Of the NATURE and STATE of MAN, with Refpe& to the UNIVERSE.

OF Man, in the abftract. That we can judge only

with regard to our own fyftem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, VER. 17, &c. to 69. That man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable, to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown, 69, &c. That it is partly upon his ignrance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, 73, &c. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the caufe of man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place Kk 2

of

།

of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, juftice or injuftice of his difpenfations, 109 to 120. The abfurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world which is not in the natural, 127 to 164. The unreasonableness of his complaints against providence, while on the one hand he demands the perfections of the angels, on the other the bodily qualifications of the brutes, 165. That to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, 181 to 198, That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of fenfe, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, 199 to 224, How much farther this order and fubordination 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. The extravagance, madness, and pride of fuch a defire, 225 to 260, The confequence of all, the absolute submission due to providence, both as to our prefent and future state, 273, &c.

Α

EPISTLE I.

WAKE! my ST. JOHN! leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings.
Let us (fince life can little more fupply
Than juft to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man ;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan :

A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promifcuous shoot,
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit,
Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield,
The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar,
Eye nature's walks, fhoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rife,
Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reafon, but from what we know?
Of man, what fee we but his ftation here,
From which to reafon, or to which refer?
Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the god be known,
'Tis ours to trace him, only in our own.
He who thro' vaft immenfity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compofe one univerfe,
Obferve how fyftem into fyftem runs,

10

15

20

25

What other planets circle other funs?

What vary'd being peoples every star?

May tell, why heav'n made all things as they are,
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?

5

30

Prefump

Presumptuous man! the reafon would'ft thou find 35 Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and so blind? Firft, if thou canft, the harder reason guess Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less? Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they fhade? Or afk of yonder argent fields above,

Why Jove's fatellites are lefs than Jove?

Of fyftems poffible, if 'tis confeßt
That wisdom infinite muft form the best,
Where all muft fall or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree;

Then, in the fcale of life and fenfe, 'tis plain

There must be, fome where, fuch a rank as man;
And all the queftion (wrangle e're so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Refpecting man whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements fearce one purpose gain;
In God's, one fingle can its end produce,
Yet ferves to fecond too fome other use,
So man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to some sphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal;
'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole,

When the proud fteed fhall know, why man reftrains
His fiery courfe, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Now wears a garland, an Ægyptian god;
Then fhall man's pride and dulnefs comprehend
His actions, paffions, beings, use and end;
Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity?

Then fay not man's imperfect, heav'n in fault;
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought;
His being meafur'd to his ftate and place,
His time a moment, and a point his space.

45

60

65

70

Heav'n