Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 631

1850.

Defense of an Essay, &c.

589

In his Letters, at p. 21, Dr. L. says, "We worship because of the qualities we apprehend in the object of our adoration. These fill us with awe, and of that awe, worship is the fitting expression." That this is the correct theory of worship will perhaps be denied by none. Dr. South, in his Sermon on "Natural Religion," says,

"The ground and reason of all worship is an opinion of power and will in the persou worshiped to answer and supply our desires; which he can not possi- bly do unless he first apprehend them.” And this, I conceive, to be the reason at once why worship is the best test by which to distin- guish between a god and a mere spirit; and why it is emphatically that "glory" which God will not give to another. To suppose that an invisible being can "apprehend,” attend to, and answer the pray- ers of all his votaries in all parts of the world, is investing hin with attributes of infinity, such as omnipresence, omniscience, &c., &c.; and when you add to this, what the Chinese predicate of their Shin, and what seems to be implied in all religious worship, such a know. ledge of the thoughts and purposes of the human heart that the object worshiped can not be imposed upon by an insincere worshiper; we perceive that the act of worship implies a belief of the existence of many attributes in the object worshiped, which can belong properly to the true God only, and which it is robbing him of “his glory” to ascribe to any other being.

Let us, for instance, take the case of the Tsai Shin, , god of Wealth, who, though not of high rank, is yet perhaps more worshiped than any other shin in China. This shin, we may suppose, is often

Medhurst says, while the others have not. But where are we to look for the proofs that the shin possess these attributes? I answer, To the acts of their worshipers, that we may learn how they regard them, as it is only in their minds that they have any existence at all. The proof to be made of the differ- entia in this case is similar to that in the case of murder, in remarking on which Dr. Whately observes "that the differentia which constitutes the species, and the mark by which the species are known (in some cases) are not the same: e. g. Murder the differentia of which is, that it be committed with malice of forethought; this can not be directly ascertained; and therefore we distinguish murder from any other homicide by circumstances of preparation, &c., which are not in reality the differentia, but indications of the differentia, i. e. the grounds for concluding that the malice did exist." So in this case; while we admit the differentia to be "divine attributes," if Dr. Medhurst pleases, we propose “religious worship" as the "mark," the circumstance which serves as an "indication of the differentia," "the ground for our concluding" that "the divine attributes" are possessed by this imaginary being, as he stands complete in the mind of his worshiper, the only place where he has any existence. We have never proposed religious worship as the only mark of distinction between a Being who is truly and properly God and a mere spirit. To make out a being to be God propriè, we propose to Dr. Legge to show that he is a self- existent spirit, the author of all other spirits, and of everything extrinsic to himself.