Let angels' voices with their harps conspire,
But keep th' auspicious infant from the choir;
Late let him sing above, and let us know
No sweeter music than his cries below.

320

Nor can I wish to you, great Monarch! more

Than such an annual income to your store;
The day which gave this Unit did not shine
For a less omen than to fill the Trine.

325.

After a Prince an Admiral beget;

The Royal Sov'reign wants an anchor yet.

Our isle has younger titles still in store,

330

And when th' exhausted land can yield no more,
Your line can force them from a foreign shore.

}

The name of Great your martial mind will suit;

But justice is your darling attribute;

Of all the Greeks 'twas but one hero's* due,

335

And in him Plutarch prophesy'd of you:
A prince's favours but on few can fall,
But justice is a virtue shar'd by all.

Some kings the name of Conqu'rors have assum'd,

Some to be great, some to be gods presum'd;
But boundless pow'r and arbitrary lust,
Made tyrants still abhor the name of Just;
They shunn'd the praise this god-like virtue gives,
And fear'd a title that reproach'd their lives.

The pow'r from which all kings derive their state, Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate,

Aristides. See his life in Plutarch

Is equal both to punish and reward;
For few would love their God unless they fear'd.

Resistless force and immortality
Make but a lame, imperfect, deity:
Tempests have force unbounded to destroy,
And deathless being e'en the damn'd enjoy;
And yet Heav'ns attributes, both last and first,
One without life, and one with life accurst:
But justice is Heav'n 'self, so strictly he,
That could it fail, the Godhead could not be.
This virtue is your own; but life and state
Are one to Fortune subject, one to Fate:
Equal to all, you justly frown or smile;
Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;
Yourself our balance hold, the world's our isle.

350

355

}

OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH.

AN EPISTLE.

THE

PREFACE,

A POEM with so bold a title, and a name prefixed, from which the handling of so serious a subject would not be expected, may reasonably oblige the Author to say somewhat in defence both of himself and of his undertaking. In the first place, if it be objected to me, that, being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which belong to the profession of divinity; I could answer, that, perhaps, laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred things. But, in the due sense of my own weakness and want of learning, I plead not this; I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark; but wait on it, with the reverence that becomes me, at a distance. In the next place, I willingenuously confess, that the helps I have used in this small treatise were many of them taken from the works of our own reverend divines of the church of England: so that the weapons with wh

I combat irreligion are already consecrated; though, I suppose, they may be taken down as lawfully as the sword of Goliath was by David, when they are to be employed for the common cause against the enemies of piety. I intend not by this to entitle them to any of my errors; which yet, I hope, are only those of charity to mankind; and such as my own charity has caused me to commit, that of others may more easily excuse. Being naturally inclined to scepticism in philosophy, I have no reason to impose my opinions in a subject which is above it: but, whatever they are, I submit them with all reverence to my Mother-church, accounting them no farther mine than as they are authorised, or at least uncondemned, by her. And, indeed, to secure myself on this side, I have used the necessary precaution of shewing this paper, before it was published, to a judicious and learned friend, a man indefatigably zealous in the service of the Church and State, and whose writings have highly deserved of both. He was pleased to approve the body of the discourse, and I hope he is more my friend than to do it out of complaisance. 'Tis true, he had too good a aste to like it all; and, amongst some other faults, recommended to my second view what I have written, perhaps too boldly, on St. Athanasius, which he advised me wholly to omit. I am sensible enough that I had done more prudently to have followed his opinion; but then I could not have satisfied myself that I had done honestly not to have written what was my own. It has always been my thought that Heathens, who never did, nor without miracle could, hear of the name of Christ, were yet in a possibility of salvation. Neither will it enter easily into my belief that, before the coming of our Saviour, the whole world, excepting only the Jewish nation, should lie under the inevitable necessity of everlasting punishment, for want of that revelation which was confined to so small a spot of ground as that of Palestine. Among the sons of Noah we read of one only who was accursed; and if a blessing in the ripeness of time was reserv'd for Japheth, (of whose progeny we are) it seems unaccountable to me why so many generations, of the same offspring, as preceded our Saviour in the flesh, should be all involved in one common condemnation, and yet that their posterity should be entitled to the hopes of salvation: as if a bill of exclusion had pass'd only on the fathers, which debarred not the sons from their succession; or that so many ages had been delivered over to hell, and so many reserved for heaven; and that the devil had the first choice, and God the next. Truly I am apt to think that the reveal'd religion which was taught by Noah to all his sons might continue for some ages in the whole posterity: that afterwards it was included wholly in the family of Shem is manifest; but when the progenies of Cham and Japheth swarmed into coVolume I.

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