So that his example is set aside, together with his doctrine, and, according to the doctor, there is no authority in either that can justify so vile a practice as that of worshipping Christ. As to the other apostles, as the doctor has " often avowed himself not to be a believer in their inspiration as writers," I presume he can hardly think their writings to be sacred Scripture any more than St. Paul's. So that with him the Scriptures must lie in a little compass, the whole New Testament, at least, being discarded. And as to the Old, it would seem, from what he says of the books of Moses, (the foundation of all the others,) that he has not a much higher opinion of it. For he tells us, "he thinks himself at liberty to consider the history which Moses has given us of the creation and fall of man as the best he could collect from tradition;" and adds, “In my opinion, also, there are many marks of its being a lame account; and far from solving the difficulty which it seems intended to answer, namely, the introduction of death and calamity into the world." The authority, therefore, of neither Testament can be great with the doctor, to justify any doctrine or practice whatever, which does not suit his preconceived notions.

20. But to return :-It deserves to be inquired by those who deny the divinity of Christ, how a mere man, or mere creature, could use the following and such like expressions; and whether such expressions do not fully authorize prayer to be addressed to him? "Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink: he that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water: whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up to everlasting life. To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." It seems to me if such declarations, invitations, and promises as these, do not encourage and authorize us to pray to the Lord Jesus for such blessings of grace and glory as we want, and he, the faithful and true Witness, so solemnly and repeatedly testifies he can and will give to all that properly apply to him for them, there are no passages in Scripture that encourage or authorize us to pray even to the Father: for there neither are, nor can be, passages more express and full than these are. But if these and such like passages do authorize / and encourage us to apply to the Lord Jesus in prayer, then why does Dr. Priestley, and other Socinians, take upon them to forbid us to do so? And how will they answer it to him who says, "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

21. As we have clearly seen that prayer has been, and is to be, made to the Lord Jesus, so we shall see that praise has been, is, and ought

to be addressed to him. And this certainly is another act of proper, religious worship. St. Peter, in his two short epistles, furnishes us with a full proof that this is to be offered to the Son as well as to the Father. For he concludes his first epistle with ascribing it to the Father, and his second epistle with ascribing it to the Son, in language of exactly the same import. Speaking of the Father as "the God of all grace, who hath called us to his own eternal glory by Christ Jesus," he says, "To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever! Amen!" And speaking of the Son, in whose grace, and in the knowledge of whom he exhorts us to grow, he says, "To him be glory now and for ever! Amen!" Similar to this is the language of St. John, "Unto him that hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever!" Rev. i, 5, 6. And well might St. John ascribe glory to his Lord; for he had seen him worshipped, and had heard glory ascribed to him by angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven. Thus, " And I beheld, and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying, with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven and on earth, and under the 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 upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever," Rev. v, 11-14.

22. Now let it be observed, that prayer and praise imply every other act of worship, whether internal or external. Prayer, when it is sincere, necessarily implies desire, confidence, and hope; and praise implies gratitude and love. If, therefore, prayer is to be addressed to the Lord Jesus, this implies that our desire is to be to him, our confidence in him, and our expectation from him, for such blessings as we stand in need of. And if praise is to be offered to him, this signifies that he is to be the great object of our love and gratitude. Accordingly, we find this was the case with the apostles and primitive Christians: their desire was directed unto the Lord Jesus, and their confidence and hope were placed in him, for the greatest of all blessings, even for eternal salvation: and he, in union with his Father, was the great object of their unlimited gratitude and love. If I were to quote all the scriptures that would be to my purpose, I might transcribe a great part of the New Testament. The epistles of St. Paul, especially, abound with instances of it. A few passages of Holy Writ I shall produce as specimens of the rest :-" Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste,' Isa. xxviii, 16. "Whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed," Rom. x, 11. "He that believeth in him shall not be confounded," 1 Pet. ii, 6. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me,” John xiv, 1. "There shall arise a root of Jesse, and he that shall arise to reign over the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust," Rom. xv, 12. "That we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted," Eph. i, 12, 13. "Jesus Christ, our hope," 1 Tim. i, 1. "Christ in you, the hope of glory," Col. i, 27. I thank Christ Jesus

our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry," 1 Tim. i, 12. Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. Grace be with all those that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," Eph. vi, 24. "If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be anathema, maranatha," 1 Cor. xvi, 22.

23. Now all these, and such like passages, show that the Lord Jesus was worshipped, and that in the highest sense, viz. in spirit and in truth, and with the best and purest worship, the worship of the heart. They show that he was the object of the religious confidence and hope, gratitude and love of his ancient servants, and that in an unlimited degree, which surely no mere creature ever was, or could be. And as a fruit of this, their whole life was dedicated to him: "the love of Christ constrained them, so that they lived not unto themselves, but unto him that died for them, and rose again," 2 Cor. v, 14, 15. Yea, "none of them lived to himself, and none of them died to himself, but whether they lived, they lived unto the Lord, [Christ,] or whether they died, they died unto the Lord. Living or dying, therefore, they were the Lord's." Considering themselves as his servants, Phil. i, 1; James i, 1; 2 Pet. i, 1, they were wholly devoted to do his will, and promote his glory, not "accounting their lives dear unto themselves, so that they might finish their course with joy, and Christ might be magnified by their bodies, whether by life or death."

24. "Had we, then, hitherto doubted whether Jesus Christ would have men regard him as God, we could doubt of it no more, when we see him permitting and requiring men to worship him. If he be God by nature, he has reason to claim adoration; but if he be not, we cannot pay it him without a kind of sacrilege. Certainly, were all the rest supportable, this could not be borne or excused in any wise: for a creature to make himself equal with the Most High, not by words only, but actions too.

25. "It is pretended, indeed, that there are two sorts of worship: a subaltern, or inferior kind, which may be paid to creatures; and a supreme, which can be paid to the supreme God only. But this avails nothing for, first, we see that Christ laid claim to the highest adoration, and would have us to do for him what was never done but for the Most High. We ought to give our hearts to God, to love him above all, and it is to God alone that we owe this: but we owe it to Jesus Christ. We ought to love him above what we love most, even our life. If any man hate not his own life (saith he) for my sake, he is not worthy of me.' We owe to God, not the sacrifice of bullocks and lambs, but the sacrifice of our blood, and of our life; a spiritual sacrifice, worthy of a religion, and a covenant, more perfect than that of the law. But Jesus Christ requires us to pay him this; which was never done for any but God. It is, therefore, every way plain, that he would have us worship him as (in union with the Father) the most high God.

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26. That inferior or subaltern kind of [religious] worship, of which some love to speak, was not known either by our lawgiver, or the prophets, or Christ himself, or his apostles, or the holy angels.

Two considerations show that this subaltern worship was not known to the lawgiver. The first is, that he forbids, in general, all worship but

that of the supreme God. Now this he would not have done, if there had been a sort of subaltern [religious] worship, which was still lawful; lest he should lay a snare for men, by so ambiguous an expression as would naturally entangle them in error. He would not have forbidden

us, in general, to worship any but God; but to worship any other with supreme worship. The second is, that the lawgiver manifestly designed to stop the course of heathen idolatry. Now, the idolatry of the heathens properly lay in paying this subaltern worship to many gods for they also, generally, as well as the Jews, acknowledged one Supreme Being. 27. "I say, in the second place, that the prophets knew nothing of this subaltern worship: for they had no example of it before their eyes. They had never heard it spoken of. They never mentioned it themselves. They scoff at those subaltern gods of the heathens, as not being able to comprehend how they could regard or worship, as gods, any other being than Him who governs the world, and who created heaven and earth. But this they certainly could not have done, had they known that there was, or would be, in the fulness of time, a subaltern and dependent God, who ought to be worshipped, though he did not make or govern the world.

28. "Thirdly, the apostles knew nothing of this distinction between supreme and subaltern worship. They thought that all, even outward worship, paid to a creature, was an injury to the Creator. When Cornelius fell down at Peter's feet, he did not take him for God. He knew him well to be but a man: this, therefore, could be but a subaltern worship. Yet, as even this outward worship was an action, consecrated by custom, to denote the honour paid to the Supreme Being, St. Peter could not suffer that to be done to him, which ought to be done to God only. Arise, (said he,) I also am a man:' giving us hereby two invincible proofs, that it is in no case lawful to worship any other than the supreme God. The first, that St. Peter condemns this action from a concern for the glory of God: whence it appears, that subordinate worship, as well as all other, paid to any but God, is contrary to his glory. The second, inasmuch as it appears from hence, that whoever is by nature a mere man, has no right to any worship at all, supreme or subaltern.

29. "In the fourth place, the angels know nothing of this subaltern worship otherwise, this angel, who spake to St. John, would not so earnestly have rejected that which the apostle was willing to pay him. St. John did not take him for God; for he had just been saying, 'The Lord God of the holy prophets hath sent his angel to show his servants the things which must be shortly.' St. John, therefore, would have worshipped him because he was an angel of God, not because he thought he was God himself. But this angel, who made none of these distinctions, said to him, Worship God;' showing, in the plainest manner, that worship, of whatsoever sort, must be paid to God alone." (Abbadie abridged.)

30. The reader will pardon my subjoining another short extract here. "It is something surprising, that when this religion, with this duty (worshipping Christ) in it as a part of it, was first published in Judea, the Jews, though implacably set against it, yet never accused it of idolatry: though that charge, of all others, had served their purpose

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the best, who intended to blacken and blast it. Nothing would have been so well heard, and so easily apprehended, as a just prejudice against it, as this. The argument would have appeared as strong as it was plain and as the Jews could not be ignorant of the acts of the Christian worship, when so many fell back to them from it, who were offended at other parts of it; so they had the books, in which it was contained, in their hands. Notwithstanding all which, we have all possible reason to believe, that this objection against it was never made by any of them in the first ages of Christianity.

31. "The silence of the apostles, in not mentioning nor answering any such objection, is a plain proof of the silence of the Jews on this head for it would indeed disparage all their writings, if we could think, that while they mentioned and answered the other prejudices of the Jews, which, in comparison of this, are small and inconsiderable matters, they passed over this, which must have been the greatest and plausiblest of them all, if it was one at all. Therefore, as the silence of the apostles is a clear proof of the silence of the Jews, and since their silence could neither flow from their ignorance, nor their undervaluing of this religion, it seems to be certain that the first opening of the Christian doctrine did not carry any thing in it that could be called the worshipping of a creature. For it is not to be imagined, that they would have been silent on this head, if a creature, a mere man, had been thus proposed among the Christians as the object of Divine worship.

32. "As it follows, from hence, that the Jews must have understood this part of our religion in such a manner as agreed with their former ideas, so we must examine these. Now they had this settled among them: that God dwelt in the cloud of glory, and that, by virtue of that inhabitation, Divine worship was paid to God as dwelling in the cloud; that it was called God, God's throne, his holiness, his face, and the light of his countenance.' as dwelling there bodily; that is, substantially-so bodily sometimes They went up to the temple to worship God, signifies or in corporeal appearance. This seems to have been a person that was truly God, and yet was distinct from the Father; for this seems to be the import of these words: Behold, I send an angel before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee to the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice. Provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my name is in him.' These words do plainly import a person to whom they belong ; and yet they are a pitch far above the angelical dignity. So that angel must here be understood in a large sense, for one sent of God; and can admit of no sense so proper as that the eternal Word, which dwelt afterward in the man Christ Jesus, dwelt in that cloud of glory. It was also one of the prophecies received by the Jews, That the glory of the second temple was to exceed the glory of the first.' The chief character of the glory of the first, was that inhabitation of the Divine presence among them. From hence it follows, that such an inhabitation of God in a creature, by which that creature was not only called God, but that adoration was due to it upon that account, was a notion that could not have scandalized the Jews, and was indeed the only notion that agreed with their former ideas, and that could have been received by them without difficulty or opposition. This is a strong inducement to believe that