease. "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 discoveries. How doth such a genius as Sir Isaac Newton, from amid the darkness that involves hu man 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 govern it; and while with the transport of a philosopher 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 soul but newly escaped from its imprisonment in the body! For my part, I freely indulge my soul 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 slow 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 moral worlds, visit the several apartments of creation, know how they are furnished and how inhabited, comprehend the order, and measure the magnitudes and distance of those orbs, which to us seem disposed without any regular design, and set all in the same circle; observe the dependence of the parts of each system, and (if our minds are big enough to grasp the theory) of the several systems upon one another, from whence results 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 beside the secret refreshment it diffuses through my soul, it engages me in an endeavor to improve my faculties, as well as to exercise them conformably to the rank I now hold among reasonable beings, and the hope I have of being once advanced to a more ex "This thought hath made some imagine (what it must be confessed is not impossible), that the 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 my present view, I shall content myself with tak ing notice that the consideration now mentioned proves undeniably, that the ideal worlds in the divine understanding yield a prospect incomparably more ample, various, and delightful, than any created world can do; and that therefore, as it is not to be supposed that God should make a world merely of inanimate matter, however diversified, or inhabited only by creatures of no higher an order than brutes, so the end for which he designed his reasonable offspring is the contemplation of his works, the enjoyment of himself, and in both to be happy; having, to this purpose, endowed them with corresponding faculties and desires. He can have no greater pleasure from a bare re-alted station. view of his works than from the survey of his own ideas; but we may be assured that he is well ploased in the satisfaction derived to beings capable of it, and for whose entertainment he hath "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 suspense, neither discovering nor itude. As incorporeal substances are of a nobler hiding himself; by which means, the libertine hath order, so be sure their manner of intercourse is a handle to dispute his existence, while the most answerably more expedite and intimate. This are content to speak him fair, but in their hearts method of communication we call intellectual visprefer every trifling satisfaction to the favor of ion, as somewhat analogous to the sense of seeing, their Maker, and ridicule the good man for the which is the medium of our acquaintance with singularity of his choice. Will there not a time this visible world. And in some such way can come when the Freethinker shall see his impious God make himself the object of immediate intuischemes overturned, and be made a convert to the tion to the blessed; and as he can, it is not imtruths he hates? when deluded mortals shall be probable that he will, always condescending, in convinced of the folly of their pursuits; and the the circumstances of doing it, to the weakness and few wise who followed the guidance of Heaven, proportion of finite minds. His works but faintly and, scorning the blandishments of sense, and the reflect the image of his perfections; it is a secondsordid bribery of the world, aspired to a celestial hand knowledge; to have a just idea of him it abode, shall stand possessed of their utmost wish in may be necessary that we see him as he is. But the vision of the Creator? Here the mind heaves what is that? It is something that never entered a thought now and then toward him, and hath into the heart of man to conceive; yet, what we some transient glances of his presence; when, in can easily conceive, will be a fountain of unspeak the instant it thinks itself to have the fastest hold, able, of everlasting rapture. All created_glories the object eludes its expectations, and it falls back will fade and die away in his presence. Perhaps tired and baffled to the ground. Doubtless, there it will be my happiness to compare the world with is some more perfect way of conversing with heav- the fair exemplar of it in the Divine mind; perenly beings. Are not spirits capable of mutual haps, to view the original plan of those wise deintelligence, unless immersed in bodies, or by signs that have been executing in a long succession their intervention? Must superior natures depend of ages. Thus employed in finding out his works, on inferior for the main privileges of sociable beings, and contemplating their Author, how shall I fall that of conversing with and knowing each other? prostrate and adoring, my body swallowed up in What would they have done had matter never been the immensity of matter, my mind in the infinicreated? I suppose, not have lived in eternal sol-tude of his perfections!" |