For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whofe life is in the right.
In faith and hope the world will difagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity:
All must be falfe that thwart this one great end;
And all of God that blefs mankind or mend.
Man, like the gen'rous vine, fupported lives; The ftrength he gains is from th' embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run,
Yet make at once their circle round the fun;
So two confiftent motions act the foul,
And one regards itself, and one the whole.
Thus God and Nature link'd the genʼral frame,
And bade felf-love and focial be the fame.
OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH
RESPECT TO HAPPINESS.
I. FALSE notions of happiness, philofophical and popular, anfwered, from V. 19, to 27. II. It is the end of all Men, and attainable by all, v. 29. God intends happiness to be equal; and, to be fo, it must be focial, fince all parti cular happinets depends on géneral, and fince he governs by general, not par ticular, laws, v. 35. As it is neceffary for order, and the peace and welfare of fociety, that external goods fhould be unequal, happiness is not made to confift in thefe, v. 51: but, notwithtanding that inequality, the balance of hap pinefs among mankind is kept even by Providence by the two paffions of hope and fear, v. 70. III. What the happiness of individuals is, as far as is cofiftent with the conftitution of this world; and that the good Man has here the advantage, v. 77. The error of imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of nature, or of fortune, v. 94. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favour of particulars, v. 121. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that whoever they are, they must be happieft, v. 131, &c. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often incon fittent with, or deftructive of, virtue, v. 167. That even these can make no man happy without virtue, inftanced in Riches, v. 185. Honours, v. 193. Nobility, v. 205. Greatnefs, v. 217. Fame, v. 237. Superior talents, v. 259, &c. with pictures of human infelicity in Men poffeffed of them all, v. 269, &c. VII. That virtue only conftitutes a happiness, whofe object is univerfal, and whofe profpect eternal, v. 309, &c. That the perfection of virtue and happinefs confifts in a conformity to the order of Providence here, and a refignation to it here and hereafter, v. 327, &c.
OH, Happiness! our being's end and aim! [name;
Good, Pleasure, Eafe, Content! whate'er thy
That fomething ftill which prompts th? eternal figh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die;
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, feen double by the fool and wife;
Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below,
Say in what mortal foil thou deign'ft to grow?
Fair op'ning to fome court propitious fhine,
Or deep with di'monds in the flaming mine?
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?
Where grows?where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the foil:
Fix'd to no fpot is happiness fincere ;
'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where:
'Tis never to be bought, but always free,
And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee. Ask of the learn'd the way? the learn`d are blind; This bids to ferve and that to fhun mankind.
Some place the blifs in action, fome in ease;
Thofe call it Pleasure, and Contentment these :
Some, funk to beafts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some, fwell'd to gods, confefs e'en virtue vain!
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To truft in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, fay they more or less
Than this, That happiness is happiness?
Take Nature's path and mad Opinion's leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right and meaning well;
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is common fenfe and common ease.
Remember, Man, "the Universal Caufe
"Acts not by partial but by gen'ral laws,'
And makes what Happiness we justly call
Subfift not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a bleffing individuals find
But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind;
No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd hermit, refts felf-fatisfy'd.
Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend.
Abstract what others feel, what others think,
All pleasures ficken, and all glories fink;
Each has his fhare; and who would more obtain
Shall find the pleasure pays not half the pain.
Order is Heav'n's first law; and, this confeft,
Some are and must be greater than the reft;
More rich, more wife: but who infers from hence
That fuch are happier fhocks all common fenfe.
Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:
But mutual wants this happiness increase;
All Nature's diff'rence keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumftance, is not the thing;
Blifs is the fame in fubject or in king,
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is or him who finds a friend :
Heav'n breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole
One common bleffing, as one common foul.
But Fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each were equal, muft not all contest?
If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content.
Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,
And thefe be happy call'd, unhappy thofe,
But Heav'n's juit balance equal will appear
While thofe are plac'd in hope and these in fear :
Not prefent good or ill the joy or curse,
But future views of better or of worse.
Oh! Sons of Earth! attempting ftill to rife
By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies?
Heav'n ftill with laughter the vain toil furveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Know all the good that individuals find,
Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind,
Reaton's whole pleafure, all the joys of fenfe,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.
But health confifts with temperance alone;
And peace, oh, Virtue! peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain;
But thefe lefs tafte them as they worse obtain.
Say, in purfuit of profit or delight,
Who ritk the moft, that take wrong means or right?
Of vice or virtue, whether bless'd or curst,
Which meets contempt, or which compaffion first ?
Count all th' advantage profp'rous vice attains,
'Tis but what virtue flies from and difdains:
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want, which is to pafs for good.
Oh! blind to truth and God's whole fcheme below,
Who fancy blifs to vice, to virtue woe!
Who fees and follows that great fcheme the best,
Best knows the bleffing, and will most be bleft.
But fools the good alone unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the juft!
See godlike Turenne proftrate on the dust i
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife!
Was this their virtue or contempt of life!
Say, was it virtue, more tho' Heav'n ne'er gave,
Lamented Digby! funk thee to the grave?
Tell me, if virtue made the fon expire,
Why full of days and honcur lives the fire?
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath
When Nature ficken'd, and each gale was death?
Or why fo long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor and me?
What makes all phyfical or moral ill?
There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will.
God fends not ill, if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is univerfal good,
Or change admits, or Nature lets it fall,
Short and but rare till Man improv'd it all.
We just as wifely might of Heav'n complain
That righteous Abel was destroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous fon is ill at eafe
When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
Think we, like fome weak prince, th' Eternal Cause Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?
Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall his fires?
On air or fea new motions be imprest,
Oh, blamelels Bethel! to relieve thy breaft?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation ceafe if you go by?
Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head referve the hanging wall?
But ftill this world (fo fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better fhall we have?
A kingdom of the juft then let it be ;
But firft confider how those just agree.
The good muft merit God's peculiar care;
But who but God can tell us who they are?
One thinks on Calvin Heav'n's own Spirit fell;
Another deems him inftrument of Hell:
If Calvin feel Heav'n's bleffing or its rod,
This cries There is, and that There is no God.
|