some of the smallest or the biggest bodies in nature; assure them, according to the best philosophy, that the planet Venus, (i. e. our morning or evening star, which is near as big as our earth), though it seems to move from its place but a few yards in a month, does really fly seventy thousand miles in an hour: tell them that the rays of light shoot from the sun to our earth at the rate of one hundred and eighty thousand miles in the second of a minute; they stand aghast at such sort of talk, and believe it no more than the tales of giants fifty yards high, and the rabbinical fables of leviathan, who every day swallows a fish of three miles long, and is thus preparing himself to be the food and entertainment of the blessed at the feast of Paradise,

These unenlarged souls are in the same manner disgusted with the wonders which the microscope has discovered concerning the shape, the limbs, and motions of ten thousand little animals, whose united bulk would not equal a peppercorn: they are ready to give the lie to all the improvements of our senses by the invention of a variety of glasses, and will scarcely believe any thing beyond the testimony of their naked eye without the assistance of art.

Now if we would attempt, in a learned manner, to relieve the minds that labour under this defect,

(1.) It is useful to begin with some first principles of geometry, and lead them onward, by degrees, to the doctrine of quantities which are incommensurable, or which will admit of no common measure, though it be never so small. By this means they will see the necessity of admitting the infinite divisibility of quantity or matter.

The same doctrine may also be proved to their understandings, and almost to their senses, by some easier arguments in a more obvious manner. As the very opening and closing of a pair of compasses will evidently prove, that if the smallest supposed part of matter or quantity be put between the points, there will be still less and less distances or quantities all the way between the legs, till you come to the head or joint, wherefore there is no such thing possible

as the smallest quantity. But a little acquaintance with true philosophy, and mathematical learning, would soon teach them that there are no limits either as to the extension of space, or to the division of body, and would lead them to believe there are bodies amazingly great or small beyond their present imagination.

(2.) It is proper also to acquaint them with the circumference of our earth, which may be proved by very easy principles of geometry, geography, and astronomy, to be about twenty-four thousand miles round, as it has been actually found to have this dimension by mariners who have sailed round it. Then let them be taught, that in every twenty-four hours either the sun and stars must all move round this earth, or the earth must turn round upon its own axis. If the earth itself revolve thus, then each house or mountain near the equator must move at the rate of a thousand miles in an hour: but if (as they generally suppose) the sun or stars move round the earth, then (the circumference of their several orbits or spheres being vastly greater than this earth) they must have a motion prodigiously swifter than a thousand miles an hour. Such a thought as this will, by degrees, enlarge their minds, and they will be taught, even upon their own principle of the diurnal revolutions of the heavens, to take in some of the vast dimensions of the heavenly bodies, their spaces and motions.

(3.) To this should be added the use of telescopes, to help them to see the distant wonders in the skies, and microscopes, which discover the minutest parts of little animals, and reveal some of the finer and most curious works of nature. They should be acquainted also with some other noble inventions of modern philosophy, which have a great influence to enlarge the human understanding, of which I shall take occasion to speak more under the next head.

(4.) For the same purpose they may be invited to read those parts of Milton's admirable poem, entitled Paradise Lost, where he describes the armies and powers of angels,

the

the wars and the senate of devils, the creation of this earth, together with the descriptions of heaven, hell, and paradise.

It must be granted that poesy often deals in these vast and sublime ideas. And even if the subject or matter of the poem doth not require such amazing and extensive thoughts, yet tropes and figures, which are some of the main powers and beauties of poesy, do so gloriously exalt the matter as to give a sublime imagination its proper relish and delight. So when a boar is chased in hunting,

His nostrils flames expire,

And his red eye-balls roll with living fire.-DRYDEN.

When Ulysses with-holds and suppresses his resentment,

His wrath comprest

Recoiling, mutter'd thunder in his breast.

POPE.

But especially where the subject is grand, the poet fails

not to represent it in all its grandeur.

So when the supremacy of a God is described,

He sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall:

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

POPE.

These sorts of writings have a natural tendency to enlarge the capacity of the mind, and make sublime ideas familiar to it. And instead of running always to the ancient Heathen poesy with this design, we may, with equal, if not superior advantage, apply ourselves to converse with some of the best of our modern poets, as well as with the writings of the prophets, and the poetical parts of the Bible, viz. the book of Job and the Psalms; in which sacred authors we shall find sometimes more sublime ideas, more glorious descriptions, more elevated language, than the fondest critics

have ever found in any

of the Heathen versifiers either of Greece or Rome; for the Eastern writers use and allow much stronger figures and tropes than the Western.

Now there are many, and great, and sacred advantages to be derived from this sort of enlargement of the mind.

It will lead us into more exalted apprehensions of the great God our Creator, than ever we had before. It will entertain our thoughts with holy wonder and amazement, while we contemplate that Being who created these various works of surprising greatness, and surprising smallness; who has displayed most inconceivable wisdom in the contrivance of all the parts, powers, and motions of these little animals, invisible to the naked eye; who has manifested a most divine extent of knowledge, power, and greatness, in forming, moving, and managing the most extensive bulk of the heavenly bodies, and in surveying and comprehending all those immeasurable spaces in which they move. Fancy, with all her images, is fatigued and overwhelmed in following the planetary worlds through such immense stages, such astonishing journies as these are, and resigns its place to the pure intellect, which learns by degrees to take in such ideas as these, and to adore its Creator with new and sublime devotion.

And not only are we taught to form juster ideas of the great God by these methods, but this enlargement of the mind carries us on to nobler conceptions of his intelligent creatures. The mind that deals only in vulgar and common ideas is ready to imagine the nature and powers of man to come something too near to God his Maker, because we do not see or sensibly converse with any beings superior to ourselves. But when the soul has obtained a greater amplitude of thought, it will not then immediately pronounce every thing to be God which is above man. It then learns to suppose there may be as many various ranks of beings in the invisible world, in a constant gradation superior to us, as we ourselves are superior to all the ranks of being beneath us in this visible world; even though we descend downward far below the ant and the worm, the snail and

the

the oyster, to the least and to the dullest animated atoms which are discovered to us by microscopes.

By this means we shall be able to suppose what prodigious power angels, whether good or bad, must be furnished with, and prodigious knowledge, in order to oversee the realms of Persia and Græcia of old, or if any such superintend the affairs of Great Britain, France, Ireland, Germany, &c. in our days: What power and speed is necessary to destroy one hundred eighty-five thousand armed men in one night in the Assyrian camp of Sennacherib, and all the first-born in the land of Egypt in another, both which are attributed to an angel.

By these steps we shall ascend to form more just ideas of the knowledge and grandeur, the power and glory of the man Jesus Christ, who is intimately united to God, and is one with him. Doubtless he is furnished with superior powers to all the angels in heaven, because he is employed in superior work, and appointed to be the sovereign Lord of all the visible and invisible worlds. It is his human nature, in which the Godhead dwells bodily, that is advanced to these honours, and to this empire; and perhaps there is little or nothing in the government of the kingdoms of nature and grace but what is transacted by the man Jesus, inhabited by the divine power and wisdom, and employed as a medium or conscious instrument of this extensive gubernation.

II. I PROCEED now to consider the next thing wherein the capacity or amplitude of the mind consists, and that is, when the mind is free to receive new and strange ideas and propositions upon just evidence without any great surprise or aversion. Those who confine themselves within the circle of their own hereditary ideas and opinions, and who never give themselves leave so much as to examine or believe any thing beside the dictates of their own family, or sect, or party, are justly charged with a narrowness of soul. Let us survey some instances of this imperfection, and then direct to the cure of it.