But least 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; This every little accident destroy'd :
The wiser madmen did for virtue toil
A thorny, or at best a barren soil:
In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep,
But found their line too short, the well too deep,
And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
• Without a centre where to fix the soul:
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end.
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite reason reach infinity?
For what could fathom God were more than he.
The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground;
Cries Eugna; the mighty secret's found:
God is that spring of good; supreme, and best;
We, made to serve, and in that service blest.
If so, some rules of worship must be given,
Distributed alike to all by Heaven;
Else God were partial, and to some denied
The means his justice should for all provide.
This general worship is to praise and pray;
One part to borrow blessings, one to pay:
And when frail nature slides into offence,
The sacrifice for crimes is penitence.
Yet since the effects of Providence, we find,
Are variously dispensed to human kind;
That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here;
(A brand that sovereign Justice cannot bear)
Our reason prompts us to a future state,
The last appeal from fortune and from fate,
Where God's all-righteous ways will be declaredThe bad meet punishment, the good reward.
Thus man, by his own strength, to heaven would And would not be obliged to God for more. [soar, Vain, wretched creature! how art thou misled, To think thy wit these godlike notions bred! These truths are not the product of thy mind, But dropp'd from heaven, and of a nobler kind. Reveal'd Religion first inform'd thy sight, And Reason saw not till Faith sprung the light. Hence all thy natural worship takes the source; "Tis Revelation what thou think'st discourse: Else how comest thou to see these truths so clear, Which so obscure to heathens did appear? Not Plato these, nor Aristotle found, Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd. Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime, Or canst thou lower dive, or higher climb ? Canst thou by reason more of godhead know Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero ?
Those giant-wits, in happier ages born,
When arms and arts did Greece and Rome adorn,
Knew no such system; no such piles could raise
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise,
To one sole God:
Nor did remorse, to expiate sin, prescribe,
But slew 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 sin!
And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile,
By offering his own creatures for a spoil!
Darest thou, poor worm! offend Infinity?
And must the terms of peace be given by thee?
Then thou art justice in the last appeal:
Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel;
And, like a king remote and weak, must take
What satisfaction thou art pleased to make.
But if there be a Power, too just and strong To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong, Look humbly upward, see his will disclose The forfeit first, and then the fine imposeA mulct thy poverty could never pay, Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way, And with celestial wealth supplied thy store: His justice makes the fire, his mercy quits the
See God descending in thy human frame,
The offended suffering in the offender's name;
All thy misdeeds to him imputed see,
And all his righteousness devolved on thee.
For, granting we have sinn'd, and that the 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 Deist lost; remorse for vice Not paid, or, paid, inadequate in price. What farther means can reason now direct, Or what relief from human wit expect? That shows us sick; and sadly are we sure Still to be sick till Heaven reveal the cure. If then Heaven's will must needs be understood, (Which must, if we want cure, and Heaven be good) Let all records of will reveal'd be shown, With Scripture all in equal balance thrown, And our one sacred Book will be that one.
Proof needs not here; for whether we compare That impious, idle, superstitious ware
Of rites, lustrations, offerings, which before,
In various ages, various countries bore,
With Christian faith and virtues, we shall find
None answering the great ends of human kind,
But this one rule of life, that shows us best
How God may be appeased, and mortals blest!
Whether from length of time its worth we draw,
The word is scarce more ancient than the law:
Heaven's early care prescribed for every age,
First in the soul, 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 unskill'd in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why,
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.
If on the Book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:
The doctrine, miracles-which must convince,
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense;
And though they prove not, they confirm the cause,
When what is taught agrees with Nature's laws.
Then for the style; majestic and divine,
It speaks no less than God in every line:
Commanding words, whose force is still the same
As the first fiat that produced our frame.
All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend,
Or sense indulged has made mankind their friend :
This only doctrine does our lusts oppose,
Unfed by Nature's soil in which it grows;
Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin,
Oppress'd without, and undermined within,
It thrives through pain, its own tormentors tires,
And with a stubborn patience still aspires.
To what can reason such effects assign,
Transcending nature, but to laws divine,
Which in that sacred Volume are contain❜d,
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordain'd?
But stay: the Deist here will urge anew,
No supernatural worship can be true;
Because a general law is that alone
Which must to all, and every where, be known;
A style so large as not this Book can claim,
Nor aught that bears Reveal'd Religion's name.
'Tis said the sound of a Messiah's birth
Is gone through all the habitable earth;
But still that text must be confined alone
To what was then inhabited and known;
And what provision could from thence accrue
To Indian souls, and worlds discover'd new?
In other parts it helps, that ages past [braced,
The Scriptures there were known, and were em-
Till sin spread once again the shades of night:
What's that to these who never saw the light?
Of all objections this indeed is chief,
To startle reason, stagger frail belief.
We grant, 'tis true, that Heaven from human sense
Has hid the secret paths of Providence;
But boundless wisdom, boundless mercy, may
Find, ev'n for those bewilder'd souls, a way.
If from his nature foes may pity claim,
Much more may strangers who ne'er heard his name:
And though no name be for salvation known
But that of his eternal Son alone,
Who knows how far transcending goodness can
Extend the merits of that Son to man?
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