In direct and pofitive proof that I am not attributing to the Chinese theological notions which they did not in the most ancient æras of their empire poffefs; and, in particular, that they really did, either traditionally, or by revelation, entertain a rooted belief of the pacification of the Divine Being, by means of a human oblation of royal defcent and of diftinguished piety, I fhall produce from their most authentic hiftorians an inftance of a moft amiable and virtuous monarch, CHINGTANG, the founder of the second imperial dynasty of China, bearing the denomination of Xang, being called upon by the public voice, at a period of national distress, to be the propitiatory facrifice of offended heaven. An univerfal barrennefs, arifing from continued drought, having for feven years together defolated the kingdom and thinned the inhabitants of it, Chingtang was told by the priests, who interpreted the will of heaven, that its vengeance could only be appeafed by a human facrifice, and he readily became the devoted victim of that vengeance. The aged king, fays Martinius, having laid by his imperial * robes, • Vide Martini Martinii Hiftoria Sinicæ, lib. iii. p. 75. robes, cut off the venerable grey hairs of his head, fhaved his beard, pared his nails, and subjected himself to other preparatory ceremonies, esteemed indignities in China, barefooted, covered over with afhes, and in the pofture of a condemned criminal, approached the altar of facrifice, where with fuppliant hands he intreated heaven to launch the thunder-bolt of its wrath, and accept the life of the monarch as an atonement for the fins of the people. The Chinese hiftories add that after he had finished his prayer, and for fome time devoutly waited the awful ftroke, which was to crufh the fovereign and fave the nation, (a stroke which heaven in remembrance of his piety and refignation forbore to inflict,) the fky became fuddenly black with clouds, and the rain defcended in torrents, fo that the fteril earth fhortly refumed its wonted fertility, and unbounded plenty reigned over the whole empire.* In the annals of China this folemn fact is recorded to have happened in the eighteenth century before Chrift, and it is very remarkable, that, in the very fame century, according to Ufher and the chronology Martinius, p. 76. Le Compte, ́p. 319. + Vide Ufherii Annales, p. 15. chronology of our Bibles, the feven years famine in Egypt happened. From this cir cumstance we are naturally induced to conclude, that the dearth fpoken of in Scripture was general throughout the Eaft; and indeed it is evident, from Joseph's supplying all the neighbouring countries with grain, that it was not confined to the Egyptian territories alone. Thus wonderfully do the ancient archives of a great and enlightened nation, fecluded for three thousand centuries from all connection with the reft of the world, whence arifes an impoffibility that thofe archives fhould be adulterated, in this as well as in many other inftances which it will fall to my province to point out hereafter, bear decifive teftimony as well to the authenticity of the Mofaic hiftory as to the verity of the great outlines of the Mofaic theology. Among these the veftigia, for which alone I must again repeat that I contend, the veftigia of a pure undebased Trinity, are not the leaft vifible. It is the refult of both extenfive reading and perfonal inquiry, made by a learned friend in Afia, that I am able to defcribe the vast body of the Chinese nation, thofe few excepted who practise the pure and refined pre cepts |