all this that appears so fully in Celsus Porphyry and many others did not make the Fathers give over the Charge Dr. Stillingfleet has given such full Proofs of this that nothing can be made plainer than the matter of Fact is We know likewise that when the Controversy arose concerning the Godhead of Jesus Christ Athanasius and the other Fathers made use of the same Argument against the Arrians who worshipped him that they could not be excused from the Sin of Idolatry in worshipping and invocating him whom they believed to be only a Creature which shews that it was the Sense of the Christians of that Age that all Acts of Divine Worship and in particular all Prayers that were offered up to any that was not truly and by nature God and the Eternal God were so many Acts of Idolatry So that upon the whole matter it is clear that the Worshipping the true God under a Corporeal Representation and the worshipping or Invocating of Creatures tho in an inferior degree was taxed by the Apostles and by the Primitive Church as Idolatrous When they accuse them for those Corruptions of Divine Worship they did not consider the softning Excuses of more refined Men so much as the Acts that were done which to be sure do always carry the stupid Vulgar to the grossest degrees of Idolatry and therefore every step towards it is so severely forbid by God since upon one Step made in the publick Worship the People are sure to make a great many more in their Notions of things Therefore if we should accuse the Church of Rome for all the Excesses of the past Ages or of the more Ignorant Nations in the present Age such as Spain and Portugal even this might be in some degree well grounded because the publick and authorized Offices and Practices of that Church has given the rise to all those Disorders and even in this we should but Copy after the Fathers who always represent the Pagan Idolatry not as Cicero or Plutarch had done it but according to the grossest notions and practices of the Vulgar XIV All that our Author says concerning the Cherubims deserves not an answer for what use soever might be made of this to excuse the Lutherans for the use of Images without worshipping them tho after all the doing such a thing upon a Divine Command and the doing it without a Command are two very different things yet it cannot belong to the worship of Images since the Israelites payed no worship to the Cherubims They pay'd indeed a Divine worship to the Cloud of Glory which was between them and which is often in the Old Testament called God himself in all those expressions in which he is said to dwell between the Cherubims But this being a miraculous Symbole of the Divine presence from which they had answers in all extraordinary cases it was God himself without any Image or Representation that was worshipped in it As we Christians pay our Adorations to the Humane Nature of Christ by vertue of that more sublime and ineffable indwelling of the Godhead in Him in which case it is God only that we worship in the man Christ Even as the respect that we pay to a man terminates in his mind tho the outward expressions of it go to the body to which the mind is united So in that unconceivable Union between the Divine and Humane Natures in Christ we adore the Godhead only even when we worship the man. XV. The General part of this Discourse being thus stated the application of it to the Church of Rome will be no hard matter I will not insist much on the Article of Image Worship because it is not comprehended in the Test tho our Author dwells longest on it to let us see how carefully but to how little purpose he had read Dr. Spencer's Learned Book But if one considers the Ceremonies and Prayers with which Images and particularly Crosses are to be dedicated by the Roman Pontifical and the formal Adoration of the Cross on Good-Friday and the strange vertues that are not only believed to be in some Images by the rabble but that are authorized not only by the Books of Devotion publickly allowed among them but even by Papal Bulls and Indulgences he will be forced to confess that the old notions of the Teraphim are clearly revived among them This could be made out in an infinite Induction of particulars of which the Reader will find a large account in the Learned Dr. Brevint's Treatise entitled Saul and Samuel at Endor But I come now to the two Branches mentioned in the Test XVI One is the Sacrifice of the Mass in which if either our Senses that tell us it is now Bread and Wine or the New Testament in which it is called both Bread and the fruit of the Vine even after the Consecration or if the Opinion of the first seven Centuries or if the true principles of Philosophy concurring altogether are strong enough we are as certain as it is possible for us to be of any thing that they are still according to our Authors own phrase a senseless piece of matter VVhen therefore this has Divine Adoration offered to it when it is called the good God carried about in solemn Processions and receives as publick and as humble a Veneration as could be offered up to the Deity it self if it appeared visibly here the highest degree of Divine worship is offered up to a Creature nor will such worshippers believing this to be truely the Body of Christ save the matter if indeed it is not so This may no doubt go a great way to save themselves and to bring their sin into the Class of the sins of Ignorance but what large thought soever we may have of the mercies of God to their persons we can have no Indulgence for an act of Divine Adoration which is directed to an Object that we are either sure is Bread or we are sure of nothing else XVII As for the Invocation and Adoration of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints I shall offer only three Classes of Instances to prove it Idolatrous 1. In the Office of the Mass on many of the Saints days that Sacrifice which is no other than the Body and Blood of Christ according to them is offered up to the honour of the Saints and they pray to God to accept of it through the Saints Intercession One would think it were enough to offer up the Sacrifices of prayers and praises to them but here is a Sacrifice which carries in the plain words of it the most absurd Idolatry that is possible which is the offering up the Creator to the honour of a Creature 2. In the Prayers and Hymns that are in their publick Offices there are Petitions offered up to the Saints that in the plain sense of the words import their pardoning our sins and changing our hearts The dayly prayer to the Virgin goes far this way Tu nos ab hoste protege
England it will be a very heavy Imputation on us if it appears that though we held those Opinions as long as the Court and Crown have favoured us yet as soon as the Court turns against us we change our Principles XIV Here is the true Difficulty of this whole Matter and therefore it ought to be exactly considered 1. All general Words how large soever are still supposed to have a tacit Exception and Reserve in them if the Matter seems to require it Children are commanded to obey their Parents in all things Wives are declared by the Scripture to be subject to their Husband in all things as the Church is unto Christ And yet how comprehensive soever these words may seem to be there is still a Reserve to be understood in them and though by our Form of Marriage the Parties swear to one another till Death them do part yet few doubt but that this Bond is dissolved by Adultery though it is not named for odious things ought not to be suspected and therefore not named upon such occasions But when they fall out they carry still their own force with them 2. When there sems to be a Contradiction between two Articles in the Constitution we ought to examine which of the two is the most Evident and the most Important and so we ought to fix upon it and then we must give such an accommodating sense to that which seems to contradict it that so we may reconcile those together Here then are two seeming Contradictions in our Constitution The one is the Publick Liberty of the Nation the other is the renouncing of all Resistance in case that were invaded It is plain that our Liberty is only a thing that we enjoy at the King's Discretion and during his Pleasure if the other against all Resistance is to be understood according to the utmost Extent of the Words Therefore since the chief Design of our whole Law and of all the several Rules of our Constitution is to secure and maintain our Liberty we ought to lay that down for a Conclusion that it is both the most plain and the most important of the two And therefore the other Article against Resistance ought to be so softned as that it do not destroy us 3. Since it is by a Law that Resistance is condemned we ought to understand it in such a sense as that it does not destroy all other Laws And therefore the intent of this Law must only relate to the Executive Power which is in the King and not to the Legislative in which we cannot suppose that our Legislators who made that Law intended to give up that which we plainly see they resolved still to preserve entire according to the Ancient Constitution So then the not resisting the King can only be applied to the Executive Power that so upon no pretence of ill Administrations in the Execution of the Law it should be lawful to resist him but this cannot with any reason be extended to an Invasion of the Legislative Power or to a total Subversion of the Government For it being plain that the Law did not design to lodg that Power in the King it is also plain that it did not intend to secure him in it in case he should set about it 4. The Law mentioning the King or those Commissioned by him shews plainly that it only designed to secure the King in the Executive Power for the word Commission necessarily importts this since if it is not according to Law it is no Commission and by Consequence those who act in virtue of it are not Commissionated by the King in the Sense of the Law. The King likewise imports a Prince clothed by Law with the Regal Prerogative but if he goes to subvert the whole Foundation of the Government he subverts that by which he himself has his Power and by consequence he annuls his own Power and then he ceases to be King having endeavoured to destroy that upon which his own Authority is founded XV. It is acknowledged by the greatest Assertors of Monarchial Power that in some Cases a King may fall from his Power and in other Cases that he may fall from the Exercise of it His Deserting his People his going about to enslave or sell them to any other or a furious going about to destroy them are in the opinion of the most Monarchical Lawyers such Abuses that they naturally divest those that are guilty of them of their whole Authority Infancy or Phrenzy do also put them under the Guardianship of others All the Crowned Heads of Europe have at least secretly approved of the putting the late King of Portugal under a Guardianship and the keeping him still a Prisoner for a few Acts of Rage that had been fatal to a very few Persons And even our Court gave the first countenance to it though of all others the late King had the least reason to have done it at least last of all since it justified a younger Brother's supplanting the Elder yet the Evidence of the Thing carried it even against Interest Therefore if a King goes about to subvert the Government and to overturn the whole Constitution he by this must be supposed either to fall from his Power or at least from the Exercise of it so far as that he ought to be put under Guardians and according to the Case of Portugal the next Heir falls naturally to be the Guardian XVI The next Thing to be considered is to see in Fact whether the Foundations of this Government have been struck at and whether those Errors that have been perhaps committed are only such Malversations as ought to be imputed only to humane Frailty and to the Ignorance Inadvertencies or Passions to which all Princes may be subject as well as other Men. But this will best appear if we consider what are the Fundamental Points of our Government and the chief Securities that we have for our Liberties The Authority of the Law is indeed all in one word so that if the King pretends to a Power to dispense with Laws there is nothing left upon which the Subject can depend and yet as if the Dispensing Power were not enough if Laws are wholly suspended for all Time coming this is plainly a repealing of them when likewise the Men in whose Hands the Administration of Justice is put by Law such as Judges and Sheriffs are allowed to tread all Laws under-foot even those that infer an Incapacity on themselves if they violate them this is such a breaking of the whole Constitution that we can no more have the Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it
26. and when his Son was Sick he sent his Wife to the Prophet Jehovah c. 14. The Story of the new Idolatry that Achab set up of the Baalim shews also plainly that the old Worshippers of the Calves adhered to the true Jehovah for Elijah states the matter as if the Nation had been divided between Jehovah and Baal 1 Kings 18.21 39. And the whole Story of Jehu confirms this 2 Kings 9.6 12 36. he was Anointed King in the Name of Jehovah and as soon as the Captains that were with him knew this they acknowledged him their King he likewise speaking of the Fact of the Men of Samaria cites the Authority of Jehovah 2 Kings 10 10 16 29. which shews that the People acknowledged it still and he called his Zeal against the worship of Baal his Zeal for Jehovah and yet both he and his Party worshipped the Calves It is no less clear that Micah who called the Teraphim his Gods Judges 18.24 was a Worshipper of the true Jehovah Judges 17.13 and there is little reason to doubt that this was the case of Gideons Ephod and of the Brazen Serpent It were needless to go about the proving that all these corrupt ways of worship were Idolatrous the Calf is expresly called an Idol by St. Stephen Acts 7.41 and the thing is so plain that it is denied by none that I know of so here we have a Species of Idolatry plainly set forth in Scripture in which the true God was worshipped in an Image and I fancy it is scarce necessary to inform the Reader that wherever he finds LORD in Capitals in the English Bible it is for Jehovah in the Hebrew XI It is very true that the great and prevailing Idolatry of all the East grew to be the worship of the Host of Heaven which seems to have risen very naturally out of the other Idolatry of the Teraphim which probably was the Ancienter of the two For when men came to think that Divine Influences were tied to such Images it was very natural for them to fancy that a more Soverain Degree of Influence was in the Sun and by consequence that he deserved Divine Adoration much more than their poor little Teraphim But it is also clear that this Adoration which they offer to the Sun was not with Relation to the matter of that shining Body but to the Divinity which they believed was lodged in it This appears not only from the Greek writters Zenophon and Plutarch but from the greatest Antiquity that now is in the VVorld the Bas reliefs that are in the ruins of the Temple of Persepolis which are described with so much cost and care by that Worthy and Learned Gentleman Sir John Chardin and which the World expects so greedily from him He favoured me with a sight of them and in these it appears that in their Triumphs of which a whole Series remains entire they carried not only the Fire which was the Emblem of the Body of the Sun but after that the Emblem of the Divinity that it seems they thought was in it under the Representation of a Head environed with Clouds which is the most natural Emblem that we can fancy of an Intelligent and an Incomprehensible Being It is true as Idolatry grows still grosser and grosser the Intelligent Being was at last forgot tho it seems it was remembred by their Philosophers since the Greeks came to know it and all their Worship was paid to the Sun or to his Emblem the Fire so that even this Idolatry was most probably the Worship of the true God at first under a visible Representation And that this was an effect of the former Idolatry is confirmed from what is said by Moses Deut. 4.14 to 19. where he plainly intimates the progress that Idolatry would have if they once came to worship graven or molten Images or make any sort of Similtude for the Great God this would carry them to lift up their Eyes to Heaven and Worship and Serve the Host of them XII The next shape that Idolatry took was the worshipping some subordinate Spirits their Genii which were in effect Angels or departed Men and Women and this filled both Greece and Rome and was the prevailing Idolatry when the New Testament was writ But that all these Nations believed still one Supream God and that they considered these just as the Roman Church does now Angels and Saints mutatis mutandis has been made out so invincibly by the Learned Dr. Stillingfleet that one would rather think that he had over charged his Argument with too much proof than that it is any way defective And yet this Worship of those secondary Deities is charged with Idolatry both in the Acts and in the Epistles so often that it is plain the Inspired Writers believed that the giving any degrees of divine worship to a Creature tho in a subordinate Form was Idolatry and St. Paul gives us a Comprehensive Notion of Idolatry that it was the giving Divine Service the word is Dulia to those that by nature were not Gods Gal. 4.8 and he throws off all Lords as well as all the Gods of the Heathen as Idols and in opposition to these reduces the VVorship of Christians to the Object of one God the Father and of one Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 8.5 6. So that the Greek and Roman Idolatry being strictly that which is condemned in the New Testament of which we have such a copious Evidence from their writings it is plain that even inferior degrees of worship when offered up to Creatures tho Angels is Idolatry and tho the Heathens thought neither Jupiter nor Mercury the Supream Deities yet the Apostles did not for all that forebear to call them Idols Acts 14.15 XIII Our Author pretends to bear a great respect to Antiquity And therefore I might in the next place send him to all that the Fathers have writ against the Greek and Roman Idolatry in which he will find that the Heathens had their Explainers as well as the Church old Rome has They denied they worshipped their Images but said they made use of them only to raise up their Minds by those visible Objects yet as St. Paul begun the charge against the Athenians of Idolatry Acts 17.29 for their Gods of gold and silver wood and stone so it was still kept up and often repeated by the Fathers tho the Philosophers might have thrown it back upon them with all that Pomp of dreadful words which our Author makes use of against those that fasten the same Charge upon the Church of Rome The same might be said with relation to the Fathers accusing them of Polytheism in worshipping many Gods and of Idolatry in worshipping those that had been but Men like themselves For it is plain that at least all the Philosophers and wise Men believed that these were only deputed by the Great God to govern some Countrys and Cities and that they were Mediators and Intercessors between God and Men. But