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 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 played into another hand. Why choose we then like bilanders to creep Along the coast, and land in view to keep, When safely we may launch into the deep? In the same vessel which our Savior 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? 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. TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. CONGREVE ON HIS COMEDY CALLED 'THE DOUBLE DEALER'