[1102] MS.:
Cease then, nor order imperfection call
On which depends the happiness of all.
Reason, to think of God when she pretends,
Begins a censor, an adorer ends.
See and confess, this just, this kind degree
Of blindness, etc.
[1103] Pope would not express a "sure and certain hope in a blessed resurrection." He used the same equivocal language as his "guide," who had no faith that "another sphere" existed for man. "Let the tranquillity of my mind," said Bolingbroke, Frag. 51, "rest on this immovable rock, that my future, as well as my present state, are ordered by an almighty and all-wise Creator."
[1104] MS.:
In the same hand, the same all-plastic pow'r.
[1105] "Nature is the art whereby God governs the world," says Hobbes.—Warton.
Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. Part i. 16: "In brief all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God."
[1106] Art, in the sense of design, is manifest in nature, and has been traced in endless particulars. Pope must mean by "unknown art" the ultimate principles to which the laws of nature owe their efficiency.
[1107] From Fontenelle: "Everything is chance, provided we give this name to an order unknown to us."—Warton.
[1108] Feltham's Resolves: "The world is kept in order by discord, and every part of it is but a more particular composed jar. And in all these it makes greatly for the Maker's glory that such an admirable harmony should be produced out of such an infinite discord."—Warton.