65

But, gracious God, how well doft thou provide
For erring judgments an unerring guide!
Thy throne is darkness in the abyfs of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the fight.
O teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd,
And fearch no farther than thyfelf reveal'd ;
But her alone for my director take,

70

Whom thou haft promis'd never to forfake ! My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain defires,

My manhood, long mifled by wandering fires, Follow'd falfe lights; and, when their glimpse

was gone,

My pride ftruck out new fparkles of her own. 75 Such was I, fuch by nature ftill I am;

Be thine the glory, and be mine the fhame. Good life be now my tafk: my doubts are done: What more could fright my faith, than three in

one?

80

Can I believe eternal God could lie
Difguis'd in mortal mold and infancy?
That the great Maker of the world could die?

Ver. 64.

how well doft thou provide

For erring judgments an unerring guide!} Here our author allows of the infallibility of the Pope, and the authority of the Church, contrary to his pofition in Religio Laici, Vol. I. p. 403.

"Such an omnifcient Church we wish, &c."

And then proceeds to thank God for his own converfion!

Ver. 82.

DERRICK.

Maker of the world could die?] Of all the numerous artists who have exercised their talents on this subject,

And after that truft my imperfect sense,
Which calls in question his omnipotence?
Can I my reafon to my faith compel,

$5

And fhall my fight, and touch, and taste rebel?
Superior faculties are set aside;

Shall their fubfervient organs be my guide?
Then let the moon ufurp the rule of day,
And winking tapers fhew the fun his way; 90
For what my fenfes can themselves perceive,
I need no fevelation to believe.

95

Can they who fay the Hoft fhould be defcry'd
By fenfe, define a body glorify'd?
Impaffable, and penetrating parts?
Let them declare by what myfterious arts
He shot that body through the oppofing might)
Of bolts and bars impervious to the light,
And ftood before his train confefs'd in open
fight.

M. Angelo feems to have treated it in the most skilful and striking manner. In a picture of the Paffion, he has reprefented the Vir gin looking at her crucified Son, without grief, without regret, without tears. He fuppofes her interested in this great mystery, and therefore makes her bear this view of his death with a kind of fublime tranquillity and unmovedness. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 85. Can I my reafon to my faith compel,] Dryden here advances the doctrine of tranfubftantiation, which he reconciles to the Divine Omnipotence, and entirely difclaims the ufe of reafon in difcuffing it. DERRICK.

Ver. 95. Impaffable,] Impaffible. Original edition.

TODD.

Ver. 99. And flood before his train confefs'd in open fight.]

purâ per noctem in luce refulfit

Alma parens, confeffa Deam.

101

For fince thus wonderously he pass'd, 'tis plain,
One fingle place two bodies did contain.
And fure the fame Omnipotence as well
Can make one body in more places dwell.
Let reason then at her own quarry fly,
But how can finite grafp infinity?

105

'Tis urg'd again, that faith did first commence
By miracles, which are appeals to sense,
And thence concluded, that our feufe must be
The motive ftill of credibility.

For latter ages muft on former wait,
And what began belief, muft propagate.
But winnow well this thought, and you

find

110

fball

'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind.

His mind was fo thoroughly imbued with Virgil, that he fell into perpetual and involuntary imitations of him.

JOHN WARton.

Ver. 100. thus wonderoufly he pafs'd,] This is urged as an irrefutible defence of the doctrine of tranfubftantiation. But how different the two cafes! Our Saviour, by his own power, could miraculously enter the room where his difciples were affembled. But the prieft himself makes this Saviour juft before he fwallows him. The difciples faw with their own eyes the figure and body of Christ, but in the wafer furely Chritt is not feen. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 101. One fingle place] The doctrine of transubstantiation is fo fingularly abfurd (perhaps blafphemous) as hardly to deferve a ferious refutation. Mr. Pope told Mr. Richardfon, that Gay, going to Mr. Titcum, (who was the intimate friend of himfelf, Swift, Craggs, and Addifon) to afk him, when he was dying, as he was a papift, if he would have a priest, "No," faid he, "what should I do with them? But I would rather have one of them than one of your's, of the two. Our fools (continued Titcum) write great books to prove that bread is God; but your booby (meaning Tillotfon) has wrote a long argument to prove that bread is bread." Dr. J. WARTON.

Were all those wonders wrought by power

vine,

di

120

125

As means or ends of fome more deep defign? 115
Moft fure as means, whofe end was this alone,
To prove the Godhead of the eternal Son.
God thus afferted, man is to believe
Beyond what fenfe and reafon can conceive,
And for myfterious things of faith rely
On the proponent, Heaven's authority,
If then our faith we for our guide admit,
Vain is the farther fearch of human wit,
As when the building gains a furer stay,
We take the unufeful fcaffolding away.
Reason by fenfe no more can understand ;
The game is play'd into another hand,
Why chufe we then like bilanders to creep
Along the coaft, and land in view to keep,
When fafely we may launch into the deep? 130,
In the fame veffel, which our Saviour bore,
Himfelf the pilot, let us leave the shore,
And with a better guide a better world explore.
Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood,
And not veil these again to be our food?
His grace in both is equal in extent,
The first affords us life, the fecond nourishment,
And if he can, why all this frantic pain
To conftrue what his cleareft words contain,
And make a riddle what he made fo plain? 440,

135

call,

To take up half on truft, and half to try, Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry. Both knave and fool the merchant we may To pay great fums, and to compound the fmall; For who would break with heaven, and would not break for all?

145

Reft then, my foul, from endless anguish freed: Nor sciences thy guide, nor fenfe thy creed. Faith is the best enfurer of thy bliss;

The bank above must fail, before the venture

mifs.

But heaven and heaven-born faith are far from

thee,

Thou first apoftate to divinity.

Unkennell'd range in thy Polonian plains;

A fiercer foe the infatiate Wolf remains.

Ver. 153.

* 150

the infatiate Wolf &c.] Butler, in the

firit canto of Hudibras, fays, that the Prefbyterians

prove their doctrine orthodox,

"By apoftolic blows and kwocks."

The general defcription given of them here is very fevere: they hold the doctrine of predeftination, or a decree of God from all eternity, to fave a certain number of perfons, from thence ealled the Elect.

"A fect (of whom Hudibras fays a little lower) whose chief devotion lies

"In odd perverfe antipathies."

Such as reputing the eating of Chriftmas-pies and plumb porridge finful; nay, they prohibited all forts of merriment at that holy feftival, and not only abolished it by order of council, dated Dec. 22, 1657, but changed it into a faft. They wore, during the confufious about Oliver's time, black caps, that left their cars bare, their hair being cropped round quite clofe; wherefore the wolf, the emblem of Prefbytery, is here faid to

"Prick up his predeftinating ears."

DERRICK.