reality, thrice increased himself."-And it is no less true, that they ascribed a threefold character to Ahriman. They called him the preserver, the destroyer, and the regenerator of all things. The reader will at once perceive the striking analogy between Oromasdes, Mithra, and Ahriman; and Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Now if we farther take into consideration, the natural and astronomical history incorporated more or less with theology by the whole of the Asiatic nations, the matter appears to be nothing more than their endeavours to account for the good and evil in the moral, and light and darkness in the natural, world. The original light, before the creation of the heavenly bodies, the Persians personified by Oromasdes. The created light and influence of the heavenly bodies they personified by Mithra. Evil and darkness desolate and destroy these they personified by Ahriman. In the very same manner, the Hindoos have personified their Trinity. Goodness and light create and preserve; therefore they are personified by Brahma and Vishnu: and evil and darkness, in common with the Persians, are personified by Siva. The Chaldean Trinity, which lay between these two triads of India and Persia, is more pure than either. It consists of Virtue Wisdom, and Truth, each personified. strange view the Persians took of their zodiac, led them to assign the summer signs to Oro

The

masdes and Mithra; and the winter signs to Ahriman. The other eastern nations took a similar view of their zodiac; and this was a fruitful source of imaginary influences and operations.

It was undoubtedly this mixture of physical and astronomical calculations, and the continued imaginary contests of these two adverse champions, viz. light and darkness, blended together with some obscure traditions of the revolt of the angelic bands, of the fall of man, and the contests of the great patriarchal families of Shem and Ham for the empire of the infant world,— that gave birth to the celebrated doctrine, so widely spread through the Oriental world, of the two principles of good and evil!

This doctrine appears to have been very generally received in the heathen world among all classes, whether philosophers, priests, poets, or common people. The views we have taken, establish, in a very high degree, the authenticity of those verses of the Chaldean oracles, which have been handed down to us by men who were either enemies to, or ignorant of, the true doctrine of the Trinity. Plutarch, a heathen philosopher, writes thus: "Zoroaster is said to have made a threefold distinction of things; to have assigned the first and highest rank to Oromasdes, who, in the Oracles, is called the Father; the lowest to Ahrimanes; and the middle to Mithras; who, in the same, is called Toy Susper very, δεύτερον νεν,

the second Mind.""-Now, this quotation deserves particular notice, seeing Plutarch was born in the first century, in a city of Boeotia, and must have had it from some other source than the Gnostics professing Christianity. And it will be found, upon careful examination, that the doctrine of Zoroaster spread through India, Persia, Greece, and, in one form or another, over all the heathen world. As the true doctine of revelation was lost, philosophy supplanted it; and yet in philosophy, tradition still preserved the faint traces of the truth.

From the foregoing view of the doctrine of the Trinity, preserved by tradition in Persia, and incorporated with the philosophy of Zoroaster, received from Chaldea, the inference is fair, and the argument logically conclusive, that the true doctrine of the Trinity was still preserved, though very much darkened and debased by tradition, in the lapse of time. If the remains of the true doctrine be still found there, whence could they come? If it be answered,-from India; whence did it come to the Hindoos? If it be answered, -from Chaldea; whence did it come to the Chaldeans? If it be answered,-from the Cabbala; whence did it come to the authors of the Cabbala? No answer can be given to this, butfrom true revelation. Thus the argument runs up to the fountain of truth, by whatever stream we trace it.

PROPOSITION XXX.

PROVING THE DOCTRINE FROM TRADITION, IN SCY

THIA, COMPREHENDING THIBET, TARTARY, AND SIBERIA.

HAVING traced the doctrine, by tradition, through the vast regions of India and Persia, the one on the east, and the other on the west, of Chaldea, we now direct our eyes northward to the extensive empires of Tangut and Thibet, and over the wild domains of Siberia; and in the whole of this immense tract of country, we find the doctrine recorded by tradition, more or less perfectly. Parsons, on the remains of Japhet, treating of Tangut, records, from authority which is thought good, that the Deli Lama, who sustains the character both of patriarch and king, gives medals, with the emblem of the Triune Deity whom they worship, stamped upon them; some to be suspended around the necks of the worshippers, and some to be suspended in the chapels where they perform their devotion. The same author informs us, that the Roman Catholic missionaries, when they arrived in that country, found that the inhabitants already possessed some imperfect views of this fundamental doctrine, and actually worshipped an idol, fabricated to resemble, as nearly as they could conceive, a Trinity of persons.

And with respect to the Tartars and Siberians, Van Stralenberg informs us, that all the nations north of Tartary, observe a profound veneration for the number three; and adds, a race of Tartars called Jakuthi, who are idolaters, and the most numerous people of all Siberia, adore one indivisible deity under three different denominations, which, in their vernacular tongue, are called Artugon, Schugo-Teugon, Tangara: the first of which is translated by Colonel Grant, creator of all things; the second, the god of armies; and the third, Amor ab utroque procedens, the spirit of heavenly love proceeding from the other two.

And the celebrated Siberian medal published by Dr. Parsons, is now deposited in the valuable imperial cabinet of St. Petersburg, on one side of which is engraved the figure of a triune deity, and on the other side a Thibetian inscription illustrative of the event on which it was struck; it was found in the ruins of an old chapel, together with many ancient manuscripts, near the river Kemptschyk. The image itself corresponds exactly to the Indian triad, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and plainly inculcates the worship of a triune deity, in the mythological persons of Odin, Frea, and Thor, the god of the northern nations. The Edda, that venerable relict of Runic mythology, represents this triple deity as sitting on three thrones, each person of the triad having a crown on his head. Dr. Percy k k