INCE fome with bare-fac'd impu
The felf-existence of a Deity
Who Is, and Was, from all eternity ;
Others more civilly a God difpute,
Till by difputing they themselves confute;
A Third fort Own they do a God believe,
But at fuch random rates and methods live,
That by their practice they a God defye,
And by their actions give their tongues the lye :
Since thefe, I fay, fo numerous are grown,
And fill the court, the country, and the town,
My pious muse inspir'd with holy rage
Thefe dreadful monsters fingly fhall engage:
And, as of Old the little fon of Jesse *
A mighty giant did in fight fupprefs,
Strengthen'd by God whose armour then he wore,
And whose just cause upon his fword he bore;
So, by the help of that divinity
Whom I affert, they foolishly deny,
Their errors I fo fully shall refute
That I fhall leave them answerlefs and mute.
And, first, for him who rafhly does difown
The being of the blefs'd eternal One;
Let him but tell me whence the world began,
Who made that lovely, lordly creature, man;
Let him around him gently caft his eyes,
And guess who made the earth, the feas, and skies.
If he be one of that misguided tribe,
Which to blind chance does all these works afcribe;
Let him the beauties of this globe survey,
The juft viciffitudes of night and day,
The conftant motion of the moon and fun
Which in just order do their races run:
Let him confider his own wondrous make,
And, for a time, himself to pieces take:
Then see how ev'ry fibre, vein and nerve,
Does to its proper ends and uses ferve,
How all we eat, and drink, and take for food,
Diffolves to chyle and mingles with the blood.
If all this leffon ftill fhall prove in vain,
And he his firft dull maxim will maintain;
That atoms moving in a heedless dance
Leapt into this harmonious form by chance:
Then let him fay, a beauteous edifice
From bricks and ftones will of it felf arife;
That letters, in a bag together shook
Will make an uniform, ingenious, book;
Or that bare brass and steel will jump into a clock.
The works of chance are of another kind,
And, like their cause, irregular and blind,
Without intention and without defign,
And far from being beautiful or fine.
Since then the workmanship we plainly fee,
We must infer there must a workman be:
Thus by the art the artist we defcry,
And by the creature find the Deity.
Now, if the world at firft was made too fair,
Too curious, excellent and regular
To be the work of blind contingency,
To what new covert muft the Atheist fy?
The world's-eternity he next muft take
For his laft refuge and his furest stake;
And by denying that the world was made,
Or that by art it was in order laid,
He thinks to ward off the neceffity
Of introducing here a Deity,
Whose boundless power, and all-contriving thought, *This lovely fabrick to perfection brought.
But here, instead of wiping off the score,
He's plung'd in deeper than he was before:
And, far from owning its eternity,
We'll fhew the world in its first infancy;
And as through various turns and windings led,
We trace the river to the fountain-head;
So going backwards ftili from man to man,
We'll find a time when he at first began.
Molt writers * own 'tis not fix thousand year,
Since first this beauteous fabrick did appear;
Egyptian prieits held a much longer date,
And reckon'd at à very diff'rent rate,
But they, alas! were full of forgeries,
And fam'd for nought but impudence and lies;
Chaldeans too made their unjust account
Beyond the numbers of our cent'ries mount,
See Bishop Pearfon on the Creed, p. 58, 59.
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