Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/160

156 astronomers to the Creator in the greetings at New Year and new Moon; the homage to the Race-Preserver, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the homage to the Eternal Reign of Love the Inspirer, in the oft-recurring anthem: "Adonai reigneth, Adonai hath reigned, Adonai shall reign for ever and ever."

That the startling effect of these three elements of Jewish worship, so contrasted and yet so exquisitely blended, should have driven Christian theologians out of their senses, and into mad raptures of delight and wonder, is intelligible. That they should, in consequence, have written much caressing rhapsody, more poetic than accurate, about the Jewish Scriptures, is pardonable; there are occasions on which it is not to one's credit to be able to keep quite prosaically sane; and one's first contact with the Hebrew religion is one of those occasions. But the creed of Israël is very evidently a caution to avoid the horrible dangers into which the heathen fell by dividing the different facets of divine influence; and the statement that Moses meant Jews to worship more than one Person, passes the legitimate limits of even poetic license.

The true use of the Trinity-doctrine is as a standard whereby to judge whether we are really getting for our own minds the vitalizing influence of the Unity-doctrine. Whatever facet of the God-idea is presented to us by our studies, we should be careful to remember the other aspects when we are preparing for repose. We should remember the essential Unity between the three facets; a Unity such that we cannot keep our minds in a condition to do justice to our own special subject, unless we pay reverence to all three aspects of the Divine