1850.
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Defense of an Essay, &c.
627
This phrase is compounded of an adjective and an appellative noun, and therefore will not convey the idea that the being so called is wholly sui generis; but will, on the contrary, only affirm that he is the supreme one, or greatest of the species called by this common appellative, and thus it will not exclude the existence of the others of the species implied by the use of the appellative noun, but only the existence of two supreme ones " of said species. Now the monotheism taught in the Bible is, that there is but one God, i. e. there is absolutely (if I may so speak) but one of this species: the assertion, therefore, that "There is but one supreme Ruler" will never answer to convey this meaning. It will not prevent the Chinese from recognizing the ex- istence of any number of other tí, for it only declares that there is but one supreme ti," and on the subject of their gods, it says not a word. This phrase shúngti labors under the double disadvantage of not answering to the word god, whether understood propriè or impropriè ; for the being called by the Chinese Shangti, differs in essential characteristics, from the being we Christians call God; on the other hand, it is not the appellative name of the Chinese gods, and can not, therefore, be used as the word Elohim in the O. T. is, to forbid the reigning polytheism.
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But apart from the objections to the phrase Shángtí, on the score of its past uses, it is a most unsuitable phrase to be chosen as the basis for making, by our usus loquendi, a word in all respects like to our word God. Being a compound phrase, the qualifying force of its adjective will resist its conversion into a simple word like the word God; being a relative term, it is unfit for many of the uses to which Christians apply the word God-e. g. to speak of His eternal, neces- sary, existence &c. Implying office merely, and not nature, it is wholly unsuitable to express the doctrine of the Trinity, or that of the divine nature of our blessed Savior. And lastly, we insist upon the fact that Shang-tí is the distinctive title of a definite Chinese god, and this god is a false god. Dr. Legge may affirm that "the Shing- tí of the Chinese people is God over all blessed for ever;" but unless he proves that this Shángtí existed from eternity, and that he made the heavens and the earth, we must on the contrary declare with the prophet that "the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth,
[* On_page 281, we asserted "that Shangtí is a proper name;" and also on page 2:6, remarked that Shángtí became a proper name for God as used in the preceding article. This last is called by Dr. Legge in his Letters, the "proton pseudos which has led many missionaries astray;" and the first assertion a mere dictuin, for which no proof is given. We think the proof for both these remarks is amply given by Dr. Boone in these paragraphıs ―Ed. Chi. Rep.]