earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." But this leads me to the last distinguishing character of godhead.

V. Divine worship ascribed to Christ.

Religious worship is so peculiar a prerogative of God that he will by no means suffer any meaner being to share in it. He assumes this character to himself with a divine jealousy, lest any thing beneath God should partake of it; Deut. vi. 13, 14, 15. "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, for the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you, lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth." This charge is repeated again; Deut. x. 20. and it is cited by our Lord Jesus Christ in these words; Mat. iv. 10. "It is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." The first command doubtless includes this meaning, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," that is, no other objects of worship; and Ex. xxxiv. 14. repeats it, "Thou shalt worship no other God; for the Lord whose name is jealous, is a jealous God."

Yet it is abundantly evident, that our Lord Jesus Christ is the proper object of worship, both for angels and men; Heb. i. 6. And again, when he bringeth the first begotten into the world, he saith, let all the angels of God worship him." Which is cited from Ps. xcvii. 7. "Worship him all ye gods :" Upon which account our Lord Jesus Christ may be called the God of gods, as well as the Father; Deut. x. 17. Ps. cxxxvi. 2. since angels, which are called gods, must worship him. And let it be noted, that if our translation be right, this is not that worship or honour which is given him as Mediator by the Father's appointment, upon the account of his sufferings and death, as it is elsewhere expressed, but upon the account of his original divine nature, and as God now taking flesh: Though it must be confessed the Greek words rather bear this sense: When he bringeth again his first-begotten into the world, which may refer to his resurrection; yet still it is evident, that angels must worship him. Our Lord Jesus Christ was worshipped as the true God, the Lord Jehovah, by the patriarchs, when he appeared unto them in a visible shape under the Old Testament.

He was worshipped also when he dwelt on earth very often: but I will not cite nor insist on particular instances of this, because some may doubt whether this were not sometimes a mere high degree of reverence and obeisance paid to him under the surprising influence of his miracles, which does scarce amount to religious worship, since his godhead was not then so fully

discovered to his disciples, as to carry them above all doubt of his. Messiahship or his Deity. But we have plain testimonies of divine worship paid to him after his resurrection; for Thomas honoured him as his Lord and his God; John xx. 28. He was worshipped by Stephen with his dying breath; Acts vii. 59. and with him that first martyr entrusted his departing soul. Nor do we ever find the least hint of his dislike or prohibition of worship. Nay, he commends the faith of Thomas calling him Lord and God. Whereas good inen and angels have ever forbid worship to be paid to them, as being due to God alone. So when Cornelius worshipped Peter; Acts x. 26. "Peter forbid him and said, stand up; I myself also am a man." So when John worshipped the angel; Rev. xix. 10. and xxii. 8, 9, he refused the worship twice," and said, see thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant; worship God," that is, God only is the proper object of thy worship.

It may be very properly observed concerning these two texts in the book of Revelation, where the angel refuses worship, and directs it to be paid only to God, that this was done after the full glorification of Christ, when God had appointed every knee to bow to him, and exalted him in our nature to his full majesty and dominion, and when he was known and adored by the church as the proper object of worship. Now if God only was to be worshipped in that day, it is a plain consequence, that Christ is God. That this worship is due to Christ, is further confirmed by the express orders which are given by God himself, both in the Old and New Testament, for the worship of his Son Jesus Christ; Ps. xlv. 11. "He is thy Lord, and worship thou him." John v. 23. That all men should honour the Son, as they honour the Father. And the great and blessed God, who is so jealous of his own prerogative and worship, would never have suffered those practices, much less would he have commanded them, if Christ had not been really the true God, and in some way and manner one with himself, and fit to receive the same divine honours.

Objection. Some may be ready to say, this is a sort of lower adoration, a subordinate sort of divine worship, that is paid to Jesus Christ, who is called God in scripture; whereas God the Father must have supreme divine worship, and reserves to himself still this supreme and distinguishing prerogative of true godhead.

Answer I. This seems to be but a vain evasion, because the scripture knows no such distinctions of supreme and subordinate divine or religious worship. It must be granted, as I have hinted before, that the scripture sometimes uses the word worship for other bonours than what are divine and religious, as, 1 Chron. xxis. 20. "They bowed their heads, and worshipped

the Lord and the king;" Mat. xviii. 26. "The servant fell down and worshipped his Lord." Rev. iii. 9. where Christ himself says to the church of Sardis, "I will make them come and worship before thy feet:" And perhaps some who knew not that Christ was God, might pay this sort of worship to him on earth. Worship, in this sense, siguities only an extraordinary degree of honour paid to any superior person or character, even as we use the word in English, when we call several characters, or societies of men, worshipful. But this is not divine or religious worship, such as was appointed to be paid to Christ in his exalted state, and was never forbid even in his state of humiliation.

Now in religious and divine worship there is no mention made of two sorts or degrees of it. But if such distinctions were necessary to be observed in our worshipping the Father and the Son, it seems necessary that the scripture should have plainly and expressly told us of it somewhere, lest we run into the danger and heinous guilt of idolatry, by paying the some dis vine worship to both. There are so many plain expressions that encourage proper divine worship to be paid to Christ, and no plain expressions that give us any notion of a meaner or inferior divine worship, that either the scripture seems defective in a most material point of religion, or Jesus must be worshipped with proper divine honours as the Father.

II. "If Christ were to be worshipped merely with inferior worship, this would be to set up an inferior god; and thus the christian religion, whose professed design was to abolish poly theism among the nations, and to root out the worship of many gods, some of higher and some of lower rank, even this very christian religion would but more effectually establish it hereby; and the apostles would evidently build up again the things they destroyed. The very applying the name of God so frequently to our Lord Jesus Christ, and ascribing any thing of divine characters or worship to him, if he be not the true and living God, would seem to be an unpardonable fault and gross absurdity in those men, I mean the evangelists and the apostles: For they professed to be sent from God to destroy the heathen superstition, which consisted much in the worship of superior and inferior deities, and to turn the Gentiles from these vanities to the knowledge and worship of the one true and living God; See Acts xiv. 15. Acts xvii. 23, 24. Gal. iv. 8.

III. It is evident, that when Christ appeared to the patriarchs as the Lord Jehovah, and assumed the glorious names and titles of God in his converse with them, he was worshipped with supreme honour as the supreme God; for they thought him to be so, according to his own assertions, I am the Lord. They could have no notion of supreme and subordinate worship. Now

it is very strange to suppose, what some would persuade us, that after all his services and sufferings he should be rewarded only with subordinate and inferior worship, who had so long before enjoyed the supreme.

The objectors will enquire then, what is that advancement of honour which Christ received as the reward of his sufferings? I answer, he was worshipped before as God, now as god-man and mediator: Before he might be worshipped as :o; oy, God the word, now as God the word in flesh, as God incarnate; that the whole human nature might see and know itself united to the object of divine worship. How far the blessed soul of our Lord Jesus may know and receive its distinct share of the thanks and praises which ascend from the saints on earth, is a secret not so clearly discovered in scripture: Surely such sacred and inimitable zeal for his Father's glory, such astonishing compassion to lost mankind, such a life and such a death, such a conflict and such a victory, deserve the highest honours and glories that we can pay to a creature. And doubtless his exalted human nature receives them from all the blessed spirits above. Glory, and honour, and immortality, were the rewards promised to every son of Adam who fulfilled the law of God; Rom. ii. 7. and much more are they become due to the second Adam, the man Christ Jesus, who fulfilled the law in every point, and, by his most illustrious obedience, magnified it and made it honourable beyond expression.

We may add further also, that since the man Jesus hath received so glorious an advancement at the right-hand of God, we may reasonably suppose, that his human powers have a vast and extensive cognizance of his churches on earth; and that he partakes of all those circumstances of the honour done to his whole sacred person, which are not purely divine and incommunicable : though we have no warrant to separate and divide the human nature from the divine, in the honours which we pay him.

Still it is the godhead of Christ that is the standing and eternal ground of all that divine and religious worship, which we are bound to give him, though we borrow many motives from his life, his love and his death. And since the great God has so often in his word assumed this sort of worship to himself, as his own prerogative and his distinguishing character, I am persuaded he would never have enjoined nor indulged worship to be paid to Jesus Christ in such a manner as is done in scripture, how great soever his services had been to God or man, if he had not the fulness of the godhead dwelling in him bodily. This shall suffice to answer the objection arising from this distinction of higher and lower worship.

I might now run through the several particular acts of divine worship, which the scripture makes the peculiar rights of

God, and yet ascribes them to Christ: Such as, " Believing or trusting in him ;” John xiv. 1. "Let not your heart be troubled, saith Christ; ye believe in God, believe also in me ;" Rom. xv. 12. "In him shall the Gentiles trust." "Calling upon him, and praying to him ;" Rom. x. 13. "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, that is, Christ, shall be saved." Paul prayed to him, to take away his thorn in the flesh; 2 Cor. xii. 8. "For this I besought the Lord thrice, that it might de part from me." "Adoring and praising him;" Rev. v. 13. "And every creature which is in heaven, and on earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying, blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." "Swearing by his name;" Rom. ix. 1. " I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost." Now all these divine honours done to our Lord Jesus, are foretold in the Old Testament, and required or practised in the New Testament, and would be so many affronts to the supreme majesty and dignity of the blessed God the Father, if Jesus Christ were not one and the same God with him, as we shall shew in the following propositions. A variety of other texts might be cited to make good these seventh and eighth propositions; but I chuse rather, in this place, to content myself with citing those which are most unexceptionable, and have no just ground of controversy belonging to them.

To sum up all, let me make this one remark. That the places of scripture which I have brought to shew what are the peculiar and distinguishing characters of godhead, are so plain and easy to be understood, and those scriptures which apply these very same characters to our Lord Jesus Christ are so obvious, so evident, so naturally applicable to him, even in the divinest sense of them, that it needs a good deal of skill, and wit, and criticism to divert them to another sense: If it needed but half so much art and critical subtilty to apply those scriptures to Jesus Christ, as it does to turn them away from him, one might be tempted indeed to doubt his godhead, or to deny it.

It is plain that the Arian and Socinian doctrines which deny our Lord Jesus Christ to be the true and eternal God, cannot be supported in opposition to such obvious evidences of scripture, without more skill and learning, more subtilty and nice arts of distinction to evade the sense of plain words, than the bulk of common christians can ever be furnished with. Day-labourers and tradesmen, children and servants, of the meanest rank, reading their bibles, would naturally be led into the belief of Christ's divinity; for they could never find out how to explain away such manifest expressions concerning the godhead of Christ, and make them signify a mere creature. Thence I would take