rious 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 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 elsewh