SECT. iftence; and the Deity, in a manner fimi1. lar to the Mofaical account, is reprefented

I.

V.

Chinese account.

as hovering over the face of the vast abyfs. At length, after the various works of the creation were finished, "He, whose powers "are incomprehenfible, is faid to be again. "abforbed in the fupreme Spirit, changing "the time of energy for the time of re

pofe." In exact conformity with these fentiments of the Hindoos, we are informed by the Author of the Pentateuch, that God "refted on the feventh day from "all his work, which he had made," and confecrated it, in a peculiar manner, for the offices of religion. Even the very names of Adam and Eve are ftill extant in the ancient records of Hindoftan, and may be clearly traced in the Sanfcreet words Adima and Iva1.

V. The neighbouring empire of China, fimilar to that of Hindoftan in its ftudious feclufion from the reft of the world, and

1 "The pofterity of Adima, or Adim, (for the letter A in "this name has exactly the found of the French E in the "word j'aime) through Ultanapada, is as follows: 1. Adim and Iva. Iva founds exactly like Eve, pronounced as a diffyllable, E-ve, &c." WILFORD on the Chronol. of the Hindus. Afiat. Ref. vol. v.

equal

equalling it in its claims to an almoft un- CHAP. fathomable antiquity, next demands our II. attention. The account of the creation, according to the ancient traditions of this people, does not indeed defcend to the minute particularities of the preceding one, but is nevertheless little inferior to it in point of accuracy. It is faid, that they call the first of men Puoncu, and believe that he was born out of chaos, the allegorical mundane egg of oriental mythology. From the fhell of this egg, in the deep gloom of night, were formed the heavens; from the white of it, the atmosphere; and from its yolk, the earth. The order of creation was however as follows; the heavens were firft made; the foundations of the earth were next laid; the atmofphere was then diffused round the habitable globe; and last of all man was createdm.

m "Porro primum hominem, quem agnofcunt Sinæ, Puoncuum nominant. Eum dicunt e Chao tanquam ex ovo natum, cujus teftam feu corticem in cœlum, albumen in aërem, vitellum in terram abiiffe, idque media nocte.— "Primo tamen loco cœlos perfectos; stabilitam deinde terram, tum fpiritus, poftremo homines extitiffe." MARTINII Hift. Sin. p. 13.

Let

1.

SECT. Let us now once more turn our attention to the cofmogony of Scripture, and we fhall find that Mofes, in a manner ftrictly conformable to the fyftem of the Chinese, defcribes a chaos as being the original production of God's creative power; and relates, that the heavens were framed previously to the earth, man being the laft of all the works of the Deity. According to the Chinese, night was the feafon in which the creation took place; according to the Pentateuch, darkness was upon the face of the deep: and, in the Mofaical cofmogony, time is calculated, not by mornings and evenings, but by evenings and mornings.

With regard to the awful Being, from whom all things derived their existence, the Chinese affert, that "the grand Unity

66

comprehends Three; that One is Three, "and Three are One. Tao, say they, is

life; the First begot the Second; from "thofe Two proceeded the Third; and

66

by the united Three were all things cre"ated". He, whom the eye cannot fee,

n Du Halde's China, vol. iii. p. 30.

" and

"and who can be difcerned by intellect CHAP, "alone, is denominated Y." Hiuchin ex- II. plains the meaning of this character in the following words. "In the beginning, Rea"fon (the Logos of Philo and the Scriptures) subsisted in the Unity. This Rea"fon created and divided the heaven and "the earth, and harmonized and perfected "all things"."

Tufcan ac

VI. It has been already obferved, that VI. the Perfians believed the world to have count. been created at fix different times: the fame remark may also be made upon the cofmogony of the ancient Etrurians. We are informed by Suidas, that a fage of that nation wrote a history, in which it is faid, that God created the universe in fix thoufand years, and appointed the fame period of time to be the extent of its duration. In the first millenary, he made the heaven and the earth; in the fecond, the vifible firmament; in the third, the fea, and all the waters that are in the earth; in the fourth, the fun, the moon, and the stars; in the fifth, every living foul of birds, rep

• Memoires Chinois, cited by Bryant in his Philo Judæus, p. 287..

VOL. I.

E

tiles,

SECT. tiles, and quadrupeds, which have their I. abode either in the air, on the land, or in the waters; and laftly, in the fixth, man alone. It appears therefore, that, according to the fyftem of the Etrurians, five millenaries preceded the formation of man, to which the whole of the fixth was devoted, and that the remaining period comprehends the whole duration of the human So that the age of the world, from its commencement to its termination, will amount precisely to twelve thousand years

VII. Gothic account.

race.

VII. In the traditions even of our Gothic ancestors, blended as they are with the most extravagant fictions, fome remains of the truth are ftill discoverable. They appear to have supposed, that the original act of creation took place previous to the era of the firft parents of mankind, and that it was fucceeded by the waters of a deluge. It may not perhaps be very difficult to reconcile this with the Mofaical account, if the process of renovation after the flood refembled that of the first creation of the world; an hypothefis, which

• Ισοριαν δε παρ' αυτοις ανής εμπειρος συνεγραψατο. κ. τ. λ. SUIDE Lexic. Vox Tugėnua.

has