Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bleft abodes; 255
Fear made her Devils, and weak Hope her Gods;
Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were Rage, Revenge, or Luft;
Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive,
And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would belieye. 260
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide;
And hell was built on fpite, and heav'n on pride.
Then facred feem'd th'etherial vault no more ;
Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:
Then first the Flamen tafted living food;
265
Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood;
With Heav'n's own thunders fhook the world below,
And play'd the God an engine on his foe.

So drives Self-love, thro' just and thro' unjust,
To one Man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, luft:'
The fame Self-love, in all, becomes the cause
Of what restrains him, Government and Laws.
For, what one likes if others like as well,
What ferves one will, when many wills rebel?

NOTES.

VER. 262.-and heav'n on pride.] This might be very well faid of thofe times, when no one was content

E

270

to go to heaven without being received there on the footing of a God.

275

How fhall he keep, what, fleeping or awake,

A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?

His fafety muft his liberty restrain :

280

All join to guard what each defires to gain.
Forc'd into virtue thus by Self-defence,
Ev'n Kings learn'd justice and benevolence:
Self-love forfook the path it first pursu'd,
And found the private in the public good.
'Twas then, the studious head or gen❜rous mind,
Follow'r of God or friend of human-kind,

Poet or Patriot, rofe but to reftoré

285

The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before;
Re-lum'd her ancient light, not kindled new ;
If not God's image, yet his fhadow drew :
Taught Pow'r's due use to People and to Kings,
Taught nor to flack, nor ftrain its tender ftrings,
The lefs, or greater, fet so justly true,
291
That touching one muft ftrike the other too;
'Till jarring int'refts, of themselves create
Th'according mufic of a well-mix'd State.

NOTES.

VER. 283. 'Twas then, .] The poet feemeth here to mean the polite and flourishing age of Greece; and those benefactors to Mankind, which

he had principally in view, were Socrates and Aristotle ; who, of all the pagan world, fpoke beft of God, and wrote beft of Government.

Such is the World's great harmony, that springs

From Order, Union, full Confent of things:

Where small and great, where weak and mighty,

To ferve, not fuffer, ftrengthen, not invade;
More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,
And, in proportion as it bleffes, bleft;
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, Man, or Angel, Servant, Lord, or King.

For Forms of Government let fools conteft; Whate'er is beft adminifter'd is beft: For Modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight; 305 His can't be wrong whofe life is in the right :

NOTES.

In Faith and Hope the world will disagree,
But all Mankind's concern is Charity:

NOTES.

But that which he here | heads, they had but chanced

to reflect on the fenfe of one Greek word, AПEIPIA, that it fignifies both INFINITY and IGNORANCE, this fingle equivocation might have faved them ten thou

feemed to have more particularly in his eye was the long and mischievous fquabble between Wd and JACKSON, on a point confeffedly above Reason, and amongst thofe adorable my-fand, which they expended fteries which it is the ho- in carrying on the contronour of our Religion to find verfy. However thofe Mifts unfathomable. In this, by that magnified the Scene, the weight of anfwers and enlarged the Character of replies, redoubled upon one the Combatants: and no another without mercy, they body expecting common fenfe made fo profound a pro- on a subject where we have grefs, that the One proved, no ideas, the defects of dulnothing hindered, in Na- nefs difappeared, and its ture, but that the Son might advantages (for, advantages have been the Father; and it has) were all provided the Other, that nothing for. hindered, in Grace, but that the Son may be a mere Creature. In a word, they made all things difputable but their own dullness; and this they left unquestioned; and it was the only thing they did leave, of which their readers could be certain. But if, inftead of throwing fo many Greek which Lucian calls Exoros Fathers at one another'sixéxpoos, prefently falls from

The worst is, fuch kind of Writers feldom know when to have done. For writing themselves up into the fame delufion with their Readers, they are apt to venture out into the more open paths of Literature, where their reputation, made out of that stuff,

All must be falfe that thwart this One great End; And all of God, that bless Mankind or mend. 310

NOTES.

them, and their nakedness |
appears. And thus it fared
with our two Worthies.
The World, which must
have always fomething to
amufe it, was now in good
time grown weary of its
play-things, and catched at
a new object that promifed
them more agreeable enter-
tainment. Tindal, a kind
of Baftard Socrates, had
brought our fpeculations
from Heaven to Earth:
and, under the pretence of
advancing the Antiquity of
Christianity, laboured to
undermine its original. This
was a controversy that re-
quired another manage.
manage.
Clear fenfe, fevere
reafoning, a thorough know-
ledge of prophane and fa-
cred Antiquity, and an in-bling in SPACE.
timate acquaintance with
human Nature, were the
qualities to determine upon
this Queftion. A very un-
promifing adventure for
thefe metaphyfical nurflings,
bred up under the fhade

chimeras. Yet they would
needs venture out. What
they got by it was only to
be once well laughed at,
and then forgotten. But one
odd circumitance deferves
to be remembered; tho'
they wrote not, you may
be fure, in concert, yet
each attacked his Adversary
at the fame time, fastened
upon him in the fame place,
and mumbled him juft in
the fame manner. But the
ill fuccefs of this escape foon
brought them to themselves.
The One made a fruitless
effort to revive the old
game, in a difcourfe on
The importance of the Dac-
trine of the Trinity; and
the Other has been ever
fince, till very lately, ram-

ment.

of

This short history, as infignificant as the fubjects of it are, may not be altogether unufeful to pofterity. Divines may learn by these examples to avoid the mifchiefs done to Religion and