Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 624

582

not.

Defense of an Essay, &c.

Nor.

Confine our view to nature only with its endless variations, and what is there unnatural in admitting the whole hierarchy of Olympus? Nay, history and present experience prove, that under such circum- stances, the polytheistic hypothesis is by far the most acceptable to the human understanding. Even on this ground, however, the chief share in the argument is derived from the mind or the consciousness. The irresistible belief we have of causation is a primary law of our con- sciousness, and the first attempt we make to hypostatize the cause of the universe around us, is the transference of our own forms of intel- ligence, and our own personality into the conception of that vast archi- tect, or hierarchy of architects, by whom the world was constructed. The theistic argument then in which the appeal to nature is the pro- minent feature, ends at best in the idea of a Anшoupyos.”*

;

Men thus working out for themselves polytheistic systems every- where, we fiud false gods in possession of the field, and in teaching them monotheism, it is as in teaching men to become good-we meet them in a state the opposite of that to which we desire to lead them as in the one case we must say, cease to do evil, learn to do well,” so in the other, the burden of our preaching must be, “put away your false gods; learn to love, honor, and adore Jehovah the true God." To enforce this exhortation, it seems plain to me, Jehovah must be called by the same name as the false gods who are to be put away. He is the truth of the very thing of which they are the falsehood; and we shall succeed most easily in conveying to polytheists a general correct idea of Him, by representing Him as taking the place of all their gods, rather than that of any particular one, however exalted that one may be. We must teach that He can afford them protec- tion, succor, &c.—yea, and tea thousand times more than all their gods put together were ever supposed to afford; that He is the alone God, there is no place left for any other: hence, we give Him the common name of all, and write over our system mono-theism.

While this general name is the best word by which to teach a peo- ple who have hitherto been ignorant of Him, a knowledge of the true God, the use of this word is absolutely necessary to forbid the false worship in which they have previously indulged. The great sin with which a missionary must charge a polytheistic people, the sin which, when God pours out his Spirit, and carries home the preached word to the hearts of his heathen hearers, they will feel more deeply than all others, is that of having worshiped false gods to the dishonoring

Morrell's History of Modern Philosophy, page 739.