In youth, form, fortune, fame, they both were blest: All who knew, envy'd; yet in envy lov'd:

Can fancy form more finifht happiness ?

Fixt was the nuptial hour.
Rofe on the founding beach.

Her stately dome

The glittering fpires

Float in the wave, and break against the shore:
So break thofe glitt'ring fhadows, human joys.
The faithless morning fmil'd: he takes his leave,
To re-embrace, in ecftafies, at eve.

The rifing ftorm forbids. The news arrives:
Untold, fhe faw it in her fervant's eye,
She felt it feen (her heart was apt to feel);
And, drown'd, without the furious ocean's aid
In fuffocating forrows, fhares his tomb.
Now, round the sumptuous, bridal monument,
The guilty billows innocently roar;

And the rough failor paffing, drops a tear.
A tear? Can tears foffice ?-But not for me.
How vain our efforts! and our arts, how vain!
The diftant train of thought I took, to fhun,
Has thrown me on my fate-Thefe died together;
Happy in ruin! undivorc'd by death!

Or ne'er to meet, or ne'er to part, is peace-
NARCISSA! Pity bleeds at thought of thee.
Yet thou waft only near me; not myself.
Survive myself?-That cures all other woe.
NARCISSA lives; PHILANDER is forgot.
O the foft commerce! Ọ the tender ties,
Close-twisted with the fibres of the heart!
Which, broken, break them; and drain off the foul
Of human joy; and make it pain to live-
And is it then to live? When fuch friends part,
"Tis the furvivor dies-My heart, no more.

NIGHT

NIGHT THE SIXTH.

THE

INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

IN TWO PART S.

CONTAINING

The NATURE, PROOF, and IMPORTANCE, of
IMMORTALITY.

PART THE FIRST.

Where, among other Things, GLORY and RICHES are particularly considered.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

HENRY

PELHA M,

FIRST LORD COMMISSIONER OF THE TREASURY, AND

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.

X 4

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PREFACE.

may

EW ages have been deeper in difpute about religion, than this. The difpute about religion, and the practice of it, feldom go together. The shorter, therefore, the difpute, the better. I think it be reduc'd to this fingle queftion, Is man immortal, or is he not? If he is not, all our disputes are mere amusements, or trials of fkill. In this cafe, truth, reafon, religion, which give our difcourfes fuch pomp and folemnity, are (as will be fhewn) mere empty found, without any meaning in them. But if man is immortal, it will behove him to be very ferious about eternal confequences; or, in other words, to be truly religious. And this great fundamental truth, uneftablished, or unawaken'd in the minds of men, is, I conceive, the real fource and support of all our infidelity; how remote foever the particular objections advanced may Jeem to be from it.

Senfible appearances affect most men much more than abftract reasonings; and we daily fee bodies drop around us, but the foul is invifible. The power which inclination has over the judgment, is greater than can be well conceived by thofe that have not had an experience of it; and of what numbers is it the fad intereft that fouls fhould not furvive! The heathen world confeffed, that they rather hoped, than firmly believed immortality! And how many heathens have we ftill among ft us! The facred page affures us, that life and immortality is brought to light by the Gospel: but by how many is the Gospel rejected,

rejected, or overlooked! From thefe confiderations, and from my being, accidentally, privy to the fentiments of Some particular persons, I have been long persuaded that moft, if not all, our infidels (whatever name they take, and whatever fcheme, for argument's fake, and to keep themselves in countenance, they patronize) are supported in their deplorable error, by fome doubt of their immortality, at the bottom. And I am fatisfied, that men once thoroughly convinced of their immortality, are not far from being Chriftians. For it is hard to conceive, that a man fully confcious eternal pain or happiness will certainly be bis lot, fhould not earnestly, and impartially, inquire after the fureft means of efcaping one, and fecuring the other. And of fuch an earnest and impartial inquiry, I well know the confequence.

Here, therefore, in proof of this most fundamental truth, fome plain arguments are offered; arguments derived from principles which Infidels admit in common with Believers; arguments, which appear to me altogether irrefiftible; and fuch as, I am satisfied, will have great weight with all, who give themselves the fmall trouble of looking feriously into their own bofoms, and of obferving, with any tolerable degree of attention, what daily pales round about them in the world. If fome arguments fhall, here, occur, which others have declined, they are fubmitted, with all deference, to better judgments in this, of all points the most important. For, as to the Being of a God, that is no longer difputed; but it is undifputed for this reafon only; viz. because, where the leaft pretence to reafon is admitted, it must for ever be indisputable. And of confequence no man can be betrayed into a difpute of that nature by vanity; which has a principal Share in animating our modern combatants against other articles of our Belief.

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