I cannot conclude this Paper without wishing, that we had some of this Breed of Dogs in Great Britain, which would certainly do Justice, I should say Honour, to the Ladies of our Country, and shew the World the difference between Pagan Women and those who are instructed in sounder Principles of Virtue and Religion.

* * * * *

No. 580.  Friday, August 13, 1714.  Addison.

  ’—­Si verbo audacia detur,
  Non metuam magni dixisse palatia Coeli.’

  Ovid.  Met.

  SIR,

’I considered in my two last Letters [1] that awful and tremendous Subject, the Ubiquity or Omnipresence of the Divine Being.  I have shewn that he is equally present in all Places throughout the whole Extent of infinite Space.

’This Doctrine is so agreeable to Reason, that we meet with it in the Writings of the enlightened Heathens, as I might show at large, were it not already done by other Hands.  But tho’ the Deity be thus essentially present through all the Immensity of Space, there is one Part of it in which he discovers himself in a most transcendent and visible Glory.  This is that Place which is marked out in Scripture under the different Appellations of Paradise, the third Heaven, the Throne of God, and the Habitation of his Glory.  It is here where the glorified Body of our Saviour resides, and where all the celestial Hierarchies, and the innumerable Hosts of Angels, are represented as perpetually surrounding the Seat of God with Hallelujahs and Hymns of Praise.  This is that Presence of God which some of the Divines call his Glorious, and others his Majestatick Presence.  He is indeed as essentially present in all other Places as in this, but it is here where he resides in a sensible Magnificence, and in the midst of those Splendors which can affect the Imagination of created Beings.

’It is very remarkable that this Opinion of God Almighty’s Presence in Heaven, whether discovered by the Light of Nature, or by a general Tradition from our first Parents, prevails among all the Nations of the World, whatsoever different Notions they entertain of the Godhead.  If you look into Homer, that is, the most ancient of the Greek Writers, you see the supreme Powers seated in the Heavens, and encompassed with inferior Deities, among whom the Muses are represented as singing incessantly about his Throne.  Who does not here see the main Strokes and Outlines of this great Truth we are speaking of?  The same Doctrine is shadowed out in many other Heathen Authors, tho’ at the same time, like several other revealed Truths, dashed and adulterated with a mixture of Fables and human Inventions.  But to pass over the Notions of the Greeks and Romans, those more enlightened Parts of the Pagan World, we find there is scarce a People among the late discovered