(OR A LAYMAN'S FAITH)

 Dim, as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
 To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,
 Is reason to the soul; and as on high,
 Those rolling fires discover but the sky
 Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray
 Was lent not to assure our doubtful way,
 But guide us upward to a better day.
 And as those nightly tapers disappear
 When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere
 So pale grows reason at religion's sight:
 So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
 Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led
 From cause to cause, to Nature's secret head;
 And found that one first principle must be:
 But what, or who, that Universal He;
 Whether some soul incompassing this ball
 Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
 Or various atoms'interfering dance
 Leapt into form (the noble work of chance
 Or this great all was from eternity;
 Not even the Stagirite himself could see;
 And Epicurus guess'd as well as he:
 As blindly grop'd they for a future state;
 As rashly judg'd of Providence and Fate:
 But least of all could their endeavours find
 What most concern'd the good of human kind.
 For happiness was never to be found;
 But vanish'd from 'em, like enchanted ground.
 One thought content the good to be enjoy'd:
 This, every little accident destroy'd:
 The wiser madmen did for virtue toil:
 A thorny, or at best a barren soil:
 In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep;
 But found their line too short, the well too deep;
 And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
 Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
 Without a centre where to fix the soul:
 In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
 How can the less the greater comprehend?
 Or finite reason reach infinity?
 For what could fathom God were more than He.

 The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground;
 Cries [lang g]eur{-e}ka[lang e] the mighty secret's found:
 God is that spring of good; supreme, and best;
 We, made to serve, and in that service blest;
 If so, some rules of worship must be given;
 Distributed alike to all by Heaven:
 Else God were partial, and to some deny'd
 The means his justice should for all provide.
 This general worship is to PRAISE, and PRAY:
 One part to borrow blessings, one to pay:
 And when frail Nature slides into offence,
 The sacrifice for crimes is penitence.
 Yet, since th'effects of providence, we find
 Are variously dispens'd to human kind;
 That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here,
 (A brand that sovereign justice cannot bear
 Our reason prompts us to a future state:
 The last appeal from fortune, and from fate:
 Where God's all-righteous ways will be declar'd;
 The bad meet punishment, the good, reward.

 Thus man by his own strength to Heaven would soar:
 And would not be oblig'd to God for more.
 Vain, wretched creature, how art thou misled
 To think thy wit these god-like notions bred!
 These truths are not the product of thy mind,
 But dropt from Heaven, and of a nobler kind.
 Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight,
 And reason saw not, till faith sprung the light.
 Hence all thy natural worship takes the source:
 'Tis revelation what thou think'st discourse.
 Else how com'st thou to see these truths so clear,
 Which so obscure to heathens did appear?
 Not Plato these, nor Aristotle found:
 Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd.
 Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime,
 Or canst thou lower dive, or higher climb?
 Canst thou, by reason, more of God-head know
 Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero?
 Those giant wits, in happier ages born,
 (When arms, and arts did Greece and Rome adorn)
 Knew no such system; no such piles could raise
 Of natural worship, built on pray'r and praise,
 To one sole God.
 Nor did remorse, to expiate sin, prescribe:
 But slew their fellow creatures for a bribe:
 The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence;
 And cruelty, and blood was penitence.
 If sheep and oxen could atone for men
 Ah! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin!
 And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile
 By offering his own creatures for a spoil!

 Dar'st thou, poor worm, offend Infinity?
 And must the terms of peace be given by thee?
 Then thou art justice in the last appeal;
 Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel:
 And, like a king remote, and weak, must take
 What satisfaction thou art pleas'd to make.

 But if there be a pow'r too just, and strong
To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong;
Look humbly upward, see his will disclose
The forfeit first, and then the fine impose:
A mulct thy poverty could never pay
Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way:
And with celestial wealth supply'd thy store:
His justice makes the fine, his m