It is worthy of remark, that the same word “dulia[16]” is employed, when the Lord by his prophet speaks of the most solemn acts of religious worship; not in general obedience only, but in the offerings and oblations of their holy things.  Ezek. xx. 40.  “In mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve me [Greek:  douleusousi.  Vulg:  serviet.]; there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first-fruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.”  St. Matthew also uses the same word when he records the saying of our blessed Lord, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” [Matt. vi. 24.; Greek:  douleuein.  Vulg:  servire.]

[Footnote 16:  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,