DISSERTATION III. 255 represent our Lord Jesus Christ as God, andwhich in the same place require or demand religious worship for him, so there are other places which shew us the obligations that lie upon us to worship Christ Jesus, and reveal to us the particular forms and languageof worship in which we should address him, viz. " as the Lamb that was slain and has redeemed us : as he that was obedient to the death, and died for us, and redeemed us to God with his blood." Though it is his deity still that renders him capable of religious adoration, yet some of the reasons and motives why we worship him, are derived from what his huahan nature has done. It is a frequent thing with the scripture to re- present our obligations to duty as derived from the benefits we receive ; and to represent the object of our worship rather in his relation to us, and our dependence upon him, than in his own metaphysical nature and incomprehensible essence : And since the scripture has dealt thus in relation to God theFather, and his worship, no wonder that it speaks the same sort of language with regard to Jesus Christ when he is revealed as the object of our worship. We praise God the Father, because he has created us, Psal. c. 8, 4. and the Son, becausehe redeemed us, Rev. v. 9-13. But that I may give the objettion Its full weight and.force, it may be replied here, that " not only our obligation to worship Christ, but even his right to receive our worship, seems to be given him by the Father, upon the account of his humiliation and obedience to death ;" especially in . that famous scripture ; Phil. ii. 7, 8, 9, He took upon him the form of a servant ; he wasfound in the likeness of men, he humbled himself and be- came obedient todeath, even thedeath of the cross: Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, andgiven him a nameabove every name, that at the name of .Jesus every knee should bow, 4c. To this,I answer, that in this pasiage the scripture seems to have a peculiar reference to the exaltation of the human na- ture of Christ, to become part of the complex object ofworship in union with the divine. Now this was a honour of which the man Jesus seems utterly incapable, according to scripture, had he not been united to God. I say therefore, this text speaks of the worship of Christ as man in union with Deity, and that not only because of the appropriation of all religious worship to God, . but the very language in which this worship of Christ is ex- pressed by the apostle, is taken from Is. xlv. 23. where the true God or Jehovah assumes this worship ; and the citation of it by St. Paul, .both here and in Rom. xiv. 10-12. proves the god- head of Christ. But when this man who is united to God, had thus humbled himself, then the Father ordained him publicly to receive his proper share of that religious honour which is paid
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