DOCTRINAL REASONS.
Now Mr. Darby undertakes to exclude all these, quite gratuitously, from the New Testament, and gives reasons both doctrinal and critical for so doing. The doctrinal reasons are as follows:
“And this leads me to the use of the words, ‘do homage, instead of ‘worship,’ which I do only for the sake of other people’s minds not used to such questions. I have not a doubt of the justness of the change, and just because in modern English worship is used for what is rendered to God only. When the English translation was made, it was not; and the use of it now falsifies the sense in three-quarters of the passages it is used in. It is quite certain that in the vast majority of instances of persons coming to the Lord they had not the least idea of owning him as God. And it falsifies the sense in a material point to use the word now. That we worship Christ, who do know He is God, is another matter. In the English Bible it is all right, because worship did not mean what it does now. The man when he is married says, ‘with my body I thee worship,’ etc.” (Preface, p. 8.)
The only part true in this paragraph is, that the word “worship” had a lower sense when the Bible was translated. It still has the lower sense in human affairs, as when it is said, “his worship the Lord Mayor.” But who confounds the reverence due to the chief magistrate with the worship of God? or who confounds the word “grace,” when used in reference to men, as, “his grace the Duke of so and so,” with the grace of God, though the same word is used? Both words have in Scripture the highest sense; and the question is not, if it can be used in the lower sense, but if it be “falsified” when used for the worship of Christ in the New Testament. And to this question Mr. Darby gives a very distinct reply—that it is falsified in a material point when so used. And why? Because “worship is used for God only, and they had not the least idea of owning Him as God.”
If this indeed be true, it is one of the gravest things we have met since Christianity dawned upon us, and pregnant with the gravest consequences. For, if our Lord accepted the worship given Him when they had not the least idea of owning Him as God, He was supporting and sanctioning the greatest sin known to the Old Testament Scriptures.
On the other hand, if they merely meant to give Him homage and mere human reverence, then He was in their eyes inferior to what Peter was in the eyes of Cornelius, and to what the angel was
