that thofe unlearned Americans, from the strength of reafon and wisdom, discovered that there was a Supreme Being, who created and governed all things, as perfectly as any of the philofophers of Greece, or the Brachmans of India.

The Americans, while they remained in a state of fimplicity, and strict obedience to the Ynca's precepts, did not attempt to search after the mysteries of their great Pachacamac, and lived happily; but when the Amautas began, by a forced strain of reasoning, to explain thofe precepts, according to the dictates of their heated imaginations, and to introduce fcenes of horror, and human facrifices, among the people, although the form of the Ynca's government was still kept up, yet the populace, as well as their teachers, became corrupted, and the former, from bad example, fell into a state of refined barbarity, more horri ble, and contrary to the pure dictates of human nature, than that out of which Mango Copac firft drew them.This will appear likewife to have been the cafe of all the ancient inhabitants of the northern parts of Europe, and of Asia, who were distinguished, by the Roman authors, by the names of Scythians, or Celts; who inhabited all that tract of country known at present by the name of Great Tartary, Leffer Tartary, Mufcovy, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, and a great part of Germany; and who afterwards conquered, and gave laws to, all the other parts of Europe, and to a great part of Afia.

IT will not be a very eafy matter to form a juft idea of the religion of the ancient Celts, which may be called the religion of our ancestors; and to trace it, from its original purity, through the different degrees of corruption into which it after- wards fell; because the Greek and Latin authors who have wrote upon this fubject, are by no means exact; which may be owing to the little communication they had with those people, whom they called Barbarians, and to the difficulty which the Celts made, to lay open, to strangers, the particulars of their religion, or even to write them. Nevertheless when we collect what different authors, in different ages, have wrote upon this fubject, and compare them with the poems and ancient chronicles of the people of the north, and with the monumental remains of those people which we find at prefent in the different parts of Europe, one will serve to correct the other, and to elucidate the whole matter; because it will appear very clear, that the Druids, and the priests of Odin, taught the fame doctrines; and that great numbers of the Tartars continue in the fame opinion to this day.

Very foon after Chriftianity was introduced into the northern parts of Europe, Sæmund Sigfuffon, who was born in Iceland, in the year 1057, and who was fent to ftudy at Cologne, in Germany, published the Edda; which contained the principal parts of the ancient Celtic mythology, wrote by fome of the Pagan priefts, after they were con

This, in a few words, is the doctrine of the Edda, divested of all its allegory and ornaments; and I need not inform my readers, that it is very like the defcription of the last judgment, and of the end of the world, which we find in the New Teftament. We fee here, as it were in a mist, what Jefus Christ and St. John have fince more clearly explained to us.-Moreover, when we read the opinions of many of the great ancient philofophers, who were modeft, and suffered themfelves to be guided by the lights which nature held out to them, we find therein the pure ancient Celtic religion entire, although it was established long before those philofophers had existence; namely, the belief of one great and eternal Divinity, who was the foul, and creator of all things; and that, from this Divinity, there iffued out an inferior order of beings, when the world was created, who were appointed to govern it under his orders, and with it were to undergo the fame revolutions, in the day which was fixed for renewing it: that the fire hid in the bowels of the earth will first confume all its humidity, and afterwards destroy it entirely. The time will come, fays Seneca *, when the world, ready to be renewed, will be burnt up; when the oppofite powers fhall destroy each other, by striving to gain a fuperiority; when the stars shall run counter to each other, and the whole universe, in this confusion, shall be burnt with fire. Zeno is of the fame opinion; but he adds likewise, agreeable to

* Seneca Confol. ad Marciam. c. ult.

the

greatest idolaters. The northern and unlearned nations, on the contrary, who had not fuch a lively imagination, ftrength of paffions, and prefumption of their own abilities, were more fteady in their first belief, and in the religion of their forefathers. However, a great part of the ancient Scythians, by mixing with the people of the fouthern climates, fuffered their form of worfhip at laft to be corrupted by a mixture of ridiculous and cruel ceremonies; which, by little and little, they made an effential part of their religion; and therefore we must diftinguish between the religion of the original Celts, and that which they practifed in their latter ages, before Christianity was introduced among them; otherwise it will be yery difficult to reconcile the accounts thereof, which we find in ancient hiftorians.

When we examine this religion in its original ftate of purity, it will be found that it taught, that there was one Supreme God, who was the creator and mafter of the universe, and to whom all created beings were fubmiffive and obedient, Such likewife was the Supreme God of the Germans, according to Tacitus *. The Edda calls him the author of every thing that exifts, the eter nal, the ancient, and living Being, the terrible God, the fearcher of all hearts, the unchangeable God, whofe power was infinite, and whofe juftice was incorruptible.It was forbid to reprefent this Divinity under any corporal form, or even to fupTacit. German. c. 35.

pofe

made their progreffion from the east to the weft; and, many ages before Odin came from Afia into the north of Europe, the belief of this doctrine was among the ancient Celtic nations. The Druids had introduced it into Germany, Gaul, and Britain; the Greeks and the Romans had fome idea of it, but the greatest part of them did not-embrace the whole of this fyftem, but contented themselves with detaching fuch parts of it as regarded the destruction of this universe, and as favoured their confused and idolatrous opinions.

Upon the whole, when we caft our eyes over all the nations of the world, and examine all their hiftories, in different ages, among this prodigious diverfity of manners and of characters, we find every where almost the same ideas of a Supreme Being; and that he would reward those who did good, and punish those who did evil. Moreover we find among the inhabitants of all parts of the world a certain innate principle of justice, whereby we may, notwithstanding our own maxims, judge whether our own actions, as well as thofe of others, are either good or evil; and this appears to be the highest point to which our faculties, and the light of our reafon, unaffifted by divine revelation, are capable of attaining. All the nations of the world, whofe hiftory is on record, agree in this particular; and, from the earlieft ages, the greatest part of the people, finding, from the violence of their paffions, they were led to do evil, and thereby to offend the Great Author of nature daily, fupF pofed