PREFACE. THERE are two sorts of Writers, I mean the BicoT and the FREE-THINKER, that every honest man in his heart esteems no better than the pests of society; as they are manifestly the bane of Literature and Religion. And whoever effectually endeavours to serve either of these, is sure immediately to offend both of those. For, the advancement of literature is as favourable to true piety, as it is fatal to superstition; and the advancement of religion as propitious to real knowledge as discrediting to vain science. The Author of the following Letters, who hath aimed at least to do this service, by his writings, regarding these two sorts of men, as the irreconcileable enemies of his design, began without any ceremony (for he was not disposed, for their sake, to go about) to break through those lumpish impediments they had thrown across the road of Truth; and laboured to clear the way, not only for himself, but for all who were disposed to follow him. In which it fared with him as it sometimes happens to those who undertake to remove a public nuisance for the benefit of their neighbourhood, where the nicer noses hold themselves offended even in the service thus undeservedly rendered to them. For notwithstanding our Author hath taken all opportunities, and even sought out occasions to celebrate every Writer, living or dead, who was any way respectable for knowledge, virtue, or piety, in whatever party, sect, or religion, he was found, especially such as he had the misfortune to dissent from, and this sometimes with so liberal a hand as to give offence on that side likewise; though he hath done this, I say, yet having, for the reasons above, declared eternal war with Bigotry and Free-thinking, the strong, yet sincere colours in which he hath drawn the learning, sense, candour, and truth of those subjects in which these noble qualities are most eminent, have been censured as insolence c3 insolence and satire, and a transgression of all the bounds of civility and decorum. But he will not be easily induced, by the clamours of the falsely delicate, to betray the interests of all that is good and valuable amongst men, in complaisance to their notions of politeness. "Tis no time to stand upon ceremony when Religion is struggling for life; when the whole Head is sick, and the whole Heart faint. The Bigot, who, between a corrupt will, and a narrow understanding, imputes odious designs to his adversaries, and impious consequences to their opinions, is not, I suppose, to be complimented, either into sense or honesty. The Writer here confuted is amongst the chief of them. And it is not impossible but the recent memory of the like usage our Author himself met with from others of the same leaven, might give him a quicker sense and stronger resentment of the injury done his neighbour. As for the tribe of Free-thinkers, Toland, Tindal, Collins, Coward, Blount, Strutt, Chub, Dudgeon, Morgan, Tillard, and their fellows, the mortal foes both of reason and religion, injured wit as well as virtue, by the mouth of their happiest advocate and favourite, long ago called out for vengeance on them: -The Licence of a following reign Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain; A COMMENTARY ON MR. POPE'S ESSAY ON MAN. LETTER I. WHEN a great Genius, whose Writings have afforded the world much pleasure and instruction, happens to be enviously attacked and falsely accused, it is natural to think, that a sense of gratitude due from readers so agreeably obliged, or a sense of that honour resulting to our Country from such a Writer, should raise a general indignation. But every day's experience shews us the very contrary. Some take a malignant satisfaction in the attack; others, a foolish pleasure in a literary conflict; and the greater part look on with an absolute indifference. Mr. De Crousaz's Remarks on Mr. Pope's Essay on Man, seen in part, through the deceitful medium of a French translation, have just fallen into my hands. As those Remarks appear to me very groundless and unjust, I thought so much due to truth, as to vindicate our Great Countryman from his censure. The principal object therefore of this Vindication shall be, to give the Reader a fair and just idea of the Reasoning of that Essay, so egregiously misrepresented; in They are contained in two several Books, the one entitled, Examen de l'Essai de Mr. Pope; à Lausanne, 1737. The other, Commentaire sur la Traduction en vers de M. l'Abbé Du Resnel de T'Essai de Mr. Pope sur l'Homme; à Geneve, 1738. C 4 which which I shall not consider it as a Poem (for it stands in no need of the licence of such kind of works to defend it), but as a System of Philosophy; and content myself with a plain representation of the sobriety, force, and connection of that Reasoning, I shall begin with the first Epistle. The opening of which, in fifteen lines, is taken up in giving an account of his subject; which he shews us (agreeably to the title) is An ESSAY ON MAN, or a Philosophical Inquiry into his Nature, and End, his Passions, and Pursuits: A mighty maze!-but not without a plan, as Mr. De Crousaz and I have found it, between us. The next line tells us with what design he wrote, viz. To vindicate the ways of God to Man. The men he writes against he hath frequently informed us are such, as Weigh their opinion against Providence.-1. 110. Such as, -cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust.—l. 114. Such as fall into the notion, That vice and virtue there is none at all. Ep. ii. 1. 202. This occasioneth the Poet to divide his Vindication of the Ways of God into two Parts. In the first of which he gives direct answers to those objections which libertine men, on a view of the disorders arising from the perversity of the human will, have intended against Providence: And, in the second, he obviates all those objections, by a true delineation of human Nature, or a general but exact Map of Man; which these objectors either not knowing, or mistaking, or else leaving (for the mad pursuit of metaphysical entities), have lost and bewildered themselves in a thousand foolish complaints against Providence. The first Epistle is employed in the management of the first part of this dispute; and the three following in the management of the second. So that the whole constitutes a complete Essay on Man, written for the best purpose, to vindicate the ways of God. The The Poet therefore having enounced his subject, his end of writing, and the quality of his adversaries, proceeds [from l. 16 to 23.] to instruct us from whence he intends to draw his arguments for their confutation; namely, from the visible things of God, in this system, to demonstrate the invisible things of God, his eternal power and godhead: And why; because we can reason only from what we know, and we know no more of Man than what we see of his station here; no more of God than what we see of his dispensations to Man in this station; therefore Thro' worlds unnumber'd though the God be known, "Tis ours to trace him only in our own *. This naturally leads the Poet to exprobrate the miserable folly and impiety of pretending to pry into, and call in question, the profound dispensations of Providence ; Which reproof contaius [from 1. 22 to 43.] the most sublime description of the omniscience of God, and the miserable blindness and presumption of Man. Presumptuous Man! the reason would'st thou find In the four last lines, the Poet has joined the utmost beauty of argumentation to the sublimity of thought; where the similar instances, proposed for their examination, shew as well the absurdity of their complaints against order, as the fruitlessness of their inquiries into the arcana of the Godhead. So far his modest and sober Introduction: In which he truly observes, that no wisdom less than omniscient Can tell why Heav'n has made us as we are. Yet though we can never discover the particular reasons for this mode of our existence, we may be assured in * Hunc cognoscimus solummodo per Proprietates suas et Attributa, et per sapientissimas et optimas rerum structuras et causas finales. Newtoni Principia Schol. gener, sub finem. general |