that there was no
God with him (Deut. xxxii. 39), which the prophets afterwards wrought out
into a simple monotheism. "I am God, and there is no other God beside me"
(Isaiah xliv. 8). Therefore, though Moses did not assert in terms a simple
monotheism, he taught what contained the essential germ of that idea.

This one God, supreme and infinite, was also so spiritual that no idol, no
statue, was to be made as his symbol. He was a God of truth and stern
justice, visiting the sins of parents on the children to the third and
fourth generation of those who hated him, but showing mercy to thousands
of those who loved and obeyed him. He was a God who was merciful,
long-suffering, gracious, repenting him of the evil, and seeking still to
pardon and to bless his people. No doubt there is anthropomorphism in
Moses. But if man is made in God's image, then God is in man's image too,
and we _must_, if we think of him as a living and real God, think of him
as possessing emotions like our human emotions of love, pity, sorrow,
anger, only purified from their grossness and narrowness.

Human actions and human passions are no doubt ascribed by Moses to God. A
good deal of criticism has been expended upon the Jewish Scriptures by
those who think that philosophy consists in making God as different and
distant from man as possible, and so prefer to speak of him as Deity,
Providence, and Nature. But it is only because man is made in the image of
God that he can revere God at all. Jacobi says that, "God, in creating,
_theo_morphizes man; man, therefore, necessarily _anthropo_morphizes God."
And Swedenborg teaches that God is a man, since man was made in the image
of God. Whenever we think of God as present and living, when we ascribe to
him pleasure and displeasure, liking and disliking, thinking, feeling, and
willing, we make him like a man. And _not_ to do this may be speculative
theism, but is practical atheism. Moses forbade the Jews to make any image
or likeness of God, yet the Pentateuch speaks of his jealousy, wrath,
repentance; he hardens Pharaoh's heart, changes his mind about Balaam, and
comes down from heaven in order to see if the people of Sodom were as
wicked as they were represented to be. These views are limitations to the
perfections of the Deity, and so far the views of Moses were limited. But
this is also the strong language of poetry, which expresses in a striking
and practical way the personality, holiness, and constant p