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Defense of an Essay, &c.
Jety.
Heaven, Reason ; not that which belongs to man, and which is but the effect of that, but the primitive, which is the first principle and the necessary cause of all things. To respect this Reason, is to follow it; just as we respect fate (le destin), not by prayers and honors, but by submitting ourselves to its laws. Fate (sc. ) say they, is marked out by Heaven; i. e. by the primitive Reason (sc. táu
, which is the first principle of all things. In truth it (Reason) acts blindly; but the same necessity which renders it blind, renders it also infallible. It in it which is fate, inasmuch as it acts necessarily. This is the doctrine which the Missionaries (of the Church of Rome) have called the atheo-political." In his account of the state religion, he specifies the objects of worship as follows:-
"It is well here to observe, that the religion of the philosophical sect of China (i. e. the Confucian, or state religion) does not exclude sacrifices, which on the contrary are quite numerous. To speak here only of the principal or Imperial sacrifices, there is one for Heaven (le Ciel), for the Earth, and the ancestors of the emperors; for the tutelary spirit (Shin) or Genius of arable lands, and for the tutelary Genius (Shin) of the grains of the empire; these are sacrificed to at the same time. There are also sacrifices for the five principal moun- tains of the empire; for the five tutelary mountains, for the four seas, and the four rivers. They sacrifice at the sepulchres of the illustrious emperors of past dynasties, and at the temple dedicated to Confucius in the place of his birth, and to other sages and heroes. All these sacrifices are made by the emperor himself, or by his orders. More- over when the emperor is about to march himself on any military expedition, he sacrifices to the spirit (shin) of the standards, and they stain the standards and drums with the blood of the victims.”
No one, from this account of the state religion of China, as given by Dr. Morrison and M. Visdelou, can make out that the Chinese are worshipers of the true God; nor, we should think, after reading it, could resist the impression, that his imperial Majesty and those who join with him in this worship, are wholly ignorant of the being we Christians call God.
But, it is said, in high antiquity, the Chinese had much more knowledge of God than they have at present. Of this assertion I have never seen any proof produced from the ancient books that have come down to us. We have already seen what is to be found in the Yih King, which treats of physics and metaphysics, on this subject. Its uniform doctrine is, that heaveu and earth generated all things; I say ‘uniform doctrine,' for in the sentence quoted from
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