refutes all the objections they moved to the contrary, which are the very same that are made use of at this day. He demonstrates the hope they ought to have of a happier life, and lays before them all that this blessed hope requires to make it solid and lasting, to prevent their being deluded by a vain hope; and, after all, meeting with the punishment allotted to the wicked instead of the rewards provided for the good.

This conference was occasioned by a truth that was casually started, viz.: that a true philosopher ought to desire to die, and to endeavour it. This position, taken literally, seemed to insinuate that a philosopher might lay violent hands on himself. But Socrates makes it out that there is nothing more unjust; and that for so much as man is God's creature and property, he ought not to remove out of this life without his orders. What should it be then that made the philosopher have such a love of death? (It could be nothing but the hope of the good things he expected in another life.) What is the ground of this hope? Here we are presented with the grounds assigned by a heathen philosopher, viz.: man is born. to know the truth, but he can never attain to a perfect knowledge of it in this life, by reason that his body is an obstacle. Perfect knowledge is reserved for the life to come.

Then the soul must be immortal, since after death it operates and knows. As for man's being born for the knowledge of truth, that cannot be called in question, since he was born to know God. From

thence it follows, that a true philosopher hates and contemns his body, which stands in the way of his union to God; that he wishes to be rid of it, and looks upon death as a passage to a better life. This solid hope gives being to that true temperance and valour which is the lot of true philosophers; for other men are only valiant through fear, and temperate through intemperance; their virtue is only a slave

to vice.

They object to Socrates, that the soul is nothing but a vapour, that vanishes and disperses itself at death. Socrates combats that opinion with one that' has a great deal of strength in his mouth, but becomes much stronger when supported by the true religion, which alone can set it in its full light. The argument is this: in nature, contraries produce their opposites; so that death, being an operation of nature, ought to produce life, that being its contrary; and by consequence, the death must be born again. The soul, then, is not dead, since it must revive the body.

Before we proceed farther, it is fit to take notice of an error that is couched under this principle, which only the Christian religion can at once discover and refute; this is what Socrates and all other philosophers are infinitely mistaken in-making death a natural thing, there is nothing more false. Death is so far from being natural, that nature abhors it; and it was far from the design of God in the state in which man was first created. For he created him holy, innocent, and by consequence immortal; it was only sin that brought death into the world. But this

fatal league betwixt sin and death could not triumph over the designs of God, who had created man for immortality. He knew how to snatch the victory out of their hands, by bringing man to life again, even in the shades and horrors of death itself. Thus shall the dead revive at the resurrection, pursuant to the doctrine of the Christians, which teaches that death must give up those it has swallowed down, So that the principle which Socrates did not fully comprehend, is an unshaken truth, which bears the marks of the ancient tradition that the heathens had altered and corrupted.

Another argument alleged by Socrates as a proof of the immortality of the soul, is that of remembrance; which likewise bears the marks of that ancient tradition corrupted by the heathens. To find out the truth couched under this argument, I advance the following conjectures.

It seems the philosophers grounded this opinion of remembrance upon some texts of the Prophets that they did not well understand; such as that of Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee;" and perhaps their opinion was fortified by the ideas and instinct we have for several things that were never learned in this world. In short, we meet with unquestionable marks of certain resentments that revive some lights within our minds, or the remains of a past grandeur that we have lost by sin. And from whence do these proceed? that inexplicable cipher has no other key but the knowledge of original sin. Our soul was created so as to be

adorned with all manner of knowledge suitable to its nature, and now is sensible of its being deprived of the same. The philosophers felt this misery, and were not admitted to know the true cause; in order to unriddle the mystery, they invented this creation of souls before the body, and a remembrance that is the consequence thereof. But we, who are guided by a surer light, know that if man were not degenerated he would still enjoy the full knowledge of the truths he formerly knew; and if he had never been any other than corrupted, he would have had no idea of these truths. This unties the knot. Man had knowledge before he was corrupted, and after his corruption forgot it. He can recover nothing but confused ideas, and stands in need of a new light to illuminate them. No human reason could have fathomed this. It faintly unravelled part of the mys tery, as well as it could, and the explication it gave discovers some footsteps of the ancient truth; for it points both to the first state of happiness and knowledge, and to the second of misery and obscurity. Thus may we make a useful application of the doctrine of remembrance, and the errors of philosophers may oftentimes serve to establish the most incomprehensible truths of the Christian religion, and show that the heathens did not want traditions relating to them.

Another argument is taken from the nature of the soul. Destruction reaches only compound bodies: but we may clearly perceive that the soul is simple and immaterial, and bears a resemblance of some

thing divine, immortal and intelligent; for it embraces the pure essence of things; it measures all by ideas, which are eternal patterns, and unites itself to them when the body does not hinder it; so that it is spiritual, indissoluble, and consequently immortal, as being not capable of dissolution by any other means than the will of him who created it.

Notwithstanding the force of these proofs, and their tendency to keep up this hope in the soul, Socrates and his friends own, that it is almost impossible to ward off doubts and uncertainties, for our reason is too weak and degenerate to arrive at the full knowledge of truth in this world. So that it is a wise man's business to choose from amongst those arguments of the philosophers for the immortality of the soul, that which to him seems best and most forcible, and capable to conduct him safely through the dangerous shelves of this life, till he obtains a full assurance either of some promise, or by some divine revelation; for that is the only vessel that is secure from danger. By this the most refined paganism pays homage to the Christian religion, and all colour or excuse for incredulity is taken off; for the Christian religion affords promises, revelations, and, which is yet more considerable, the accomplishment of them.

They move two objections to Socrates: one, that the the soul is only the harmony resulting from the just proportion of the qualities of the body; the other, 2) that though the soul be more durable than the body, yet it dies at last, after having made use of several