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on the other, they catch at this reed, they lay hold on this chimera, to save themselves from the shock and horror of an immediate and absolute despair.

On reviewing my subject, by the light which this argument, and others of like tendency, threw upon it, I was more inclined than ever to pursue it, as it appeared to me to strike directly at the main root of all our infidelity. In the following pages it is, accordingly, pursued at large, and some arguments for im mortality, new at least to me, are ventured on in them. There, also, the writer has made an attempt to set the gross absurdi. ties and horrors of annihilation in a fuller and more affecting view than is (I think) to be met with elsewhere.

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The gentlemen for whose sake this attempt was chiefly made, profess great admiration for the wisdom of heathen antiquity what pity it is they are not sincere! If they were sincere, how would it mortify them to consider with what contempt and abhorrence their notions would have been received by those whom they so much admire. What degree of contempt and abhorrence would fall to their share, may be conjectured by the following matter of fact (in my opinion,) extremely memorable. Of all their heathen worthies, Socrates (it is well known) was the most guarded, dispassionate, and composed; yet this great master of temper was angry, and angry at his last hour; and angry with his friend; and angry for what deserved acknowledgment; angry for a right and tender instance of true friendship towards him. Is not this surprising what could be the cause ?-The cause was for his honour: It was a truly noble, though, perhaps, a too punctilious regard for Immortality: for his friend asking him, with such an affectionate concern as became a friend, 'Where he should deposit his remains?' it was resented by Socrates, as implying a dishonourable supposition, that he could be so mean as to have regard for any thing, even in himself, that was not immortal.

This fact, well considered, would make our infidels withdraw their admiration from Socrates, or make them idea vour, by their imitation of his illustrious example, to share his glory; and consequently, it would incline them to peruse the following with candour and impartiality: which is all I desire and that, for their sakes: for I am persuaded that an unpreju diced infidel must, necessarily, receive some advantageous unpressions from them.

July 7, 1744.

CONTENTS

OF THE SEVENTH NIGHT.

In the Sixth Night, arguments were drawn from Nature in proof of Immortality: here, others are drawn from Man; from his discontent; from his passions and powers; from the gradual growth of reason; from his fear of death; from the nature of hope, and of virtue; from knowledge and love, as being the most essential properties of the soul: from the order of creation; from the na ture of ambition, avarice, pleasure.-A digression on the gran deur of the passions.-Immortality alone renders our present state intelligible.-An objection from the Stoics' disbelief of Im. mortality answered.-Endless questions unresolvable, but on supposition of our immortality.-The natural, most melancholy, and pathetic complaint of a worthy man, under the persuasion of no futurity. The gross absurdities and horrors of annihilation urged home on Lorenzo.-The soul's vast importance; from whence it arises, &c.-The difficulty of being an Infidel; the infamy; the cause; and the character of an infidel state.-What true free-thinking is; the necessary punishment of the false.Man's ruin is from himself.-An Infidel accuses himself of guilt and hypocrisy, and that of the worst sort; his obligations to Christians: what danger he incurs by virtue; vice recommended to him; his high pretences to virtue and benevolence exploded. -The conclusion, on the nature of faith, reason, and hope; with an apology for this attempt.

THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

PART THE SECOND.

HEAVEN gives the needful, but neglected call.
What day, what hour, but knocks at human hearts,
To wake the soul to sense of future scenes?
Deaths stand, like Mercuries, in every way,
And kindly point us to our journey's end.
Pope, who couldst make immortals! art thou dead?
I give thee joy; nor will I take my leave,
So soon to follow. Man but dives in death,
Dives from the sun, in fairer day to rise;
The grave, his cubterranean road to bliss.
Yes, infinite indulgence plann'd it so ;
Through various parts our glorious story runs ;
Time gives the preface, endless age unrolls
The volume (ne'er unroli'd) of human fate.

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This, earth and skies* already have proclaim'd. 15 The world's a prophecy of worlds to come,

And who, what God foretels (who speaks in things
Still louder than in words) shall dare deny?

If Nature's arguments appear too weak,
Turn a new leaf, and stronger read in man.
If man sleeps on, untaught by what he sees,
Can he prove infidel to what he feels?
He, whose blind thought futurity denies,
Unconscious bears, Bellerophon! like thee,
His own indictment; he condemns himself:
Who reads his bosom, reads immortal life;
Or Nature there, imposing on her sons,
Hlas written fabies: man was made a lie.
* See Night the Sixth.

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Why discontent for ever harbour'd there?
Incurable consumption of our peace!

Resolve me why the cottager and king,
He whom sea-sever'd realms obey, and he
Who steals his whole dominion from the waste,
Repelling winter blasts with mud and straw,
Disquieted alike, draw sigh for sigh,

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In fate so distant, in complaint so near?
Is it that things terrestrial can't content?
Deep in rich pasture, will thy flocks complain?
Not so; but to their master is denied
To share their sweet serene. Man, ill at ease

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in this, not his own place, this foreign field,
Where Nature fodders him with other food
Than was ordain'd his cravings to suffice,
Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast,

Sighs on for something more, when most enjoy'd. 45
Is Heaven then kinder to thy flocks than thee?

Not so; thy pasture richer, but remote ;

In part remote; for that remoter part

Man bleats from instinct, though, perhaps, debauch'd
By sense, his reason sleeps, nor dreams the cause. 50
The cause how obvious, when his reason wakes '
His grief is but his grandeur in disguise,
And discontent is immortality!

Shall sons of Ether, shall the blood of Heaven,
Set up their hopes on earth, and stable here,
With brutal acquiescence in the mire?
Lorenzo! no; they shall be nobly pain'd
The glorious foreigners, distress'd, shall sigh
On thrones, and thou congratulate the sigh.
Man's misery declares him born for bliss;
His anxious heart asserts the truth I sing,
And gives the sceptic in his head--the lie.

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Our heads, our hearts, our passions, and our powers, Speak the same language; call us to the skies:

Unripen'd these, in this inclement clime,

Scarce rise above conjecture and mistake;

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And for this land of trifles those too strong
Tumultuous rise, and tempest human life.
What prize on earth can pay us for the storm?
Meet objects for our passions Heaven ordain'd,
Objects that challenge all their fire, and leave
No fault but in defect. Bless'd Heaven! avert
A bounded ardour for unbounded bliss!
O for a bliss unbounded! far beneath
A soul immortal is a mortal joy.

Nor are our powers to perish immature ;
But after feeble effort here, beneath

A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil,
Transplanted from this sublunary bed,

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Shall flourish fair, and put forth all their bloom.
Reason progressive, instinct is complete ;
Swift Instinct leaps; slow Reason feebly climbs
Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all
Flows in at once; in ages they no more
Could know, or do, or covet, or enjoy.

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Were man to live coeval with the Sun,

The patriarch-pupil would be learning still,

Yet, dying, leave his lesson half-unlearn'd.

Men perish in advance, as if the Sun

Should set ere noon, in eastern occans drown'd;

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If fit, with dim, illustrious to compare,
The Sun's meridian with the soul of man.

To man why, stepdame Nature! so severe ?

Why thrown aside thy masterpiece half-wrought,
While meaner efforts thy last hand enjoy?
Or if, abortively, poor man must die,

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Nor reach what reach he might, why die in dread? Why cursed with foresight? wise to misery?

Why of his proud prerogative the prey?

Why less preeminent in rank than pain?
His immortality alone can tell;

Full ample fund to balance all amiss,
And turn the scale in favour of the just!
His immortality alone can solve

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