434
Defense of an Essay, &c.
AUG.
that if we have occasion to speak of several relations sustained by the same subject, we inust designate the subject of which we would pre- dicate these relations, by its absolute name, the name by which we call "an object when considered as a whole," and not by the name of any of these relations. For instance, we may say, This man is my father, her husband, his uncle, &c., &c.; he is a lawyer, merchant, European, Englishman, &c., &c. ; but we could not predicate all these several relationships of this same subject, if we designated him by the name of any one of these relations. We could not say, This father is a husband, uncle, lawyer, Englishman, &c. So here, I contend, we can not, as the rendering of the word God, use the name of any one of the relations he sustains to us (e. g. Supreme Ruler), because no relative term can be used to express all the various relations that God sustains to us and to his other creatures, as I have illustrated in the case of the word man. If Dr. L. should, therefore, succeed in proving to our satisfaction that the Being, whom the Chinese designate by the term Shángtí, is to be regarded as truly and properly God, I would still object, as I said above, to the use of this phrase to render Elohim and ɛoç, on the ground that Shángtí is a relative term, and not the absolute name of this Being.
Relative terms, Dr. L. tells us, express the idea "of a dignity or office common to many individuals;....they do not indicate the es- sence;" it becomes therefore a question of much interest to inquire, what being it is that the Chinese call "the Supreme Ruler," or "Ruler on high." In my Essay I stated that this being was Tien, Heaven, the chief god of the Chinese, and that Shangti was used as one of the titles of this being.
On this point, Dr. L. is very sensitive. Referring to this opinion of mine, he says, "Turning to the 46th page of the Essay, we find that Dr. Boone, to support the idea he is there advocating, quotes and com- ments as follows: 'In the Shi King, Siáu-yé, Ching-yuch section, p. 21, we are expressly told that Shángti is the God of Heaven, Shángtí t'ien chí shin ye
This is wonder-
ĦŻ
ful. Heaven is the chief god of the Chinese. Then Shángtí is the god of the chief god. Vail bonnet,' as Chillingworth says, O chief god, to your chief. It does not matter though your chief be only your own title. Thus and thus we are expressly told,' and though it seems rather an unreasonable requisition to you, there is no help for it. Ah, chief god! I am afraid you are like some great men upon the earth, vain of their little elevation, and worshipers of their sounding titics!" He then with great naïveté adds, "I really do not know in