’Tis urged again, that faith did first commence
  By miracles, which are appeals to sense,
  And thence concluded, that our sense must be
  The motive still of credibility. 
  For latter ages must on former wait, 110
  And what began belief must propagate.

     But winnow well this thought, and you shall find
  ’Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind. 
  Were all those wonders wrought by power divine,
  As means or ends of some more deep design? 
  Most sure as means, whose end was this alone,
  To prove the Godhead of the Eternal Son. 
  God thus asserted, man is to believe
  Beyond what sense and reason can conceive,
  And for mysterious things of faith rely 120
  On the proponent, Heaven’s authority. 
  If, then, our faith we for our guide admit,
  Vain is the farther search of human wit;
  As when the building gains a surer stay,
  We take the unuseful scaffolding away. 
  Reason by sense no more can understand;
  The game is play’d into another hand. 
  Why choose we, then, like bilanders,[97] to creep
  Along the coast, and land in view to keep,
  When safely we may launch into the deep? 130
  In the same vessel which our Saviour bore,
  Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore,
  And with a better guide a better world explore. 
  Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood,
  And not veil these again to be our food? 
  His grace in both is equal in extent,
  The first affords us life, the second nourishment. 
  And if he can, why all this frantic pain
  To construe what his clearest words contain,
  And make a riddle what he made so plain? 140
  To take up half on trust, and half to try,
  Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry. 
  Both knave and fool the merchant we may call,
  To pay great sums, and to compound the small: 
  For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all? 
  Rest, then, my soul, from endless anguish freed: 
  Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed. 
  Faith is the best insurer of thy bliss;
  The bank above must fail before the venture miss.

    But heaven and heaven-born faith are far from thee, 150
  Thou first apostate[98] to divinity. 
  Unkennell’d range in thy Polonian plains;
  A fiercer foe the insatiate Wolf[99] remains. 
  Too boastful Britain, please thyself no more,
  That beasts of prey are banish’d from thy shore: 
  The Bear, the Boar, and every savage name,
  Wild in effect, though in appearance tame,
  Lay waste thy woods, destroy thy blissful bower,
  And, muzzled though they seem, the mutes devour. 
  More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race 160
  Appear with belly gaunt and famish’d face: