download - Sage's Lore Library

II.
EXPOSITION OF THE ASA DOCTRINE.
CHAPTEE VII.
OF THE INTEEPKETATION OF THE ASA DOOTEINB IN
GENERAL.
Concerning the origin and significance of the Asa
doctrine, there' has been, and still is, a great variety
of opinions.
Taken as a whole, some regard it as a monotheis-
tic SYstem in tVip. I^pgfi'nning' which degenerated into
polytheism by the extraragant fancies of the human
understanding. They look for its first basis either
in an immediate divine revelation, imparted to man-
kind in the beginning, and consequently common to
aU nations and aU religions ;—or else in a purer re-
ligion, which in a remote antiquity was peculiar to
the first progenitors of the Iranic or Indo-European
race, and which, under many corruptions and de-
teriorations, was transmitted through the various
branches of the race, so that the fundamental prin-
ciples are more or less distinctly seen in the reli-
gious systems of all the heathen tribes descended