Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 632

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Defense of an Essay, &c.

Nov.

called on at the same moment by many thousands, who are separated hundreds of miles apart. The knowledge of human hearts he must be supposed to have to attend to, and appreciate all these prayers, and the control he must have of all sublunary affairs to enable him to cause matters to work together for the wealth of all who worship him, must be most absolute, and imply power little short of infinite. Now it would appear that this dependence upon any beings without the com- pass of civil intercourse, this calling upon them for help, this belief in their ability to hear and answer our prayers, is that which constitutes the violation of the First Commandment, and which makes the beings so regarded gods in the eye of this commandment and throughout the Scriptures; and it is this saine point that Cudworth, Mosheim, and Waterland regard as the distinctive characteristic of the gods of pagan Greece and Rome.

If we are not to contend about mere words, we must agree upon some test by which the claim of Shángtí to be considered the true God, and of shin to be the general name of the Chinese gods may be tried respectively. I have proposed tests for trying the claims of both, not framed by myself to suit my own purposes in this controversy, but quoted from the works of the most learned men that have written on these subjects. If Drs. Medhurst and Legge do not agree to these tests, let them be set aside by argument, and let something definite be pro- posed in their place. Let them furnish a definition of the word God, when used propriè, that shall commend itself to the judgment of those who are interested in this controversy, and then show that the Chinese Tien is truly and properly God, according to this definition; or, let them give us a definition of the word god, gods, that will not cut off the Greek and Roman gods as well as the Elohim of the Old Testa- ment, and I will engage to stand to it. If any other attribute than that of being supposed a proper object of worship is necessary to constitute a god in the eyes of polytheists, and they will mention it, I think I may venture to promise that we will prove the Shin have this or these attributes also. But to convince us that worship is the characteristic mark of a god, we need only look at the 30,000 gods of the Greeks and Romans, and to the Elohim of the Old Testament, and endeavor to find anything else that is common to them all. Therefore we say, that if we wish to distinguish between mere spirits and gods, the test is worship; the worshiped spirit is a god, and this applies even to in- animate things, to wooden images-a worshiped image is a god, r. g. Is. xliv. 17, “And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his gra- ven image; he falleth down unto it and worshipeth it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god."

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