1850.
Term for Elohim and Theos.
195
rations (and those were long generations) would entirely lose that knowledge of the true God possessed by their ancestors. It has already been noticed that Abraham found a priest of the Most High God, even among the notoriously wicked Canaanites, and a God-fear- ing Philistine in Abimelech. Now turn to Chinese history, and what do we find? Is there not one Being, and but one, revealed in their sacred books, to whom attributes are predicated, and works are ascribed such as belong only to the true God? Let it be added too, that that knowledge of this one Being appears to have been more clearly possessed, and to have exerted a far greater and controling influ- ence about the time that the patriarch Abraham lived, than it does now, or has done for centuries. It is not mere assumption that the Chinese once were monotheists, whatever they now may be; neither is it so, that the Greeks were. As the Greeks had a term sog to dis- tinguish that one Being, so have the Chinese, which is not shin but Shángti."
But the advocates of shin assume it to be an indisputable fact that 80s was the generic term, or common name to designate their objects of worship, and that the author of the Sacred Scriptures sanctioned and employed this term because it was such a generic term, embracing all objects of worship. If however it should appear that the Greek use of dog was not thus extensive in its application, and was not used as an appellative for all their objects of worship, then we are necessarily compelled to seek some other reason, than the one assigned above, on account of which the sacred writers employed it to designate the true God. The fact is that ɛog was not used by the Greeks as a com- mon name for their objects of worship, but only for the highest class of those objects of worship; viz. that class which in their mythology were esteemed divine; 8sos is the term used for that class xal sğoxèv, and for that only. Hence it is the distinguishing title of those objects of worship, which were believed to be Deities by origin, nature, and necessarily. It was not applied to other objects of worship, of which the Greeks had myriads. But shin is not thus limited to the highest class of beings in the Chinese mythology. The whole scope ing adopted by those who advocate shin, indicates that they do not regard the term thus limited, and hence they have claimed for 8; a more extensive application than Greek classical usage sanctions.
of reason-
* See on this subject and the origin of idolatry, a work entitled, “Arts, Scien- ces, and Antiquities of Greece and Rome," Vol. II., under the word “Genius."