See SIDNEY bleeds amid the martial ftrife! 105 Was this their Virtue, or Contempt of Life? Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor and me? COMMENTARY. 110 ried them into dangers. Secondly, That if they will still persist in afcribing untimely death to Virtue; they must needs, on the fame principle, likewise ascribe long life to it: confequently, as the argument, in fact, concludes both ways, in logic it concludes neither. Say, was it Virtue, more tho' Heav'n nè'er gave, Why, full of days and honour, lives the Sire? VER. III. What makes all phyfical or moral ill?] 2. He expofes their folly (from 100 to 131) by confiderations drawn NOTES. VER. 110. Lent Heav'n a parent &c.] This laft inftance. of the poet's illustration of the ways of Providence, the reader fees, has a peculiar elegance; where a tribute of piety to a parent is paid in a return of thanks to, and made fubfervient of, his vindication of, the Great Giver and Father of all God fends not ill; if rightly understood, 115 Or Change admits, or Nature lets it fall VARIATIONS. After 116. in the MS. Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began, COMMENTARY. from the fyftem of Nature; and these twofold, natural and moral. You accufe God, fays he, because the good man is subject to natural and moral evil. Let us fee whence these proceed Natural evil is the neceffary confequence of a material world fo conftituted: But that this conftitution was beft, we have proved in the first Epistle. Moral evil ariseth from the depraved will of Man: Therefore neither the one nor the other from God. But you fay (adds the poet, to these impious complainers) that though it be fit Man fhould fuffer the miseries which he brings upon himself by the commiffion of moral evil, yet it seems unfit that his innocent pofterity should bear a fhare of them. To this, fays he, I reply, We just as wifely might of Heav'n complain, When his lewd father gave the dire disease. But you will ftill fay, why doth not God either prevent, or immediately repair thefe evils? You may as well ask why he doth not work continual miracles, and every moment reverse the established laws of Nature: Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires, &c. NOTES. things. The Mother of the author, a perfon of great piety and charity, died the year this poem was finished, viz. 1733; We just as wifely might of Heav'n complain When his lewd father gave the dire disease. 120 Think we, like fome weak Prince, th'Eternal Cause, Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws? Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires, 125 Forget to thunder, and recall her fires? Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall, For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall? 130 COMMENTARY. This is the force of the poet's reafoning; and these the men to whom he addreffeth it; namely, the Libertine Cavillers against Providence. NOTES. VER. 121. Think we, like fome weak Prince, &c.] Agreeably hereunto, holy Scripture, in its account of things under the common Providence of Heaven, never reprefents miracles as wrought for the fake of him who is the object of them, but in order to give credit to fome of God's extra ordinary dispensations to Mankind. VER. 123. Shall burning Etna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of those two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perished by too near an approach to Etna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the cause of their eruptions. But ftill this world (fo fitted for the knave) A kingdom of the Juft then let it be: COMMENTARY. VER. 131. But ftill this world &c.] II. But now, fo unhappy is the condition of our corrupt nature, that these are not the only complainers. RELIGIOUS Men are but too apt, if not to fpeak out, yet sometimes fecretly to murmur against Providence, and fay, its ways are not equal; efpecially the more inordinately devoted to a fect or party are scandalized that the Just (for fuch they esteem themselves) who are to judge the world, have no better portion in their own inheritance: The poet therefore now leave thofe more profligate complainers, and turns (from 130 to 149) to the religious, in these words: But ftill this world (fo fitted for the knave) &c. As the more Impious wanted external goods to be the reward of Virtue for the Moral man; fo These want them for the Pious, in order to have a kingdom of the Juft: To this the poet holds it fufficient to answer; Pray first agree among yourselves, who thofe Juft are. As this is the cafe, he bids them reft satisfied; remember his fundamental principle, that whatever is, is right; and content themfelves (as their religion teaches them to profess a more than ordinary fubmiffion to the will of Providence) with that common answer which he, with so much reason and piety, gives to every kind of Complainer. However, though there be yet no kingdom of the Juft, there is ftill no kingdom of the Unjuft: both the Virtuous and the Vicious (whatsoever becomes of those whom every fect calls the Faithful) have their fhares in external goods; and what is more, the Virtuous have infinitely the most enjoyment of them. This world, 'tis true, Was made for Cæfar-but for Titus too: And which more blft? who chain'd his country? fay, 135 The good must merit God's peculiar care ; If Calvin feel Heav'n's bleffing, or its rod, VARIATIONS. After VER. 142. in fome Editions, Give each a System, all must be at strife; COMMENTARY. I have been the more folicitous to explain this laft argument, and to fhew against whom it is directed, because much depends upon it for the illustration of the sense, and the just defence of the poet. For if we fuppofe him ftill addreffing himself to thofe IMPIOUS complainers, confuted in the forty preceding lines, we fhould make him guilty of a paralogifm in the argument about the Juft; and in the illuftration of it by the cafe of Calvin. For then the Libertines afk, Why the Juft, that is, the moral man, is not rewarded? The answer is, That none but God can tell, who the Juft, that is, the truly faithful man, is. Where the Term is changed, in order to fupport the argument; for about the truly moral man there is no difpute; about the truly faithful or the orthodox, a great deal. But take the poet right, as arguing here against RELIGIOUS complainers, and the reafoning is ftrict and logical. They afk, Why the truly faithful are not rewarded? he anfwereth, They may be, for ought you know; for none but God can tell who they are. |