Thou Great First Cause, least understood: Who all my Sense confin'd Yet gave me, in this dark Eftate, And binding Nature fast in Fate, NOTES. What ready proved concerning Orpheus, from fuch fragments of the Orphic Poems as have been owned and attefted by Pagan writers." Cudworth proceeds to confirm this opinion by many ftrong and uncontested paffages from Homer, Hefiod, Pindar, Sophocles, and especially Euripides, Book i. chap. iv. fect. 19.; and Ariftophanes, in the firft line of Plutus, diftinguishes betwixt Jupiter and the gods : Ω Ζεῦ καὶ θεοδ. VER. 6. My Senfe confin'd] It ought to be confinedst, or didst confine; and afterwards, gavest, or didft give, in the second perfon. See Lowth's Grammar. VER. 9. Yet gave me,] Originally Pope had written another ftanza, immediately after this; Can fins of moments claim the rod Of everlasting fires? And that offend great Nature's God Which Nature's self inspires? The licentious fentiment it contains, evidently borrowed from a well-known paffage of Guarini in the Pastor Fido, induced him to ftrike it out. And perhaps also the abfurd metaphor of a rod of fires, on examination, displeased him. VER. 12. Left free] An abfurd and impoffible exemption, exclaims the Fatalist; "comparing together the moral and the natural world, every thing is as much the refult of established laws in the one as in the other. There is nothing in the whole universe that 3 What Conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to fhun, What Bleffings thy free Bounty gives, For God is paid when Man receives, NOTES. Yet that can properly be called contingent: nothing loose or fluctuating in any part of Nature; but every motion in the natural, and every determination and action in the moral world, are directed by immutable laws; so that, whilst these laws remain in their force, not the smallest link of the univerfal chain of caufes and effects can be broken, nor any one thing be otherwise than it is.” All the moft fubtile and refined arguments that can be urged in a dispute on Fate and Free-will, are introduced, in a conversation on this subject, betwixt the angels Gabriel and Raphael, and Adam, in the fourth act of Dryden's State of Innocence, and stated with a wonderful precifion and perfpicuity. Reasoning, in verse, was one of Dryden's most fingular and predominant excellencies: notwithstanding which, he must rank as a poet for his Mufic-ode, not for his Religio Laici. VER. 12. The Human Will.] The refult of what Locke advances on this, the most difficult of all subjects, is, that we have a power of doing what we will. "Il ferait plaifant,” says a noted wit, "qu'une partie de ce monde fut arrangée, et que l'autre ne le fut point; qu'une partie de ce qui arrive ne dût pas arriver. Quand on y regarde de pres, on voit que la doctrine contraire à celle du deftin eft abfurde; mais il y a beaucoup de gens destinés à raisonner mal, d'autres à ne point raisonner du tout, d'autres à perfecuter ceux qui raifonnent." Let us acquiefce in a better. philofophy, which teaches us, "that if Free-will be the origin of evil, it is also the origin of good. If it be the occafion of disor der, Yet not to Earth's contracted Span When thousand Worlds are round: Let not this weak, unknowing hand On each I judge thy Foe. If NOTES. der, it is the cause of order; of all the moral order that appears in the world. Had Liberty been excluded, Virtue had been excluded with it. And if this had been the cafe, the world could have had no charms, no beauties, fufficient to recommend it to Him who made it. In fhort, all other powers and perfections would have been very defective without this, which is truly the life and spirit of the whole creation." VER. 25. This weak, unknowing hand] Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another: expreffing neither surprise nor averfion at persons who hold opinions different from our own, either in religion or politics; knowing that this difference of opinion is as pardonable as it is unavoidable; and convinced that Laud and Milton, Hickes and Burnet, Atterbury and Hoadley, Waterland and Clarke, were all equally fincere in their several tenets. The great Bishop Butler used to say, that if Lord Shaftesbury had lived to fee the candour, moderation, and gentleness of the prefent times in difcuffing religious fubjects, he would have been a good Christian. VER. 27. Deal damnation] He cenfures the narrow and illiberal doctrine of popery and bigotry," the impoffibility of being faved out of the pale of the Church." It is very remarkable, that Mahomet, in the Koran, Surat 2. feverely reprehends the Jews and the Chriftians for condemning each other; and fays, "that, on the day of refurrection, God will judge the merits of their caufe." So that there are Chriftians lefs tolerant than Mahomet. If I am right, thy grace impart, Save me alike from foolish Pride, At aught thy Wisdom has deny'd, Teach me to feel another's Woe, That Mercy I to others fhow, Mean though I am, not wholly fo, Oh lead me wherefoe'er I go, Through this day's Life or Death. NOTES. This VER. 39. That Mercy] It has been faid that our Poet, in this Prayer, chofe the Lord's Prayer for his model; but there is no resemblance but in this paffage, and in the last stanza but one. M. Le Franc de Pompignan, a celebrated avocat at Montauban, author of Dido a tragedy, was feverely cenfured in France for tranflating this Universal Prayer, as a piece of Deism; which, having been printed in London, in 4to. by Vaillant, was conveyed to the Chancellor Agueffau, who immediately sent a strong reprimand to M. Le Franc, and he vindicated his orthodoxy in a laboured letter to that learned Chancellor. Voltaire reproached Le Franc with making this translation. His brother, Bishop of Puy au Velei, has called Locke an atheist. |