EPISTLE III. ERE then we reft: "The Universal Cause HER વ Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.” In all the madness of fuperfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, Let this great truth be present night and day;5 But moft be prefent, if we preach or pray. Look round our World; behold the chain of Love Combining all below and all above. See plastic Nature working to this end, 10 WE are now come to the third epiftle of the Effay on Man. It having been fhewn, in explaining the origin, use, and end of the Paffions, in the fecond epistle, that Man hath focial as well as felfifh paffions, that doctrine natutally introduceth the third, which treats of Man as a socIAL animal; and connects it with the second, which confidered him as an INDIVIDUAL. VER. 12. Form'd and impell'd, etc.] To make Matter fo cohere as to fit it for the uses intended by its Creator, a proper configuration of its infentible parts, is as necessary as that VARIATIONS. VER. I. In feveral Edit. in 4to. Learn, Dulness, learn! "The Universal Cause, stc.. VOL. III. E See Matter next, with various life endu'd, 15 20 Prefs to one centre ftill, the genʼral Good. 25 30 quality fo equally and univerfally conferred upon it, called Attraction. To express the first part of this thought, our. Author fays form'd; and to exprefs the latter, impell'd. VER. 22. One all-extending, all-preferving Soul] Which, in the language of Sir Ifaac Newton, is, "Deus omnipræfens "eft, non per virtutem folam, fed etiam per substantiam : " nam virtus fine substantia subsistere non poteft." Newt. Princ. fchol. gen. fub finem. VER. 23. Greatest with the leaft ;] as acting more strongly and immediately in beafts, whose instinct is plainly an external reafon; which made an old fchool-man fay, with great elegance, "Deus eft anima brutorum: " In this 'tis God directs Is it for thee the lark ascends and fings? 35 40 Know, Nature's children fhall divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. While Man exclaims, "See all things for my ufe!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goofe : And just as short of reafon He must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all. Grant that the pow'rful still the weak controul; Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole : 50 VER. 45. See all things for my ufe!] On the contrary, the wife man hath faid, The Lord bath made all things for himself, Prov, xvi. 4. VARIATIONS. After ver. 46. in the former Editions. What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him! But as to Man, mistook the matter quite, Nature that Tyrant checks; he only knows, 55 60 He faves from famine, from the favage faves; And, till he ends the being, makes it bleft: Which fees no more the ftroke, or feels the pain, The creature had his feaft of life before ; 65 Thou too muft perifh, when thy feast is o'er! 70 VER. 68. Than favour'd Man, etc.] Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals fince, efteemed those who were ftruck by lightning as facred perfons, and the particular favourites of Heaven. |