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| Chapter XIII.—Continuation of the Argument.
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Chapter XIII.—Continuation of the Argument.
837
| 837 [The calm
sublimity of this paragraph excels all that ever came from an Athenian
before. In the Phœdon we have conjectures: here is certain hope and
patient submission as our resonable service.] | Confident of
these things, no less than of those which have already come to pass, and
reflecting on our own nature, we are content with a life associated with
neediness and corruption, as suited to our present state of existence, and
we stedfastly hope for a continuance
of being in immortality; and this we do not take without foundation
from the inventions of men, feeding ourselves on false hopes, but
our belief rests on a most infallible guarantee—the purpose of
Him who fashioned us, according to which He made man of an immortal
soul838
| 838 [Kaye, p. 199. Compare
Embassy, cap. xxvii., supra, p. 143.] | and a
body, and furnished him with understanding and an innate law for the
preservation and safeguard of the things given by Him as suitable to
an intelligent existence and a rational life: for we know well that He
would not have fashioned such a being, and furnished him with everything
belonging to perpetuity, had He not intended that what was so created
should continue in perpetuity. If, therefore, the Maker of this universe
made man with a view to his partaking of an intelligent life, and that,
having become a spectator of His grandeur, and of the wisdom which is
manifest in all things, he might continue always in the contemplation of
these; then, according to the purpose of his Author, and the nature which
he has received, the cause of his creation is a pledge of his continuance
for ever, and this continuance is a pledge of the resurrection, without
which man could not continue. So that, from what has been said, it is
quite clear that the resurrection is plainly proved by the cause of
man’s creation, and the purpose of Him who made him. Such being
the nature of the cause for which man has been brought into this world,
the next thing will be to consider that which immediately follows,
naturally or in the order proposed; and in our investigation the cause
of their creation is followed by the nature of the men so created, and
the nature of those created by the just judgment of their Maker upon
them, and all these by the end of their existence. Having investigated
therefore the point placed first in order, we must now go on to consider
the nature of men.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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