Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd, 260 IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread, To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains 265 The great directing MIND of ALL ordains. NOTES. greffive and attractive motions; which, like equal Weights in a balance, keep it in an equilibre. VER. 253. Let ruling Angels, &c.] The poet, throughout this poem, with great art, ufes an advantage, which his employing a Platonic principle for the foundation of his Effay had afforded him; and that is, the expreffing himfelf (as here) in Platonic notions; which, luckily for his purpose, are highly poetical, at the fame time that they add a grace to the uniformity of his reafoning. VER. 259. What if the foot, &c.] This fine illuftration in defence of the Syftem of Nature, is taken from St. Paal, who employed it to defend the Syftem of Grace. VER. 265. Just as abfurd, &c.] See the prosecution and application of this in Ep. iv. P. VER. 266. The great directing mind &c.] "Veneramur "autem et colimus ob dominium. Deus enim fine do All are but parts of one ftupendous whole, Whofe body Nature is, and God the foul; NOTES. "minio, providentia, et caufis finalibus, nihil aliud eft quam FATUM & NATURA." Newtoni Princip. Schol. gener. Sub finem. " VER. 268. Whose body Nature is, &c.] A certain examiner remarks, on this line, that " A Spinozist would ex"prefs himself in this manner. I believe he would, and fo, we know, would St. Paul too, when writing on the fame fubject, namely, the omniprefence of God in his Providence, and in his Substance. In him we live, and move, and have our being; i. e. we are parts of him, his offspring, as the Greek poet, a pantheift quoted by the Apoftle, obferves: And the reafon is, because a religious theift, and an impious pantheift, both profess to believe the omniprefence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr. Pope does, call God the great directing Mind of all, who hath intentionally created a perfect Univerfe? Or would a Spinozist have told us, The workman from the work diftinct was known, a line that overturns all Spinozifm from its very founda tions. But this fublime description of the Godhead contains not only the divinity of St. Paul; but, if that will not fatisfy the men he writes against, the philofophy likewife of Sir Ifaac Newton : The poet fays, All are but parts of one ftupendous whole, Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees, That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame; NOTES. Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent, 270 The philofopher: "In ipfo continentur et moventur "univerfa, fed abfque mutua paffione. Deus nihil patitur ex corporum motibus; illa nullam fentiunt refiftentiam "ex omnipræfentia Dei-Corpore omni et figura corporea "deftituitur. Cum Omnia regit et omnia cognofcit. unaquæque Spatii particula fit femper, et unumquodque Durationis indivifibile momentum, ubique certe rerum omnium Fabricator ac Dominus non erit nunquam, "nufquam. 66 Mr. Pope : Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, Sir Ifaac Newton: Annon ex phænomenis conftat "effe entem incorporeum, viventem, intelligentem, omnipræfentem, qui in fpatio infinito, tanquam fenforio fuo, "res ipfas intime cernat, penitufque perfpiciat, totafque "intra fe præfens præfentes complectatur.' But now admitting, there was an ambiguity in these expreffions fo great, that a Spinozift might employ them to exprefs his own particular principles; and fuch a thing might well be, because the Spinozifts, in order to hide the impiety of their principle, are wont to exprefs the Omniprefence of God in terms that any religious Theift might employ: In this cafe, I fay, how are we to judge of the Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and bloffoms in the trees, Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part, 275 As full, as perfect in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, NOTES. poet's meaning? Surely by the whole tenor of his argument. Now take the words in the Sense of the Spinozifts, and he is made in the conclufion of his epiftle, to overthrow all he has been advancing throughout the body of it: For Spinozifm is the deftruction of an Universe, where every thing tends, by a foreseen contrivance in all its parts, to the perfection of the whole. But allow him to employ the paffage in the fenfe of St. Paul, That we and all creatures live, and move, and have our being in God; and then it will be feen to be the moft logical fupport of all that had preceded. For the poet having, as we say, laboured through his epiftle to prove, that every thing in the Universe tends, by a foreseen contrivance, and a prefent direction of all its parts, to the perfection of the whole; it might be objected, that fuch a difpofition of things implying in God a painful, operofe and inconceivable extent of Providence, it could not be fuppofed that fuch care extended to all, but was confined to the more noble parts of the creation. This grofs conception of the First Cause the poet exposes, by fhewing that God is equally and intimately prefent to every particle of Matter, to every fort of Subftance, and in every inftant of Being. VER. 278. As the rapt Seraph, &c.] Alluding to the Name Seraphim, fignifying burners. To him no high, no low, no great, no small; VARIATIONS. After ver. 282. in the MS. Reason, to think of God when the pretends, NOTES. VER. 281. Ceafe then, nor Order] That the reader may fee in one view the exactnefs of the Method, as well as Force of the Argument, I fhall here draw up a short fynopfis of this Epiftle. The poet begins by telling us his fubject is an Effay on Man: That his end of writing is to vindicate Providence: That he intends to derive his arguments from the vifible things of God feen in this fyftem: Lays down this Propofition, That of all poffible fyftems infinite Wisdom has formed the beft: draws from thence two Confequences, 1. That there must needs be fomewhere fuch a creature as Man; 2. That the moral Evil which he is author of, is productive of the Good of the Whole. This is his general Thefis; from whence he forms this conclufion, That Man fhould reft fubmissive and content, and make the hopes of futurity his comfort; but not fuffer this to be the occafion of PRIDE, which is the cause of all his impious Complaints. He proceeds to confirm his Thefis-Previously endeavours to abate our wonder at the phænomenon of moral I |