On the Diversity of Religious Sects and Opinions

Lorenzo, turn not thou aside
From science, as an erring guide;
Nor, soon as doubts thy course impede,
Absurdly amplify thy creed,
By myst'ries dark or dogmas old,
Because to son from father told:
If to known truth we were confin'd,
Of little faith were all mankind.
Sayst thou credulity outflies
Slow knowledge, spurning at the wise;
Opinion, wing'd, feet, hand and head,
In haste, without her errand, sped;
Or driv'n, inactive, here and there,
With ev'ry vagrant breath of air?
Wouldst, therefore, know what systems err,
To whom opinions to refer,
Where trembling Doubt and Errour blind
At once a guard and guide may find;
At once successfully apply,
And give to falshood's face the lie?
No sect, alas? profess the rule
That reconciles the knave and fool;
That leads the foolish and the wise;
While these revere what those despise.
Whether from Nature's general law
The outlines of our creed we draw,
Or think the truth be only given
In revelation pure from heaven,
It matters not; unless we find
Some active index in the mind,
Some ray of heaven's unerring light,
To point, or here or there, aright.

Let Christianity display
Her wond'rous volume to the day;
The sacred lines, however true,
Alike affect not me and you:
Th' accepted sense of holy writ,
Still resting on th' accepting wit.
For who that read but comprehend
As taught by father, priest or friend,
Or tenets new, more nice than wise,
Peculiar to themselves, devise.
How then prevails the sacred text,
If by the comment thus perplex'd;
If hereticks, of ev'ry kind,
Their tenets in the gospel find;
If thus the spirit hide the flaw
That mars the letter of the law?

Let Nature's striking scenes engage
The letter'd and unletter'd age;
Various, as ev'ry varied tribe,
The notions hence the world imbibe.
When meteors glow and comets blaze,
How wond'ring ignorance doth gaze;
Foretelling, ev'n in errour wise,
The judgments gath'ring in the skies!
Th' aurora streaming from the pole,
What groundless fears the weak controul!
Hear them address their angry God,
And take his mercies for his rod:
Whilst thine, or Bradley's, curious eyes
As calmly view the threat'ning skies,
The plagues, the famines, wars they yield,
As Colin drives his team a-field.
Rolls the big thunder o'er the plain?
Melt the fierce light'nings clouds to rain?
Ah me! how impious, Crito cries,
To lift thy hand against the skies;
Thy lines of magic steel to form,
To brave the fury of the storm;

With Franklin, madly to defy
The thunderer's red right-arm, on high,
Bold Titan! to erect thy stand
To wrest the lightnings from his hand!
Yet those in physicks better read
At honest Crito shake the head:
In pity, or derision, smile;
Nature and truth their guard the while.

Thus, by unlike experience taught,
Peculiar are our modes of thought;
Explained, by custom's partial nod,
The voice of nature and of God.

Dost thou apply to saint or sage,
The guides of our believing age,
The truths, which mysteries conceal,
Or those of science to reveal?
From far and near, what tales absurd
Adulterate the written word!
How oft the pure, and perfect text,
Have base theologists perplex'd!
What transcripts! what interpolation!
Eternal source of disputation!

Alas, Lorenzo, few believe,
In fact, the doctrines they receive!
How few of ev'n the reverend tribe
The very canons they subscribe!
Do such their mother-church defend?
On her pluralities depend;
The mitre and the sine-cure
Preserving best her tenets pure.
For, rob the priesthood of its gain,
What pillar will the church sustain?
What cement binds the crazy wall,
Whose sapt foundation threats its fall?
Do such profess to turn the key
On myst'ries, hid from you and me;
Or of the oracles of old
The dubious phrases to unfold;
To teach the truth to vulgar minds,
Which heaven's own blaze of rhetorick blinds?
Ah, think not these will e'er display
Their secrets to the eye of day.
Tell me what artist will impart
To thee th' arcanum of his art.
Not one—but all, reserv'd and sly,
Affect to cheat th' observer's eye:
Their slightest knacks important made,
To raise the wonder of their trade.
Thus oft the reverend tiro, taught
That none may serve their God for nought,
Casts o'er his ignorance a veil,
Or masks the moral of his tale;
Securely laughing in his sleeve,
When fools the tale itself believe.
To save his calling from abuse
His caution here, in fact, of use;
For once his art and myst'ry known
Who church-authority would own?
As, when sublime conundrums hit,
We laugh to scorn the quibbler's wit;
So, in rever'd enigmas wise,
His riddling reverence we despise.

Yet while the orthodox, for gain
Or vanity their craft maintain,
The truth, a term of meaning wide,
To all the priest affirms applied;
No less the het'rodox than they,
From pride or av'rice, go astray:
For motives similar prevail
With those who brew or broach the tale.
Say, else, if self-conviction true
The conscientious Henley knew;
Fir'd by a pure, religious zeal,
That champion of the public weal,
For pence, the primacy to slight,
To jest with ev'ry sacred right,
To trample, with avow'd design,
On laws both human and divine.
Say what his aim, whose dread rebukes
Craz'd his poor neighbours of St. Luke's
Who, godly warfare proud to seek,
In suff'rance turns the smitten cheek:
As knavish Jews, to sell their ware,
Abuse and insult tamely bear.
No worldly gain to Whitfield yields
The plenteous harvest of Moorfields,
While from the gift of sterling gold,
Like off'rings to the Lord of old,

The coatless priest with Aaron vies,
And modern tabernacles rise?
Or, are fanatic weavers led
Because his vanity is fed,
A tickling transport while he feels,
To find his thousands at his heels;
To hear the Io Paeans ring,
Due to the hero, saint or king;
Which yet as oft the mob bestow,
On sainted pick-pockets, below.

If then, by poverty or pride,
The priest or parson's led aside;
While these, th' instructors of mankind,
Their interest in our ignorance find;
O shun, Lorenzo, shun the street
Where disputant theologues meet.
See the wing'd cork, from side to side
Rebound, the truant school-boy's pride,
With equal warmth, with equal noise,
So these, by turns, like truant boys,
Between what saint or father saith,
Bang the light shittle-cock of faith.

But hark! what jargon strikes our ear?
What Hebrew madmen have we here?
What pen the phrenzy shall describe
Of Hutchinson's or Behmen's tribe;
Who, scorning reason's vain pretence,
Make war, a dire croisade, on sense?
If reason, then, reprizals make,
At once their cause and them forsake,
What wonder? yet, in truth, 'twere well
Might Bedlam spare one vacant cell;
Since no good christian, yet, for Law,
Hath strown his darken'd room with straw.

Theologists so prone to err,
Dost thou philosophers prefer?
These oft, an interested sect,
Like poverty or pride affect.
Logicians, casuists by trade,
At random draw their furious blade;
Taking, in gladiatorial pride,
The cudgels up on either side.

To them indiff'rent wrong or right;
Swiss champions! theirs the task to fight,
And share, with venal art, the prey;
The golden gettings of the day.
So Broughton's heroes bruis'd and bled,
At once for honour and for bread:
And Powel's virtuous thirst of fame
Inur'd his iron lips to flame.
The learn'd, prodigious wise indeed
The man by heaven inspir'd to read!
Affecting merely to decide,
Indulge their magisterial pride,
And, deigning scarce on sense a look,
Profoundly dogmatize by book;
Save here those champions of the gown,
Meek Warburton and modest Brown,
Madan, and that mild man-of-God,
The rev'rend doodle, doctor Dodd:
To real merit's ne'er allied
The pedant's, or the parson's pride.

By singularity of taste
Good sense and lit'rature disgrac'd,
See wrangling sophists thus intent
On cross-grain'd paradoxes bent;
As if to truth they made pretence
By wand'ring but from common-sense.
Among the witty and the wise,
Hence in mere words the difference lies;
While empty terms, for years, engage
The scholar's and the skeptick's rage;
Till, wearied out, they stare to see
How nearly all in fact agree.
So, poiz'd between two empty scales,
Now here, now there, the beam prevails,
Which, as their false vibrations cease,
In equilibrio rests in peace.
Nor yet when even in fact dissent
These slashing sons of argument,
Their subject-matter in debate
Is worth the pains t' investigate.
Philosophy at Arthur's taught,
So Bond and Brag, disputing, fought,
Whether as near, from Change to Kew,
To cross the old bridge or the new.
"Could neither wheel nor chain decide?"
Alas, my friend, they never tried.
For neither of these learned youth
Car'd one brass farthing for the truth;
But each, to make his judgment out,
Would drive full-speed ten miles about.

The first-philosophy in use
Thus argumentative abuse:
While truth and falsehood, right and wrong,
Serve as the burthen of a song:
With sophists, as with scolding wives,
Quarrel the business of their lives.
Leave then, Lorenzo, vain dispute;
Empty the triumph to confute:
Nor those for truth's defenders take,
Who cavil but for cavil's sake.

But is there, lay-man or divine,
In whom good sense and temper join;
A priest of honest Clogher's mould,
A thiest moderate as bold,
To whom indulgent heaven assign'd
A truly ethic turn of mind;

Who dares the mob in scorn to hold;
Hath weigh'd the happiness of gold;
Hath found the pond'rous cheat so light,
That avarice gets nothing by't;
Who rates the value of a name
From th' insignificance of fame;
Not vainly seeking more to know
Than God has given to man below;
Yet, wheresoe'er display'd her charms,
Embracing truth with open arms?
On such Lorenzo may depend,
For guide, philosopher and friend.
"But where such friend and guide," you cry.
Knowst thou no such? alas, nor I.
For O, the truth, in fact, how few
Have pow'r or talents, to pursue!
Alike th' abilities unfit
Of pedant dull or sprightly wit,
Of captious criticks, scholiasts vain,
With ev'ry superficial brain.
Indeed too ost ev'n genius gains
Its labours only for its pains:
Immortal bards not seldom here,
Dupes, from their mother's milk, to fear.
Tho smoothly run the hackney'd lay
Along the beaten, moral way;
Should truth on custom turn its back,
Or deviate from the vulgar track,
Like crabs, with retrogressive feet,
Such temporizing bards retreat;
Humming, their credit to maintain,
To worn-out tunes th' old catch again.

Ev'n thus thy fav'rite bard retir'd
Whom ev'ry muse at once inspir'd,
Whose strains immortalize the guide
His scholiast piously decried,
Thy Pope, who, like a forward child,
In leading-strings, ran bold and wild;
But, fearful of himself to stand,
Seiz'd his old, tottering mother's hand.

Looks back, Lorenzo, shrinking now,
When set his hand unto the plough?
In vain we sacrifice to truth
The sportive giddiness of youth,
If falshood's painted charms engage
The doating levity of age.
Truth's thorny paths who fear to run,
Should first her dangerous portal shun:
Nor set like heroes boldly out,
To founder in the deeps of doubt.
Yet still beware—tho boldness thine,
Temp'rance that boldness must refine.
True temp'rance, rational and brave;
To stoic pride no sullen slave:
Not such as, gently meek and mild,
Betrays the weakness of a child;
Nor that, without or fear or wit,
By chance, ev'n blunderers may get.
The rash, too angry to be bold,
By Falshood oft are bought and sold.
The proud, too haughty to be wise.
See not where grov'ling Errour lies.
The heedless counts without his host,
Or runs his nose against the post:
And oft their tim'rous indolence
The meek indulge, at Truth's expence.

So hard to keep that middle way,
From which enquiry ne'er should stray;
While, for the task, so hard to find
A truly firm, capacious mind;
No wonder fools, the would-be-wise,
Suppose in doubt that wisdom lies:
Or that, because so short their sight,
Truth may be errour, wrong be right!
For ignorance, to sooth its pride,
Must seek its own defects to hide.

Affecting, hence, all unbelief,
Is Scoto infidel in chief;
His hand and heart, his ears and eyes
Confessing what his tongue denies?
To truth in ev'ry system blind,
Yet seeking it where none shall find;
Lorenzo, here his wit's a cheat,
That mocks his judgment with deceit.
Where'er opinion gaily dress'd.
Runs gadding in her rainbow vest,
Among her sisterhood, a crew
Of motley wives black, red or blue,
See skepticism, the truth in chase,
Run giddily, from face to face;
Now this, now that, by turns, enjoy;
Nor find them false till found to cloy.
Thus, with the fair he most admires,
Full soon the wav'ring lover tires;
At morn, her smiles with rapture meets;
At night, affronts her in the streets;
By loose suspicion wand'ring led,
Or spider Fancy's flimsy thread;
Till, on some lying whore, at last,
He lights, and holds her tenets fast.

Nor strange, oppos'd to these, to find,
In uniformity combin'd,
Believing thousands; who suppose
Truth with the croud for ever goes:
As if convinc'd the rabble rout,
Because too obstinate to doubt.
Yet customs old or fashions new
Are all th' unthinking herd pursue.
The orthodox in dress or song
As modish as to right and wrong.
Of custom born, to fashion bred,
Thus blind credulity is led;
While modes of faith, like modes of dress,
Mankind capriciously profess.
Yet all agreed, thro shame or pride,
Nature's simplicity to hide,
Whate'er the fashion of the time,
It holds the naked truth a crime.
Thus, to a man, we find the crowd,
To doubt too bashful, or too proud,
In errour rather chuse to fall,
Than boast no scheme of faith at all.
Impatient, hence, of stop or stay,
They blunder on the broadest way;
Or make a guide, in every street,
Of fool or knave, the first they meet.

Authorities how blind and lame
Hence bring the credulous to shame;
While all revere the mould'ring page,
Where moths have spent their gothic rage:
Tales half destroy'd, the rest so true!
So much inspir'd the Lord-knows-who!

Couldst thou, Lorenzo, build thy hopes
On muftis, patriarchs or popes;
On names implicitly depend,
And mere authorities defend?
Split on this rock, mistaken youth,
Lost were thy voyage to the truth:
'Twere best to give thy labour o'er,
Nor urge in vain thy genius more.

O, credit not, my friend, too soon
Fine tales and tidings from the moon;
Nor, howsoever learn'd or just,
In priest or prophet put thy trust.
By Paul or by Apollos taught,
Still to one test their tenets brought,
Their doctrines, howsoever true,
Believe not till they're so to you:
For oft the wisdom of the wise
Is only folly in disguise.

Yet superciliously reject:
No tenets that the world respect.
'Gainst such too rashly ne'er inveigh;
Nor cast thy grandfire's wit away.
Disdaining at the lamp to pore,
That lights us to the cassic lore,
The half-taught deist thus exclaims
At texts rever'd and hallowed names;
Damning profane or sacred writ,
That squares not with his shallow wit.

But while, thro ignorance or pride,
Opinions thus the world divide;
By turns while truth and falsehood rule,
As made the priest's or statesman's tool;
Or, with some temporizing view,
Nonsense, that's neither false nor true;
Canst thou, at ease in doubt, my friend,
On points too dark thy faith suspend?
Canst thou the world's applause forego;
And burns thy bosom but to know?
Is truth thy only creed profess'd?
Can'st leave to providence the rest?
Throw partial systems all aside,
Trust to knowledge, as thy guide.
See where the stream of science flows
From nature's fountain, whence it rose;
Thro hills and dales meand'ring led,
As clear as at the fountain head;
Stand thou not shiv'ring on the brink;
Once well embark'd thou canst not sink:
Nor can the current falsely guide,
While reason's banks inclose the tide;
Whence truth, in sight, on either hand,
Smiles on thy voyage thro the land.

But, O, with caution hoist thy sail,
To court the metaphysic gale;
Lest, hurried on, thy heedless youth
Should lose, with land, the sight of truth:
Turn'd forth adrift, thy lot to take,
On errour's broad unfathom'd lake;
'Mong struck leviathans, in vain,
To plunge and flounder thro the main;
Where tides nor set, nor currents steer,
But winds all round the compass veer;
While floating isles, that cheat the sight,
To faithless anchorage invite:
Hobbes, St. John, Hume, and hundreds more,
Rich barks! all ship-wreck'd on the shore!