III. That both worship and service is due to God : ' Him shalt thou worship, and him shalt thou serve.' The worship of God is both in- ternal and external : the internal consisteth in that love and reverence which we owe to him; the external, in those offices and duties by which our honour and respect to God is signified and expressed : both are necessary, both believing with the heart, and confession with the mouth: Eom. X. 9, 10, ' If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.' The soul and life of our worship and godliness lieth in our faith, love, reverence, and delight in God above all other things ; the visible expression of it is in invocation, thanksgiving, prayers, and sacraments, and other acts of outward worship. Now, it is not enough that we own God with the heart, but we must own him with the body also. In the heart : ' Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling,' Ps. ii. 11. Such as will become the greatness and goodness of God ; with outward and bodily worship you must now own him in all those prescribed duties in which these affections are acted. The spirit must be in it, and the body also. There are two extremes. Some confine all their respect to God to bodily worship and external forms : Mat. xvi. 8, ' This people draw- eth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their hearts are far from me.' They use the external rites of worship, but their affections are no way suited to the God whom they worship : it is the heart must be the principal and chief agent in the business, without which it is but the carcase of a duty, without the life and the soul. The other extreme is, that we are not called to an external bodily worship under the gospel. Why did he then appoint the ordinances of preaching, prayer, singing of psalms, baptism, and the Lord's supper ? God, that made the whole man, body and soul, must be worshipped of the whole man. Therefore, besides the inward affections, there must be external actions, whereby we express our respect and reverence to God.
IV. That both these, religious worship and service, are due to God alone. I prove it by these arguments : —
1. Those things which are due to God as God are due to him alone, and no creature, without sacrilege, can claim any part and fellowship in that worship and adoration, neither can it be given to any creature with-
Mat. IV. 10.] chkist's temptation. 319
out idolatry. But now religious worship and service is due to God as God: ' He is thy Lord, and worship thou him,' Ps. xlv. 11. Our worship and service is due to him, not only for his super-eminent excellency, but because of our creation, preservation, and redemption. Therefore we must worship and serve him, and him only : Isa. xlii. 8, ' I am the Lord; that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, nor my praise to graven images.' God challengeth it as Jehovah, the great self-being, from whom we have received life and breath, and all things. This glory God will not suffer to be given to another. And therefore the apostle showeth the wretched estate of the Galatians, chap. iv. 8 : ' When ye knew not God, ye did service to them that by nature are no gods;' that is, they worshipped for gods those things which really were no gods. There is no land of religious worship or service, under any name whatsoever, to be given to any creature, but to God only ; for what is due to the Creator as Creator cannot be given to the creature.
2. The nature of rehgious worship is such, that it cannot be ter- minated on any object but God ; for it is a profession of our depend- ence and subjection. .Now, whatever invisible power this worship is tendered unto must be omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. Omni- scient, who knows the thoughts, cogitations, secret purposes of our heart, which God alone doth : 1 Kings viii. 39, ' Give unto every one according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest ; for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men.' It is God's pre- rogative to know the inward motions and thoughts of the heart, whether they be sincere or no in their professions of dependence and subjection. So omnipresent, that he may be ready at hand to help us and relieve us : Jer. xxiii. 23, 24, ' Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him ? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord.' The palace of heaven doth not so confine him and enclose him but that he is present everywhere by his essential presence, and powerful and efficacious providence. Besides omnipotent : Ps. Ivii. 2, ' I will cry unto God most high, unto God who performeth all things for me.' Alas ! what a cold formality were prayer if we should speak to those that know us not, and who are not near to help us, or have no suffi- ciency of power to help us ! Therefore these professions of dependence and subjection must be made to God alone.