profe itfelf; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or inftructions, depends on their concifenefs. I was unable to treat this part of my fubject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without facrificing perfpicuity to ornament, without wandring from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confefs he will compafs a thing above my capacity. What is now published, is only to be confidered as a ge neral Map of MAN, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leav ing the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Confequently, thefe Epiftles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be lefs dry, and more fufceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the paffage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to obferve their effects, may be a talk more agreeable. Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the UNIVERSE. OF Man in the abftract. - I. That we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, ver. 17, etc. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a Being fuited to bis place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general Order of things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, ver. 35, etc. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future ftate, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, ver. 77, etc. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pre tending to more Perfection, the cause of Mal's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injuftice, of bis difpenfations, ver. 109, etc. V. The abfurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which i not in the natural, ver. 131, etc. VI. The unreafonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, ver. 173, etc. VII. That throughout the whole vifible world, an universal order and gradation in th Jenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caujes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of fense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that Reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be deftroyed, ver. 233. The extravagance, madness, and pride of fuch a defire, ver. 250. X. The confequence of all, the abiolute fubmiffion due to Providence, both as to our prefent and future ftate. ver. 281, &c. to the end. IX. |