39S ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



country that it had been; and though its inhabitants ftill preferved arts 

 and fciences among them to a certain degree, yet they were not fuch 

 as had been in former times. And as to the Romans, what arts and 

 fciences were among them, they had learned from the Greeks, but 

 never earned them to fuch perfedtion as the Greeks did. With refpedt 

 to the arts, they never had painters, ftatuaries, or fculptors, of any note ; 

 nor were they eminent in any fcience that I know: And as tophilo- 

 fophy, they had not fo much as a fchool of it. Nor were men, at 

 that time, improved in morals any more than in arts and fciences ; 

 but, on the contrai-y, there was a general corruption of manners, in 

 every nation then known, more or lefs, and particularly among the 

 Romans, as their own hiftorians inform us. That things have 

 grown better fmce the days of Auguftus Caefar, no body will affirm; 

 but, on the contrary, vice and difeafe have greatly increafed, and de- 

 population, within thefe laft four or five hundred years, has gone on 

 to a furprifing degree, not only in the countries known in antient 

 times, but in a new world unknown to the antients^ there has been 

 fiich depopulation, as there is no example of the like in the hiftory 

 of man. And as to arts and fciences, by learning tnofe of the anti- 

 ent world, we confefs how much we are fallen off in that article. 



Such being the Hate of man at the time that our Saviour came 

 to the world, it was very proper that he fhould let them know that 

 there would be foon a change of this fcene of man, for which they 

 ought to prepare themfelves by a religious and virtuous life : And 

 to confidev this life as a tranfient ftate of Unal and probation, which 

 was foon to have an end ; and, therefore, not to look for any per- 

 manent happinefs in it, but to put their truft in the life to come ; 

 which, as I have faid*, is a principal doctrine of the Chriftian re- 

 ligion. 



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