 John Smith taught mathematics at Queen’s College until his premature death in 1652. His posthumously published Select Discourses (1659) discusses a number of metaphysical and epistemological issues relating to religious belief – the existence of God, immortality of the soul and the rationality of religion. Smith outlines a hierarchy of four grades of cognitive ascent from sense combined with reason, through reason in conjunction with innate notions, and, thirdly, through disembodied, self-reflective reason; and finally divine love.