What makes all physical 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; 115 Short, and but rare, till Man improv'd it all.

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 1 16. in the MS.

Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began,
The real fource is not in God, but man.

COMMENTARY.

"Say, was it Virtue, more tho' Heav'n ne'er gave,
"Lamented Digby! funk thee to the grave?
"Tell me, if Virtue made the Son expire,

"Why, full of days and honour, lives the Sire?"

VER. III. What makes all phyfical or moral ill?] 2. He exposes their folly (from Ver. 110 to 131.) by confiderations drawn from the fyftem of Nature; and thefe twofold, natural and moral. You accufe God, fays he, because the good man is subject to natural and moral evil. Let us fee whence thefe proceed: Natural evil is the necessary consequence of a material world fo conftituted: But that this constitution was best, we have proved in the first Epistle. Moral evil ariseth from the depraved will of Man: Therefore neither one nor the other from God. But you fay, (adds the Poet, to these

NOTES.

reader fees, has a peculiar elegance; where a tribute of piety to a parent is paid in a return of thanks to, and made fubfervient of, his vindication of, the great Giver and Father of all things. The Mother of the Author, a person of great piety and charity, died the year this poem was finished, viz. 1733.

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 ease

When his lewd father gave the dire disease. 120

Think we, like fome weak Prince, th' Eternal

Cause,

Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?

Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires, Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?

COMMENTARY.

impious complainers) that though it be fit Man fhould fuffer the miferies which he brings upon himself, by the commiffion of moral evil; yet it feems unfit that his innocent pofterity fhould bear a fhare of the burthen. To this, fays he, I reply,

"We juft as wifely might of Heav'n complain
"That righteous Abel was deftroy'd by Cain,
"As that the virtuous fon is ill at eafe,
"When his lewd father gave the dire disease."

But you will still fay, Why doth not God either prevent, or immediately repair thefe evils? You may as well afk why he

NOTES.

VER. 121. Think we, like fome weak Prince, &c.] Agree able hereunto, holy Scripture, in its account of things under the common Providence of Heaven, never represents miracles as wrought for the fake of him who is the object of them, but in order to give credit to fome of God's extraordinary difpenfations to Mankind.

VER. 123. Shall burning Etna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of thofe two great Naturalists, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perished by too near an approach to Etna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the cause of their eruptions.

125

On air or fea new motions be imprest,

Oh blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?

When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by?

Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head referve the hanging wall? 130
But still this world (fo fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better shall we have?

COMMENTARY.

doth not work continual miracles, and every moment reverse the established laws of Nature:

"Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires," &c.

This is the force of the Poet's reafoning; and these the men to whom he addreffeth it; namely, the libertine cavillers against Providence.

VER. 131. But ftill this world, &c.] II. But now, fo unhappy is the condition of our corrupt nature, that these are not the only complainers. RELIGIOUS men are but too apt, if not to fpeak out, yet fometimes fecretly to murmur against Providence; and fay, its ways are not equal: Those especially, who are more inordinately devoted to a fect or party, are fcandalized, that the fut (for such they esteem themselves) who are to judge the world, have no better portion in their own inheritance: The Poet therefore now leaves those more profligate complainers, and turns (from Ver. 130 to 149.) to the religious, in these words:

"But ftill this world (fo fitted for the knave)" &c.

As the more Impious wanted external goods to be the reward of virtue for the moral man; fo These want them for the pious, in order to have a kingdom of the Juft: To this the Poet holds it fufficient to anfwer; Pray firft agree among yourselves, who those Just are. As they are not likely to

135

A kingdom of the Juft then let it be:
But first 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. 140
What shocks one part will edify the rest,
Nor with one system can they all be bleft.
The very best will variously incline,

And what rewards your Virtue, punish mine.

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 142. in fome Editions,

Give each a Syftem, all must be at strife;
What diff'rent Systems for a Man and Wife?

The joke, though lively, was ill plac'd, and therefore struck out of the text.

COMMENTARY.

do this, he bids them reft fatisfied; remember his fundamental principle, that whatever is, is right; and content themselves (as their religion teaches them to profess a more than ordinary fubmiffion to the will of Providence) with that common answer which he, with so much reason and piety, gives to every kind of complainer.

However, though there be yet no kingdom of the Just, there is ftill no kingdom of the Unjuft; both the virtuous and the vicious (whatsoever becomes of those whom every sect calls the Faithful) have their fhares in external goods; and what is more, the virtuous have infinitely the greatest enjoyment of them.

WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.---This world, 'tis

true,

Was made for Cæfar---but for Titus too:

145

And which more bleft? who chain'd his country? fay,

Or he whose Virtue figh'd to lose a day?

"But fometimes Virtue ftarves, while Vice " is fed."

What then? Is the reward of Virtue bread? 150 That, Vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;

The knave deferves it, when he tills the foil,

COMMENTARY.

"This world, 'tis true,

"Was made for Cæfar-but for Titus too:

"And which more bleft? who chain'd his country? fay, "Or he whose Virtue figh'd to lose a day?"

I have been the more follicitous to explain this last argu ment, and to fhew against whom it is directed, because a great deal depends upon it for the illuftration of the fenfe, and the defence of the Poet's reafoning. For if we fuppofe him to be still addreffing himself to thofe IMPIOUS complainers, confuted in the forty preceding lines, we should make him guilty of a paralogifm, in the argument about the Juft; and in the illuftration of it by the cafe of Calvin. For then the Libertine afks, Why the Juft, that is, the moral man, is not rewarded? The anfwer is, That none but God can tell, who the Juft, that is, the faithful man, is. Where the Term is changed, in order to fupport the argument; for about the truly moral man there is no difpute; about the truly faithful, or the orthodox, a great deal. But take the Poet right, as arguing here againft RELIGIOUS complainers, and the reafoning is ftrict and logical. They afk, Why the truly faithful are not rewarded? He anfwereth, "They may be, for "aught you know; for none but God can tell who they are." VER. 149. "But fometimes Virtue flarves, while Vice is fed."] III. The Poet, having dispatched thefe two fpecies of mur. VOL. III.

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