Answ. 1. As to our yielding obedience to a divine command, provided God should require us to give divine worship to a creature, it may be replied, that we do not deny but that all the divine commands are to be obeyed; but yet this supposition is groundless, inasmuch as God cannot command us to worship a creature, any more than he can discharge us from an obligation to worship himself. This, therefore, is, in effect, to suppose what can never be; therefore nothing can be inferred from such a supposition; we might as well say, that if God should cease to exist, he would cease to be the object of worship; or if a created being had divine perfection, he would have a right to equal honour with God; which is to suppose a thing that is in itself impossible; and it is no less absurd to suppose it warrantable for us to pay divine worship to a creature. This will farther appear, from what has been said in explaining the nature of religious worship. Adoration is a saying to a person, who is the object thereof, thou hast divine perfections, and to say this to a creature, is contrary to truth; and therefore, certainly the God of truth can never give us a warrant to say that which is false, as this certainly would be. And if we consider worship, as it is our addressing ourselves to him, whom we worship, in such a way, as becomes a God, he cannot give us a warrant so to do, for that would be for him to divest himself of his glory: and it would also disappoint our expectations, by putting us on trusting one that cannot save us; and such are justly reproved, in Isa. xlv. 20. as having no knowledge, who pray unto a god that cannot save. We must therefore conclude, that since God cannot give his glory to another, he cannot give any warrant to us to pay divine worship to a creature, as is supposed in the objection,
2. As for that scripture, referred to, in which God commanded the angels to worship our Saviour, when he brought him into the world, it is not to be supposed that he had no right to divine worship before his incarnation; for if he be a divine Person, as the scriptures assert him to be, the angels, doubtless adored him as such before; the only new discovery that was then made to them was, that the second Person in the Godhead was now God incarnate; and therefore this instance of infinite condescension was to be considered as a motive to excite their adoration, but not the formal reason of it: thus we are sometimes commanded to adore and magnify God for the visible displays of his divine perfections in his works; as the Psalmist says, Psal. cvii. 8. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! and, in many other scriptures, where the works of God are represented, as a means or motive to excite our worship or adoration; whereas the divine perfections, which are displayed or rendered visible therein, are the great foundation or reason thereof; we worship this God because he is infinitely perfect; though we take occasion, from the visible display of his perfections, to worship him. In this sense we understand the worship given to Christ by the angels, when brought into the world; they took occasion, from this amazing instance of his condescension, to adore those perfections, which induced the Son of God to take the human nature into union with his divine; not that they supposed his right to worship was founded therein.
Object. 2. Since our worshipping Christ includes in it ascribing all that glory to him that is his due; it is enough for us, when we worship him, to confess that he has an excellency above the angels, or that he is the best of all created beings, as well as the most honourable, and the greatest blessing to mankind, as he was sent of God to instruct us in the way of salvation as a Prophet, to intercede for us as a Priest, and to give laws to us as a King, and that he has done all this faithfully, and with great compassion to us. These things, and whatever else he does for the advantage of mankind, may, and ought to be acknowledged to his praise, as a debt due to him, in which respect he is to be considered as the object of worship; nevertheless, we are not to give him that glory which is due to the Father, as though he were a Person truly and properly divine, in the same sense as he is.
Answ. 1. It is agreed, on both sides, that that glory, which is due to him, is to be ascribed; but we humbly conceive, that the ascribing to a person that honour, which he has a right to, unless we suppose it to be divine, is not religious worship; or, to confess that those works which he has done, are wonderful, and of great advantage to mankind, is no instance of adoration, unless we suppose that these works are such, as none but a Person who has the divine nature can perform; whereas all those works, which they ascribe to him, may, according to them, be performed by a finite being, or else they must allow the arguments, which have been taken from thence, to prove his proper deity.
2. If the works that are ascribed to him be considered as properly divine, as they are represented to be in scripture, it must not be concluded, from hence, that he is to be adored, as performing them; but we are rather to take occasion from thence, as was observed in our last head, to adore those divine perfections, which are evinced hereby, which render him the object of worship; as the works of God are motives to induce us to worship him, and not the formal reason of that worship; as when, in the first commandment, God lays claim to divine honour, or obliges the Israelites to have no other gods before him, because he had brought them out of the land of Egypt, we are to consider their deliverance from thence, indeed, as a motive to worship; but it is the divine power that was exerted therein, that was properly the object thereof; so, in Psal. cxxxvi. 1. we are to give thanks to the Lord, whose mercy endureth for ever; and, in the following verses, there is a particular mention made of some glorious works which God had done, who alone doth great wonders, who, in wisdom, made the heavens, stretched out the earth; made the sun to rule by day, and the moon by night, &c. These, and several other works there mentioned are all considered as motives to excite our adoration; but his being Jehovah, the God of gods, and Lord of lords, as in the 1st, 2d, and 3d verses, is the great foundation of his right to worship, since that is infinite; whereas his works are only the effects of infinite power, and so a demonstration of his right to divine glory. Now to apply this to those works which are done by our Saviour, if we suppose them, as we ought, to be properly divine, they are to be considered only as evincing his right to divine honour, as they are a demonstration of his deity, which is the only thing that renders him the object of divine worship.
Object. 3. But some will proceed a little farther, when they speak of Christ as the object of worship, and so will allow, that honours, truly divine, may be given to him; yet that this does not prove him to be God equal with the Father, since he is herein only considered as the Father’s Representative, on whom the worship, that is immediately applied to him, must be supposed to terminate; as when an ambassador, who represents the prince that sent him, is considered as sustaining that character, and so receives some honour, which otherwise he would have no right to, or rather he is honoured as personating him whom he represents.
Answ. To this it may be replied, that whatever may be said to be done by an ambassador, as representing the prince that sent him, there is always something contained in the manner of his address, or in the honours ascribed to him, that denotes him to be more than a subject; and it would be ill represented, should he assume that honour to himself that is due to his master. Therefore our Saviour, were he not a divine Person, but only the Father’s Representative, could not have a right to claim that divine honour that is ascribed to him; neither have we any foundation, in scripture, to distinguish concerning a supreme and a subordinate worship, or a worship given to a person that does not terminate in him, but in another, whom he represents.
If there be any apparent foundation for this supposition, it must be taken from those expressions in which Christ is represented, as Mediator, as acting in the Father’s name, and not seeking his own glory, but the glory of him that sent him, or referring all the honour, that is given to him as such, to the Father. But to this it may be replied, that when our Saviour uses such a mode of speaking, he disclaims any right to divine honour due to him as Man, in which respect he received a commission from the Father, and acted in his name; but when the honour of a divine Person is given to him as God, though considered as Mediator, he is not to be looked upon as representing the Father, or transferring the divine glory that he receives, to the Father, but as having the same right to it as the Father has, inasmuch as he has the same divine nature, otherwise we cannot account for those modes of speaking, in which the glory of a divine Person is ascribed to him, without restriction or limitation, as it oftentimes is in scripture.
Object. 4. To what has been said in defence of Christ’s divinity, from our being baptized in his name, it is objected, that it does not follow, that because we are baptized in the name of the Son, as well as of the Father, that therefore he is God equal with the Father; for though this ordinance, as it respects the Father, contains, properly, an act of divine worship, in which we consider him as the great Lord of all things, to whom divine worship, in the highest sense is due; yet we consider the Son, as well as the Holy Ghost, only as having a right to an inferior kind of worship, in proportion to the respective parts which they sustain, by the will of the Father, in the work of our salvation; and, in particular, to be baptized in the name of Christ, implies in it nothing else but a declaration that we adhere to him, as the Father’s Minister, delegated by him to reveal his mind and will to us, and to erect that gospel-dispensation, which we, in this ordinance, professedly submit to; and accordingly to be baptized in the name of Christ, is to be taken in the same sense, as when, in 1 Cor. x. 2. the Israelites were said to be baptized into Moses, in the cloud, and in the sea; as they signified thereby their consent to be governed by those laws, which Moses was appointed, by God, to give them; upon which account, they were denominated a particular church, separated from the world, and obliged to worship God in such a way, as was prescribed in the ceremonial law: even so, by baptism, we own ourselves Christians, under an obligation to adhere to Christ, as our Leader and Commander, who has revealed to us the gospel, which, by subjecting ourselves to, we are denominated Christians; and to this they also add, especially the Socinians, that as baptism was first practised as an ordinance, to initiate persons into the Jewish church, and was afterwards applied by our Saviour, to signify the initiating the heathen into the Christian church; so it was designed to be no longer in use among them, than till Christianity was generally embraced; and consequently we being a Christian nation, are not obliged to submit to it, since we are supposed to adhere to the doctrines of Christianity, and therefore it is needless to signify the same by this ordinance. It was upon this account that Socinus, and some of his followers, not only denied the baptism of infants, but that of all others, who were supposed to be Christians.
Answ. 1. As to the first part of this objection, to wit, that baptism does not signify the same thing when it is administered in the name of Christ, as when administered in the name of the Father, this is founded on a supposition, that the Son has not a right to the same honour that is due to the Father, which ought to be proved, and not taken for granted; and it altogether sets aside the consideration of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost’s being herein co-ordinately represented, as the objects of this solemn dedication, which tends very much to derogate from the Father’s glory. As it supposes the Son and Spirit to have a right to that glory which belongs to him, while they deny them to be divine Persons; and according to this method of reasoning, God might as well have ordained, that we should have been baptized in his name, together with the name of any of his prophets and apostles, which were appointed to be his ministers, in revealing his will to us, as in the name of the Son and Spirit, unless they were accounted worthy of having an honour infinitely superior to that which is given to any creature given to them herein.