2(52 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



gypt, the parent country of arts and fciences, was yet in its glory, 

 or fuppofe that only Greece had remained, which had fo iuccesfully 

 cultivated the learning of Egypt, it might be thought that he had 

 come too foon to warn men of calamities that were to happen at fo 

 great a diftance of time. But he came in the fulnefs of time^ when 

 the affairs of men were in the defperate ftate I have reprefented, fo 

 that there were no hopes of any happinefs in this life, and therefore 

 it was neceffary that men fhould prepare for that future life which 

 was revealed to them, and which they were told was not at a very 

 great diftance *. 



* See upon this fubje£l, of our Saviour coming in the fulnefs of time, what I have 

 faid in the preceding volume, p. 397. and following ; where, among other things that 

 made his coming very proper at the time when he came, I have mentioned the de- 

 creafe of the numbers of men, and the tendency of the Ijpecies to its extinction, which, 

 I think, 1 have proved in this volume. 



CHAP. 



