an Tyrian district, there were
originally three great gods, at the head of which appears Astarte--a
woman who represents pure reason or intelligence; then follows Zeus,
Demarius, and Adorus. Without doubt this triad represents a monad Deity
similar in character to the one observed in Egypt and other countries.

In the minds of all well-informed persons, there is no longer any doubt
that in Abraham's time the Canaanites worshipped the same gods as did
the Persians and all the other nations about them--namely, Elohim,
the dual or triune creative force in Nature. As the Sun was the
source whence proceeded all light and life as well as reproductive or
generative power, it had become the object of adoration, and as the
emblem of the Deity, it was worshipped by all the nations of the
earth in its three capacities as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer or
Regenerator each female and male.

Melchizedek, who was a priest of the most high God, blessed Abraham, who
was a worshipper of the same Deity. On this subject Dr. Shuckford says:

"It is evident that Abraham and his descendants worshipped not only the
true and living God, but they invoked him in the name of the Lord, and
they worshipped the Lord whose name they invoked, so that two persons
were the object of their worship, God and this Lord: and the Scriptures
have distinguished these two persons from one another by this
circumstance, that God no man hath seen at any time nor can see but
the Lord whom Abraham and his descendants worshipped was the person who
appeared to them."

We are told that when chap. xxi., verse 33, of Genesis is correctly
translated, Abraham is represented as having invoked Jehovah, the
everlasting God.

In the Hebrew name Yod-He-Vau (Jehovah), was set forth the triune
character of the Creator; in other words, this name "comprehended
the essential perfections of the great God," and was used in their
Scriptures as a "kind of summary or revelation of the attributes of the
Deity."

Although Abraham, while in Egypt, was the worshipper of idols, we
are assured that "the peculiar privilege vouchsafed to him lay in the
revelation of God's holy name, Yod-He-Vau." There is indeed much evidence
going to prove that the people represented by Abraham understood the
earlier conception of a Deity, and that while the great universal
principle whose name it was sacrilege to pronounce was still
acknowledged, there was another God (the Lord), the same as in China,