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СКАЧАТЬ particularly the Persians; and in these traditions we find much that either corroborates the testimony of Holy Writ, or at least affords matter for further comparison. We have before mentioned the very peculiar manner in which the Chinese speak of the great Flood, and how their first progenitors struggled against the savage waters, and how this task was afterwards neglected by bad or improvident rulers, who in consequence of this neglect were brought to ruin.

      I will cite but one instance, where the parallel is indeed remarkable. In the I—King mention is made of the fallen dragon, or of the spirit of the dragon that, for his presumption in wishing to ascend to heaven, was precipitated into the abyss; and the words in which this event is described are precisely the same, or at least very similar to those which our Scriptures apply to the rebel angel, and the Persian books to Ahriman. However this dragon is whimsically, we might almost say, artlessly, made the sacred symbol of the Chinese empire and Emperor. The paternal power of the latter is understood in a much too absolute sense: not only is the Emperor styled the lord of heaven and earth, and even the son of God; but his will it revered as the will of God, or rather completely identified with it; and even the most determined eulogists of the Chinese constitution and manners cannot deny that the monarch is almost the object of a real worship. Christianity teaches that all power is from God; but it does not thereby declare that all power is one and the same with God. Even a dominion over nature and her powers is ascribed to the Emperor of China, as the illustrious lord of heaven and earth.

      Moreover, no hereditary nobility, no classes separated by distinctions of birth, exist in this country, as in India. The Emperor, half identified with the Deity, had alone the privilege in ancient times of offering on the sacred heights the great sacrifice to God. Some European writers have, from this circumstance, conceived the Chinese constitution to be theocratic; but if it be so, it is only in its outward form, or original mould; for it would be difficult to shew in it any trace of a true, vital theocracy. All that pomp of sacred ceremony and religious titles, so strangely abused, forms a striking contrast with real history, and with that long succession of profligate and unfortunate reigns and perpetual revolutions which fill most of the pages of the Chinese annals. We should err greatly were we to regard all these high imperial titles as the mere swell and exaggeration of Eastern phraseology. The Chinese speak of their celestial Empire of the Medium, as they call their country, in terms which no European writer would apply to a Christian state, and such indeed as the Scriptures and religious authors use in reference only to the kingdom of God. They cannot conceive it possible for the earth to contain two emperors at one and the same time, and own the sway of more than one such absolute lord and master. Hence they look on every solemn foreign embassy as a debt of homage; nor is this sentiment the idle effect of vanity, or fancy—it is a firm and settled belief, perfectly coinciding with the whole system of their religious and political doctrines. This political idolatry of the state, which the Chinese identify with the emperor's person, is a pagan error: all excess, all exaggeration is sure to produce opposition and re-action, or a tendency thereto. Hence the pages of Chinese history present by the side of this high boasted ideal of absolute power, as a fearful concomitant, and fitting commentary, one continuous series of political revolutions and catastrophes. Neither the pure morality of those ancient books revered by the Chinese as sacred, whatever be the morality of books in which the principle of rationalism is so exclusively predominant; nor all the high refinement of philosophic speculation in the scientific period of their history, have prevented this people from falling into the grossest of idolatries, and adopting a foreign superstition, which of all false religions is unquestionably the most reprehensible. Some persons have sought to trace a certain resemblance to Christianity in this religion of Fo, partly on account of some external institutions, and partly on account of the fundamental principle of the incarnation, equally perverted and misapplied in this superstition, as in the rival mythology of Brahma. The enemies of Christianity, since the time of Voltaire, have not failed, at the name of Bonzis, to throw out many malicious epigrams against religion. The similarity here observed is not real, but is that caricature resemblance the ape bears to man, and which has led many naturalists into error; for the ape has with man no real affinity, no true internal sympathy in his organic conformation, but merely the likeness of a spiteful parody, such as we may suppose an evil spirit to have devised to mock the image of God—the masterpiece of creation; and indeed the frailties and corruption of degenerate man may well give occasion to such a parody. We may lay it down as a general principle that the greater the apparent resemblance which a false religion, utterly and fundamentally different in its spiritual character, and moral tendency, externally bears to the true, the more reprehensible will it be in itself, and the greater its hostility to the truth. An example near at hand will place the truth of this remark in the clearest light. If, for instance, Mahomet, instead of merely giving himself out as a prophet, had declared he was the son of God, the eternal Word, the incarnate Deity, the true and real Christ, his religious system would certainly have been far more adverse and repulsive to our feelings than it now is, and would have shocked alike every mind trained in the intellectual discipline of Europe, brought up with Christian feelings, and even unconsciously imbued with such. But this is precisely the characteristic feature, the peculiar doctrine of the religion of Buddha; for not only is Buddha himself worshipped as an incarnate divinity, but this prerogative of a divine incarnation has been transmitted to his chief priests through every generation; and thus this personal idolatry has ever been kept alive. In regard to morals, too, a comparison between the religion of the Buddhists and of the Mahometans would be equally disadvantageous to the former. The injurious influence which polygamy, and that degradation of the female sex it necessarily involves, exert on the manners and intellectual character of Mahometan nations, has been often observed, and can never be questioned. But that that other and opposite abuse of marriage, polyandry, which is legally established among the Buddhist nations, is infinitely more repugnant to, and destructive of morality, and more debasing to the male character, must be perceptible to the feelings of every individual, and can require no comment. I do not find, indeed, in the different accounts of China, any mention made of this abominable practice; and it is very possible that in this, as in other cases, the good old customs of the Chinese have had the ascendancy, and preserved their beneficial influence: but in Thibet, the chief seat of Buddhism, in many parts of India, and in other countries where this religion prevails, the unnatural custom exists.

      The writer[46] best versed in the language and writings of the Buddhist Monguls boasts of their superior humanity and mildness of manners, when compared with the Mahometan nations; but this observation must be taken only in a relative sense, and understood of a mere outward polish, and superficial refinement of manner; for history does not show the Monguls to have been at all more humane in their conduct. The indescribable confusion in the mythological system of the Buddhists, their innumerable books of metaphysics, all wearisomely prolix and unintelligible, according to the explicit avowal of the critic just now cited, M. Remusat, prove the essentially false direction of speculation and philosophy among the Buddhists—a philosophy which, by a dialectic or rather ideal course, has been led into a chaos of void abstractions, and a pure nihilism; and more scientific observers have ever judged it to be an absolute system of atheism.

      It would appear that the Nestorians, or other degenerate Christian sects, have exerted some influence on Buddhism, and co-operated in its further development;—so we may well imagine that this exotic influence has not tended to the amelioration or improvement of a religion false in its essence, and fundamentally corrupt; but that its vices and absurdities have remained equally flagrant, or, as it is easy to suppose, have been aggravated in the progress of time.

      This religion of Fo must not be considered as resembling Christianity, because its followers have monastic institutions, and make use of a kind of rosary; but as the political idolatry of the Chinese for their state and sovereign is widely different from the true principle of Christian government, that all power is from God, so this false religion of Buddha is further removed than any other from Christianity: it is on the contrary adverse to our religion, and, so far from being half similar to Christianity, is a decidedly anti-Christian creed.[47]

      We may thus sum up the result of our enquiries:—among the great nations of primitive antiquity who stood the nearest, or at least very near, to the source of sacred tradition—the word of СКАЧАТЬ