Of Magnanimity, or Greatness of Soul. Its Nature. Its Foundation in the vast Capacity of the Understanding. Its Desire. Its Objects are infinite and eternal. Its Enquiries are most profound and earnest. It disdaineth all feeble Honours, Pleasures and Treasures. A Magnanimous Man is the only Great and undaunted Creature.

MAGNANIMITY and Contentment are very near allyed, like Brothers and Sisters they spring from the same Parents, but are of several Features. Fortitude and Patience are Kindred too to this incomparable Vertue. Moralists distinguish Magnanimity and Modesty, by making the one the desire of greater, the other of less and inferiour Honours. But in my apprehension there is more in Magnanimity. It includes all that belongs to a Great Soul: A high and mighty Courage, an invincible Patience, an immoveable Grandeur which is above the reach of Injuries, a contempt of all little and feeble Enjoyments, and a certain kind of Majesty that is conversant only with Great things; a high and lofty frame of Spirit, allayed with the sweetness of Courtesie and Respect; a deep and stable Resolution founded on Humility without any baseness; an infinite Hope; and a vast Desire; a Divine, profound, uncontrolable sence of ones own Capacity, a generous Confidence, and a great inclination to Heroical deeds; all these conspire to compleat it, with a severe and mighty expectation of Bliss incomprehensible. It soars up to Heaven, and looks down upon all the dominion of Fortune with pity and disdain. Its aims and designs are transcendent to all the Concerns of this little World. Its Objects and its Ends are worthy of a Soul that is like GOD in Nature; and nothing less than the Kingdom of GOD, his Life and Image; nothing beneath the Friendship and Communion with him, can be its satisfaction. The Terrours, Allurements and Censures of men are the dust of its feet: their Avarice and Ambition are but feebleness before it. Their Riches and Contentions, and Interests and Honours, but insignificant and empty trifles. All the World is but a little Bubble, Infinity and Eternity the only great and soveraign things wherewith it converseth. A Magnanimous Soul is alwaies awake. The whole globe of the Earth is but a Nutshell in comparison of its enjoyments.