The wiser madmen did for virtue toil:
A thorny, or at best a barren foil:
In pleasure fome their glutton fouls would fleep;
But found their line too fhort, the well too deep;
And leaky veffels which no bli's could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the foul:
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
How can the lefs the greater comprehend?
Or finite reafon reach Infinity?
For what could fathom God were more than He,
The Deift thinks he ftands on firmer ground;
Cries Eugena the mighty fecret's found:
God is that fpring of good; fupreme, and beft;
We made to ferve, and in that fervice bleft,
If fo, fome rules of worship must be given,
Distributed alike to all by heaven:
Elfe God were partial, and to fome deny'd
The means his justice should for all provide..
This general worship is to praife and pray :
One part to borrow bleffings, one to pay :
And when frail nature flides into offence,
The facrifice for crimes is penitence.
Yet fince the effects of providence, we find
Are variously dispens'd to human kind;
That vice triumphs, and virtue fuffers here,
A brand that fovereign juftice cannot bear;
Our reafon prompts us to a future flate:
The last appeal from fortune and from fate:
Where God's all-righteous ways will be declar'd;
The bad meet punishment, the good reward.
Thus man by his own ftrength to heaven would foar: And would not be oblig'd to God for more. Vain wretched creature, how art thou milled To think thy wit thefe god-like notions bred! These truths are not the product of thy mind, But dropt from heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy fight,
And reafon faw not till faith fprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the fource:
'Tis revelation what thou think'ft difcourfe.
Elfe how com'ft thou to fee thefe truths fo clear,
Which fo obfcure to Heathens did appear?
Not Plato thefe, nor Ariftotle found:
Nor he whofe wifdom oracles renown'd.
Haft thou a wit fo deep, or fo fublime,
Or canft thou lower dive, or higher climb ?
Canft thou by reason more of godhead know
Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero ?
Thofe giant wits in happier ages born,
When arms and arts did Greece and Rome adorn,
Knew no fuch fyftem: no fuch piles could raise
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise
To one fole God.
Nor did remorfe to expiate fin prescribe:
But flew their fellow-creatures for a bribe:
The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence;
And cruelty and blood was penitence,
If sheep and oxen could atone for men,
Ah! at how cheap a rate the rich might fin!
And great oppreffors might heaven's wrath beguile,
By offering his own creatures for a spoil!
Dar'ft thou, poor worm, offend Infinity?
And must the terms of peace be given by thee?
Then thou art Juftice in the last appeal;
Thy eafy God inftructs thee to rebel:
And like a king remote, and weak, muft take
What fatisfaction thou art pleas'd to make.
But if there be a power too juft and strong,
To wink at crimes, and bear unpunifh'd wrong;
Look humbly upward, fee his will disclose
The forfeit first, and then the fine impose:
A mul&t thy poverty could never pay,
Had not eternal wiídom found the way:
And with celeftial wealth fupply'd thy ftore:
His juftice makes the fine, his mercy quits the fcore.
See God defcending in thy human frame;
Th' offended fuffering in th' offender's name:
All thy mifdeeds to him imputed fee,
And all his righteousness devolv'd on thee.
For granting we have fin'd, and that th' offence
Of man, is made against Omnipotence,
Some price that bears proportion must be paid;
And infinite with infinite be weigh'd.
See then the Deift loft: remorfe for vice,
Not paid; or paid, inadequate in price:
What farther means can reafon now direct,
Or what relief from human wit expect?
That fhews us fick; and fadly are we fure
Still to be fick, till heaven reveal the care:
If then heaven's will muft needs be underflood,
Which must, if we want cure, and heaven be good,
Let all records of will reveal'd be shown;
With fcripture all in equal balance thrown,
And our one facred book will be that one.
Proof needs not here, for whether we compare
That impious, idle, fuperftitious ware
Of rites, 'luftrations, offerings, which before,
In various ages, various countries bore,
With chriftian faith and virtues, we fhall find
None anfwering the great ends of human kind
But this one rule of life, that fhews us beft
How God may be appeas'd, and mortals bleft.
Whether from length of time its worth we draw,
The word is fcarce more ancient than the law:
Heaven's early care prefcrib'd for every age;
First, in the foul, and after, in the page.
Or, whether more abstractedly we look,
Or on the writers, or the written book,
Whence, but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts,
In feveral ages born, in feveral parts,
Weave fuch agreeing truths? or how, or why
Should all confpire to cheat us with a lye?
Unafk'd their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.
If on the book itself we caft our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:
The doctrine, miracles; which must convince,
For heav'n in them appeals to human fenfe:
And though they prove not, they confirm the caufe,
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws.
Then for the ftile, majeftick and divine,
It speaks no less than God in every line:
Commanding words; whofe force is fill the fame
As the first fiat that produc'd our frame.
All faiths befide, or did by arms afcend;
Or fenfe indulg'd has made mankind their friend:
This only doctrine does our lufs oppose:
Unfed by nature's foil, in which it grows;
Crofs to our interefts, curbing fenfe, and fin;
Oppress'd without, and undermin'd within,
It thrives thro' pain; its own tormentors tires
And with a ftubborn patience ftill afpires.
To what can reason fuch effects affign
Tranfcending nature, but to laws divine?
Which in that facred volume are contain'd;
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordain'd;
But ftay: the Deift here will urge anew,
No fupernatural worship can be true:
Because a general law is that alone
Which must to all, and every where be known:
A ftile fo large as not this book can claim
Nor ought that bears revealed religion's name.
'Tis faid the found of a Meffiah's birth -
Is gone thro' all the habitable earth:
But ftill that text must be confin'd alone
To what was then inhabited, and known:
And what provifion could from thence accrue
To Indian fouls, and worlds difcover'd new?
In other parts it helps, that ages past,
The fcriptures there were known, and were embrac'd,
Till fin spread once again the fhades of night:
What's that to these who never faw the light?
Of all objections this indeed is chief
To startle reason, stagger frail belief:
We grant, 'tis true, that heaven from human fenfe
Has hid the fecret paths of providence:
But boundless wisdom, boundless mercy, may
Find even for those bewildred fouls, a way:
If from his nature foes may pity claim,
Much more may strangers who ne'er heard his name.
And tho' no name be for falvation known,
But that of his eternal fon's alone;
Who knows how far tranfcending goodness can
Extend the merits of that fon to man?
Who knows what reasons may his mercy lead;
Or ignorance invincible may plead ?
Not only charity bids hope the beft,
But more the great apoftle has expreft:
That if the Gentiles, whom no law infpir'd,
By nature did what was by law requir'd;
They, who the written rule had never known,
Were to themselves both rule and law alone:
To nature's plain indictment they shall plead;
And by their confcience be condemn'd or freed:
Moft righteous doom! because a rule reveal'd
Is none to thofe from whom it was conceal'.
Then those who follow'd reafon's dictates right;
Liv'd up, and lifted high their natural light;
With Socrates may fee their Maker's face,
While thousand rubrick-martyrs want a place.
Nor does it baulk my charity, to find
Th' Egyptian bishop of another mind:
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