nally down, through a channel long fince for gotten, from thofe holy patriarchs, to whom the eternal Father was pleased to reveal the awful fecrets of that nature, which, without fuch revelation, it is utterly impoffible for finite beings to fathom; the ftupendous myftery of a Trinity of hypoftafes in the Unity of the divine effence.

But let us return to the great theatre of our prefent investigation, to ASIA, and inquire if the ancient and celebrated empire of China. affords a system of theology illustrative of a fubject fo deeply involved in the obscurity of *Eastern philosophy and entangled in the mazes of oriental allegory.

In that remote and happy region, fecluded not lefs by fituation than by the wife policy of its fovereigns from all intercourfe with the other nations of the earth, the true religion imported, as fome think, by Noah himself, or one of his pious pofterity, flourished longest unadulterated.* A fucceflion of virtuous and magnificent monarchs, defcending for near three thousand years in regular fucceffion from the great FонI, whoever he was, made it the

proudest

• See Shuckford's Connexions, vol. i. p.33, and Sir Walter Raleigh's Hiftory of the World, p. 54. The fubject is extenfively confidered in the History itself.

proudest glory of their respective reigns to. fupport it by their whole authority, and enforce it by the noble and fplendid example of regal piety.

Since it is my intention, in the ensuing hiftory, occafionally to confider India upon the great scale of its more extended geography, as the ancients feem to have understood the term, and as ftated by Sir William Jones in the Afiatic Researches, that is to say, as an empire extending from the great northern range of Caucasus to the extreme fouthern point of Sinhala, or Ceylone, and from the frontiers of Perfia on the Weft to the Chinese Ocean on the Eaft, it will be my province hereafter to detail a variety of circumstances that have relation to the early history of China, at prefent fo little known, which will afford the ftrongest corroboration to the Mofaic hiftory, and incontestibly evince that the great lines of the most ancient Afiatic and the Christian theology are the fame, From an elaborate comparison which I have alfo made of the most ancient hiftories of China, as they stand translated and epitomized, in Couplet, Martinius, and Du Halde, from those celebrated Chinese books of profound antiquity the Xu

Eee 3

See Afiatic Refearches, vol. i. p. 418.

KIM,

KIM, or book of books, containing the annals of the three first imperial dynafties; the XIKIM, a more extenfive hiftorical detail; and the writings of Confucius, with fuch authentic Sanfcreet accounts of Indian history as I have been able to procure, I have the most confident hopes that new light will be reflected as well upon the intricate history of those countries as upon that of Japan. The history of the latter country, by Kæmpfer, has in the courfe of that review been of infinite service to me, fince, as an immemorial connexion has fubfifted between thefe three nations, which, after all that has been written by De Guignes and the learned Pauw, have probably all three defcended from one common stock, the early hiftory of the one muft, under certain reftrictions and with due allowances for the changes of customs and opinions during a long course of ages, be confidered as the history of the others. I fhall, in this place, prefent to the view of the reader a few of the points in which that affinity may be clearly traced; and, in the first place, let us attend to it in regard to their theology.

Martinius, who, from a refidence of ten years upon the spot, and from understanding both the letters, or characters, and language

of

of the country, must be supposed well qualified to judge of their religious doctrines and practices, afferts that they anciently worfhiped one SUPREME GOD, a fpirit, nullis ad religionem exciendum fimulachris aut ftatuis ufi, ufing neither images or figures to excite the devotion of the people, because as the Deity was every where prefent, and his nature exalted far above the reach of human comprehenfion, it was impoffible by any external image properly to represent him to the fenfes of men. Therefore he obferves, nullum in iis templis antiquitus idölum vifebatur, fed fimplex tabella, in qua finenfi linguâ literis aureis exaratum erat, fpiritualis cuftodis urbis fedes; no idol in the most ancient periods of their empire was to be feen in all their temples, but only an unornamented tablet, upon which was engraved, in large Chinese characters, in gold, the following inscription: THE SANCTUARY OF THE SPIRITUAL GuarDIAN OF THE CITY. This pure worship of the Deity, whom they denominated XangTI, or TYEN, continued unadulterated till after the death of Confucius, which took place 500 years previous to the Chriftian era, and is a remarkable and almost solitary Eee 4 instance

inftance of the pure primeval worship flou rifhing among a people confining upon nations immerfed in the baseft idolatries of Afia. That they believed in the existence of fubordinate fpirits, the minifters of the great God in the government of the universe, and that they paid an inferior kind of ho mage to thofe fpirits, is to be accounted for in the perfuafion, before noticed as being fo generally prevalent in Afia, that they might be their interceffors with offended Omnipotence, and avert his apprehended vengeance.

Confucius, the nobleft and most divine philofopher of the pagan world, was himfelf the innocent occafion of the introduction of the numerous and monftrous idols that in after-ages difgraced the temples of China; for, having in his dying moments. encouraged his difconfolate difciples by prophecying SI FAM YEU XIM GIN, in occidente erit SANCTUS, in the Weft the Holy One will appear; they concluded that he meant the god Bhood of India, and immediately introduced into China the worship of that deity with all the train of abominable images and idolatrous rites, by which that grofs fuperftition was in fo remarkable a

manner