i6o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



fame animal that he is now in civil fociety, (that Is the moft mifer- 

 able animal on this earth, as Homer has told us from the mouth of 

 Jupiter, and at the fame time the moft imperfect of his kind,) and 

 had come fuch out of the hands of his Creator, and is always to con- 

 tinue fuch, without a change of his condition in a future ftate, the 

 fyftem of man would be altogether irreconcilable with the wifdom 

 and goodnefs of God *. And as to the dodrine of a future ftate, I 

 think it is of fuch importance for the happinefs of man in his prefent 

 ftate, that no man, not even a phllofopher, can be happy in this life, 

 if he does not believe that he may be much happier in a future ftate 

 than he can be here. 



When we join thefe two dodrines of Plato, concerning the pre- 

 exiftant and future ftates of man, to his dodrine of the Trinity, we 

 need not wonder that the Fathers of the Church were fo fond of his 

 phllofophy, that St Auguftine fays, as I have elfewhere obferv- 

 ed t, that there Is no great difference betwixt his Theology and the 

 Chriftian. And, indeed, I can obferve none, except that he did not 

 know what he could not know, becaufe it had not then happened, 

 that our Saviour had come to this earth to let men know that this 

 world was drawing to an end, and that, therefore, they fliould pre- 

 pare themfeives for the world that was to come, by repenting and 

 turning from their wicked ways. We need not, therefore, wonder 

 at what St Auguftine adds in the pafllige I have quoted, that the 

 o-reater part of the Platonics, of his time, had become Chriftlans ; 

 as they faw that, paucis verbis et fentent'iis mutatis^ the Chriftian 

 dodrine and the philolbphy of Plato were the fame. And Celfus, 

 the phllofopher againft whom Orlgen writes, thought the confor- 

 mity was fo great, that he believed Jefus Chrift had ftudied the 



works of Plato. 



And 



* See whdt I have faid upon this fubjecl, vol. 4. p. 379. & 380. 

 t See Vol. 5. of Origin of Lang. p. 345. 



