QUESTION VIII. 473 pay to God, as a creature is capable of receiving, and as the original law of worshipping none but God can admit. See Dis- sertation III. IX. When the ancient heathens worshipped the images of their gods, the best way they could ever take to vindicate it was under this notion, that they supposed their gods to inhabit their own images, and thus they worshipped the image together with their God dwelling in the image : but with far better authority and with infinitely more justice and truthmay christians worship the Son of God who is the only appointed image of the only true God, subsisting in a personal union with the indwelling godhead. X. This may be illustrated by a very lively similitude. A vast hollow globe of crystal, as large as the sun, is in itself a fair image or resemblance of the sun : But if we might suppose the sun itself included in this crystal globe, it would thereby be- come a muchbrighter and nobler image of the sun, and it would be in a sense one with the sun itself, or one complex being. And thus the same honourable ascriptionswhich are given to the sun because of his light and heat, might be given also to this crystal globe considered as inhabited by the sun itself, which could not be done without this inhabitation. Then whatsoever honours werepaid to thisglobe of crystal would redound to the 'honour of the sun, even as the divine honour and adoration paid to our blessed Saviour arises from the personal union of the hu- man nature with the divine, and finally redounds to the glory of God. Phil. ii. Il. Let it be observed here, that though I borrow an emblem or a resemblance of this divine doctrine from the world ofnature or. 'from the heathen nations, yet the doctrine itself is entirely de= rived from scripture, and might easily be confirmed by many morecitations out of the sacred writers.
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