THE Universal Prayer. DEO OPT. MA X. ATHER of All! in ev'ry Age, In ev'ry Clime ador'd, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!. Thou Great First Cause, least understood: To know but this, that Thou art Good, COMMENTARY. Univerfal Prayer.] Concerning this poem, it may be proper to obferve, that fome paffages, in the preceding Essay, having been unjustly fufpected of a tendency towards Fate and Naturalism, the author compofed this Prayer as the fum of all, to fhew that his fyftem was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: That the first cause was as well the Lord and Governor of the Universe as the Creator of it; and that, by fubmiffion to his will (the great principle inforced throughout the Essay) was not meant the fuffering ourselves to be carried along with a blind determination; but a religious acquiefcence, and confidence full What Confcience dictates to be done, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, What Bleffings thy free Bounty gives, For God is pay'd when Man receives, Yet not to Earth's contracted Span When thousand Worlds are round: Let not this weak, unknowing hand And deal damnation round the land, On each I judge thy Foe. COMMENTARY. of Hope and Immortality. To give all this the greater weight and reality, the poet chofe for his model the LORD'S PRAYER, which, of all others, best deserves the title prefixed to this Paraphrafe. 6 If I am right, thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh teach my To find that better way. heart Save me alike from foolish Pride, Teach me to feel another's Woe, Mean tho' I am, not wholly fo Since quick'ned by thy Breath Oh lead me wherefoe'er I go, ; Thro' this day's Life or Death. NOTES. If I am right, thy grace impart,— If I am wrong, O teach my heart] As the imparting grace on the chriftian fyftem is a ftronger exertion of the divine power, than the natural illumination of the heart, one would expect that the requeft fhould have been expreffed reverfely; more aid being required to re store men to the right than to keep them in it. But as it was the poet's purpose to infinuate that Revelation was the right, nothing could better exprefs his purpose than the making the right fecured by the guards of grace. |