ntre of a
sphere? No man who had clearly perceived the unity of God, could say
with the Psalmist (lxxxvi. 8), 'Among the gods there is none like unto
Thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto Thy works.' Though
the same poet says, 'Thou art God alone,' he could not have compared
God with other gods, if his idea of God had really reached that
all-embracing character which it had with Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and
Jeremiah. Nor would God have been praised as the 'great king above all
gods' by a poet in whose eyes the gods of the heathen had been
recognised as what they were--mighty shadows, thrown by the mighty
works of God, and intercepting for a time the pure light of the
Godhead.

We thus arrive at a different conviction from that which M. Renan has
made the basis of the history of the Semitic race. We can see nothing
that would justify the admission of a monotheistic instinct, granted
to the Semitic, and withheld from the Aryan race. They both share in
the primitive intuition of God, they are both exposed to dangers in
framing names for God, and they both fall into polytheism. What is
peculiar to the Aryan race is their mythological phraseology,
superadded to their polytheism; what is peculiar to the Semitic race
is their belief in a national god--in a god chosen by his people as
his people had been chosen by him.

No doubt, M. Renan might say that we ignored his problem, and that we
have not removed the difficulties which drove him to the admission of
a monotheistic instinct. How is the fact to be explained, he might
ask, that the three great religions of the world in which the unity of
the Deity forms the key-note, are of Semitic origin, and that the
Aryan nations, wherever they have been brought to a worship of the One
God, invoke Him with names borrowed from the Semitic languages?

But let us look more closely at the facts before we venture on
theories. Mohammedanism, no doubt, is a Semitic religion, and its very
core is monotheism. But did Mohammed invent monotheism? Did he invent
even a new name of God? (Renan, p. 23.) Not at all. His object was to
destroy the idolatry of the Semitic tribes of Arabia, to dethrone the
angels, the Jin, the sons and daughters who had been assigned to
Allah, and to restore the faith of Abraham in one God. (Renan, p. 37.)

And how is it with Christianity? Did Christ come to preach a faith in
a new God? Did He or His disciples invent a new name of God? No,
Christ came not