21.2 Section II

    Section II.—Religious worship is to be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and to him alone: not to angels, saints, or any other creature: and since the fall, not without a Mediator; nor in the mediation of any other but of Christ alone.

Exposition In this section the object of religious worship is defined.

1. Our Confession affirms that religious worship is to be given to God alone. While the first commandment forbids us to have any other gods before him, it requires us to worship him alone. Most explicit, too, was the answer which Christ gave to Satan, when he would have our Saviour to fall down and worship him. "It is written," he replied, "thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."—Matt. iv. 10. And when the Apostle John attempted to offer religious worship to an angel, either through surprise, or through a mistake of him for Jesus Christ, the angel said unto him, "See thou do it not; worship God " (Rev. xxii. 8, 9); thereby intimating that God alone is to be worshipped.

There can be only one true God, but there are three distinct persons in the Godhead; these three persons are designated the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and religious worship is due to each of these persons. Although Christians usually address their supplications to the Father, in the name of the Son, and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, yet divine worship may be performed to any of the adorable Three immediately. And it must ever be remembered, that when any one of the persons of the Godhead is immediately addressed, the other two are included. These divine persons are only one object of worship, because they are only one Being—one God.

2. In opposition to the Papists, who maintain, that not only God, but good angels and departed saints, being canonised by the Pope, ought to be worshipped, even in a religious manner, our Confession affirms that neither angels, nor saints, nor any other creature, ought to receive religious worship. The worshipping of angels is expressly forbidden by the Apostle Paul (Col. ii. 18): "Let no man beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels." And when the Apostle John was going to worship the angel, he absolutely refused it, and ordered him to direct his worship to God himself: "I fell at his feet to worship him; and he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant; worship God." - Rev. xix. 10. Papists are likewise guilty of gross idolatry, in worshipping saints departed, especially the Virgin Mary. To the saints they pray, make vows, swear by them, consecrate altars and temples to them, offer incense, and, in short, render to them all the honours which are paid to God himself. They, no doubt, pretend that the worship which they give to the saints is not precisely the same in kind and degree with that which they give to God; but, however they may distinguish in theory, the greater part make no distinction in practice. To render any kind of religious worship to departed saints cannot be vindicated by Scripture. Christians are desired to remember them that had the rule over them (Heb. xiii. 17), but no intimation is given of worshipping them. Several of the apostles and first Christians, particularly James the Great and Stephen, had suffered martyrdom when the Epistles were written; but no mention is made of offering prayers to them. The invocation of saints implies either that they are everywhere, or that they know all things; but omnipresence and omniscience are divine perfections, incommunicable to any creature. Our Confession condemns the worshipping not only of angels and saints, but also of "any other creature." And Papists leave a multiplicity of objects of worship besides those here specified. They not only worship departed saints themselves, but even their relics. The Council of Trent authorised the adoration of relics, and they continue in high esteem among the Papists to the present day. But as God effectually guarded against the superstition into which the Jews might have fallen with respect to the remains of Moses, by taking care that his body should be buried in such a manner that "no man knew of his sepulchre" (Deut. xxxiv. 6); so this certainly justifies us in doing no further honour to the bodies of saints than merely interring them. We know that the early Christians took no further care about Stephen’s body than to bury it with decency. - Acts viii. 2. And as the worshipping of relics is directly contrary to the practice of the primitive Christians, so it is utterly irreconcilable with common sense. It was also decreed by the Council of Trent, that "due honour and veneration" be given to the images of Christ, of the blessed Virgin, and other saints. Papists, accordingly, bow down to images, kiss them, offer incense, and pray to them. They may tell us that they do not terminate their worship on the image itself, but worship God in and by it. The same thing might have been said both by enlightened heathens and by the Jews, yet this did not exempt them from the charge of idolatry. The Israelites professed to worship Jehovah by the golden calf (Exod. xxxii. 5); and the calves set up at Dan and Bethel, by Jeroboam, were intended only as means whereby to worship the true God.—1Kings xii. 26. Not only the worshipping of images themselves, but the use of them in worship, even when the true God is worshipped in and by them, is called idolatry in Scripture. This section likewise refers to the medium by which acceptable worship must be offered to God. In the state of innocence man had liberty of access to God at all times, and needed none to mediate between him and his Creator; but, since the fall, no acceptable worship can be given to God without a mediator. And, in opposition to Papists, who maintain that angels, departed saints, and chiefly the Virgin Mary, are mediators and intercessors between God and man, our Confession affirms, that there is no other mediator but Christ alone. The Scripture expressly assures us that "there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."—1 Tim. ii. 5. Christ declares of himself, "I am the way; no man cometh to the Father but by me" (John xiv. 6); and "by him we have access to the Father."—Eph. ii. 18. Papists grant that Jesus Christ is the alone mediator of redemption; but they join angels and saints with him as mediators of intercession. On this point, indeed, they are not agreed among themselves. Some hold that, along with our now glorified Mediator, the holy angels and departed saints intercede with God for us. Others hold that they only act as mediators between Christ and us. The Scripture, however, gives no warrant for these distinctions. It represents the intercession of Christ as founded upon the invaluable merit of his atoning sacrifice. He who is our Advocate with the Father is also the propitiation for our sins.—1 John ii. 1, 2. He is Mediator of intercession, because he is Mediator of redemption; and upon this account his intercession is effectual. Glorified saints are indebted to free grace for their own admission into heaven, and they have no merit to apply to others. To solicit their intercession supposes that they hear our prayers and are acquainted with our circumstances; but this is a gratuitous assumption. To employ them to intercede for us with God, is highly derogatory to the honour of Christ; for it implies that he is either unmindful of his office, or that he has not interest enough to obtain from God the blessings we need. To employ them to intercede for us with Christ himself is also dishonouring to him; for it must imply, that they are more disposed "to sympathise with us than our merciful High Priest, who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and was, in all points, tempted like as we are." While the doctrine of the Church of Rome upon this subject degrades the Lord Jesus Christ, it invests departed saints with the honours and attributes of Deity. It must import that they are omnipresent and omniscient, for how could the Virgin Mary, for example, otherwise have any knowledge of the prayers which are addressed to her at the same time in ten thousand places, and, it may be, by millions of individuals? Protestants, therefore, with good reason, reject the notion of angelic and human intercessors, and rely solely on the intercession of that glorious Mediator whom the Father always heareth.