For Images they venerate for so the Council of Trent loves to speak rather than to say adore or worship with the second Synod of Nice those of Christ the true God and of such as they esteem real Saints in Heaven and not the Statues of the Sun or of Universal Nature or of the Soul of the World or intentionally those of Devils or damned spirits In the Worship of Angels Saints Images they forbear Sacrifice as proper to God Whereas the Heathen did not appropriate it to Him for some of them offer'd only their Minds to the Supreme Deity and their Beasts to inferior gods And the greater number offer'd Victims and their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Prayers used in sacrificing both to God and Daemons Yet it must be confessed that thus far the Church of Rome hath gone towards Sacrifice to Saints It hath appointed Masses which it esteemeth proper Sacrifices or Offerings of the Body of Christ to the Father in honour of her Saints Insomuch that such Masses bear the names of their Hero's and nothing is said more commonly than the Mass of St. Anthony the Mass of this or the other Saint But in this case the Council of Trent hath given caution and would not have it believ'd that the Sacrifice is offered to the Saint but to God only Now that which I have hitherto shewed is the fair side of the Church of Rome in reference to the Idolatry with which she is charged Neither hath my Pen dawbed in the representation it hath done her but justice But there is besides this already exposed to view a cloudy side of that Church which calleth her self the Pillar of Christian Truth This that we may the better discern let us first view it in the Council of Trent or in any later Popish Synods and then in its own subsequent Acts and see how far first in the point of Invocation of Saints and next of Images it doth directly or by plain consequence and not meerly by accidental abuse usurp any honour which belongeth to God PART 3. Of the Idolatry charged on the Papists in their Worship of Saints FIrst touching the Invocation of Saints the Council of Trent determineth that the spirits of holy men reigning with Christ are to be venerated and invoked And that they offer Prayers to God for us Also that it is good and lawful to pray to them and to flie to their Prayers their help and aid through Christ the only Saviour and Redeemer of men In pursuance of this Decree the Church of Rome hath continued her practice of worshipping Saints according to certain Forms of words prescribed in such Books as her Breviary and Missal which the Popes by virtue of another Decree of the same Council have revised and for common use established Now the forms and signs of Worship used in that Church are of such a nature that they seem at first view at least to give to the Saints if not that honour which is incommunicable yet that which God though he might have given it hath reserved to himself It may suffice to illustrate this matter if I select some Forms used in the Officium Parvum of the holy Virgin which maketh a part of the Romish Breviary set out in pursuance of the Decree of Trent by Pius the fifth In that Office the Virgin is worshipped in these Forms Establish us in peace Unloose the bonds of the guilty Bring forth light to the blind Drive away our evils Make us absolved of our faults meek and chaste Vouchsafe us a spotless life Thou art most worthy of all praise Let all who commemorate thee have experience of thy assistance Vouchsafe that I may praise thee O Sacred Virgin give me power against thy Enemies Let the Virgin Mary bless us and our pious off-spring Mary Mother of Grace Mother of Mercy do thou defend us from the Enemy and receive us at the hour of death We also find in that little Office this Exhortation ascribed to Bernard Let us embrace my Brethren the footsteps of Mary and let us cast our selves at her blessed feet with most devout supplication Let us hold her and not let her go till she bless us for she is able These Forms are agreeable to many others in the former part of the Roman Breviary out of which I will transcribe only the following Suffrages Holy Mary succour the miserable help the weak-hearted refresh the weeping pray for the people mediate for the Clergy intercede for devout women Let all who celebrate thy Commemoration feel Thy Aid Hail O Queen Thou Mother of mercy life sweetness and our Hope we salute thee To thee we the banished children of Eve do make our supplication To thee we sigh mourning and weeping in this valley of tears Go to therefore our Advocatress turn towards us those thy merciful eyes and shew us after this our banishment Jesus the blessed fruit of thy womb O mild O pious O sweet Virgin Mary Many of these Suffrages taken in their plain and common meaning do manifestly intrench upon the Prerogative of God And of this kind also are those Romish Prayers which are mentioned by Mr. Thorndike in the last part of his Epilogue in which he treateth of the Laws of the Church The third sort said he of the Prayers of Romanists unto Saints is when they desire immediately of them the same blessings spiritual and temporal which all Christians desire of God There is as he proceeds a Psalter to be seen with the name of God or rather Lord changed every-where into the name of Virgin There is a Book of Devotion in French with this Title Moyen de bien Servir prier adorer la Vierge Marie The way well to serve pray to and adore the blessed Virgin The Prayers of this third sort taking them at the foot of the Letter and valuing the intent of those that use them by nothing but the words of them are meer Idolatries As desiring of the creature that which God only gives which is the worship of the creature for the Creator God blessed for evermore And were we bound to make the Acts of them that teach these Prayers the Acts of the Church because it tolerates them and maintains them in it instead of casting them out it would be hard to free that Church from Idolatry which whoso admitteth can by no means grant it to be a Church The Letter then of Romish Forms being very scandalous those who justifie the use of them must shew some other words wherein the Romish Church hath so explained her self to the World that men may plainly know she never intended them in their common and native acception but in a sense agreeable to the tenure of Scripture and of such a sense Mr. Thorndike in the place before cited hath judged them capable If such an Interpretation be by her promulgated to the World the force of
all their distress O blessed Virgin Vers. In all our Tribulations and Anguishes Resp. The blessed Virgin-Mother succour us Where we have a Miserere not an Ora. Sometimes indeed the Romanists call the very prayer of the Virgin a protection as in this form We beseech thee O Lord that the glorious Intercession of the ever-blessed and glorious Virgin Mary may protect us and bring us to everlasting life But it is certain that they generally mean some further assistance than that of fupplication when they call for it for they are taught that the Saints are endued with such a power Hence John Heigham in his Popish Manual hath this Advertisement as preparatory to Confession Commend thy self unto Almighty God to his blessed Mother and to thy good Angel praying that thou maist no way be seduced or deceived by the fraud of the Devil Also to St. Mary Magdalene and to St. Barbara who as it is written have obtained most effectual grace and favour of God to assist in confession all such as pray unto them for their help and assistance If we proceed to other Councils later than that of the Council of Trent inquiring in them for interpretations of Romish Offices they are not in pretence any more than Provincial or National Synods not general Councils Wherefore the Interpretations of such Synods if any be found in them are not sufficient for the enlightning and manifesting the sense of the whole Church But so far as my observation in the perusal of them may be of validity I avouch that there is not in them such an interpretation as referreth the sense of the abovesaid Forms meerly to a praying to the Saints to pray for us In many of them the Doctrine of Trent in this Article is owned and reinforced but not that I know of further explained That which I find most opposite to the thing in hand amidst so vast an heap of Decrees is a certain place in the Synod of Cambray a Synod held somewhat more than an hundred years ago under Maximilian a Bergis Archbishop and Duke of Cambray The place which I mean is in the third Chapter under the Title de sanctis and thus it runs Let the Prayers of the Faithful follow the analogy and proportion of Faith Wherefore let the less learned Populace be admonished that when they visit the Memorials of the Saints and implore their aid and according to Christian custom repeat the Lords-prayer that they understand that they direct them not to the Saints but unto God the Saints being joined with them as Comprecators This sounds somewhat like a Plea from the Roman Church-men to the Populace of Cambray if care be taken that they be instructed according to that Decree of their Synod But that being a Decree enacted in a corner of the world and in a private Synod it cannot suffice in all those places where the Roman Offices are enjoined and where the use of them is continual Further two things are here to be observed in reference to this Decree First That the Invocation of Saints as Patrons contradicteth not the analogy of the Roman-Faith Secondly That the bringing of the Forms of Invocation to the Analogy of Faith in this Decree does not so much respect the Prayers in the Missal and Breviarie as the lords-Lords-prayer repeated more privately in the Litanies of the Saints Proceed we next to the Roman Decretals In the new Decretals which make the seventh Book in the body of their Canon-law I can find nothing after the Creed of Trent urged upon all their Ecclesiasticks in the Bull of Pius the fourth besides the pressing of the same Form or Oath anew by Pius the fifth upon the Doctors and Professors of all Faculties For the Catechism of Trent I meet indeed with such an Interpretation of the forementioned Offices as soundeth to them that do not well attend as if all were meant of requesting the Prayers of Saints on our behalf The place of that Catechism is this which I am going to mention We do not after the same manner pray to God and to the Saints For we pray to God that he would give good things and deliver us from evil but we beg of the Saints because they are gracious with God that they would take us into their Patronage and procure of God the things we need Hence we use two different Forms for we say properly to God Have mercy on us Hear us to a Saint Pray for us though upon another account we may pray to the Saints themselves to have mercy on us for they are very merciful On this place it may not be amiss if I bestow these Animadversions First When it is said that Roman-Catholicks pray not to the Saints for the bestowing of good or the averting or removing of evil this is meant of absolute Prayer to use the terms of Cardinal Perron by which we address our selves to the first Cause who is God not of Relative supplication by which they call on the Saints as subordinate conveyers of good and averters of evil So in the Hymn Ave Mari's stella the Virgin is desired to give light to the blind and to drive away our evils Secondly When Papists desire the Saints to pray for them because they are gracious with God they mean not this only of their desire that the Saints would use their interest as Saints in their present case for the procuring of Gods immediate help but they also intreat them either to procure of God commission to be their Patrons or to continue his Grace to them in executing the commission formerly given them This I suppose is meant in those Collects where they desire God to protect his people who trust in the Patronage of Peter and Paul and other Apostles And this Horstius means in this form of Prayer to the Virgin I beseech thee by that mighty favour granted thee by Christ that thou wilt obtain for me more grace to please God Thirdly Though in the Litany where the Trinity is invoked with the form of Have mercy the Saints are called on with that of Pray for us for the same form so nigh would have sounded ill as if the Saints were equal with God yet when the Saints are addressed to in distinct Collects or Hymns the form is Help us as well as Pray for us Thus in the Hymn Alma Redemptoris Mater They a pray to the Virgin in the form of Peccatorum miserere Fourthly Here is own'd a request both for Patronage and Prayer And further in that Catechism b the Saints are called Mediators and Patrons and there is mention c of their Aids and their Worship is confounded with that of Angels under the name of Angelical Spirits And of them it is there affirmed that God hath appointed them to be his Ministers that he useth their Ministration in the Government both of his Church and of other things and that by their help
Person into the World he said let all the Angels of God worship him And now he hath installed him as God-man and King of the world at his right hand let us and all the world adore him Let them worship him as God-man and neither worship an undue Image on earth as joyned to his person nor yet his heavenly body as apart by it self That as join'd in unity of person and now in glory is our object and a Crucifix ought not to be looked upon in prayer as the present Image of Christ for he is in Heaven glorious and not on the Cross. And though the Revelation of S. John speaks of him as in Garments roll'd in blood it mentions them not as miserable apparel but as the Purple of the King of Kings The Capitular of Charles the Great would have the Picture of Christs Resurrection as frequent as that of his Cross but by both of them we look back and if any be proper in helping us not meerly in our preparation as the Crucifix may be but in our immediate Religious addresses it is surely a picture of him in Glory if that could be well made but neither is this to be worshipped but made only an help to excite our mind nor is the humanity or body of Christ to be adored by it self yet in the manuals of the Roman Church I find addresses to the very body and I fear that upon the Festival of Corpus Christi and in the object under the shews of bread shews united in their act of devotion to Christs body our Lord is divided We have a form of Prayer to his body in the little French Manual called Petite Catechisme and in the Litanies of the Sacrament And the Learned Bishop Usher in his Sermon before the Commons mentions the Epistle Dedicatory of the Book of Sanders concerning the Lords Supper thus superscribed To the body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ under the forms of bread and wine all honour praise and thanks be given for ever A Judicious Christian would rather ascribe all praise and honour to Christ God-man Whole Christ let us supplicate and honour helping our Imagination by his Shechinah in Glory and remembring the words of St. Austin noted as remarkable by Agobardus Arch-Bishop of Lyons a man zealous in his Age against the corruptions of Image-worship and ill requited in his memory by them who as Baluzius noteth esteem him the less Catholick for it In the first Commandment saith S. Austine that is in the whole of that which himself elsewhere in his Questions of the Old and New-Testament divides into first and second each similitude of God is forbidden to be made by men not because God hath no Image but because no Image of his ought to be worshipped but that which is the same with himself nor that for him but with him God assisting us with this Image why should any religious Acts have any lower object total or partial Images set up as any sort of objects of our inward or external devotion are a sort of Anti-Arks And we ought not to touch them not because they are sacred but because they are unhallowed objects And worse still they are rendred too often by impious Art which maketh the lifeless Image as in the Rood of Bockley by help of Wiers and other instruments of Puppetry to bend to frown to roll the eyes to weep to bleed to exhibit signs of favour or displeasure This indeed is not the constitution but 't is the frequent practice of some in that Church and hereby are framed so many snares for the people who turn such Images into Christs Shechinah For if certain Monks who were also shepheards and people of low conception became through their rusticity absurd Anthropomorphites by reading the bare words of Scripture where it saith that God created man in his own Image how much more will mean people have corrupt fancies begotten in them by false Images which their eyes may see and their hands may handle Such will turn a common Chest into an Ark and a wooden Engine into the Divine Shechinah Of the Sindon at Besanson Chiffletius a Papist reporteth That great numbers met twice a year on a Mountain nigh the City to adore that cloth with Christs Image on it Of it he further saith that it always shineth with a Divine presence that is in effect that it is a Shechinah of God and that in great emergencies it is carried in procession like the Ark being yet more holy than that Mosaic Vessel How shall the people not fall into Idolatry when such false Shechinahs or Idols are layd in their way How much more would it tend to edification to direct them to the Image of God who sitteth in Glory at Gods right hand and whom our minds the less behold in our devotions the more our eye is fixed upon an Image of wood or stone In the City or Church of God described in the 21st chapter of S. Johns Revelation There was no Temple no material fixed place of Gods visible Shechinah though there must be Synagogues or Places for publick Assemblies but Christ himself was the Light or Shechinah and therefore to him as to the only true Image of the invisible God it is proper to direct our Cogitations and Prayers And let not any man think that because the Shechinah is in Heaven and not visibly in a Church as the Shechinah was in the Temple of the Jews that therefore Christians have less assistance than Gods ancient People for they have that which is much more excellent The Glory on the Ark was only a mixture of shapeless lights and shadows and in the Temple the people seldom saw it but being assured of it did view it in their imagination And few of them had other apprehensions of it than as of the presence of God the deliverer and Protector of that Commonwealth But Christians a people under a more spiritual dispensation than the Jews though they see not the Shechinah with their eyes on earth yet from the words of Scripture they can excite their minds to behold it even in the Sanctuary of Heaven And they behold it in the figure of God-incarnate an Image not confused but of a distinct person an Image which brings to their mind the greatest and most comfortable mystery of the means of Salvation aptest to encourage our Prayers and to enflame our Zeal and to raise our Admiration Some objects indeed are on earth exposed to the eyes of Christians by the Institution of our Lord the elements of Bread and Wine And the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or place on which they are consecrated is at this day called in the Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Propitiatory or mercy-Seat And a late Author reporteth of the Abassine Priests upon the Authority of Codignus though in Codignus I could never find it That they blessed a certain Shrine or Coffer of the Sacrament
by the instance of the Brazen Serpent set up by one of Gods Vicegerents and upon its abuse destroyed by another and by that of the Cup of Joseph This Cup by which he Divined was probably an instrument used in some Sacrifice some drink-offering and in the use of which God vouchsafed him a Spirit of Prophesie with relation to the affairs of Egypt Now if the Egyptians afterward made use of this Cup or any other in form of it without any precept or promise from God Almighty and trusted in it as in the cause of Divination they then were Idolaters in this last kind of that impiety And this one would think was the Egyptian practice who readeth Lucian in his Book of Sacrifices and observeth him there deriding the Egyptians because they made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a drinking Pot a God And such a Cup may that be thought which is described in the hand of Isis in her Mystical Table rather than a Measure as Pignorius contendeth as likewise that mentioned by Arnobius in the right hand of Bacchus who often makes a Figure in the forementioned Table But this as it referreth to Joseph is but conjecture scarce so much as opinion I therefore dismiss it Yet I must not dismiss the Argument it self till I have further distinguished both concerning the Objects or Idols of that Honour which is given from God and the ways by which it is translated from the proper to the false Deity These Idols are either Personal Internal or External Objects By Personal Objects I mean the Idolaters themselves who become their own Statues and worship their very selves by the estimation they have of their Persons as Christs or of their Souls as real portions of the Essence of God the fancy of some followers of Plotinus of old who said Their Souls at death returned to the seminal Reason and of some Quakers at this time who say as Edward Burroughs the morning before he departed this Life That his Soul and Spirit was centred in its own being with God Internal Objects are the false Idea's which are set up in the fancy instead of God and his Divine perfections For he who fancieth God under the Idea of Indefinite Amplitude or Extension of matter or of Light or Flame or under the notion of an irresistible Tyrant and applies himself to him as such without the use of any visible external Statue or Picture is as certainly an Idolater as he who worshippeth a Graven Image for he giveth Divine Honour to an Idea which is not Divine Only here the Scene being internal in the Fancy the scandal of the sin is thereby abated External Objects are such which have a subsistence distinct from the Phantasms which are by motion impressed on the Brain And the Catalogue of these is a kind of Inventory of nature I will here give only a summary account of them for the particulars are endless Idolaters have worshipped Universal Nature the Soul of the World Angels the Souls of men departed either by themselves or in union with some Star or other Body They have likewise worshipped the Heavens and in them both particular Luminaries and Constellations the Atmosphere and in it the Meteors and Fowls of the Air the Earth and in it Man together with the accidents of which he is the subject such as Fortitude and Justice Peace and War And further on earth they have deified Beasts Birds Insects Plants Groves Hills artificial and artless Pillars and Statues Pictures and Hieroglyphics mean as that of the Scaribee it self resembling the Sun so many ways as Porphyrie fancieth together with divers fossils and terrestrial Fire They have furthermore adored the Water particularly that fruitful one of the Nile and in it the Fishes and Serpents and Insects as likewise the creatures which are doubtful Inhabitants of either Element such as the Crocodile in Egypt Kircher hath found the Temples of many of these Idols even in that polite Nation of China For he hath a Scheme containing the Temple of the Queen of Heaven the Temple of Heaven the Altar of Heaven the Temple of Demons and Spirits the Temple of the Planet Mars the Altar of the God of Rain the Altar of the King of Birds the Altar of the Earth the Temple of the President of Woods the Temple of Mountains and Rivers the Temple of the Spirit of Medicine the Temple of Gratitude and of Peace the Temple of the President of Mice and of the Dragon of the Sea Menander from Epicharmus summeth up the Idols of the World under these fewer heads of the Wind the Water the Sun the Earth the Fire But he is therefore deficient in his computation neither was it his purpose to make it accurate Thus the Image of God who made all things has as in a broken mirror been beheld without due attention in the several parts of the frame of the World and by the foolish Idolater distinctly adored And this adoration being used towards external Objects and not confined to mans secret thoughts hath with the more success and scandalous dishonour to God been propagated in the World And this remindeth me of the distinction which I designed also to make betwixt the ways by which Gods Honour is derived on creatures For it is either done by the inward estimation of the mind directing its intention in an Act or course of internal Worship or by the external signs of Religious Reverence It is done by both these together or by either of them apart There is no publick worship without manifest signs of it the heart in it self not being discern'd by mans eye but discovering it self by external tokens The Ifraelites saith St. Cyril worshipped the Calf and they did it by crying out these are thy gods f In them the mind and the outward signs of it went together But others by the meer outward shews of Adoration how unconcern'd soever they may have kept their minds have committed Idolatry Such as the Thurificati in the Primitive Church who believing the Gospel offered Incense before an Heathen Idol that being made a sign of their departure from Christianity and their approbation of Gentilism They thereby did an act of open dishonour to the true God and they used external means apt to incline others either to worship Idols instead of Him or to confirm them if they were already Idolaters in their detestable profaneness Such Idolaters it may be were some Englishmen who went to Sea with Mr. Davis in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in order to the discovery of a North-West passage to Cataia China and East-India On the 29th of July in the year 1585 they discovered Land in 64 degrees and 15 minutes of Latitude bearing North-East from them They found this Land an heap of Islands on one of which they went on shoar There some few of the Natives made towards them and amongst that little herd of barbarous people one pointed first upwards wirh his
to the eluding of the force of such places that he believed an acknowledgment of Christ as Creator was in effect a confession of his Godhead This then being by Arius granted and by Socinus denied that Christ created the Natural World it is that single point in which Arius apart from Socinus is chargeable with Idolatry And certainly he is not accused upon slight and idle suspicion if the charge be drawn up against him either from Scripture or Reason In the Scripture God himself doth prove himself to the World to be the true one God by his making of all things In what other sense will any man whose prejudice does not bend him a contrary way interpret the following places Who hath measured out the waters in the hollow of his hand and meted out the Heavens with a span and comprehended the dust of the Earth in a measure and weighed the Mountains in scales and the Hills in a ballance Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counseller hath taught Him Thus saith the God the Lord he that created the Heavens and stretched them out He that spread forth the Earth and that which cometh out of it He that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk therein I am the Lord that is my name and my Glory I will not give to another Thus saith the Lord that created thee O Jacob and formed thee O Israel Fear not Before me there was no God formed neither shall there be after me The Lord is the true God he is the living God and an everlasting King or the King of Eternity Thus shall ye say unto them the Nations The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth even they shall perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens He hath made the Earth by his Power he hath established the World by his Wisdom and hath stretched out the Heavens by his Discretion Thus speaketh the Scripture In the next place let it be considered whether Reason can dissent from it What notion will Reason give us of the true God if it supposeth such wisdom and power in a creature as can make the World For does not Reason thence collect her Idea of God conceiving of him as of the mighty and wise framer of the Universe thus the very Americans themselves I mean the Peruvians did call their supreme God by the name of Pachaia Chacic which signifies as they tell us the Creator of Heaven and Earth In this then Arius is particularly to be condemned in that he supposeth the Creator a Creature and yet professeth to worship him under the notion of the Maker of all things It is true that Arius gave not to Christ the very same honour he did to the Father And his Disciples in their Doxologies were wont in cunning manner to give Glory to the Father by the Son And such a Form Eusebius himself used and we find it at the end of one of his Books against Sabellius Glory be to the one unbegotten God by the one only begotten God the Son of God in one holy Spirit both now and always and through all Ages of Ages Amen Neither do the Arians give any glory to Christ but that which they pretend to think enjoined by God the Father But if Christ had been a Creature the Creator would not by any stamp of his Authority have raised him to the value of a natural God and such a God they honour whatsoever the terms be with which they darken their sense for he is honoured by them as Creator and Governour and dispenser of Grace PART 3. Of the Idolatry of the Socinians THe point in which Socinus offendeth by himself is the Worship he giveth Christ whilst he maketh him but a man and such a man as is but a machine of animated and thinking Matter for though he declineth not the word soul or spirit I cannot find at the bottom of his Hypothesis any distinct substance of a Soul in Christ. If that Principle had been believed by him why doth he suppose the Lord Jesus bereaved of all Perception as long as his Body remained lifeless in the Grave Why do his Followers maintain that the dead do no otherwise live to God than as there is in him a firm purpose of their Resurrection for so the Vindicator of the Confession of the Churches of Poland written by Shlichtingius is pleased to discourse We believe said he not only that the Soul of Christ supervived his Body but also that the Souls of other men do the like But if Cichovius thinketh that the dead do otherwise live to God than as it is always in the hand and power of God to raise them up and restore them to life let him go and confute Christ where he saith I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Now Reason the great Diana of Socinus though he often took a cloud of fancy for his Goddess can't but judg it a disparagement to the Idea of a God to suppose such Divinity as can govern the World and hear and act in all places at once as Christ is by Socinus confessed to do in a portion of living Matter not six-foot square reserved in the Heavens and perceiving by the help of motion on its organs Arius advanced the Idea of Divinity to a much higher and more becoming pitch for he overcome with the plain evidence of Scripture maintained the Praeexistence of the Logos and supposed him to be a distinct substance from Matter And he might consequently affirm with consistence to his Principles that Christ could know without the mere help of motion and be spread in his substance to an amplitude equal with that of the Material World For the Material World is but a Creature one Body of many Creatures and it implieth no contradiction to say of God that he can make one Creature as big as the collection of all the rest But notwithstanding such amplitude there would still be wanting infinite Wisdom For in the Idea of God we have no other notion of it than as of such a Wisdom as sufficeth to frame the World and to govern it after it hath been framed Now this latter Point is that in which both Arius and Socinus are together condemned whilst both worship Christ as one who under God disposeth and governeth all things It is true that he is such but such he had not been if he had not been consubstantial with the Father In that sense he is the Father's Wisdom and whilst Arius and Socinus adore him as Gods Wisdom yet not as God they ascribe to the Creature the Attribute by which the Creator is known For the Scriptures they in opposition to all other gods do as well ascribe the Government as the Creation of the World to that one God of Israel Hear them speaking in this matter with so
we are daily delivered from the greatest dangers of Soul and Body For the Books of publick Offices their Forms have been already produced neither can I see where the Comment of any Rubrick removeth the scandal of their Text. Concerning Manuals they are usually composed by private Doctors or devout Students who often intermix the Glosses of their own Reason But nothing less than the Church it self can authentickly explain its Universal practice And for such Manuals as are authorized by the Church to me they seem to transcend rather than to come short of the Forms of the Missal and Breviarie Such a Manual is that of the Hours of of the Blessed Virgin in which if there had been any such Explication of the Forms used to her it had been shut up together with other Manuals from the common view of the Christian world by the Interdict of any vulgar translation of it For to every Country has not been granted the Sclavonian priviledg That people have been allowed the Books of their Religion in their vulgar tongue with advice notwithstanding to embrace the Latin though to them an unknown language In the Province of Mexico it was decreed by the Synod That no Books of Religion should be read without the permission of the Ordinary And the Manuals which were appointed for the use of the people whether Spanish or Indian were not likely to expound to them the meaning of the Roman Forms for their Contents were these The Lords-prayer The Salutation by the Angel The Apostles Creed The Articles of Faith those in the Creed of Trent The Precepts of the Decalogue The Precepts of the Church The seven Sacraments the seven deadly Sins and the Salve Regina This Antiphona called Salve Regina has been already repeated and it is one of the higher Forms of the Worship of the Virgin And Father Paul did in some measure shew his dislike of it in forbearing to repeat it as did his Brethren at the end of the Mass. But it is true that he coloured his aversness with such an excuse as this that he was not to observe a Decree of Thirty Fryars against the Order of the whole Church Now in the abovesaid Synod of Mexico there is a special inforcement of the singing of Salve Regina daily and with all solemnity during a great part of Lent And the Bishops are there much pressed to procure in this manner with all solicitude the increase of pious devotion towards the holy Virgin The English Romanists have had often in their hands the Manual of Godly Prayers published at St. Omers by John Heigham In the sixth Edition of that Book I find no Explication of the Worship of Saints but much which seemeth to advance it to a degree too high for it Under the first or in our account the second Commandment the Penitent is there taught to confess this as one breach of it that he hath not daily recommended himself to God and his Saints In the Litany of our Lady he hath these Forms O holy Mary stretch abroad the hand of thy mercy and deliver our hearts from all wicked thoughts hurtful speeches and evil deeds O holy Mary we worship thee we glorifie thee Words which are a part of that Religious Thanksgiving which the ancient Church offered to God and called the Angelical Hymn Horstius in his Manual called the Paradise of the Soul reprinted lately at Colen and adorned with Sculptures seems as devout as Heigham now cited for thus he prays or comments on Gratia Plena O blessed Virgin be graciously pleased to pour forth that Grace of which thou art full that the vein of thy benignity overflowing the guilty may receive absolution the sick medicine the weak in heart strength the afflicted consolation those that are in danger help and deliverance O that I could but deserve one drop of such great fulness for the refreshing of my dry and parched heart For the private Oral Instructions of the Romish Ecclesiasticks concerning the use and intent of such Forms I pretend not to be well acquainted with them But as to their publick Preaching I am not ignorant of one very common and no less scandalous usage For the Preacher after a short Preface which introduceth his Text or Subject exhorts the Congregation to say Ave Maria in order to a blessing upon that holy business about which they are assembled And this the Reader may see not only in the more private Sermons of Monsieur de Lingendes but likewise in the more publick one of John Carthenius a Carmelite at the Provincial Synod of Cambray By this Discourse it plainly appeareth that the Letter of the Roman Forms in the Invocation of Saints does to the most vulgar ears sound as Idolatrous as also that that Church hath not provided any publick direct clear Interpretation of them in its subsequent Synods Missals Breviaries Catechism Decretals Authentick Manuals or what I likewise may add in its Bullarium which as shall anon be shewed exalteth the Canonized into the condition of Patrons and Guardians of men There then remaineth this only to be said by the learned of that Communion That they who hear the Church professing plainly its Faith in one supreme God in Trinity cannot think it meaneth by any words whatsoever to give to the Creature the supreme Honour of that Trinity which it so solemnly acknowledgeth And indeed seeing all the Romanists believe the Apostles Creed seeing many of them appropriate all Latria to God seeing they teach in their Manuals that therefore all Prayers are ended with Through Jesus Christ our Lord to signifie that whatsoever we beg of God the Father we must beg it in the name of Jesus Christ by whom he hath given us all things some allowance is to be made them in the Exposition of those Forms which sound as if the Saints were invoked with Latria But yet it may be demanded whether the Forms and practice of a corrupt Church may not contradict their general Rule of Faith Whether the Roman Forms be applied to that Rule of Faith by any but prudent Ecclesiasticks and Laicks who are not the greater number Whether amongst them they take not away some honour from God though not that which is absolutely incommunicable And whether a Church which calleth it self Christian and Catholick should not be more careful of publick Forms of speaking in Prayer such as may render the Supplicants Idolaters in themselves in the ignorant use of them and to others by the external scandal whatsoever license the world takes in phrases of common speech And here it were well if those who so often alledg Mr. Thorndike in favour of their cause would weigh the words of a Letter of his said to be written about a year before he died To pray to the Saints saith he for those things which only God can give as all Papists do is in the proper sense of the words Idolatry If they
the people And it would be very strange if they should herein have been defective seeing the very Heathens were not We worship not said they the very Images themselves but those whom they represent and to whose names they are sacred H. T. in his Manual called the Abridgment of Christian Doctrine proposeth this Question to his Disciple Is it lawful to give any honour to the Images of Christ and his Saints And then he teacheth him to make this Answer Yes an inferior or relative honour inasmuch as they represent unto us heavenly things but yet not Gods honour nor yet the honour due to his Saints The same Author a while after propoundeth this Query Do not Catholicks pray to Images and Relicks And then to this he answereth No by no means We pray before them indeed to keep us from distraction and to help our memories in the expression and apprehension of Coelestial things but not to them for we know well that they can neither see nor hear nor help us There is some measure of sobriety in these words but some other of their writers ought to have had their Pens removed from them with as much reason as we take away the swords of madmen Amongst them I reckon Cornelius Curtius the Augustinian This Romanist thus spendeth some of the heat of his zeal I care not at all for Luther Calvin Wickliff and that most filthy Magdeburgian sink of impudence and blasphemy I say it and say it again that the most sacred Nails of our Redeemer do merit worship even the highest worship But we have heard better things from the Council of Trent and some who follow it And by such declarations their Church denieth to the Image it self the worship of the heart in Prayer Thanksgiving and trust and teacheth us to interpret the Forms used in their Letter to them as not to them directed Such a Form is that of Hail holy Cross our only hope the scepter of the Son the Bed of Grace Increase righteousness in the pious and to the guilty vouchsafe pardon All this it seems howsoever it soundeth must be meant not to the very matter and form of the Cross which Dr. Bilson will have to be adored in the Church of Rome but only to Christ crucified And this also I suppose they would suggest by the Cross pictured in their Books of Devotion and particularly in the front of their Missal of Paris together with these words of the Apostle God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord. Where St. Paul intended not to magnifie the wood of the Cross but the Sacrifice upon it And this way of speaking used by the Apostle is followed in our Litany in which we desire of Christ deliverance by his Cross explaining it by his Passion But still there are outward signs of Veneration given to the Image it self for Christs sake not indeed as brass or silver or gold or wood or stone or as a piece of excellent Art but yet as it relates to him and is his image Given however they are to the image though they are ultimately referred to Christ. Due honour saith the Council of Trent is to be given to them and the honour which is given to them is referred to the Prototypes We Christians said Leontius in the Synod of Nice adoring the figure of the Cross honour not the nature of the wood but the sign and ring and image of Christ. And again he that feareth God honoureth and adoreth Christ as the Son of God and the figure of his Cross and the images of his Saints In Images saith g the Synod of Bourges we worship not the matter but him that was represented As if it were one Act and the Image were worshipped together with Christs Godhead as is the Humanity by reason of its Personal union with it They that speak thus have deprived themselves of the usual Evasion that the Church of Rome owneth one God only and therefore cannot by her own principle worship an Image with absolute Latria For in the worship of that one God or the Divinity of Jesus Christ God-man they take in the worship of the Image or Relick as of a body made one with him To that effect there are dangerous sayings in the second Synod of Nice related by Photius It was there said by Adrian from Epiphanius Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus that a King having his Statue or Image is not presently two Kings but one together with his image It was there affirmed though not particularly and in those words decreed That by the worship of Images which seems divided we are carried up undividedly unto the indivisible Deity And again that in such worship we are carried up into a certain unitive and conjunctive vision As if we adhered to God by clinging with devout embraces to an Image made by humane Art Yet this in effect is said by many of their Doctors who tell us that Latria is given to the Image not absolutely but relatively not by it self but by accident as they are considered in conjunction with the Prototype and making one thing with it Suarez himself is one of these rash men and affirmeth that the Prototype in the Image and the Image for the Prototype may be adored with one interior and exterior Act. But amongst the Honourers of Images and Relicks there are not many sure who fly higher in their devotion than Cornelius Curtius He does not say things we hear every day and therefore let us listen to him a while in this present Argument Let us now see saith that Idolizer of the Nails of the Cross what kind of Veneration we owe to these Nails Divines distinguish three kinds of Worships which are wont to be expressed by the Greek words of Latria Hyperdulia and Dulia which because they terminate either in God or in intelligent natures therefore none of these do properly belong to the Nails as being things without life or reason and consequently not capable of such worships Wherefore to speak to them as such and to ask any thing of them would be a sign of madness and superstition So all Catholicks unanimously conclude Notwithstanding this because we may and we usually do adjoin the Nails to Christ in our cogitation hence it comes to pass that by reason of this connexion we may give them a certain right or direct worship for if we contemplate his Humanity we then give to the Nails the worship of Hyperdulia If we think of his Divinity we owe to them the Honour of Latria But for Dulia we bid it keep its distance as being less worthy Neither ought it to seem a wonder to any man that we give that Honour to Iron which we acknowledg to be proper to God alone for this is not given to this metal in respect of its nature but in regard of the person by whose contact or union into oneness
either declaring her resentment of the present Wars or foretelling the cessation of them by her means The Eyes of Venantius Fortunatus were cured of their pain after having been anointed as they say from the Lamp of Saint Martin and Baronius hence proveth as from a certain medium the worship of Images But how if God doth this by Nature or sometimes by miraculous Power for the trial of our Faith Or what if such things should be done by Gods just permission by the Devil himself to men that have renounced their Reason Why then the Devil has their trust and praise instead of God an Idolatry not to be mentioned without religious fear and indignation And doth not the Devil sometimes work such wonders How then come the Books of the Heathens to be fill'd with stories of Miracles wrought in or at their Images as well as those of the Romanists If it be told by the Romanist Lipsius That an Image of the Virgin bled it is also storied by the Heathen Porphyrie That when a certain King endeavour'd to pull an hair from a Statue of the Brachmans the blood gushed out against him Moreover that the Statue did sweat so exceedingly in the heat of the weather that they were forc'd to refresh it with perpetual fanning Lastly If the worshippers of the Images of Saints do honour them only as Shechinahs where the Saints hear better than in other places and as their Chambers of meer Request that they would pray for them they commit a mistake and they think them present when they are not but they give not away Gods Honour which is not infringed by this meer thought that his Saints are in certain places seeing that belongeth to their finite condition But if wise men look for them in any certain place they look for them rather in some space of the clear air than in an Image or a Cave where there may be suspition of Imposture Now though men by this last way of venerating Images do not idolize them as Supreme Gods or as ruling-Daemons yet they offend in the other extreme and disparage them as Saints whilst they make them to chuse such mean and unbecoming Apartments This was the belief of Arnobius with part of whose Confession I will end this Chapter I very grievously reproach'd those whom in my state of Heathenism I thought to be Divine whilst I believ'd them to be Wood Stone Bone or to dwell in the matter of such things CHAP. XIII Of the Idolatry charged without any tolerable colour on the Church of England IT was the wisdom of our Legal Reformers to purge the Church of all manifest Corruptions and particularly of those which had crept in about the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Images But there arose men of a worse temper and such who usurped Power And these thought that nothing of the old Building was again to be used They were not for sweeping and repairing of Gods House but for razing the very Foundation and sowing the Place with Salt Among our selves saith the Learned Mr. Thorndike meaning not the Sons of the Church but the giddy people of England it seems yet to be a dispute Whether any Ceremonies at all are to be used in the publick Service of God The pretences of this time having extended the imagination of Idolatry so far as to make the Ceremonies and Utensils of Gods Service Idols and the Ceremonies which they are used with Idolatries Nay it was the way of the Fanatical people in the late Civil Wars to give the name of Idol to any thing to which their fancy was not reconcil'd Some call'd the most excellent Father of our Countrey thâ—… Idol of the people With some the Liturgy the Surplice a Church a Steeple was an Idol Neither did there want those who bestow'd that title upon that necessary Doctrine of the Gospel which requireth conditions and qualifications of Holiness in order to acceptance with God through Christ I should run a strange and endless course if I should pursue all their Extravagancies but a few of the most colourable amongst them I will a little consider Those I mean are the three following The first is the bowing towards the Altar The second is the kneeling at the holy Communion The third is the Reverence at the name of Jesus The first of these the bowing towards the Altar is no Command of the Church nor the common practice of it in Parochial Assemblies nor so much as the Counsâ—…l of any of its Canons besides the seventh of those which they call the Canons of Bishop Laud And in that Canon the true spirit of Christian meekness and charity is thus expressed The reviving of this ancient and laudable custom we heartily commend to the serious consideration of all good people not with any intention to exhibit any Religious worship to the Communion-Table but only for the advancement of Gods Majesty and to give him alone that honour and glory that is due unto him and not otherwise And in the practice or omission of this Rule we desire that the Rule of Charity prescribed by the Apostle be observed which is That they which use this Rite despise not them who use it not and that they who use it not condemn not those who use it And little reason there is that those who use it not should condemn those who use it as Idolaters when they publickly declare that they bow not as others to it but towards it to God alone who there exhibits that high favour of renewing by visible tokens and pledges our Covenant with him Our sign of Reverence must be some way exhibited and what Idolatry is there in the exhibition of it this way when 't is but the way not the object of our Religious veneration It is against the common sense of the sign of Incurvation to interpret it as the worship of every thing in a Church before which the sign is made It must be the circumstance of the object and the form of address and the application made to it which determineth its worship Few therefore there are so injudiciously uncharitable as to accuse the Minister of adoring the Church-bible or common-prayer-Common-prayer-book though he often bows and kneels and prays before them Few I say there are that do so for I think his madness singular who in the late Revolutions in England maintained in a publick Pamphlet well worthy sure an Imprimatur that Words in a Book were Images and consequently that to pray before a Book or to use a Book in Prayer is Idolatry or Image-worship It is true concerning the second Ceremony the kneeling at the holy Communion that it is enjoined by our Church but enjoined it is in the quality of a decent circumstance and not as an essential part of the Lords-Supper But we are by no Rubrick or Canon enjoined to kneel to the Sacramental bread which is declared still to be bread though not
held this World to be one mighty Animal B. Nothing can be more absurd than that which some Platonists held But Plato himself though he said the World was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a living Creature endued with a Soul yet he meant not by the Animation of this World either the vital union of the highest Psyche to all matter or as some have conceived whilst they have pleased to measure him by the doubtful phrases of Plotinus of a secondary Soul of the World to the formed Subcoelestial Hyle which the Chaldee Oracles call the Throne of Matter to which as they speak there is a descent by the seven steps of the Planets and the Fund of it But by this Plato understood the vital union of Souls to some part of it the Presential union of inferior Daemons to certain Statues in it and the Order or as he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Temperament of all the parts adjusted by Psyche A. In Chap. 5. pag. 57 59. You seem to make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jehovah and Jove the same which was not always your opinion B. I do but seem so I think as I did For Jupiter I believe as Varro believed and do think it comes à Juvando For Jupiter or as the English often pronounce it Jubiter or Juviter are the same p. b. v. being frequently used for one another Nor can I approve of the Etymology of Juvans Pater for ter in Jupiter is a meer termination and Jupiter is no more Juvans pater than Accipiter is accipiens pater Concerning Jehovah I still think that the word is the same in effect with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though not the pronunciation of it a sound some believe so very modern that it is said to have been first heard from the mouth of Galatinus The ancient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now pronounced Jehovah was in all likelihood sounded Jahveh So the Samaritans pronounced it of whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Jave the Vau by the Greeks being as in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turned into Beta we read in Theodoret's Questions on Exodus And from them who changed not their ancient Letters nor received the Judaic Oral Cabala we are more likely to understand the Pronunciation than from the Jews misled by the Pharisees who in and after the Maccabean times began or promoted very many Superstitions about the words of the Bible They did so particularly about the Tetragrammaton whose Original sound being softly pronounced and as is related by Rabbi Tarphon supped up as it were by the mumbling Priest was by degrees perfectly lost amongst most Jews and their Schollars Insomuch that Origen in the Fragment of his Hexapla mentioned by St. Chrysostome as also many others read it Adonai So doth the vulgar Latin in Exod. 6. 3. though in all other places it renders it by Dominus The Seventy turn it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Hierom by Dominus though somewhere as Mercer noteth he calleth it Jaho That it ended in Omega as in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was a corruption apt to happen to all names which are taken out of one Language into another The occasion of it might be this The power of the Samaritan Heth answered by the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by negligence was perhaps sometimes written and thence in process of time pronounced as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as I may so say but a kind of Epsilon laid on its back A. It may be so for ought that comes now into my mind I pass on to another Note In Chap. 5. pag. 62. you tell us that the Heathens used the Form of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but you give us no greater Authority for it than your bare word B. You may if you please take it upon the word of Arrian in his second Book on Epictetus A. In Chap. 5. pag. 77. you seem to approve of the opinion of Petavius who maketh Arius a genuine Platonist whereas it is manifest and the Learned have taken notice of it that Plato made his second Principle eternal whilst Arius said There was a time when he was not at all B. I only cite his words I do not justifie them The Logos of Arius is not so like to the Nous as to the Psyche of Plato to the Demiourgus who framed as he fancieth the visible World Yet thus far Petavius is in the right He asserteth upon good grounds that Arius was infected with Platonism and that with Plato he made the Principle that framed this World to be a distinct substance which was not very God though he did not affirm with that Philosopher that it was coeternal with the self-originated Deity and for that it was not a priviledg in Plato's judgment very extraordinary for he alloweth it to Matter it self I mean the unformed Hyle A. We 'l examine these things anon In the mean time I would ask you why in this 77th page you observe it as a thing worthy an Asterisc that the Platonists call the Nous unbegotten and Parent to it self For they mean no more than that the Nous was from the T' Agathon by eternal emanation and not as this World from Psyehe by temporal Generation or formation B. They mean no more Neither did I think it a deep remark but I the rather observ'd it because holy Writers have declined such terms not adhering to them so very much as some Imagine they do And when they use them they do it not so much to countenance the Platonick notions as to oppose them So when S. John saith In the beginning was the Logos c. he meaneth it not either of the Logos or Demiourgus of Plato but rather in opposition to them as if he had said Christ not your fictitious but the true Logos was ever with God and God also and the maker of all things A. I perceive by this and by that which I find in many other Places that you have not forgotten the old saying Plato is my friend but Truth is more Nay you seem to have a kind of Pique at Platonism and will I fear provoke the Ficinus's of this age B. I do not with design oppose or challenge any of them And I think they are men of better temper then to make every light notion so much their Mistress as to Duel me for it And I heartily wish that the indecent and irrational way used by some Writers of hitting one another fiercely in the Teeth with their little barren speculations were as much laid aside as is the custom of fighting with Sandbags But what are the particulars I beseech you in which I may seem to offend the Platonists A. They are many And not to hover in generals only I tell you particularly that you are irreverend towards their Triad a notion as dear to a Platonist as Diana to an Ephesian It is true in Chap. 5. p.