Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer 74 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, Left free the human will. What conscience dictates to be done, 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 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, Mean though I am, not wholly so, This day be bread and peace my lot: Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not, And let thy will be done. To Thee, whose temple is all space, 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 have been 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. So that this part would have treated of civil and religious society in their full extent. The fourth and last book concerned private ethics, or practical morality, considered in all the circumstances, orders, professions, and stations of human life. The scheme of all this had been maturely digested, and communicated to Lord Bolingbroke, Dr. Swift, and one or two more; and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times; and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and lastly, in a manner laid aside. But as this was the author's favourite work, which more exactly reflected the image of his strong capacious mind, and as we can have but a very imperfect idea of it from the disjecta membra poeta that now remain, it may not be amiss to be a little more particular concerning each of these projected books. The first, as it treats of man in the abstract, and considers him in general under every of his relations, becomes the foundation, and furnishes out the subjects of the three following: so that The second book was to take up again the first and second epistles of the first book, and to treat 1 |