These Sections teach —

1st. That the obligation to render supreme worship and devoted service to God is a dictate of nature as well as a doctrine of revelation.

2d. That God in his word has prescribed for us how we may worship him acceptably, and that it is an offence

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to him and a sin in us either to neglect to worship and serve him in the way prescribed, or to attempt to serve him in any way not prescribed.

3d. That the only proper objects of worship are the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and that since the fall these are to be approached only through a Mediator, and through the mediation of none other than Christ alone.

4th. That religious worship is upon no pretence to be rendered to angels or to saints or to any other creature.

1st. That it is a dictate of natural reason and conscience that a Being of infinite and absolute perfection, the Creator, Possessor and sovereign Lord, the Preserver and bountiful Benefactor of all creatures, and the absolute moral Governor of all moral agents, should be adored, praised, thanked, supplicated, obeyed and served, is self-evident, and is witnessed to by the common consent of all nations of all ages. The reasons for this are — (a.) His absolute perfection in himself. (6.) His infinite superiority to us. (c.) His relation to us as Creator, Preserver and moral Governor, (d.) Our absohite dependence upon him for every good, and our obligations for his infinite goodness to us. [e.) His commands requiring this at our hands. (/.) The impulse of our nature as religious beings and morally responsible agents, (g.) The fact that our faculties find their highest exercise, and our whole being its highest development and blessedness in this worship and service.

2d. We have already seen, under Chapter i., that God has given us in the Holy Scriptures an infallible, authoritative, complete and perspicuous rule of faith and practice. That " the whole counsel of God, concerning all

things necessary for his own glory and man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced fropa Scripture." It hence necessarily follows that since God has prescribed the mode in which we are acceptably to worship and serve him, it must be an oifence to him and a sin in us for us either to neglect his way, or ^''1 preference to practice our own. It may well have been that in the natural state of man and in his moral relations to God in which he stood before the fall, his natural reason, conscience and religious instinct might have sufficed to direct him in his worship and service. But since man's moral nature is depraved, and his religious instincts perverted, and his relations to God reversed by sin, it is self-evident that an explicit, positive revelation is necessary not only to tell men that God will admit his worship at all, but also to prescribe the principles upon which, and the methods in which, that worship and service may be rendered. As before shown from Scripture, not only all teaching for doctrine the commandments of men, but all manner of will-worship, of self-chosen acts and forms of worship, are an abomination to God. At the same time, of course, there are, as the Confession admits. Chapter i., § 6, some circumstances concerning the worshij) of God and the government of the (-hurch, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word. These relate obviously to the application of the principles and " general rules" laid down in Scripture for our guidance in worship and ecclesiastical government to the varying times and circumstances of the

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case in hand. But we have in no case any right, npon the ground of taste, fashion or expediency, to go beyond the clear warrant of ScTipture.

3d. That the divine worship is to be addressed equally to Father, Son and Holy Ghost follows necessarily from what we have proved under Chapter ii., § 3 — that Father, Son and Holy Ghost being distinct persons, ai-e yet each equally, in the same absolute sense, the one supreme God. That God can now be acceptably approached only through a Mediator is proved by what we have already proved (a) as to the guilt of man by nature and in consequence of habitual transgression, (b) as to the justice of God, and (c) as to the fact that God has from eternity determined to deal with men, as the subjects of redemption, only through a Mediator. If Christ as our High Priest truly represents the elect before the Father, in obeying and suffering vicariously in their stead and in making intercession in their behalf, and if he is the medium through which all gracious benefits come to us from God, it follows that all our approaches to God should be made through him. That God is the only proper subject of worship, and that Christ is the only Mediator through whom we may approach God, will be shown under the next head.

4th. Religious worship is upon no pretence to be offered to angels, nor to saints, nor to any other creature, nor to God through any other mediator save Christ alone.

The most authoritative Standards of the Church of Rome teach — (a.) That the Virgin Mary, saints and angels are to receive true religious worship, in proportion to their respective ranks. (6.) That they are to be

invoked to help us in our times of need.* (c.) That they are to be invoked to intercede with God or with Christ for us. (d) Some of their most authoritative books of worship teach that God is to be asked to save and help us on the ground of the merits of the saints ; (e) that the pictures, images and relics of saints and martyrs are to be retained in churches and worshipped.!

To avoid the charge of idolatry made upon them for these practices, tliey distinguish between (a) Latvia, or the highest religious worship, which is due to God alone, and (6) Douliaj or that inferior religious worship which is due in various degrees to saints and angels, according to their rank. Some also mark a middle degree of worship, which is due to the Virgin Mary alone, by the term Hyperdoulia, They also distinguish between (a) that direct worship which is due severally to God, to the Virgin or to the saints and angels, and (6) that indirect worship which terminates upon the picture or image which represents to the worshipper the direct object of his worship.

The objection to this entire system is —

(1.) That it has, neither as a whole nor in any element (.>f it, a shadow of support in Scripture.

(2.) That the reasons for worshipping God apply to the worship of no other being. That reason and revelation unite in teaching us that a Being of infinite and absolute perfection, our Creator, Preserver and moral Governor, stands apart from all other objects, and therefore is not to be classed as an object of worship with any other.

* Council of Trent, Sess. 25 : " Bonum atque utile esse, .... ad eorum orationes, opetn, auxiliumque confugere." Cat. Rom., iii. 2, 10; iv. 5, 8; and iii. 2, 8.

t Council of Trent, Sess. 25 ; Cat. Rom. iii 2, 23. and iii. 2, 8.

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(3.) The sin of worshipping other gods and angels is explicitly forbidden. Ex. xx. 3, 5; Col. ii. 18. When the people of Lystra proposed to worship Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas, " they rent their clothes and ran among the people, saying,^' "We also are men,'' "and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God." Acts xiv. 14, 15.

(4.) The worship of images, or of God, Christ or samts by images, is forbidden in the Second Commandment. Ex. XX. 4, 5.

(5.) The distinctions they make between the different degrees of worship due to God and to holy creatures, and between the indirect worship which terminates upon the image or picture and the direct worship which terminates upon the person represented by it, are not their peculiar property, but, as every missionary to the heathen knows, are common to them with the educated class among all idolaters. If the Romanists be not idolaters, the sins forbidden in the First and Second Commandments have never been committed.

(6.) The invocation of the saints is a pure absurdity, for unless they are omnipresent and omniscient, they cannot hear us, and in many cases, unless they are omnipotent, they cannot help us. The Romish explanation, that God may perhaps tell the saints what we pray, in order that the saints may in turn tell God, is worthy of the doctrine it explains.

(7.) The saints and angels are not mediators between us and God or us and Christ, because (a) it is explicitly asserted that Christ is the only Mediator between God and man. 1 Tim. ii. 5. (6.) Christ has exhaustively •lischarged every requisite mediatorial function, both

on earth and in heaven. Heb. ix. 12, 24; vii. 25; x. 14. (c.) Because we are "complete" in Christ, and we are exhorted to come immediately to God through Christ, and to come with the utmost boldness and sense of liberty. Col. ii. 10; Eph. ii. 18; iii. 12; Heb. iv. 16; x. 19-21. The very suggestion of supplementing the work of Jesus Christ with that of other mediators is infinitely derogatory to him. (d) There can be no room for intercessors between us and Christ, because Christ is our tender Brother (Matt. xi. 28), and because it is the office of the Holy Ghost to draw men to Christ. John vi. 44; xvi. 13, 14. (e.) Even if there was need for other mediators, the saints would not be fit for the place. They are absent; they cannot hear when we cry. They are dependent ; they cannot help others. As we have seen, they have no supererogatory merits, and therefore cannot lay in our behalf a foundation for our acceptance with God. They are busy worshipping and enjoying Christ in person, and have neither the time, the opportunity nor the ability to manage the affairs of the world.

Keligious worship consists in that homage and honour ■which we give to God, as a being of infinite perfection; whereby we profess our subjection to, and confidence in him, as our chief good and only happiness. It may be viewed as either internal or external; the former consisting in that inward homage which we owe to God, such as loving, believing, fearing, trusting in him, and other elicit acts of the mind ; the latter consisting in the outward expression of that homage, by the observance of his instituted ordinances. Concerning the external worship of God, our Confession affirms, in the first place, that God can be worshipped acceptably only in the way of his own appointment. As God is the sole object of religious worship, so it is his prerogative to prescribe the mode of it. Divine institution must, therefore, be our rule of worship ; and whatever may be imagined to be useful and decent, must be examined and determined by this rule. It is not left to human prudence to make any alterations in, or additions to, God's own appointments. " What thing soever I command you," saith the Lord, " observe to do it ; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." — Deut. xii. 32. To introduce into the worship of God what may be deemed significant ceremonies, under the pretext of beautifying the worship, and exciting the devotion of the worshippers, is to be guilty of superstition and willworship. In the second place, our Confession particularly condemns the worshipping of God " under any visible representation." The worshipping of God in or by images is one of the worst corruptions of the Church of Rome. God is a spiritual, invisible, and incomprehensible being, and cannot, therefore, be represented by any corporeal likeness or figure. " To whom will ye liken me, or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One." — Isa. xl, 25. " We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." — Acts xvii. 29. The Israelites were expressly forbidden to make any image of God. In Deut. ^iv. 15, 16, Moses insists that " they saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake to them in Horeb, lest they should corrupt themselves, and make them a graven image." And, therefore, he charges them (ver. 23) "to take heed lest they should forget the covenant of the Lord then- God, and

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make them a graven image." The Scripture forbids the worshipping of God by images, although they may not be intended as proper similitudes, but only as emblematical representations of God. Every visible form which is designed to recall God to our thoughts, and to excite our devotions, and before which we perform our religious offices, is

expressly prohibited in the second commandment Exod.

XX. 4. The Church of Rome, being sensible that this precept condemns their doctrine and practice, make it an appendage to the first commandment, and leave it out in their catechism and books of devotion. In the third place, our Confession not only condemns the worshipping of God by images, but also the woj-shipping him " in any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture." Not only has the Church of Rome corrupted the worship of God by a multitude of insignificant ceremonies, but even some Protestant Churches retain many of the usages of Popery, and enjoin the wearing of particular vestments by the ministers of religion, the observation of numerous festival days, the erection of altars in churches, the sign of the cross in baptism, bowing at the name of Jesus, and kneeling at the Lord's Supper. These practices we justly reckon superstitious, because there is no scriptural warrant for them, and they are the inventions of men. It were well if those who enjoin and those who observe them would consider the words of God concerning the Jews : " In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."— Matt. xv. 9.