THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.
By the Author of the "Essay on Man."
London: Printed for R. Dodsley, at Tully's-Head, in Pall-Mall, 1738, Price Sixpence.
This pamphlet, which came out in folio, and octavo, and probably in quarto, was the only separate edition of the Universal Prayer.
For closeness and comprehension of thought, and for brevity and energy of expression, few pieces of poetry in our language can be compared with this Prayer. I am surprised Johnson should not make any mention of it. When it was first published many orthodox persons were, I remember, offended at it, and called it the Deist's Prayer. It were to be wished the deists would make use of so good a one.—Warton.
How extraordinary it is that Warton should be ever accused as if he wished to decry Pope! No one has borne such willing and ample testimony to his excellence as a poet, when he truly deserves it. In this place Warton gives the poetry more praise than it appears entitled to, though this composition is beautiful, and the two last stanzas sublime; but I fear, if we were to examine the greater part by the Horatian rule, which Warton recommends, that is, altering the rhyme and measure,[1580] we should not find the "disjecti membra poetæ."—Bowles.
Warburton says that "some passages in the Essay on Man having been unjustly suspected of a tendency towards fate and naturalism, the author composed this prayer as the sum of all, to show that his system was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety." The prayer was written shortly before Warburton stretched out his helping hand to Pope, and therefore before the poet had renounced the system and assistance of Bolingbroke, in reliance on a more serviceable defender. He did not yet venture, as Warburton pretends, to abjure "naturalism," but kept to it in every line, and even in the title of his poem. A "universal" could not be a christian prayer. He avowedly set aside the distinguishing characteristics of the gospel, and professed to exclude all language which could not be adopted by the votaries of "every age and clime," by "savage" as well as "saint," by the idolaters of "Jupiter" as well as by the worshippers of "Jehovah." No wonder that many persons in England should have called the Universal, the Deist's Prayer, or that when translated into French it should have gone by the title of Prière du Déiste.[1581] Warton "wished the deists would make use of so good a one." There was nothing in their creed which could require them to use a worse.
On the question of "free-will," Pope taught discordant doctrines. In the Universal Prayer it is said that the "human will is left free," and in the Essay on Man "moral ill" is ascribed to its "wanderings."[1582] But in other parts of the Essay we are told that Cæsar's fierce ambition is inspired by God, and that man is born with a single ruling passion which, do all he can, engulfs every sentiment of his soul. Neither this, nor any other discrepancy, is cleared up in the Universal Prayer. The contradictions are only multiplied. According to the Prayer "nature is bound fast in fate," and according to the Essay "nature deviates," which is asserted to account for the "physical ill" that God does "not send."[1583] The Essay teaches us that the moral law of mankind is selfishness, and that we are to be virtuous solely because it promotes our individual happiness. The fourth stanza of the Prayer reverses the relation in which virtue stands to happiness, and bids us shun evil more than hell or pain, pursue good more than heaven or felicity. Pope's view of Providence in the Essay is that God will not interpose to protect his servants.[1584] The Prayer contains a petition for "bread and peace," which is either a delusive form or a confession that the Almighty adapts events to the pious dispositions of particular men. Reason concurs with revelation in this conclusion. The necessary inference from the perfection of God's attributes is that his government takes in every circumstance, and as mind is superior to matter, physical laws cannot be framed without a special regard to the fervent prayers of faithful hearts.