On Venus laws and Saturn he imposed,
The sixteen orbs of which our world's composed;
On jarring elements that still contend,
On rolling thunders that the ether rend,
On man created to adore His power,
And on the worm that shall man's flesh devour.
Shall man audaciously, with effort vain,
His own laws add to those the heavens ordain?
Should we the phantoms of a day at most,
Who scarcely can a real being boast,
Place ourselves on the throne at God's right hand,
And issue forth (like Gods) supreme command?
Part the Third.
Shows that as men have for the most part disfigured, by the various opinions which they have adopted, the principle of natural religion which unites them, they should mutually bear with each other.
The universe is God's eternal shrine,
Men various ways adore the power divine.
All of their faith, their saints, their martyred host,
And oracles unerring voice make boast.
On numerous ablutions one relies,
He thinks heaven sees them with propitious eyes,
And that all those who are not circumcised,
Are by his God rejected and despised.
Another thinks he Brahma's favor gains,
Whilst he from eating rabbits' flesh abstains,
Amongst the blessed above he hopes a seat,
The just reward of merit so complete.
Against their neighbors all alike declaim,
And brand them with the unbeliever's name.
