Happy the man who sees a God employed In all the good and ill that chequer life! Resolving all events, with their effects And manifold results, into the will And arbitration wise of the Supreme. Did not His eye rule all things, and intend The least of our concerns (since from the least The greatest oft originate), could chance Find place in His dominion, or dispose One lawless particle to thwart His plan, Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen Contingence might alarm Him, and disturb The smooth and equal course of His affairs. This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed In nature’s tendencies, oft overlooks; And, having found His instrument, forgets Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims His hot displeasure against foolish men That live an Atheist life: involves the heaven In tempests, quits His grasp upon the winds And gives them all their fury; bids a plague Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin, And putrefy the breath of blooming health. He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips, And taints the golden ear. He springs His mines, And desolates a nation at a blast. Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells Of homogeneal and discordant springs And principles; of causes how they work By necessary laws their sure effects; Of action and reaction. He has found The source of the disease that nature feels, And bids the world take heart and banish fear. Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause Suspend the effect, or heal it? Has not God Still wrought by means since first He made the world, And did He not of old employ His means To drown it? What is His creation less Than a capacious reservoir of means Formed for His use, and ready at His will? Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve, ask of Him, Or ask of whomsoever He has taught, And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.