Thus (what might seem a daring paradox)
E'en politics advance divinity:
True masters there are better scholars here,
Who travel history in quest of schemes
To govern nations, or perhaps oppress,
May there start truths that other aims inspire,
And, like Candace's eunuch, as they read,
By Providence turn Christians on their road:
Digging for silver, they may strike on gold;
May be surpris'd with better than they sought,
And entertain an angel unawares.
Nor is divinity ungrateful found.
As politics advance divinity,
Thus, in return, divinity promotes
True politics, and crowns the statesman's praise.
All wisdoms are but branches of the chief,
And statesmen found but shoots of honest men.
Are this world's witchcrafts pleaded in excuse
For deviations in our moral line?
This, and the next world, view'd with such an eye
As suits a statesman, such as keeps in view
His own exalted science, both conspire
To recommend and fix us in the right.
If we reward the politics of Heaven,
The grand administration of the whole,
What's the next world? A supplement of this:
Without it, justice is defective here;
Just as to states, defective as to men:
If so, what is this world? As sure as right
Sits in Heaven's throne, a prophet of the next.
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