DISSERTATION III. 247 The doctrine of the worship of Christ as a merecreature, would have raised in the heart of every Jew one of the most uncon- querable prejudices against the 'gospel. Since the time that they smarted so severely in Babylon by a captivity of seventy years for theiridolatries, theyhave been always observed to have the utmost aversion to every appearance of idolatry, or the worship of any thing beside the one true God : St. Paul testifies thus of his countrymen ; Rom. ii. 17, 22. Thouart called a Jeto, and abhorrest idols. Now if the crucifixion of the Messiah was a stumbling-block to theJews, which many of them could not get over, the worship of a man, an exalted creature, would, in all probability, havebeen a much greater stumbling-block and im-. pediment of their belief of the gospel. Their aversion to a cru- cified Messiah arose only from their own foolish traditions and pre-conceived errors ; but their aversion to the worship of man is patronized by all their sacred writings, for they could hardly read any part of their bible but they found some precept, threaten- ing, or divinejudgment recorded, against worshipping any crea- ture, or receiving any other god. It is evident in the writings ofthe apostles, that Jesus Christ is several times called God, and that he is worshipped. Now if he has not the same godhead with the God of theJews, then he is another god, another object of worship ; and when the Jews had smarted so terribly in all former ages for their worshipping any beside their own true God, and for their breach of the first commandment, it would appear Tike an immoveable and ever- lasting bar against their acceptance of thereligion of Christ, if theyhad been told, that this first commandment was now in some measure repealed, and that they must now admit of another god, even the man Jesus, and pay him religious worship, though he were but a creature. Shall it be objected here, that there were several parts of their religion repealed, namely, all their ceremonial law, which they seemed to be as fond of as any thing in their religion ; and why might they not submit to a repeal of the first command also But it may be answered, That there was sufficient evi- dence given of the repeal of the ceremonial law, by discovering to them, that all these were but shadowsof the promised bles- sings of' the Messiah ; and consequently when the substance and glory of their religion appears in the reign_ of their expected Messiah, it is necessary that the shadows should vanish and dis- appear. So St. Paul argues in his Epistle to the Jews or He- brews. Even their subbed' itself in the Jewish forms of it, was a type of the blessed rest under the gospel, and of the final rest . in heaven, as the apostle proves in the fourth chapter of that epistle, as well as in Col. ii. 16, 17. But there is not the least . intimation that the first commandment had anyi thing in it cere
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