DISSERTATION III. 263 Religious worship may be considered with relation to its foundation, which renders the object capable of it, and in this sense it maybe always called supreme, for no, person who has not true and proper godhead can demand religious worship. But when worship is considered with relation to its endor design, or has a peculiar respect to the character of Christ as Mediator, then it may sometimes be called mediatorial or subordinate, for when Christ is worshipped in his mediatorial capacity, the design is, that he may fulfil some mediatory officefor us, in order to bring us to God and heaven, or it is togive him thanks that he has done it. Again, if the worship of Christ be considered with regard to the forms or modes of address, it may,perhaps, he called either ultimate and supreme, or mediatorial and subordinate. It was supreme and ultimate whenhe was worshipped in hisappearances to the patriarchs as God Almighty ; it is the same when we pay him the honour of divine perfections residing in' him, even the same divine perfections which are in the Father, and say, glory be to thy name, O Jesus, who art over all God blessed for ever. But it may be called mediatorial and subordinate when we trust in him, or entreat him to bring us near to God, when we call upon his name to bestow on us the grace and gifts he has received of the Father for us, or when we ascribe honour to him who has washed us in his blood, and reconciled us to God. Christ considered explicitly as the second person of- the Trinity, or considered as God incarnate, perhaps has not always such honours paid to him in scripture as are supreme and ulti- mate in the highest and divinest sense. But this is niit for want of dignity or deity in hiscomplete person, but because Christ, the second person, or incarnate, is rather represented as a Mediator in the New Testament : And according to the economy of the gospel, the forms of worship paid to him under this character, are rather mediatorial and subordinate : Whereas the forms of ulti- mate and supreme worship are generally appropriated to God in the person of the Father, as sustaining in that economy the dig- nity and state of godhead. I confess, that in my book of the Trinity I have followed some great writers, and allowed no different sorts or degrees of religious worship mentioned in scripture, nor any scriptural dif- ference between supreme and subordinate religious worship. In so sublime and so difficult a subject we are too ready to follow the phrases and language of great writers withòut' a 'due examina- tion : Ibeg leave here to correct these expressions, and to explain myself according to the distinctionwhichI have now proposed. I know of no subordinate worship iu scripture with regard to the foundation of it, or that which renders the object capable of reli- gious worship ; this is the sense in which I meant all worship is
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