Its deity was not a historical personage, but the name of a metaphysical conception.

For a revelation was substituted a demonstration.

To vindicate Providence meant no longer to stimulate imagination by pure and sublime rendering of accepted truths, but to solve certain philosophical problems, and especially the grand difficulty of reconciling the existence of evil with divine omnipotence and benevolence.
Pope might conceivably have written a really great poem on these terms, though deprived of the concrete imagery of a Dante or a Milton.

If he had fairly grasped some definite conception of the universe, whether pantheistic or atheistic, optimist or pessimist, proclaiming a solution of the mystery, or declaring all solutions to be impossible, he might have given forcible expression to the corresponding emotions.

He might have uttered the melancholy resignation and the confident hope incited in different minds by a contemplation of the mysterious world.