UNIVERSAL PRAYER. DEO OPT. MAX. FATHER of all! in every age, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Thou Great First Cause, least understood, To know but this, that thou art good, Yet gave me, in this dark estate, Let free the human will. What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do; This teach me more than hell to shun, What blessings thy free bounty gives For God is paid when man receives; Yet not to earth's contracted span When thousand worlds are round. 86 THE POEMS OF POPE. Let not this weak unknowing hand And deal damnation round the land If I am right, thy grace impart, If I am wrong, O teach my heart Save me alike from foolish pride At aught thy wisdom has denied, Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see: That mercy I to others show, Through this day's life or death! This day be bread and peace my lot: All else beneath the sun Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not And let thy will be done. To Thee, whose temple is all space, Whose altar earth, sea, skies! One chorus let all Being raise! MORAL ESSAYS. IN FOUR EPISTLES. Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se HOR. ADVERTISEMENT. BY DR. WARBURTON. THE Essay on Man was intended to be comprised in four books: The first of which the author has given us under that title in four epistles. The second was to have consisted of the same number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human reason. 2. Of those arts and sciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore attainable; together with those which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, use, and application of the different capacities of men. 4. Of the use of learning; of the science of the world; and of wit; concluding with a satire against the misapplication of them, illustrated by pictures, characters, and examples. The third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics; in which the several forms of a republic were to be examined and explained; together with the several modes of religious worship, as far forth as they affect society: between which the author always supposed there was the most interesting relation and closest connexion. |