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represent him as great, pure, and without mixture," adds, "Thus does he who gave laws to the Jews, who was an extraordinary man, who conceived and spoke worthily of the power of God, when he writes in the beginning of his laws, God spake :' What? Let there be light, and there was light!-let there be earth, and it

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Among the late discoveries by Europeans, the sacred books of the Chinese are not the least. Many of them, by the best accounts that can be, obtained, were written some hundred years before our Saviour. These are preserved in several great libraries in Europe; and by the translation given to us by the learned author of the Philo-' sophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, we are informed that the Chinese have five original or canonical books, called King, which in their language signifies "a sublime, sacred, immutable doctrine; founded on unshaken principles." These books were looked upon as of very remote antiquity in the time of Confucius, who lived about six hundred years before our æra.

There is a circumstance related by Martinius in his History of China, which serves to show that Confucius, the lawgiver of that vast and extensive empire, had preserved some remains of

the ancient belief in the doctrine of a promised Saviour. Martinius asserts, that a Chinese phi-' losopher who had embraced Christianity pointed out to him the last sentence of the book Chuncieu, written by Confucius; from which it appeared that he had not only foreseen the incarnation of the Messiah, but had mentioned even the very year in the Chinese cycle when. that event was to take place. In the thirtyninth year of the emperor Lu, the huntsman of that prince killed, without the western gate of the city, a very scarce animal, known to the Chinese by the name of Kilin. A constant report had always prevailed, that, as soon as that animal made its appearance, a hero of great sanctity would succeed it, who should bring glad tidings of great joy to all nations. Confucius, . having learned these circumstances, shed a profusion of tears; and with a deep sigh exclaimed, "Already does my doctrine approach towards its termination, and will soon be finally. dissolved." After this he wrote nothing more, and even left a work unfinished; declaring that his rule of doctrine was at an end, and must speedily give place to that of a true legislator, . who would cause wars and tumults to cease, and to whom all the different sects of philosophers must yield. It is worthy of observation, that

this animal is described by the Chinese, as being of a remarkably mild and placid disposition, insomuch that it hurts no person, not even those who attempt to put it to death and it is yet more remarkable, that the two words by which we express the Lamb of God are said to be equivalent to the Chinese term Kilin. With regard to the year in which our Saviour was born, the converted philosopher, from whom Martinius received this account, conjectured that it was known to Confucius from the following circumstance: The Chinese characters and name of the year in which the animal was slain, exactly correspond with their cyclical designation of that in which the birth of Christ took place. In other words, the Chinese reckoning by cycles, and calling each year in a cycle by a different name, the Kilin was slain and our Saviour born in the corresponding years of two successive cycles. He added, that Confucius wept from an emotion of excessive joy, because he conceived that the advent of the most Holy One was prefigured by this circumstance. From the death of that mysterious animal he might perhaps have conjectured the sufferings of the Messiah, who was led like a lamb to the slaughter through the western gate of Jerusalem.-Vide Faber's Hora Mosaicæ, vol. i. p. 110.

There is little doubt but Confucius had received some distant prospect of the divine system of the Gospel from tradition. The patriarchal tradition had fortunately been preserved in considerable purity in his family; but he perceived with sorrow the degeneracy of China. He claimed no divine commission, and declared that his doctrines were not his own, but those of the ancients handed down by tradition. His system consisted in the simple worship of the God of heaven, and the practice of moral virtue. He lived about 600 years before the Christian æra, the noblest and most divine phi losopher of the pagan world; was himself the innocent occasion of the introduction of the numerous and monstrous idols that in after ages disgraced the temples of China; having in his dying moments encouraged his disconsolate disciples by prophesying, "In the west the Holy One will appear." They concluded that he meant the god Bhood of India, and immediately introduced into China the worship of that deity, with all the train of abominable images and idolatrous rites by which that gross superstition was in so remarkable a manner distinguished. 5 Ind. Ant. 758.

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In the book called Chan- Hai- King, it is said "that the sacred mountain Koncalun was situ

ated in the middle of the world; and all that could be desired,-as wondrous trees, marvellous fountains, and flowery shades,-were found on that sacred hill or hidden garden. This moun tain is the inferior palace of the sovereign lord,, and the animal Kaiming guarded the entry.","

Another book, written by Hoi-ai-nang-wang, in speaking of the first earth, says, "This delicious garden, refreshed with zephyrs, and planted with odoriferous trees, was situated in the middle of the mountain which was the avenue to heaven. The waters that bedewed it flowed. from a source called the fountain of immortality. He that drinks of it never dies. From thence flowed four rivers;-a golden river betwixt the south and east ;-a red river betwixt the north and east; a peaceful stream betwixt the south and west; and the river of the Lamb betwixt the north and west. These magnificent floods are the spiritual fountains of the Sovercign Lord, by which he heals the nations, and fructifies all things."

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In the book Chi-King it is said, "Heaven placed mankind upon a high mountain, but Tai-wang made it fruitless by his fault. Wenwang, or the King of Peace, endeavoured to render to the mountain its primitive beauty; but Tai-wang contradicted and opposed his will.

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