SSO VINDICI^ EVANGELICiE,
It is, then, on all hands concluded that Jesus Christ is to be wor- shipped with divine and religious worship, due to God only.
Fixing this as a common and indisputable principle, I shall sub- join and prove these two assertions: — 1. In general, Divine worship is not to be ascribed to any that is not God hy nature, who is not partaker of the divine essence and being. 2. In particular, Jesus Christ is not to be worshipped on the account of the power and authority which he hath received from God as mediator, but solely on the account of his being "God, blessed for ever."^ And this is all that is required in answer to this tenth chapter of Mr B. What follows on the heads mentioned is for the farther satisfaction of the reader in these things upon the occasion administered, and for his assistance to the obviating of some other Sociuian sophisms that he may meet withal. I shall be brief in them both.
For the first, Divine worship is not to he ascribed to them whom God will certainly destroy. He will not have us to worship them whom himself hateth. But, now, all gods that have not made the heavens and the earth he will destroy from under these heavens: Jer. X. 11, "Thus shall ye say unto them. The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." It is a thing that God would have the nations take notice of, and therefore is it written in the Chaldee dialect in the original, that they who were principally con- cerned in those days might take the more notice of it. And it is an instruction that God put into the mouths of the meaaiest of his people, that they should say it to them : " Say ye to them." And the asser- tion is universal, to all whomsoever that have not made the heavens and earth, — and so is applicable to the Socinians' Christ. A god they vsay he is, as Elijah said of Baal, 1 Kings xviii. 27; he is made so: but that he made the heavens and earth they deny; and therefore he is so far from having any right to be worshipped, that God hath threatened he shall be destroyed.
Again ; the apostle reckons it among the sins of the Gentiles that "they worshipped them who by nature were no gods," Gal. iv. 8,'^ from which we are delivered by the knowledge of God in the gospel. And the weight of the apostle's assertion of the sin of the Gentiles lies in this, that by nature they were not gods who were worshipped. So that this is a thing indispensable, that divine worship should not be given to any who is not God by nature ; and surely we are not called in the gospel to the practice of that which is the greatest sin of the heathens, that know not God. And to manifest that this is a
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Ov iriSiT \iro6iQii ol/pavion y'oyiv — Gregor. Theol. ' 'EoDuXiuffciTi roi; fjiM <py<r£/ ov(ri 9-io7s.
OF CHRIST S KINGLY OFFICE. 381
thing which the law of nature gives direction in, not depending on institution, Rom. i., it is reckoned among those sins which are against the hght of nature. They " worshipped the creature" (besides, or) "more than" (or with) "the Creator,"^ verse 25, " who is God, blessed for evermore." To worship a creatiit^e, him who is not the Creator, God, blessed for ever, is that idolatry which is condemned in the Gentiles as a sin against the light of nature ; which to commit God cannot (be it spoken with reverence!) dispense with the sons of men (for he cannot deny himself), much less institute and appoint them so to do.^ It being, then, on all hands confessed that Christ is to be worshipped with divine or religious worship, it will be easy to make the conclusion that he is God by nature, blessed for ever- more.
That also is general and indispensable which you have, Jer. xvii. 5, 6, " Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh." That which we worship with divine worship we trust in, and make it our arm and strength. And these words, " And whose heart de- parteth from the Lord," are not so much an addition to what is before cursed as a declaration of it. All trust in man, who is no more but so, with that kind of trust wherewith we trust in Jehovah (as by the antithesis, verse 7, is evident that it is intended), is here cursed. If Christ be only a man by nature, however exalted and invested with authority, yet to trust in him as we trust in Jehovah, — which we do if we worship him with divine worship, — would, by this rule, be denounced a cursed thing.
Rev. xix. 10 and xxii. 8, 9, do add the command of God to the ge- neral reason insisted on in the places before mentioned : " I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God." So again, chap. xxii. 9. There are evidently two reasons assigned by the angel why John ought not to worship him: — 1. Because he was a servant He that is a servant of God and is no more, is not to be worshipped. Now, he that is not God at his best estate, however exalted, is but a servant in respect of God, and a fellow-servant of the saints, and no more, chap. vi. 11. All his creatures serve him, and for his will they were made. Such and no other is the Socinians' Christ, who is clearly deprived of all wor- ship by this prohibition and reason of it. 2. From the command, and the natural and eternal obligation of it, in these repeated words, Tu) Qsw '^(^offKvvriffov.^ It is the word of the law that our Saviour him-