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the object of prayer, but the fame one living and true God, who is alfo called "the God "and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift," (Eph. iii. 14. "For this cause I bow my "knees unto the Father of our Lord Jefus "Chrift,") and every inftance of homage approaching to divine is ftrongly repreffed. When Cornelius fell down at the feet of Peter, though it cannot be supposed that he who was himself a worshipper of the true God, meant to pay him divine honours, the apoftle replied, Acts x. 26, " Stand up; I "myself alfo am a man." And twice that John fell down before the angel who was explaining to him the vifions of the book of Revelation, he was rebuked in the fame manner, Rev. xix. 10. xxii. 9. "See thou "do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and "of thy brethren that have the teftimony of Jefus: worship God."

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Confidering how ftrongly this great article, the worship of one God only, is guarded in all the books of fcripture, it would feem impoffible that it fhould ever be infringed by any who profefs to hold the

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books of the Old and New Teftament for the rule of their faith and practice; and yet we shall fee, that this very article was the fubject of one of the first and the most radical of all the corruptions of chriftianity. For upon the very fame principles, and in the very fame manner, by which dead men came to be worshipped by the antient idolaters, there was introduced into the chriftian church, in the first place, the idolatrous worship of Jefus Chrift, then that of the Virgin Mary; and laftly, that of innumerable other faints, and of angels alfo; and this modern chriftian idolatry has been attended with all the abfurdities, and with fome, but not all the immoralities, of the antient heathen idolatry. It has, however, evidently promoted a very great neglect of the duties we owe both to God and man. ›

SECT.

SECTION II.

Of the moral attributes of God.

HAT God is a being of the greatest

TH

purity and rectitude is another important doctrine of revealed religion; and though, like the doctrine of the divine unity, it be faid to be the dictate of nature, it may was a doctrine which mankind had in a great measure overlooked, and never fufficiently attended to. Entertaining low notions of the beings on whom they supposed that they immediately depended, and ascribing to them a great variety of objects and purfuits, fome of which were exceedingly trifling and unworthy, they had recourse to a variety of methods by which they thought to recommend themfelves to their favour, many of which had no connection with moral virtue, and fome of them were grofs violations of the most fundamental rules of it. Judging

Judging of their gods as having been, many of them, men no better than themfelves, but fubject to envy and jealousy, they were in general more efpecially prone to that kind of fuperftition which confifts in mortifying themfelves, in order to recommend them to God. If any great calamity befel them, imagining the wrath of their gods was to be appeafed, like that of revengeful and unreafonable men, with fomething that coft them very dear, they fometimes did not spare their own children, but put them to a cruel death in their facrifices; and they made dreadful havock of the rest of their fpecies on much less occafions.

In the Jewish and chriftian revelations, on the contrary, we fee the moral character of the divine Being fet in the cleareft, the ftrongest, and moft amiable light. We find that the God with whom we have to do loves all his creatures; that if he chaftifes them it is with reluctance, and only for their good, and efpecially for their improvement in virtue; that he ftands in no need of any of

his

his creatures, and has no pleasure either in the compliments they pay him, or the gifts and facrifices which they make to him, though, as an expreffion of their homage, dependence, and gratitude, he may think proper to require fuch things.

The proper feat of virtue and folid happinefs being in the heart, the divine being, as his character is revealed to us in our books of fcripture, appears to be most solicitous that our hearts and affections be right, and not to pay much attention to mere external actions, which was every thing that the heathen gods were imagined to trouble themselves about. On the contrary, the God of the Jews and chriftians is always reprefented as fearching the hearts, and as attending to the inmoft thoughts, inclinations, and purposes of the mind; so that no fecret or intended iniquity can efcape his animadverfion.

In order to exhibit the doctrine of the fcriptures concerning the moral attributes of God, I fhall, first confider his purity or

boling,

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