392 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



life, is to love and to be loved ; and yet the depravity of men, in 

 modern times, is fuch, that this religion of love has given occafion 

 to perfecutions, civil wars, murders, and mafTacres, fuch as no re- 

 ligion, in antient times, ever produced * ; which has made our Savi- 

 our fay, That he came not to bring peace to the earth, but a fword '\. 



There is another fundamental tenet of the Chriftian religion, and 

 which contains a mod important truth, both of religion and philo- 

 fophy, being that upon which the happinefs of man in the next 

 'world muft depend, and I may add alio in this. It is this, that 

 we are but fojourners or palTengers in this life, and that, therefore, 

 we can expedl no fixed or permanent happinefs in it, but muft look 

 foreward to the next, where we muft be happy or miferable accord- 

 ing to our behaviour here. This is a do£lrine which our Sa- 

 viour very much inculcates, telling his difciples again and again. That 

 his kingdom ivas not of this world; and it is a dodtrine that would 

 be readily liftened to by philofophers, who believed in the immor- 

 tality of the foul, and in a future ftate of rewards and punilhments. 

 Plato fays that the chief fubjed of the meditation of a philofopher, 

 and, as I underftand him, the moft pleafant fubje£t, is death, by 

 Avhich he is to be difencumbered of this prilon of flefti and blood, 

 aiid reftored to the enjoyment of his intellectual mind, without 



being 



* See the works of the Emperor Julian, Epift. 52. where we have an account of 

 men having their eftates confifcated, being driven into exile, and many of them put to 

 death, on account of their religious belief ; and, for the fame reafon, whole villages 

 in Tevcral countries which he names, defolated and laid wafle. And the fubjedt of 

 difpute was the myftery of the Trinity, of which it was impofllble that the vulvar 

 could think jufvly, or agree in opinion, if they thought of it at all. Even fome of 

 the Fathers of the church did not undcrlland it; and particularly St Au^ufline, thouu'i 

 he fludied it very much, and has written 15 books upon the fubje(£l:, was fo far 

 from underflanding it, that, in his fifth book, De Trwitate, cap. 9. he fays, that there 

 were not three perfons only in the Trinity, but that there mioht be any other numlser. 



f St Math. chap. 10. v. 34. 



