.
The world's a system of theology,
Read by the greatest strangers to the schools:
If honest, learn'd; and sages o'er a plough. 1140
Is not, Lorenzo, then, imposed on thee
This hard alternative; or, to renounce
Thy reason, or thy sense; or, to believe?
What then is unbelief? 'Tis an exploit;
A strenuous enterprise: to gain it, man 1145
Must burst through every bar of common sense,
Of common shame, magnanimously wrong:
And what rewards the sturdy combatant?
His prize, repentance; infamy, his crown.
But wherefore infamy?--For want of faith,
Down the steep precipice of wrong he slides;
There's nothing to support him in the right. 1152
Faith in the future wanting, is, at least
In embryo, every weakness, every guilt;
And strong temptation ripens it to birth.
If this life's gain invites him to the deed,
Why not his country sold, his father slain?
'Tis virtue to pursue our good supreme;
And his supreme, his only good, is here.
Ambition, avarice, by the wise disdain'd, 1160
Is perfect wisdom, while mankind are fools,
And think a turf, or tombstone, covers all:
These find employment, and provide for Sense
A richer pasture, and a larger range;
And Sense by right divine ascends the throne,
When Virtue's prize and prospect are no more;
Virtue no more we think the will of Heaven.
Would Heaven quite beggar Virtue, if beloved?
"Has Virtue charms?"--I grant her heavenly fair;
But if unportion'd, all will Interest wed; 1170
Though that our admiration, this our choice.
The virtues grow on immortality;
That root destroy'd, they wither and expire.
A Deity believed, will nought avail;
Rewards and punishments make God adored;
And hopes and fears give Conscience all her power.
As in the dying parent dies the child,
Virtue, with immortality, expires.
Who tells me he denies his soul immortal, 1179
Whate'er his boast, has told me, he's a knave.
His duty 'tis, to love himself alone;
Nor care though mankind perish, if he smiles.
Who thinks ere long the man shall wholly die,
Is dead already; nought but brute survives.
And are there such?--Such candidates there are
For more than death; for utter loss of being,
Being, the basis of the Deity!
Ask you the cause?--The cause they will not tell: