188
Term for Elohim and Theos.
APRIL,
New Testament should have rejected bɛg. On the same principle may we with as much reason reject our holy religion, because it has been made the occasion and instrument of tyranny, oppression and shedding of blood,—abused to the worst of purposes. If ti be a fit, although abused and misapplied term, shall we not rather rein- state it in its once preeminent position, and through it reveal the true character of the One and the Supreme as Chinese records of early ages speak of One, whom there will probably be no great error in recogniz- ing as the God of Abraham, and of whom the patriarch found the fear and worship even in the land of Canaan; as also one who is recorded to have been the priest of this Most High God. May not Yáu and Shun and the people of their times, who may probably as early and even earlier than Abraham and Melchisedec, have possessed know- ledge of the true God, such as Abraham found in Canaan, derived too from the same source?
3. But is used as a generic term for Deity by the Chinese? Is it an appellative for a class of beings regarded divine, and not the name merely of an individual? If the Chinese in their theological opinions have conceived of such a class, tí is the only distinguishing title for such a family. There is no other term generic and used xa?” sğox”* for Deity. So that searching after such a term, if it be not found here is like a search for the philosopher's stone-for what does not exist. Then, if such generic term be absolutely indispensable in order to translate the Holy Bible, the revising committee at Shánghái may as well give up their work. Whence this necessity?
Whence this necessity? Is it so, that the Author of the Sacred Scriptures has so constructed them, that a people must of necessity be polytheists, and have a family of Gods, and a generic name for that family, before there is a possibility of trans- lating the sacred oracles into their language? If people never had the idea of the existence of more than one Divine being, though they are gross idolaters, by offering religious worship to ten thousand of crea- tures, possibly not paying any worship at all to that one being regarded divine; how could the language of such a people afford a term at once generic and x¤13 s§¤xiv for God? Is not such a case quite supposable? Such indeed seems to have been the religious position of the North American Indians. They venerated, but did not worship the one Great Spirit, which in their language would become the term for God by way of eminence while they avowedly did offer religious worship to innumerable evil spirits. But as they acknowledge only one Great Spirit there consequently could be in their language no generic term for God, as of a class of beings regarded divine, and yet translations of
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