Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 615

1850.

Defense of an Essay, &c.

573

Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

These definitions all agree; for the words “without body, parts or passions" are a mere periphrasis for the word spirit. According to these definitions, God is a spiritual being, or essence, possessed of cer- tain attributes which distinguish Him from all other spirits. Should it therefore be affirmed of any being that he is God (propriè), the first question should be, Is he a pure spirit, or a compound, corporeal be- ing? Next, Is he a Spirit, “ and of himself infinite in being, all-suf- ficient, eternal," &c., &c. ?*

The Chinese Tien, Heaven, the Supreme Ruler, tried by these characteristics as a test, is not God (propriè). He is not self-existent from eternity; he is not the first principle of all things, the making of the heavens and the earth being ascribed to another agency than his by Confucius and his disciples, who teach us all that the Chinese have predicated of him. This, I think, has been sufficiently shown in the previous part of this Defense.

The question then arises, If the Chinese have no being who is tru- ly and properly God, no word in their language which answers to God (propriè), can they have any word that will answer for the rendering of Elohim and sos into Chinese? To this question I answer unhesi- tatingly, Yes; it is quite possible for a people to have had a subject be- fore their minds for centuries, to have discoursed and written much about it, and yet never to have discovered the truth concerning it. It is quite possible for a people, who do not know the true God, to have thought much about the subject of Deity in general, to have a general name for their false gods, and to have sinned greatly against the true God, by the worship of these false ones.

If we look into the argument for the existence of God from the general consent of mankind, as it is presented by most writers, we shall find that the passages cited to prove this point, most of them, refer to this general view of the subject, and do not show that heathen na- tions generally have believed in a simple, self-existent, spiritual being, the Creator of the world and the author of all other beings.

Calvin, in his Institutes, writing on this point, thus expresses himself; "Certainly, if there is any quarter, where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes, furthest removed from civilization; but, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not fo

* See Appendix A.

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