How yon enormous mole projecting breaks
The mid-sea, furious waves! Their roar amidst,
Out-speaks the Deity, and says, "O main!
Thus far, nor farther; new restraints obey."
Earth's disembowell'd! measured are the skies!
Stars are detected in their deep recess !
Creation widens! vanquish'd Nature yields !
Her secrets are extorted! Art prevails!
What monument of genius, spirit, power!

And now, Lorenzo! raptured at this scene,
Whose glories render heaven superfluous! say,
Whose footsteps these ?-Immortals have been here.
Could less than souls immortal this have done?
Earth's cover'd o'er with proofs of souls immortal;
And proofs of immortality forgot.

To flatter thy grand foible, I confess,

These are Ambition's works: and these are great :
But this, the least immortal souls can do ;
Transcend them all-but what can these transcend?
Dost ask me what?-One sigh for the distress'd.
What then for infidels? A deeper sigh.
"Tis moral grandeur makes the mighty man :
How little they, who think aught great below!
All our ambitions death defeats, but one;

And that it crowns.-Here cease we: but, ere long, More powerful proof shall take the field against thee, Stronger than death, and smiling at the tomb.

793

800

820

829

THE

INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

PART II.

CONTAINING

THE NATURE, PROOF, AND IMPORTANCE

OF IMMORTALITY.

PREFACE.

As we are at war with the power, it were well if we were at war with the manners, of France. A land of levity is a land of guilt. A serious mind is the native soil of every virtue; and the single character that does true honour to mankind. The soul's immortality has been the favourite theme with the serious of all ages. Nor is it strange: it is a subject by far the most interesting and important that can enter the mind of man. Of highest moment this subject always was, and always will be. Yet this its highest moment seems to admit of increase, at this day; a sort of occasional importance is superadded to the natural weight of it; if that opinion which is advanced in the Preface to the preceding Night be just. It is there supposed, that all our infidels, whatever scheme, for argument's sake, and to keep themselves in countenance, they patronise, are betrayed into their deplorable error, by some doubts of their immortality, at the bottom. And the more I consider this point, the more I am persuaded of the truth of that opinion. Though the distrust of a futurity is a strange error; yet it is an error into which bad men may naturally be distressed. For it is impossible to bid defiance to final ruin, without some refuge in imagination, some presumption of escape. And what presumption is there? There are but two in nature; but two, within the compass of human thought. And these are,―That either God will not, or can not, punish. Considering the divine attributes, the first is too gross to be digested by our strongest wishes. And since omnipotence is as much a divine attribute as holiness, that God cannot punish, is as absurd a supposition as the former. God certainly can punish as long as wicked men exist. In non-existence, therefore, is their only refuge; and, consequently, non-existence is their strongest wish. And strong wishes have a strange influence on our opinions; they bias the judgment in a manner almost incredible. And since on this member of their alternative, there are some very small appearances in their favour, and none at all 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 immortality, new at least to me, are ventured on in them. There also the