But there is another difference between us, besides your failure to recognise the spiritual power and spiritual wisdom of Christ. You do not know what you mean by worship; you do not know what you ought to worship; and you do not know how little you know of God.
You tell me that “worship is a tribute conceded to God alone.” But what is God? The absolute God no one knows. Our most perfect conception of Him is only a conception of a Mediator of some kind by which we approach Him. To each man, that which he worships, and that alone, is God. I worship Christ, therefore to me Christ is God. What will you say to that? I suppose you will say “A non-miraculous Christ _ought not to be_ God to you”? Why not? How does He differ from your conception of God? Is He less loving, less merciful, less just? “No,” you reply, “but He is less powerful.” “How is He less powerful? Has He less power of pitying, loving, forgiving, raising men from sin to righteousness? Is He less powerful in the spiritual world?” “Perhaps not; but He is less powerful in the material world. He never, according to your account, rose above, never even for a moment suspended the laws of nature.” Indeed? And God, the Maker of the world—did He ever rise above, or suspend the laws of nature? When? “Well, He is said to have done so frequently in the records of the Bible”. But many men deny that, and you yourself are disposed to agree with them. “At all events He did so when He made the world.”
Here at last we can come to an understanding. You look up to God as to the Maker of the world, and are more ready to worship Him, as such, than to worship a non-miraculous Christ. If by “the Maker of the world” you mean—as I am quite sure many mean—“the Maker of the mere material forces of Nature,” or even “the Maker of _all things apart from Christ_,” then words fail me to express how entirely I differ from you. But let me try to put your view into my own language, in order to shew you that I do not condemn it without understanding it. “We cannot,” you say, “worship a mere non-miraculous man, who did nothing but talk and lead a good life, and perhaps perform a few acts of faith-healing, however beneficial may have been his influence on posterity. The fact that, after his death, visions of him were seen by excited and enthusiastic followers, and in one case by an enemy of highly emotional tendencies, cannot alter this decision. It is impossible to worship a being so helpless, so limited, so aweless as this. What is such a creature in comparison with the mysterious Maker of the stars or Ruler of the ocean? Surely the sight of a storm at sea ought to suffice to turn any one from the imaginary and self-deceiving worship of the merely human Jesus of Nazareth to the worship of One whose greatness and glory and terror surround us on every side with material witnesses, One in comparison with whom no mere man may be mentioned.”