of the more refined and metaphysical, as the

Ericapaus, Phanes, and Metis

of the Orphic. This was the Amun Ra of the Egyptians, who assumed to himself the emblems, and proceeded in the

the triple Brahm of the Indians-
the triple Mithras of the Persians-
the triple Hercules of Tyre-
and the triune Tanga tanga,

the Father Son, Son Sun, and

Brother Sun of the Peruvians-

powers, the Life or Emotions, the Intellect, and the Will or Power of action, in analogy to the three persons of the Solar Triad.

* With respect to the Egyptian names, I have no doubt the following were of Hebrew original, л NРhH, Spirit or breath, as Nef; 18 AUR Light, as Horus; and ' SDI, or soft as SThI, or, as the Masorites point it, Shaddai, signifying all-powerful, or Almighty, as Sothi or Seth.

and the deity, to whom the triple compound vahan of the Eagle, the Lion, and the Bull, was originally consecrated.

Clear as the preceding induction may appear thus far, we now meet with a difficulty, viz. that Brahma, Phthah, or Phanes, was in all the systems regarded as the Son of the Etherial principle, and at the same time as himself the Triad ; which appears in some measure at variance with the preceding conclusion. But if we turn to the Scriptures, we shall find that which will throw light upon every part, and reduce to order every anomaly.

From the widely dispersed traditions upon the subject, it is manifest, that the circumstances of the Creation and of the Deluge were well known to all mankind previously to the dispersion: and the writings of Moses give to the chosen people, not so much a new revelation, as a detailed, authenticated, and inspired

G

account of circumstances, which had then become partially obscured by time, and abused by superstition. The formless watery Chaos, and the Etherial substance of the heavens, enfolding and passing over its surface as a mighty wind, are the first principles both of the sacred and profane cosmogonies. By Moses they are reclaimed, as the materials created by the immediate agency of a superior Almighty Power: but Heathenism was a Pantheistic system, and by the Gentiles, they were regarded as two primeval principles of the nature of Male and Female, as Mind and Matter, which had independently existed, of themselves, from all eternity; and, which before the reorganization of a new world, lay motionless, as a watery Chaos, boundless and without form, over which the Ether hung in darkness, as the ancient night, or Erebus of the poets; but which, upon the reorganization of the world, were held to constitute, in mystic

union, the great Hermaphroditic deity of the Heathens, the One, the Universe itself.

The first operation which occurred according to the Sacred historian, was, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; and God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light." But according to the heathen accounts, from the dark Ether, which lay motionless above the Chaos, the Light sprung forth; and the Chaos assumed under its plastic Power, the form of an Egg, or Globe. This light was the Brahma, Phanes, Horus, Phthah, or Mithras, of the Heathens. And it has been well suggested, by many of the old writers, that the meaning of the Hebrew passage is, that God caused the overhanging Ether, or mixture of all the Etherial

* Erebus signifies Evening and Mixture; and is so applied iu Sanchoniatho: and, indeed, it signified the dark etherial mixture in all the Heathen Theologists.

elements to assume a motion, circulating round the chaotic mass, and that from this motion, the Light was not created, but beamed forth; and was used by the Creator as the material instrument, by which his subsequent operations were carried into execution, and the earth arranged in all its forms and beauty.

We are then instructed, that in the Heavens was set a tabernacle for the sun, or solar fluid, from which it thenceforth proceeded as from a centre. In the Heathen accounts, the Phanes, who had hitherto appeared but in the character of Light, becomes the Sun, the soul, and ruler of the world; which, while the ancient Ether was passed over, according to some systems, in silent meditation, was the great object of the Heathen worship, and was venerated in the triple capacity of Fire at its orb, of Light proceeding from it, and of Spirit, or Ether,