Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made To serve, not fuffer, ftrengthen, not invade; NOTES. culties, I cannot think, for reafons too long to be given in this place. Perhaps we fhall never have a full folution in this world: and it may be no great matter though we have not, as we are demonftrably certain of the moral attributes of the Deity. However, Mr. Pope may be juftified in receiving and inforcing this Platonic notion, as it hath been adopted by the most celebrated and orthodox divines both of the ancient and modern church. This doctrine, we own then, was taken up by Leibnitz; but it was to ingraft upon it a moft pernicious fatalífm. Plato faid, God chose the beft: Leibnitz faid, he could not but chuse the best. Plato fuppofed freedom in God to chufe one of two things equally good: Leibnitz held the fuppofition to be abfurd but however, admitting the cafe, he maintained that God could not chufe one of two things equally good. Thus it appears, the first went on the fyftem of Freedom; and that the latter, notwithstanding the moft artful difguifes in his Theodicée, was a thorough Fatalist: For we cannot well fuppofe he would give that freedom to Man which he had taken away from God. The truth of the matter feems to be this; he faw, on the one hand, the monftrous abfurdity of fuppofing with Spinoza, that blind Fate was the author of a coherent Univerfe; but yet, on the other, could not conceive with Plato, that God could forefee and conduct, according to an archetypal idea, a World, of all poffible Worlds the beft, inhabited by free Agents. This difficulty therefore, which made the Socinians take Prefcience from God, difpofed Leibnitz to take Free-will from Man: And thus he fashioned his fantaftical hypothefis; he fuppofed that when God made the body, he impreffed on his new created Machine a certain feries or fuite of motions; and that when he made the fellow foul, a correfpondent series of ideas; whofe operations, throughout the whole duration of the union, fo exactly jumped, that whenever an idea was excited, a concordant motion was More pow'rful each as needful to the reft, 300 Draw to one point, and to one centre bring Beaft, Man, or Angel, Servant, Lord, or King. For Forms of Government let fools conteft; Whate'er is beft adminifter'd is beft: For Modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight; 305 His can't be wrong whofe life is in the right: COMMENTARY. VER. 303. For Forms of Government let fools conteft ;] But now the poet, having fo much commended the invention and inventors of the philofophic principles of Religion and Government, left an evil use should be made of this, by Mens refting in theory and fpeculation, as they have been always too apt to do in matters whofe practice makes their happiness, he cautions his reader (from 302 to 311) against this error. The seasonableness of this reproof will appear evident enough to those who know, that mad difputes about Liberty and Prerogative had once well nigh overturned our Conftitution; and that others about Mystery and Church Authority had almost destroyed the very fpirit of our Religion. NOTES. ever ready to fatisfy the volition. Thus, for inftance, when the mind had the will to raife the arm to the head, the body was fo pre-contrived, as to raise, at that very moment, the part required. This he called the PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY; and, with this, he promised to do wonders. VER. 303. For Forms of Government &c.] Thefe fine lines have been ftrangely misunderstood: the author, against his own exprefs words, againft the plain fenfe of his fyftem, has been conceived to mean, That all Governments and all Religions were, as to their forms and objects, indifferent. But as this wrong judgment proceeded from ignorance of the reafon of the reproof, as explained above, that explanation is alone fufficient to rectify the mistake. In Faith and Hope the world will difagree, NOTES. However, not to leave him under the leaft fufpicion in a matter of fo much importance, I fhall juftify the fenfe here given to this paffage more at large: Firft, by confidering the words themselves; and then, by comparing this miftaken fenfe with the context. The poet, we may obferve, is here speaking, not of civil Society at large, but of a just legitimate Policy: Th' according mufic of a well-mix'd State. Now mix'd States are of various kinds; in fome of which the Democratic, in others the Ariftocratic, and in others the Monarchic form prevails. Now as each of thefe mix'd Forms is equally legitimate, as being founded on the principles of natural Liberty, that man is guilty of the highest folly, who chuseth rather to employ himself in a fpeculative conteft for the fuperior excellence of one of thefe Forms to the reft, than in promoting the good administration of that fettled Form to which he is fubject. And yet all our warm difputes about Government, have been of this kind. Again, if by Forms of Government, muft needs be meant legitimate Government, because that is the fubject under debate; then by Modes of Faith, which is the correfpondent idea, muft needs be meant the modes or explanations of the True Faith, because the author is here too on the fubject of true Religion: Relum'd her ancient light, not kindled new. Befides, the very expreffion (than which nothing can be more precife) confineth us to understand, by Modes of Faith, those human explanations of Chriftian Myfteries, in contefting which, Zeal and Ignorance have fo perpetually violated Charity. Secondly, If we confider the context; to fuppofe him to mean, that all Forms of Government are indifferent, is making him directly contradict the preceding paragraph; where he extols the Patriot for difcriminating the true from the falfe modes of Government. He, fays the poet, All must be falfe that thwart this One great End; And all of God, that blefs Mankind or mend. 31 O NOTES. Taught Pow'r's due ufe to People and to Kings, That touching one muft ftrike the other too; Th' according music of a well-mix'd State. Here he recommendeth the true Form of Government, which is the mix'd. In another place he as ftrongly condemneth the falfe, or the abfolute jure divino Form; For Nature knew no right divine in Men. But the Reader will not be difpleafed to fee the Poet's own apology, as I find it written in the year 1740, in his own hand, in the margin of a book, where he found these two celebrated lines mifapplied. "The author of thefe lines was far "from meaning that no one form of Government is, in itself, "better than another (as, that mixed or limited Monarchy, “for example, is not preferable to absolute) but that no form "of Government, however excellent or preferable, in itself, "can be fufficient to make a People happy, unlefs it be admi"niftered with integrity. On the contrary, the best fort of "Government, when the form of it is preferved, and the ad"ministration corrupt, is moft dangerous. Again, to fuppofe the Poet to mean, that all Religions are indifferent, is an equally wrong as well as uncharitable fufpicion. Mr. Pope, though his fubject in this Effay on Man confineth him to Natural religion (his purpofe being to vindicate God's natural difpenfations to Mankind againft the Atheift) yet giveth frequent intimations of a more fublime difpenfation, and even of the neceffity of it; particularly in his fecond epiftle ( 149, &c.] where he confeffeth the weakness and insufficiency of human Reafon. And in his fourth epiftle, where, fpeaking of the good Man, the favourite of Heaven, he sayeth, Man, like the gen'rous vine, fupported lives; The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives. COMMENTARY. VER. 311. Man, like the gen'rous vine, &c.] Having thus largely confidered Man in his focial capacity, the poet, in order to fix a momentous truth in the mind of his reader, concludes the Epiftle in recapitulating the two Principles which concur to the support of this part of his character, namely, Self-love and NOTES. For him alone Hope leads from goal to goal, But Natural Religion never lengthened Hope on to Faith; nor did any Religion, but the Chriftian, ever conceive that Faith could fill the Mind with Happiness. Laftly, In this very epiftle, and in this very place, speaking of the great Reftorers of the religion of Nature, he intimates that they could only draw God's fhadow, not his image: Re-lum'd her ancient light, not kindled new, If not God's image, yet his fhadow drew : as reverencing that truth, which telleth us, this discovery was referved for the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor. iv. 4. VER. 305. For Modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight;] Thefe latter Ages have feen fo many fcandalous contentions for modes of Faith, to the violation of Chriftian Charity, and difhonour of facred Scripture, that it is not at all ftrange they fhould become the object of fo benevolent and wife an Author's refentment. his But that which he here feemed to have more particularly in eye was the long and mifchievous fquabble between W-d and JACKSON, on a point confefledly above Reason, and amongst thofe adorable myfteries, which it is the honour of our Religion to find unfathomable. In this, by the weight of anfwers and replies, redoubled upon one another without |