Socrates and Plato (for we have no certain criterion by which we can separate the opinions of the one from the other) made it the sole business of their lives to deceive those whom they pretended to teach. The general tone and temper pervading their discussions, is at variance with such an opinion. It is a striking feature in the character of Socrates, and which well entitles him to the admiration even of christians, that, surrounded with mysteries which he could not explain, and in the midst of darkness which he could not penetrate, he seems to have reposed implicit confidence in the benevolence of the Deity even unto death, and to have believed in him as a rewarder of them that diligently seek him in spite of all the doubts that confounded his understanding, and the wrongs and oppressions which he endured.—Discourse, pp. 19, 20.

We have no space to afford us an opportunity of touching upon the different senses in which the doctrine of the anima mundi was held by the various sects of philosophers; though, with regard to the inference drawn by our Country Pastor from the tenet of the absorption of the soul after death into the one spirit of the universe; namely,

that

It would be ridiculous to speak of any consolation, or any moral restraint, or any other effect whatever, springing from the belief of such a future state as this, which consists in becoming, after death, the same as we were before birth (and that) to all practical purposes, it is the same thing as annihilation ;— Lecture I. p. 26.

h;

we beg leave to remind him that the Father of the Academy decidedly expresses his conviction of individual consciousness after death, in these remarkable and emphatic words, which completely refute our Pastor's dogmatic assertion: Πείθεσθαι δὲ ὄντως ἀεὶ χρὴ τοῖς παλαιοῖς τε καὶ ἱεροῖς λόγοις, οἱ δὴ μηνύουσιν ἡμὶν ̓Αθάνατον Ψυχὴν εἶναι, Δικαστὰς τε ἴσχειν καὶ τίνειν τὰς μέγιστας Τιμωριας, ὅταν τις ἀπαλλáxon тou σúμaros. Epist. VII. p. 448. λάχθη τοῦ σώματος.

With regard to "the positive testimony," given in the Nichomachian Ethics, of Aristotle's belief that the dead are affected by the fortunes of their living friends, we must acknowledge our inability to discover any such proof, though we have carefully read the chapter to which Mr. Mills refers; and we are of opinion, that it is merely of posthumous occurrences, of which the Stagyrite is there treating. But, we have said more than enough to illustrate the character of our author's opinions, and to manifest our own; and we would refer our readers to the masterly and scholar-like Appendix, attached to Mr. Mills's Discourse, as replete with curious and recondite matter, showing at once the various research of the writer, and the irrefragable soundness of his principles, as a philosopher, a moralist, and a Divine. We thus take our leave of the learned and accomplished author of the valuable Discourse before us. The Country Pastor must detain us somewhat longer, for we have noticed but one out of the twelve Lectures, comprised in his volume. We subjoin a syllabus of their contents:

Lecture II. General considerations on the intermediate state.-Lecture III. Reasons for supposing the intermediate state one of consciousness.-Lecture IV.

Arguments for the insensibility of the soul in the intermediate state; and reasons for concluding that the question was purposely left undecided by Revelation.-Lecture V. The Resurrection. Lecture VI. Day of Judginent. Lecture VII. Expected restoration of the Jews, and Millennium.-Lecture VIII. Rewards and punishments.-Lecture IX. Condition of the blessed, and their abode in heaven.-Lecture X. Occupations and state of society of the blessed.— Lecture XI. Prevailing mistakes respecting a Christian departure.-Lecture XII. Preparation for death."

We are greatly perplexed by the variety of our author's topics, and find some difficulty in pronouncing our verdict upon a book, of whose doctrines we are obliged to say,

"Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura."

Yet such indeed is the fact. However, the good portion of these Lectures shall have our first regard, for praise is more congenial to our feelings than the strange work of condemnation, with whatever justice it be pronounced. The Sixth Lecture, upon the Day of Judgment, contains many admirable sentiments: take the following as a sample:

Concerning the particulars of this great day, the Scriptures afford us but scanty information, though they give us the most positive assurances that it will take place, and instruct us how and when to prepare for it. Yet even the little that is revealed on the subject, it would be easy to misinterpret, if any one were to take some single passage by itself, and judge from that alone, without calling in the aid of Scripture to limit and modify-to fill up and explain it. Take for example this text; (2 Cor. v. 10.) what can be plainer, a man might say, (from a view of this passage alone,) than that a man's final salvation or condemnation at the day of judgment depends entirely upon the actions he has performed—the deeds done-in this world, without any regard to his faith-without any consideration of the motives on which he acted, which are not mentioned here, without piety or any sense of religion being taken into account at all. And thence he might infer (as some have actually done) that all kinds of faith, and all kinds of principle, are equally acceptable, or rather equally indifferent, to the Almighty; and that all we have to do, is to take care of the external conduct. Again, on the other hand, let any one take, by itself, our Lord's parting declaration to his disciples, after the command given them to preach the gospel. (Mark xvi. 16.) From this, he might say, it is evident that good works are of no consequence at all, and that every one who has belief, and is admitted into the church by baptism, is sure of salvation, whatever kind of life he may lead. Thus you see, that single texts of scripture may be so interpreted, if not compared together, as to contradict one another, and to be each one of them at variance with truth; the Scriptures, if so studied, will no less mislead you than if they were actually false; for half the truth will very often amount to absolute falsehood.-P. 117.

The Seventh Lecture, in which our author combats the notion of a literal reign of Christ, in bodily person, for a thousand years, at Jerusalem,-a literal restoration of the Jews to their country, and all the other circumstances of a literal and carnal millennium, is an admirable performance; and we heartily thank him for his refutation of the absurd hypothesis of a literal second advent of Christ, and of the childish fancies with which some commentators would deceive

their readers touching the resurrection of the martyrs. Did our limits permit us, we should gladly quote the sentiments of our Country Pastor upon the condition of men in the next world, after the final judgment. Why the sacred penmen have given us but an extremely brief, uncircumstantial, and unsatisfactory account (unsatisfactory, that is, to idle curiosity,) of that everlasting and unalterable state ;how, in his house of many mansions, our Judge hath made ample provision for rewarding every man according to his deserts;-how the punishment of the wicked will be proportioned to each man's own behaviour, not from comparison with his neighbour's;-how presumptuous it is, and how wholly unwarranted by Scripture, to deny the eternity of hell torments;-how worse than laughable it is to measure the dealings of God by the puny standard of our own reason;-how foolish it is to indulge in conjectures on subjects manifestly beyond the reach of our faculties ;—and how fruitless are the endeavours to reconcile the existence of evil with the benevolence of God, with the view of establishing the final admission of all men to celestial happiness; and what may be the occupations and the state of the society of the blest in heaven; he, who wishes to learn, may with equal pleasure and profit consult the judicious pages of the Country Pastor, in the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Lectures on our table.

Here we are compelled to halt. Much as we admire our author in these parts of his treatise, there are other portions, in which we "praise him not." The Second Lecture, upon the intermediate state, and the third, wherein he would make his readers believe that he is giving a full and fair statement of the reasons for supposing it to be a state of consciousness, are the garbled and cunning narrative of an advocate, who damns his adversary's case, by supposing its merits, whilst he falsely pretends to state it in all its strength. True; the oracles of God may have afforded us but little information on this awful and most interesting topic, so that we cannot presume to write dogmatically upon it; yet, that little we must not, we will not, part with; and we justly condemn the man, who would make that little still less by suppression of the arguments, on which the hypothesis of an intermediate state of consciousness seems to be securely erected! To be sure, doubt is better than error, and acknowledged ignorance is wiser than groundless presumption; nor would we speak positively when the Scriptures do not; but, after all, the question is, what testimony do those sacred books give touching the intermediate state? If the light which they vouchsafe be small, is that a reason why we should close our eyes against it? It may be sufficient to minister to our hopes, though not enough to dissipate every doubt. Our author contends, that the parable of the rich man and of Lazarus is not to be literally construed, and that its exclusive design is to teach us that

the worldly-minded devotee will have no share in the enjoyments above; and that a figurative history is no foundation for a point of doctrine, which is but incidentally alluded to by circumstances that are only supposed to occur. Our opinions upon this part of the question are already recorded; we forbear, therefore, to inflict them a second time upon our readers, and would rather answer our Pastor in the words of old Baxter-"Sure, if it be but a parable, yet it seems unlikely to me, that Christ would teach them by such a parable, as seemed evidently to intimate and suppose the soul's happiness or misery presently after death, if there were no such matter." (BAXTER'S Saints' Rest, Part II. c. 10, sect. 1.) St. John's vision of the souls of the martyrs is dismissed with the remark, that so far from proving even the existence of the soul in a separate state from the body, and unconnected with any material substance; the passages in which a departed soul is spoken of as appearing to the eyes, would, literally understood, prove the direct contrary, viz. that persons so spoken of as visibly appearing, actually had bodies at the time, "because nothing but material bodily substance can be an object of sight!" Indeed! how, then, shall we ever " see God?" (Matt. v. 8.)

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In the same spirit, it is argued that "nothing can be inferred respecting a separate state of the soul from the visible appearance of Moses and Elias." Again, we refer our readers to our recorded opinions upon this point, as also upon the strong case of the penitent thief, of which our Pastor says,

Whether the immediate admission into paradise of the penitent thief, supposing this to be understood literally, is to be regarded as one of the miraculous and extraordinary circumstances of that awful period, and consequently different from what takes place in other cases, or whether the same will be the lot of all Christ's faithful servants immediately on their departing this life; we are not, I think, authorized by that portion of the sacred history positively to pronounce. -P. 60.

Again we refer to our recorded argument upon this impregnable instance of the conscious state of the disembodied spirit, and again we say, that to pretend that our Saviour's promise was "a peculiar immunity granted to extraordinary faith, is to talk without any warranty from Scripture.”—Christian Remembrancer, Nov. 1828, p. 700.

Will our readers believe that these are the whole of the arguments which our Country Pastor has thought it worth his while to offer in behalf of the hypothesis which we advocate in maintaining the consciousness of the intermediate state? Why has he said nothing of Matt. x. 28; John viii. 28; Matt. xxii. 32, &c.; John xi. 21, &c. &c. (so irresistibly applied to our hypothesis by Horsley); 2 Cor. v. 1-9; Phil. i. 23; Heb. xii. 18, &c.; Psalm xvi. 10; 1 Pet. iii. 18, &c.;

* Christian Remembrancer, Nov. 1828, pp. 698-700.

Luke xxiii. 46; Col. i. 20? Was he afraid of the testimony of these passages? or did he think them beneath his regard? Where such men as Bishops Pearson and Horsley have planted their feet, it is, indeed, consecrated ground; and to pass over the arguments of such men with contemptuous silence, is a proof of dishonest fear, which counsels us to fly from the adversary, whom we dare not manfully encounter. We deny that our hypothesis of the consciousness of disembodied souls "forestalls the judgment of the last day;" for, though conscious, the spirit has not entered upon its full reward, or its full punishment in its state of deadlihood; and there may be purposes to be effected by our final audit, and our public trial, and the solemn awarding of our lot, which we do not understand.

But we have no space to afford further comment. We do not quarrel with our author for his creed, so much as for the manner in which he has betrayed our own, by the pretence of a defence; or, rather, by a statement of our case, which is palpably and purposedly meagre and defective.

Long as we have dwelt upon this little volume, we must add something more upon the subject of Lectures XI. and XII. Our Pastor is descanting upon the mistakes which prevail respecting a Christian departure; he shall speak for himself:

To sum up in a few words the circumstances in which most people seem to think a happy death consists; . . . . if a man has had distinct notice some considerable time before-hand that his end was approaching, and has thus been enabled to occupy that interval in what is usually termed preparation for death; if he has been attended by a minister, and has received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper a little before his departure; if, though he may have suffered considerably in the course of the disease, he at last dies calm and easy both in body and mind, in full possession of his faculties, and professing the most perfect confidence of his acceptance with God; and finally, if his body receives what is called christian burial in consecrated ground, and especially if a handsome monument is erected over it;-this person's death is thought to combine all the circumstances which are usually reckoned the most desirable, important, and satisfactory.-Pp. 246, 247.

These circumstances our author brands as being "either of no consequence at all, or comparatively trifling;" or, "as having so little weight in comparison of others, as hardly to be worth a thought."

We entertain unconquerable disgust at the cynical and unfeeling tone,—at the irreverent and sarcastic phrase with which the Country Pastor permits himself to speak of the mournful and decent ceremonies of "what is called christian burial." No man needs to be taught, for every child understands, that funeral obsequies affect not the condition of the disembodied spirit; (and "the ancient martyrs of the Christian church despised their persecutors for threatening them with the want of a grave;"*) yet the care of defunct bodies is "

* Wheatly. Common Prayer, c. 12.

an act