Lorenzo, to this heavenly Delphos haste;
And come back all-immortal; all divine:
Look nature through, 'tis revolution all;
All change; no death. Day follows night; and night
The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise;
Earth takes the example. See, the summer gay,
With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers,
Droops into pallid autumn: winter gray,
Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm,
Blows autumn and his golden fruits away:
Then melts into the spring: soft spring, with breath
Favonian, from warm chambers of the south,
Recalls the first. All, to re-flourish, fades;
As in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend.
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.
With this minute distinction, emblems just,
Nature revolves, but man advances; both
Eternal,-that a circle, this a line.
That gravitates, this soars. The aspiring soul,
Ardent, and tremulous, like flame, ascends,
Zeal and humility her wings, to heaven.
The world of matter, with its various forms,
All dies into new life. Life born from death
Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll.
No single atom, once in being, lost,
With change of counsel charges the Most High.
What hence infers Lorenzo? Can it be?
Matter immortal! And shall spirit die?
Above the nobler, shall less noble rise?
Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,
No resurrection know? shall man alone,
Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,
Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds?
Is man, in whom alone is power to prize
The bliss of being, or with previous pain
Deplore its period, by the spleen of fate,
Severely doom'd death's single unredeem'd?
If nature's revolution speaks aloud,
In her gradation, hear her louder still.
Look nature through, 'tis neat gradation all.
By what minute degrees her scale ascends !
Each middle nature join'd at each extreme,
To that above it join'd, to that beneath.
Parts, into parts reciprocally shot,
Abhor divorce: what love of union reigns!
Here, dormant matter waits a call to life;
Half-life, half-death, join there; here, life and sense;
There, sense from reason steals a glimm'ring ray;
Reason shines out in man. But how preserved
The chain unbroken upward, to the realms
Of incorporeal life? those realms of bliss,
Where death hath no dominion? Grant a make
Half-mortal, half-immortal; earthy, part,
And part ethereal; grant the soul of man
Eternal; or in man the serious ends.
Wide yawns the gap; connection is no more;
Check'd reason halts; her next step wants support;
Striving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme;
A scheme, analogy pronounced so true;
Analogy, man's surest guide below.
Thus far, all nature calls on thy belief.
And will Lorenzo, careless of the call,
False attestation on all nature charge,
Rather than violate his league with death?
Renounce his reason, rather than renounce
The dust beloved, and run the risk of heaven ?
O what indignity to deathless souls!
What treason to the majesty of man!
Of man immortal! Hear the lofty style:
"If so decreed, the Almighty will be done.
Let earth dissolve, yon pond'rous orbs descend,
And grind us into dust. The soul is safe;
The man emerges; mounts above the wreck,
As tow'ring flame from nature's funeral pyre;
O'er devastation, as a gainer, smiles;
His charter, his inviolable rights,
Well pleased to learn from thunder's impotence,
Death's pointless darts, and hell's defeated storms."
But these chimeras touch not thee, Lorenzo!
The glories of the world thy sevenfold shield.
Other ambition than of crowns in air,
And superlunary felicities,
Thy bosom warm. I'll cool it, if I can ;
And turn those glories that enchant, against thee.
What ties thee to this life? proclaims the next.
If wise, the cause that wounds thee is thy cure.
Come, my ambitious! let us mount together
(To mount, Lorenzo never can refuse);
And from the clouds, where pride delights to dwell, Look down on earth.-What seest thou? Wondrous things!
Terrestrial wonders that eclipse the skies.
What lengths of labour'd lands! what loaded seas!
Loaded by man, for pleasure, wealth, or war!
Seas, winds, and planets, into service brought,
His art acknowledge, and promote his ends.
Nor can the eternal rocks his will withstand;
What levell'd mountains! and what lifted vales!
O'er vales and mountains sumptuous cities swell,
And gild our landscape with their glitt'ring spires.
Some mid the wond'ring waves majestic rise;
And Neptune holds a mirror to their charms.
Far greater still! (what cannot mortal might ?)
See, wide dominions ravish'd from the deep!
The narrow deep with indignation foams.
Or southward turn; to delicate and grand,
The finer arts there ripen in the sun.
How the tall temples, as to meet their gods,
Ascend the skies! the proud trumphal arch
Shows us half heaven beneath its ample bend.
High through mid-air, here, streams are taught to flow;
Whole rivers, there, laid by in basins, sleep.
Here, plains turn oceans; there, vast oceans join
Through kingdoms channel'd deep from shore to shore ;
And changed creation takes its face from man.
Beats thy brave breast for formidable scenes,
Where fame and empire wait upon the sword?
See fields in blood; hear naval thunders rise;
Britannia's voice! that awes the world to peace.
How yon enormous mole projecting breaks
The mid-sea, furious waves! their roar amidst,
Out-speaks the Deity, and says "O main!
Thus far, not farther; new restraints obey."
Earth's disembowel'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.
NIGHT VII.
BEING THE SECOND PART OF
CONTAINING THE NATURE, PROOF, AND IMPORTANCE OF IMMORTALITY.
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 cannot 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 writer has made an attempt to set the gross absurdities and horrors of annihilation, in a fuller and more affecting view, than is (I think) to be met with elsewhere.
The gentlemen, for whose sake this attempt was chiefly made, profess great admiration for the wisdom of heathen antiquity: what pity 'tis 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 toc runctilious 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 a regard for anything, even in himself, that was not immortal.
This fact, well considered, would make our infidels withdraw their admiration from Socrates; or make them endeavour, by their imitation of this illustrious example, to share his glory: and, consequently, it would incline them to peruse the following pages with candour and impartiality: which is all I desire; and that, for their sakes: for I am persuaded, that an unprejudiced infidel must, necessarily, receive some advantageous impressions from them.
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 ev'ry 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 subterranean road to bliss.
Yes, infinite indulgence planned it so ;
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