THE Univerfal Prayer. DEO OPT. MAX. FAT ATHER of All! in ev'ry Age, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, a ei '.. Thou Great Firft Caufe, leaft understood : Who all my Sense confin'd To know but this, that Thou art Good, And that myself am blind; COMMENTARY. Univerfal Prayer.] It may be proper to observe, that fome paffages, in the preceding Efay, having been unjuft ly fufpected of a tendency towards Fate and Naturalism, the author compofed this Prayer, as the fum of all, to shew that this fyftem was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: That the firft caufe was as well the Lord and Governor of the Univerfe, as the Creator of it; and that, by fubmiffion to his will (the great principle inforced throughout the Eay) was not meant the fuffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination; but the reil Yet gave me, in this dark Eftate, To fee the Good from Ill; And binding Nature faft in Fate, Left free the human Will. What Confcience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than hell to fhun, What Bleffings thy free Bounty gives, Yet not to Earth's contracted Span When thousand Worlds are round: Let not this weak unknowing hand ing in a religious acquiefcence, and confidence full of Hope and Immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the poet chofe for his model the LORD's-Prayer, which, of all others, beft deferves the title prefixed to his Paraphrafe. If I am right, thy grace impart, bond or If I am wrong, oh teach my heart... To find that better way, 94 MW qd welt A Save me alike from foolish Pride, Or impious Discontent, Teach me to feel another's Woe, To hide the Fault I fee; That Mercy I to others show, Mean tho' I am, not wholly fo, NOTES. If I am right, thy grace impart,- As the imparting grace, on the chriftian fyftem, is a stronger exertion of the divine power, than the natural illumination of the heart, one would expect that right and wrong should change places; more aid being required to reftore men to the right, than to keep them in it. But as it was the poet's purpose to infinuate, that Revelation was the right, nothing could better express his purpose, than the making the right fecured by the guards of grace. 1 |