Note 1489 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
No rational believer in Providence ever did suppose that to have less than a thousand a year was a mark of God's hatred, or ever doubted that the sufferings of good men in this life were consistent with the dispensations of wisdom and mercy. Pope began by undertaking to prove that happiness was independent of externals, and drops into the separate and indubitable proposition that earthly happiness and the blessing of God are not dependent upon the possession of a thousand a year.