2. Christ under this formal conception, as they speak, as medi- ator, is not God ; but under this, as partaker of the nature of God. Christ as mediator is an expression, as they speak, in the concrete, whose form is its abstract. Now, that is his mediation or mediatory office; and therefore if Christ under this formal conception of a mediator be God, his mediatory office and God must be the same, which is false and absurd ; therefore as such, or on that fundamental account, he is not worshipped with divine worship.
3. Christ in respect of his mediation dependeth on God, and hath all his power committed to him from God: Matt. xi. 27, "All things," saith he, "are delivered unto me of my Father;" and chap, xxviii. 18, " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth ;" John xvii. 2, "Thou hast given him power over all flesh ;" and in innumerable other places is the same testified, God gives him as mediator his name, — that is, his authority. Now, God is worshipped because he is inde- pendent: he is, and there is none besides him; he is Alpha and
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Omega, — the first and the last. And if the reason why we worship God with divine worship be because he is aurapKrig and independent, certainly that wherein Christ is dependent and in subordination to him, as receiving it from him, cannot be the formal cause of attri- buting divine worship to him.
4. Christ in respect of his divine nature is " equal with God," that is, the Father, Phil. ii. 6; but in respect of his mediation he is not equal to him, he is less than he. " My Father," saith he, " is greater than I," John xiv. 28. Now, whatever is less than God, is not equal to him, is infinitely so ; for between God and that which is not God there is no proportion, neither in being nor excellency. That Christ in respect of his ofiice is not equal to God is commonly received in that axiom, whereby the arguments thence taken against his deity are answered, " Intequalitas officii non tollit gequalitatem natural." Now, certainly, that which is infinitely unequal to God cannot be the formal cause of that worship which we yield to him as God.
5. That which shall cease and is not absolutely eternal cannot be the formal cause of our worship, for the formal reason of worship can no more cease than God can cease to be God ; for when that ceaseth, we cease to worship him, which while he is the Creator and sovereign Lord of his creatures cannot be. Now, that the mediatory office of Christ shall cease the Holy Ghost affirmeth, 1 Cor. xv. 24, " Then cometh the end," etc. He then gives up his kingdom to God. And there is the same reason from the other parts of his me- diatory office. It is true, indeed, the efficacy of his office abideth to eternity, whilst the redeemed ones live with God and praise him ; but as to the administration of his office, that ceaseth when, at the last day, the whole work of it shall be perfectly consummated, and he hath saved to the uttermost all that come to God by him.
The sum of all is: Jesus Christ, God and man, our mediator, who is to be worshipped in all things and invocated as the Father, and whom we ought night and day to honour, praise, love, and adore, because of his mediation and the office of it, which for our sakes he hath undertaken, is so to be honoured and worshijjped, not as mediator, exalted of God, and intrusted with all power and dignity from him, but as being equal with him, God, to be blessed for ever, his divine nature being the fundamental, formal reason of that wor- ship, and proper ultimate object of it. And to close up this digres- sion, there is not any thing that more sharply and severely cuts the throat of the whole sophistical plea of the Socinians against the deity of Christ than this one observation. Themselves acknowledge that Christ is to be worshipped with religious worship, and his name to be invocated, denying to account them Christians, Avhatever they are, who are otherwise minded, as Franciscus David and those before
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mentioned were. Now, if there be no possible reason to be assigned as the formal cause of this worship but his deity, they must either acknowledge him to be God or deny themselves to be Christians.
Some directions, by the way, may be given from that which hath been spoken as to the guidance of our souls in the worship of God, or in our addresses to the throne of grace by Jesus Christ. What God liath discovered of himself unto us, he would have us act faith upon in all that we have to deal with him in. By this we are assured we wor- ship the true God, and not an idol, when we worship him who has re- vealed himself in his word, and as he has revealed himself. Now, God hath declared himself to be three in one; for it is written, "There are three that bear record in heaven, and these three are one," 1 John v. 7. So, then, is he to be worshipped. And not only so, but the order of the three persons in that Deity, the eternal, internal order among themselves, is revealed to us. The Father is of none, is avTuvrog. The Son is begotten of the Father, having the glory of the only-be- golten Son of God, and so is avroilsog in respect of his nature, essence, and being, not in respect of his personality, which he hath of the Father. The Spirit is of the Father and the Son. He is often so called the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Son, For the term of " proceeding," or " going forth," I profess myself ignorant whether it concern chiefly his eternal personality or his dispensation in the work of the gospel. The latter I rather like; of which this is no time to give my reasons. But be those expressions of what import so- ever, he is equally the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and is of them both and from them both. God, then, by us is to be wor- shipped as he hath revealed the subsistence of the three persons in this order, and so are we to deal with him in our approaches to him : not that we are to frame any conception in our minds of distinct substances, which are not ; but by faith closing with this revelation of them, we givo up our souls in contemplation and admiration of that we cannot comprehend.