A DISSERTATION, &c. CHAPTER I. the Review of the Pagan Trinities, the ORACLES OF ZOROASTER, as the most ancient Relics of Pagan Wisdom and Philofophy, are firft confidered. Thofe ORACLES contain internal Evidence that they are not wholly Spurious. The Affertion proved, in a short Comparison of the theoretic System of Theology laid down in thofe Oracles, and the practical Worship of the Chaldeans, Perfians, and Indians. The THREE PRINCIPLES, mentioned in the Zoroäftrian, or Chaldaic, Oracles, probably the most early Corruption of the Doctrine of the Hebrew Trinity. - Various Pallages of thofe Oracles, intimately correspondQ 3 ing ing with others in facred Writ, producelThe philofophical Principles of the old Cha dæans and Indians compared.-Their O nion concerning the Operations of FIRE, the primary Element, and their Arrangement of the other Elements, confonant with these of the Brahmins.-Their Belief in the Agency of good and evil Demons, of Planets and pla netary Influences, of the fidereal Metempsycho fis through Seven Boobuns, or celeftial Spheres, of a Hell compofed of Serpents, and of the powerful Effect of various Charms and magical Incantations, the fame. - The Race, therefore, originally the fame, and the Scripture-State ments proportionably confirmed. THINK it neceffary to commence the fol Ilowing ifquefiary to commentin lowing difquifition, concerning the pagan TRIADS OF DEITY, by again offering it as my humble, but decided, opinion, that this ori ginal and fublime dogma, inculcated in the true religion, of a Trinity of hypoftafes in the divine nature, delivered traditionally down from the ancestors of the human race and the Hebrew patriarchs, being in time misappre hended, or gradually forgotten, is the foun tain of all the fimilar conceptions in the debased systems of theology prevailing in every other |