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Defense of an Essay, &c.

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and that we are to understand from the sentence above quoted, that God promised to make Moses really and truly a God, the consequences are quite as serious on Dr. L.'s theory as on my own. He says the correlatives are “God and creatures;” the Supreme Being is "constituted God by the act of creation; “God is a relative term expressing a relation of which the one party could only be the Supreme Being." Now then, did Jehovah make Moses and Pharaoh to stand to each other in the relation of Creator and creature? By what act of creation was Moses constituted God? If the party sustaining the relationship called God "could only be the Supreme Being," was Moses changed into this Being? These absurdities are inevitable if the word God is here to be understood propriè ; but if we admit that it is used metaphorically, then the fact that Moses is called a God presents no difficulty to our regarding this word as an absolute term; for I have above given instances of the absolute nouns “mun" and "woman," to express the relation of husband and wife; and these words are also used by way of metaphor to express the qualities which distinguish men and women: e. g. when we exhort a boy to "be a man," or call a man “an old woman;” and yet no one would contend that because of this usage the words "man" and "woman" have ceased to be absolute appellative nouns.

If Dr. L had paused a moment to reflect upon the character of the absur- dity with which he wished to press his adversaries, he must, it seems to me, have seen that, if the word was to be understood propriè, the difficulty was equally great on either supposition; and that, if used metaphorically, the difficulty was at an end for both.

This point, viz. that the name God is a mere relative term, on which Dr. L. relics, and which he admits is essential to the success of Shángti, was much relied on, to sustain their views, by Dr. Clarke and his fellow Arians, who, in the early part of the 18th century disturbed the peace of the English Church, and brought on the most able discussion with respect to our Lord's Divinity that has been held in the English langugc. To show the similarity of Dr. Legge's views to those of these writers, and at the same time to give a conclusive answer to them from one of our most sound and learned Divines, I will quote a few paragraphs from Waterland's Works.

“Dr. Clarke would indeed persuade us, that the proper Scripture notion of God is dominion; and that therefore any person having doininion, is, accord- ing to the Scripture notion, truly and properly God. This shall be exninined; but it will be convenient here to set down the Doctor's own words. The word (505, God, has in Scripture, and in all books of morality and religion, a relative signification; and not, as in metaphysical books, an absolute one: as is evident from the relative terms, which in moral writings may always be joined with it. For instance, in the same manner as we say, my Father, my King, and the like; so it is proper also to say my God, the God of Israel, the God of the uni- verse, and the like: which words are expressive of dominion and government. But in the metaphysical way, it can not be said, ' my infinite substance,' the 'in- finite substance of Israel, or the like. He repeats the observation (p. 290); and is very positive that the word God in Scripture is always a relative word of office, giving the same pretty reason for it as before. This shall be carefully considered, and the manner of speaking accounted for in the sequel.

"I shall only observe here, by the way, that the word star is a relative word, for the same reason with that which the Doctor gives for the other. For, the