THE Univerfal Prayer. DEO OPT. MAX. FATHER of All! in ev'ry Age, In ev'ry Clime ador'd, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, Thou Great Firft Caufe, leaft understood: COMMENTARY. Univerfal Prayer.] It may be proper to observe, that fome paffages, in the preceding Efay, having been unjuftly fufpected of a tendency towards Fate and Naturalism, the author composed this Prayer, as the fum of all, to fhew that this fyftem was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: That the firft caufe was as well the Lord and Governor of the Universe, as the Creator of it; and that, by fubmiffion to his will (the great principle inforced roughout the Essay) was not meant the fuffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination; but the reft Yet gave me, in this dark Eftate, To fee the Good from Ill; And binding Nature fast in Fate, Left free the human Will. What Confcience dictates to be done, This, teach me more than hell to fhun, What Bleffings thy free Bounty gives, For God is paid when Man receives, Yet not to Earth's contracted Span When thoufand Worlds are round: Let not this weak unknowing hand ing in a religious acquiefcence, and confidence full of Hope and Immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the poet chofe for his model the LORD's-Prayer, which, of all others, beft deferves the title prefixed to his Paraphrafe. If I am right, thy grace impart, If I am wrong, oh teach my heart To find that better way. Save me alike from foolish Pride, Teach me to feel another's Woe, Mean tho' I am, not wholly fo, If I am wrong, O teach my heart] As the imparting grace, on the chriftian system, is a stronger exertion of the divine power, than the natural illumination of the heart, one would expect that right and wrong should change places; more aid being required to reftore men to the right, than to keep them in it. But as it was the poet's purpose to infinuate, that Revelation was the right, nothing could better exprefs his purpose, than the making the right fecured by the guards of grace. |