teemed by the ancients as the boundary of the eastern world; all the ancient Scythia, Arabia, the exterior parts of Africa, and almost all the great continent of America, with the manners and cuftoms of their respective inhabitants, are, in some measure, known to us at prefent; and, therefore, I fhall take a brief furvey of the systems of theology and morality, which have, at different times, been discovered among them.

THE great and ancient empire of China, which was formed of fifteen several kingdoms, and at a moderate computation contains one hundred millions of fouls, was founded (as appears by their records, which were copied by the missionary Jefuits, and by them efteemed unquestionable and infallible) about four thousand years ago by Fohu; who first brought them out of that state of nature in which the inhabitants of the Great Tartary heretofore lived, to live under a civil government; introduced agriculture, marriage, the distinction of the sexes by different habits, with a variety of laws, and orders, for a regular government among them. He invented characters, and left several writings of morality, civil government, phyfic, and aftronomy; so that this king seems to have been the instituter of the Chineses political government.-But about two thousand and three hundred years fince, lived. Confuchee, or Confucius, the most learned, wife, and virtuous man, fay the Chineses, that ever lived in this empire; and for whom both the king and the

magiftrates, of his time, as well as all those who have fucceeded fince, feem to have had the greatest veneration that has any-where been rendered to a mortal man. He wrote many tracts, and in them digefted all the learning of the ancients, with the writings of Fohu, at least all that he thought neceffary, or useful, to mankind, as individuals, or as members of civil fociety: it does not appear. that he had any idea of a future ftate. His works. were then received, and have ever fince been regarded, with fo great esteem and veneration, that none has queftioned whatever he wrote, but admitted it as the truest and best rules for paffing through human life; fo that, to this day, it is. enough in all arguments that Confucius has said it.

The writings of this great man, or at least the principal part of them, have been translated by the miffionary Jefuits; as they are the fource of all the Chineses learning, and feem to contain at body of ethics, or moral virtues, which are framed. for the conduct of men's lives, their families, and their governments, but chiefly for the latter. The principal part of his reasoning feems to be calculated to prove, that no people can be happy but under good governments, and no governments happy but over good men; and that, for the fe-. licity of mankind, all the men in a nation, from the fovereign to the meaneft labourer, fhould endeavour to be good, wife, and virtuous, as far as his own thoughts, or the precepts of others, can inform him. The chief principles which he seems

to

and, although he was neither Chriftian, Jew, nor Mahometan, he declared that he and his people were the adorers of one God; and he fhewed fuch ftrict juftice, exact difcipline, generous bounty, and fo much piety in his form of worship, that the Christians themselves were surprised at it: From the accounts which we receive from travellers, who have lately paffed through this country, many of the inhabitants continue in the fame opinion to this day. This was likewife, as far as we can discover, the state of their religion in the northern parts of Europe, 'till Odin and his followers came into this country.

This Odin, whofe true name was Frigg, the fon of Fridulph, was one of the adherents of Mithridates, king of Pontus, whom Pompey forced to fly from their country: he commanded the Afes, a part of the ancient Scythians, who, according to Strabo and Pliny, inhabited a tract of country, to the north of mount Taurus, between the Black and the Cafpian Seas; and whose principal city was called Afgard. Frigg took the name of Odin, because he was the high priest of Odin, the Supreme God of the Getæ. And it was the custom of all the heroes among those people, to declare themselves to be defcended from their gods, particularly the god of war.

Odin, having under his command the greatest part of the people called Afes, whom the Romans had driven out of their country, marched weftward, and fubdued almost all the northern parts of

Europe;

tional among themselves-Their opinions in natural Philofophy, were, that the earth was round, that it had a beginning, and that it must have an end, but reckoned both by immenfe periods of time; that the Creator of it was a Spirit, which pervaded the whole univerfe, and was diffused through every part of it. They fuppofed this world to be a ftate of purgation, wherein certain inferior spirits, who had rebelled against their great Creator, were doomed to pass a limited time, confined in different material bodies, and afterward, were pardoned, or condemned eternally to certain punishments; and, therefore, they held the tranfmigration of fouls, as one of the fundamental articles of their religion. They, endeavoured to prevent all the diseases of the body, from which they imagined the perturbation of the mind, in a great measure, arofe; and to compofe the mind, by exempting it from all anxious cares; efteeming the troublefome and folicitous thoughts about past and future events to be like fo many troublesome dreams, and no more to be regarded. They were perfectly indifferent about life and death, pleasure and pain. Their juftice was very exact and exemplary, and their temperance fo very great, that they lived upon nothing but vegetables; believing it to be a heinous fault to kill any thing that had animal life, to which they fuppofed fome foul was annexed, undergoing its state of purgation. If they fell fick, they regarded it as fuch a mark of intemperance, that they would frequently die from

fhame;

alteration which he made in their ancient religion, was refpecting the number of the gods which they were to adore. The ancient Scythians had fuch a veneration and respect for their Supreme God, that on all occafions they expreffed their hatred and contempt of the polytheifm of those very nations who treated them as barbarians; and their first care was to deftroy all the objects of their idolatrous worship, in thofe places where they established their authority; which was the cafe when they entered into Greece, under the condu& of Xerxes.-Odin affociated several of their fubaltern divinities with their Supreme God, which he made those ignorant people believe were necessary to have recourse to in time of danger; as, from being more acceffible than the Supreme God, whose name alone ftruck them with respect and terror, their fuccours would be more prompt and effectual. Each of thefe divinities was to prefide over a particular part of the univerfe (as will be hereafter more fully explained); and after this æra, if they rendered greater honours to the Supreme Divinity than to the others, it was because they regarded him as the god of war; imagining, from its being their favourite paffion, that no object was more worthy of his attention, nor over which he could more difplay his power and authority. And this is the reason that we often find him described in the Edda under the name of Odin, as the terrible and fevere god, the father of bloodshed, the destroyer of mankind, the god