Proof needs not here; for, whether we compare That impious, idle, superstitious ware
Of rites, lustrations, offerings, which before,
In various ages, various countries bore,
With christian faith and virtues, we shall find
None answering the great ends of human kind,
But this one rule of life; that shews us best
How God may be appeased, and mortals blest.
Whether from length of time its worth we draw,
The word is scarce more ancient than the law:
Heaven's early care prescribed for every age;
First, in the soul, and after, in the page.
Or, whether more abstractedly we look,
Or on the writers, or the written book,
Whence, but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.
If on the book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:
The doctrine, miracles; which must convince,
For heaven in them appeals to human sense;
And, though they prove not, they confirm the cause,
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws.
Then for the style, majestic and divine,
It speaks no less than God in every line;
Commanding words, whose force is still the same
As the first fiat that produced our frame.
All faiths, beside, or did by arms ascend,
Or sense indulged has made mankind their friend;
This only doctrine does our lusts oppose,
Unfed by nature's soil, in which it grows;
Cross to our interests, curbing sense, and sin;
Oppressed without, and undermined within,
It thrives through pain; it's own tormentors tires,
And with a stubborn patience still aspires.
To what can reason such effects assign,
Transcending nature, but to laws divine?
Which in that sacred volume are contained,
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordained.
But stay the Deist here will urge anew,
No supernatural worship can be true;
Because a general law is that alone
Which must to all, and every where, be known;
A style so large as not this book can claim,
Nor aught that bears revealed religion's name.
'Tis said, the sound of a Messiah's birth
Is gone through all the habitable earth;
But still that text must be confined alone
To what was then inhabited, and known:
And what provision could from thence accrue
To Indian souls, and worlds discovered new?
In other parts it helps, that, ages past,
The scriptures there were known, and were embraced,
Till sin spread once again the shades of night :
What's that to these who never saw the light?
Of all objections this indeed is chief,
To startle reason, stagger frail belief :
We grant, 'tis true, that heaven from human sense
Has hid the secrets paths of providence;
But boundless wisdom, boundless mercy, may
Find even for those bewildered souls a way.
If from his nature foes may pity claim,
Much more may strangers, who ne'er heard his name;
And, though no name be for salvation known,
But that of his eternal sons* alone;
* All the editions read Sons, which seems to make a double genitive, unless we construe the line to mean, "the name of his Eternal Son's salvation." I own I should have been glad to have found an authority for reading Son.
Who knows how far transcending goodness can
Extend the merits of that son to man?
Who knows what reasons may his
mercy lead,
Or ignorance invincible may plead?
Not only charity bids hope the best,
But more the great apostle has exprest:
That, if the Gentiles, whom no law inspired,
By nature did what was by law required;
They, who the written rule had never known,
Were to themselves both rule and law alone;
To nature's plain indictment they shall plead,
And by their conscience be condemned or freed.
Most righteous doom! because a rule revealed
Is none to those from whom it was concealed.
Then those, who followed reason's dictates right,
Lived up, and lifted high their natural light,
With Socrates may see their Maker's face,
While thousand rubric-martyrs want a place.
Nor does it baulk my charity, to find
The Egyptian bishop of another mind;
For, though his creed eternal truth contains,
'Tis hard for man to doom to endless pains
All, who believed not all his zeal required;
Unless he first could prove he was inspired.
Then let us either think he meant to say,
This faith, where published, was the only way;
Or else conclude, that, Arius to confute,
The good old man, too eager in dispute,
Flew high; and, as his christian fury rose,
Damned all for heretics who durst oppose.
Thus far my charity this path has tried;
A much unskilful, but well-meaning guide:
Yet what they are, even these crude thoughts were
bred
By reading that which better thou hast read;
Thy matchless author's work, which thou, my friend,
By well translating better dost commend;
Those youthful hours which, of thy equals, most
In toys have squandered, or in vice have lost,
Those hours hast thou to nobler use employed,
And the severe delights of truth enjoyed.
Witness this weighty book, in which appears
The crabbed toil of many thoughtful years,
Spent by thy author, in the sifting care
Of rabbins' old sophisticated ware
From gold divine; which he who well can sort
May afterwards make algebra a sport;
A treasure which, if country-curates buy,
They Junius and Tremellius may defy;†
Save pains in various readings and translations,
And without Hebrew make most learned quotations;
A work so full with various learning fraught,
So nicely pondered, yet so strongly wrought,
As nature's height and art's last hand required;
As much as man could compass, uninspired;
Where we may see what errors have been made
Both in the copiers' and translators' trade;
How Jewish, Popish, interests have prevailed,
And where infallibility has failed.
For some, who have his secret meaning guessed,
Have found our author not too much a priest;
For fashion-sake he seems to have recourse
To pope, and councils, and traditions' force;
But he that old traditions' could subdue,
Could not but find the weakness of the new:
* Simon's Critical History of the Old Testament, translated by the young gentleman to whom the poem is addressed.—See Preface.
+ Calvinistic divines, who made translations of the Scripture, with commentaries, on which Pere Simon makes learned criti cisms.
If scripture, though derived from heavenly birth,
Has been but carelessly preserved on earth;
If God's own people, who of God before
Knew what we know, and had been promised more,
In fuller terms, of heaven's assisting care,
And who did neither time nor study spare
To keep this book untainted, unperplext,
Let in gross errors to corrupt the text,
Omitted paragraphs, embroiled the sense,
With vain traditions stopt the gaping fence,
Which every common hand pulled up with ease,-
What safety from such brushwood-helps as these?
If written words from time are not secure,
How can we think have oral sounds endured?
Which thus transmitted, if one mouth has failed,
Immortal lies on ages are entailed ;
And that some such have been, is proved too plain,
If we consider interest, church, and gain.
O but, says one, tradition set side,
Where can we hope for an unerring guide?
For, since the original scripture has been lost,
All copies disagreeing, maimed the most,
Or christian faith can have no certain ground,
Or truth in church-tradition must be found.
Such an omniscient church we wish indeed;
'Twere worth both Testaments, cast in the Creed:
But if this mother be a guide so sure,
As can all doubts resolve, all truth secure,
Then her infallibility as well
Where copies are corrupt or lame can tell ;
Restore lost canon with as little pains,
As truly explicate what still remains ;
Which yet no council dare pretend to do,
Unless, like Esdras, they could write it new;
Strange confidence still to interpret true,
Yet not be sure that all they have explained,
Is in the blest original contained.
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