6: It is also remarkable that in all these cases,
whether the Septuagint employs the word "dulia," or "latria,"
the word in the Hebrew is precisely the same, [Hebrew: avad].
That in the fifth century the words were synonymous is evident
from Theodoret. I. 319. See Edit. Halle.--Index.]
I will only detain you by one more example, drawn from two passages,
which seems the more striking because each of the two words "dulia" and
"latria" is used to imply the true worship of God in a person, who was
changed from a state of alienation to a state of holiness. The first is
in St. Paul's 1st Epistle to the Thessalonians, i. 9. "How ye turned to
God from idols, to serve [Greek: douleuein theo zonti] the living and
true God." The second is in Heb. ix. 14. "How much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself {60} without
spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve[17] the
living God."
[Footnote 17: [Greek: latoeuein theo zonti.] In each of these
two cases the Vulgate uses "servire."]
The word "hyperdulia," now used to signify the worship proper to the
Virgin Mary, as being a worship of a more exalted character than the
worship offered to saints and angels, archangels, and cherubim and
seraphim, will not require a similar examination. The word was invented
in later times, and has been used chiefly to signify the worship of the
Virgin, and is of course found neither in the Scriptures, nor in any
ancient classical or ecclesiastical author. {61}
* * * * *
CHAPTER III.
SECTION I.--THE EVIDENCE OF PRIMITIVE WRITERS.
Before we enter upon the next branch of our proposed inquiry, allow me
to premise that I am induced to examine into the evidence of Christian
antiquity not by any misgiving, lest the testimony of Scripture might
appear defective or doubtful; far less by any unworthy notion that God's
word needs the additional support of the suffrages of man[18]. On the
contrary, the voice of God in his revealed word is clear, certain, and
indisputable, commanding the invocation of Himself alone in acts of
religious worship, and condemning any such departure from that
singleness of adoration, as they are {62} seduced into, who invoke
saints and angels. And it is a fixed principle in our creed, that where
God's written word is clear and certain, human evidence cannot be
weighed against it in the balance of the sanctua
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