here the poet is prefumed to be a kind of lawgiver, and thofe three qualities which I have named, are proper to the legislative ftyle. The florid, elevated and figurative way is for the paffions; for love and hatred, fear and anger, are begotten in the foul, by fhewing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life or less: but inftruction is to be given by fhewing them what they naturally are, A man is to be cheated into paffion, but to be reafoned into truth.

An EPISTLE.

D

IM as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,

Is reason to the foul: and as on high,

Thofe rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; fo reafon's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to affure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as thofe nightly tapers difappear

When day's bright lord afcends our hemifphere;
So pale grows reafon at religion's fight;

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So dies, and fo diffolves in fupernatural light.
Some few, whofe lamp fhone brighter, have been led
From caufe to caufe, to nature's fecret head;

And found that one first principle must be:
But what, or who, that univerfal He;
Whether fome foul incompaffing this ball
Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
Or various atoms, interfering dance,
Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance;
Or this great all was from eternity;
Not even the Stagirite himself could fee;
And Epicurus guefs'd as well as he:
As blindly grop'd they for a future state;
As rafhly judg'd of providence and fate:
But leaft of all could their endeavours find
What most concern'd the good of human kind:
For happiness was never to be found;

But vanish'd from them like enchanted ground.
One thought content the good to be enjoy'd:
1 Als every little accident defroy'd:

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The wifer madmen did for virtue toil:

A thorny, or at best a barren foil:

In pleasure fome their glutton fouls would steep;
But found their line too short, the well too deep;
And leaky veffels which no bli's could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endlefs circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the foul:

In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
How can the less 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 verza the mighty fecret's found:

God is that spring of good; fupreme, and best
We made to ferve, and in that fervice bleft,
If fo, fome rules of worship must be given,
Diftributed alike to all by heaven:

Elfe God were partial, and to some deny'd
The means his justice should for all provide.
This generál worship is to praise 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 difpens'd to human kind;
That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here,
A brand that fovereign justice cannot bear;
Our reafon prompts us to a future ftate:
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.

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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 miffed To think thy wit thefe god-like notions brcd! Thefe 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 reason faw not till faith fprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the fource:
'Tis revelation what thou think'it 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 canst thou lower dive, or higher climb ?
Canft thou by reafon 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 raife
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praife

To one fole God.

Nor did remorse to expiate fin prefcribe:
Bat flew their fellow-creatures for a bribe:
The guiltlefs vi&im groan'd for their offence;
And cruelty and blood was penitence.
If fheep 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 muft the terms of peace be given by thee?
Then thou art Justice in the laft 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 just and strong,
To wink at crimes, and bear unpunifh'd wrong;
Look humbly upward, fee his will difclofe
The forfeit first, and then the fine impofe:
A mul& thy poverty could never pay,
Had not eternal wildom 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 misdeeds to him imputed fee,
And all his righteousnefs devolv'd on thee.

For granting we have fin'd, and that th' offence
Of man, is made againft 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 thews us fick; and fadly are we fure
Still to be fick, till heaven reveal the cure:
If then heaven's will muft needs be understood,
Which muft, 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 shall find
None answering 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,

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Whence, but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts, In feveral ages born, in teveral parts,