While we remain in this Life, we are subject to innumerable Temptations, which, if listen’d 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.

* * * * *

No. 635.  Monday, December 20, 1714.  Henry Grove.

  ’Sentio Te sedem Hominum ac Domum contemplarique si tibi parva (ut
  est) ita videtur, haec coelestia semper Spectato; illa humana
  contemnito.’

  Cicero Somn.  Scip.

The following Essay comes from the ingenious Author of the Letter upon Novelty, printed in a late Spectator:  The Notions are drawn from the Platonick 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 Publick.

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 Tryal of his Omnipotence, to be informed what Effects were within its Reach:  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 unmeasured 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.

This Thought hath made some imagine, (what, it must be confest, 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 my self with taking 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 correspondent