IV. The Christian Doctrine of God. — 1. Source. — The Christian idea of God is derived from the Scrip- tures. The statement God is God suffices for the wants of theology in itself, and is given as a com- plete proposition in the Scriptures (Exod. iii, 14 ; Isa. xliii, 12). But the Scriptures afford many indica- tions, not merely as to the character of God, but also as to his nature. The substance of these teachings may be summed up in the statements, God is a Spu'it, God is Love, God is Lord. These statements include the idea of an immaterial, intelligent, and free personal Being, of perfect goodness, wisdom, and power, wlio made the universe and continues to support it, as well as to govern and direct it, bj' his providence. Dr. Adam Clarke gives the following general statement of tlie doctrine of the Great First Cause : " The eter- nal, independent, and self-existent Being; the Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, with- out foreign motive or influence ; he who is absolute in dominion ; the most pure, the most simple, the most spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent, benefi- cent, true, and holy ; the cause of all being, the up- holder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinite- ly perfect; and eternally self-sufficient, needing noth- ing that he has made ; illimitable in his immensity, in- conceivaljle in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence; known I'lilly only to liiniself, because an infinite mind can only be fully comprehended by
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itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wis- dom, can not err or be deceived, and, from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but wliat is eternally just, and right, and kind." The Christian doctrine of God, in its development, involves the idea of the Trinitj' : God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. See Trinity.
2. Connotation of the term God. — The word Qtoc, God, taken to signify "an object of religious venera- tion," was formerly applied to the pretended deities of the heathen, and accordingly' 0f ot," and Deus were employed b}' the promulgators of the Gospel when calling on the heathen to transfer their worship from their idols to Jehovah. But the word "God" has come to signify in Christian use the Maker and Ruler of the world, and is absolutely and exclusiveh' applied to him. There is "one God" in the Christian sense, and there can be but one. "It is not meant merely that we believe this as a. fact, but that it is moreover im- plied in the very meaning we attach to the word. And this is a distinction which should always be carefully attended to. The word ' Mohammedan' means nothing more or less than a believer in Mohammed, though the Christian regards Mohammed as having been in fact an impostor, and the Mohammedans regard him as a true prophet; but neither of these is implied (or connoted) by the word ' Mohammedan' when used b}"^ a Christian. On the contrary, the word ' God' does implj' what has been above stated, as is evident from this : that any one who should deny that there exists any such being as a Maker and Governor of the world, would be con- sidered by Christians not only as in error, but as an Atheist — as holding that there is no God (while whoev- er should affirm the existence of more than one God would be held to be an idolater) ; and this not the less though he should admit the existence of some being superior to man, such as the fairies, demons, nixes, etc., which are still feared by the vulgar in almost all parts of Christendom ; the genii of the Eastern nations, and the gods and goddesses of the ancient heathens, which were all of this description. None of them was ac- counted the 'Creator,' and the births of most of them are recorded in their mythology ; and altogether the notions entertained of them seem to have been very nearly the same as the vulgar superstitions still pre- vailing in most parts of Europe relative to the fairies, etc., these being doubtless no other than the ancient heathen deities of those parts, the belief in their exist- ence and dread of their power having survived the in- troduction of Christianity, though the title of 'gods' has been dropped, as well as the words ' sacrifice' and 'worship' in reference to the offerings, invocations, and other tokens of reverence with which they are still in several places honored. It appears, therefore, that as the ancient heathens denounced the earlj- Christians as Atheists for contemning the heathen deities, so they may be considered as being, in the Christian sense of the word, themselves Atheists (as indeed they are call- ed in Ephes. ii, 12), and that consequently the word * God,' in the Christian sense and in the heathen, must be regarded as having two meanings. Wide, therefore, of the truth is the notion conveyed in Pope's 'Universal Pra^-er,' the Pantheism, as it is called, of the ancient heathen philosophers and the Brahmins of the present daj', who applied the word God to a sup- posed soul of the universe :
" ' Mens agitat moleni, et toto se corpore miscct,'