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
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
or Dii Consentes Nay of Jove Plato himself saith that men esteemed him the best and most just of the Gods and one who held his father in Chains for his unnatural cruelty to his Children Secondly Because the worship of Jupiter in how high a notion soever he was sometimes taken was not looked upon only by it felf but as the principal worship in the Religion of the Gentiles giving denomination to the other parts of it For the worship of Jupiter was in effect an acknowledgment of the whole Gentilism of Rome Pagan And he that had adored Jupiter would by that have been judged to have been likewise a devout Servant of Juno and Venus and the rest of that Society of Grecian and Roman Idols However under this name some of the wise Gentiles did mean the supreme Deity distinct from their College of Demons and I suppose Marcus Antoninus that Philosophical Prince to have been one of them He says indeed concerning the thundering Legion That they prayed to a God which himself knew not Not that he owned not one supreme God but that he understood him not in the subsistences of Father Son and Holy Ghost in which quality the Christians applyed themselves to him Thirdly Jupiter when thought of under the notion of one highest God whatsoever he was in speculation he was actually but an evil Demon. For the Persons and things which he countenanced could never be approved of by the true and righteous God Let it then be granted for why should men oppose the evidence of plain words that some Gentiles entertained a notion of that God who is one and supreme PART 4. What Applications they made to one God THis being confessed There is a Second inquiry to be made whether such Gentiles worshipped him or made Religious Application to him And it is evident they did so both by Prayers Sacrifices and Images Prayer to him was consequent to their Apprehensions of him as the Allsufficient and bountiful Governour of Mankind And sometimes they prayed to him in the very form of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Lord have mercy which the Ancient Christians used Ennius in Cicero declareth that Jove was invoked by All. He calleth him Sublime Candens not meaning the Sun but the Power that causeth Lightning and the Jove who in Euripides there also cited by Tully is owned as Summus divns the supreme God Simplicius in the conclusion of his Notes on Epictetus useth this excellent form I address my self humbly to thee O Lord thou Father and guide of our Reason that we may be mindful of that nobility with which thou hast adorn'd us That we may be purged from the contagion of the body and bruitish affections governing them as becometh us and using them as Instruments If Simplicius be said to learn this under Christianity that cannot be objected against Socrates and Plato Socrates prayeth not only to the gods but to the supreme God under the Title of Pan in the first place And he prayeth that he may be beautiful within and that he may esteem the wise-man only to be the man truly wealthy referring to the things before discoursed of in the Phaedrus of Plato The same Plato begins his second Dialogue called Alcibiades e by this question put to that Philosopher by Socrates who apprehended him to be in a deep contemplation Whether he were going about to call on God And thence occasion is taken of saying many wise things on that Subject in the sequel of that Dialogue And about the middle of that Discourse he repeateth a very prudent form of Prayer used by a Poet who beseecheth his God to give him the things which were good for him though he should happen not to pray for them and to keep from him such things as were hurtful though through error he should make supplication for them Again in Timaeus Plato observeth that those who have any share of understanding when they undertake any thing be it of smaller or of greater concernment do always invoke God To such Invocation he exhorteth at the constitution of any City or civil Body And he urgeth Prayer in so many places that I have not room for the repetition of them in that compass to which I have design'd to confine my Discourse For Sacrifice That also the Gentiles offered to God Plato joyneth both together in the conclusion of his Theages There Theages exhorteth to an appeasing of the Numen worshipped by Socrates by Prayer and Sacrifice and Demodocus and Socrates are consenting to it And Porphyry supposeth some Gentiles to have offered Sacrifice to the supreme God whilst he taxeth them for offering to him Animals as unmeet oblations or indeed any thing besides a pure Mind Martinius in the Fourth Book of his History of China thinketh that people to have worshipped the true supreme God under the name of Xangti And he further observeth that they offered Prayers and Sacrifices to him though they used no Images in his worship For Images The Gentiles used them in the worship of the one God and not only whilst they Religiously observed their Demons Origen supposeth Statues of both kinds in use amongst them where he saith that Those Heathens expose themselves to the derision of all men of sound mind who after their Philosophical disputations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God or gods respect Statues and either pray to them or endeavour by the contemplation of them as by conspicuous signs to raise their minds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Intelligible Deity In the mean time as he continueth his Discourse the meanest Christian is effectually perswaded that all the World is the Temple of God And he prayeth to him in all places with closed eyes but with the Lights of his Mind erected towards Heaven This had been no refutation of Celsus if the Gentiles had not worshipped the God that is every where without Images by Prayer and a pure intention Origen in the same Book in answer to Celsus who had denied Images to be worshipped as Gods and affirmed them to be Divine Statues only replyeth in this manner We cannot think these Images to be so much as Divine Statues seeing we circumscribe not the incorporeal and invisible God with any figure He supposeth the Heathen had done so else he had in vain contended against their Statues by such an Argument fetched from the spirituality and ubiquity not of Demons but of the true and Sovereign God To him it appeareth that some Gentiles did apply themselves in the three ways abovementioned of Prayer Sacrifice and Image-worship PART 5. Whether they worshipping one God could be guilty of that sin NOW that being proved a third Question comes to be resolved Whether the acknowledgment of one God by the Gentiles and their Application to him being granted they are yet liable to the charge of Idolatry In answer to this enquiry I purpose to shew that they are still
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
That it is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God Now what can we judg of that Worship which hath for its object something else besides God and is contrary to the Scripture We cannot but think it not a mere impertinence but a wicked act an act which by contradicting his Authority diminisheth his honour and being an act of Worship nothing less than one degree of Idolatry Again in its twenty-eighth Article it teacheth concerning the consecrated Elements That they were not by Christs institution or ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and worshipped By which words it noteth the Adoration of the Host in the Church of Rome not as an innocent circumstance added by the discretion of that Church but as an unlawful worship though it doth not expresly brand it with the name of Idolatry In the Rubrick after the Communion the Adoration of the consecrated Elements is upon this reason forbidden Because the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances And it is there added That they so remaining the Adoration of them would be Idolatry to be abhorred by all faithful Christians This Rubrick doth in effect charge the Church of Rome with gross Idolatry for it supposeth the Object which they materially worship to be in its natural substance still a creature and a creature disjoined from Personal union with Christ and not according to the words of their St. Thomas inserted into their Missal a Deity latent under the accidents of Bread and Wine And it concludeth that the worship of such a substance is such Idolatry as Christian Religion abhorreth It doth not indeed affirm in terms that the worship of such a substance by a Romanist who verily thinks it to be not bread but a Divine body is Idolatry but it saith that whence such a conclusion may be inferred It saith that the bread is still bread in its substance and if it be really such whilst it is worshipped the mistake of the worshipper cannot alter the nature of the thing though according to the degrees of unavoidableness in the causes of his ignorance it may extenuate the crime Upon supposition that still 't is very bread in its substance Costerus and it may be Bellarmine himself would have condemned the Latria of it as the Idolatrous worship of a Creature even in Paul the simple of whom stories say that he was extreamly devout but withal that he knew not which were first the Apostles or the Prophets And here it ought to be well noted that there is a wide distance betwixt this saying That Idolatry is a damnable sin and this assertion That Idolatry in any degree of it and in a person under any kind of circumstances actually damneth I would here also commend it to the observation of the Reader that the Church of England speaketh this of the worship of the corporal substance of the Elements present in the Eucharist after consecration and not of the real and essential presence of Christ. And for this reason it left out the terms of Real and Essential used in the Book of King Edward the sixth as subject to misconstruction Real it is if it be present in its real effects and they are the essence of it so far as a Communicant doth receive it for he receiveth it not so much in the nature of a thing as in the nature of a priviledg But I comprehend not the whole of this Mystery and therefore I leave it to the explication of others who have better skill in untying of knots In the Commination used by the Church of England 'till God be pleased to restore the Discipline of Penance a curse is denounced against all those who make any carved or molten Image to worship it And it is the curse which is in the first place denounced on Ash-Wednesday It is true that it is taken out of the Book of Deuteronomy and it is the sense of a verse in that Book used at large in the former Common-Prayer-Book in these words Cursed is the man that maketh any carved or molten Image an abomination to the Lord the work of the hands of the craftsman and putteth it in a secret place to worship it That is though it be done without scandal to men and in such private manner as to avoid the punishment which the Law inflicteth on known and publick offenders But the Church of England repeating this Law in its Commination doth thereby own it to be still of validity and to oblige Christian men The Homilies which are an Appendage to our Church do expresly arraign the Roman-Catholicks as Idolaters in the learned Discourses of the peril of Idolatry Also English Princes and Bishops have declared themselves to be of the same perswasion King Edward the sixth in his Injunctions reckoneth Pictures and Paintings in the Churches of England as adorned by the Romanists amongst the Monuments of Idolatry Of the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth this is the Thirty-fifth That no persons keep in their houses any abused Images Tables Pictures Paintings or other Monuments of feigned Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition Of the Articles of Inquiry in the first year of her Reign this is one and pertinent to our present Discourse Whether you know any that keep in their Houses any undefaced Images Tables Pictures Paintings or other Monuments of feigned and false Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition and do adore them especially such as have been set up in Churches Chappels and Oratories This likewise is one of the Articles of Visitation set forth by Cranmer Arch-bishop of Canterbury in the second year of Edward the sixth Whether Parsons c. have not removed and taken away and utterly extincted and destroyed in their Churches Chappels and Houses all Images all Shrines Pictures Paintings and all other Monuments of Idolatry and Superstition Bishop Jewel's opinion is so well known that his words may be spared And that Confession of Faith which he penned and which maketh a part of his Apology for the Church of England and in which he calleth the Invocation of Saints in the Church of Rome a practice vile and plainly Heathenish is put into the collection of the Confessions of the Reformed under the Title of the English Confession But the Churches Confession it cannot be called with respect to her Authority which did not frame it whatsoever it be in its substance and in its conformity to her Articles For others of the Church of England a very Learned person the Hannibal and Terrour of Modern Rome hath named enough T. G. hath indeed excepted against many of the Jury but whether he hath not illegally challenged so many of them remaineth a Question or rather it is with the Judicious out of dispute The sentences of private men spoken on this occasion both here and beyond the Seas either broadly or indirectly are scarce to be
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
fled to the Churches of St. Paul and St. Peter And he did it saith Grotius by a Providence like to that by which they were saved in Jerusalem who had kept the Law which was signified by the Letter Thau that is Thorah the Law written on their foreheads as is said in Ezekiel They went out of Babylon or Rome to the holy places which stood without the City and there remained in undisturbed peace more by Gods protection than the Gothick Clemency though by the Edict of Alarick such Churches were made the Sanctuaries of Christians This Instance no doubt heightned the veneration of many towards the Martyrs though God wrought such things not as testimonies of the power of the Martyrs but as supports to the Christian Religion And this being an Instance in the Gothick story it reminds me of The second occasion of the worship of Spirits as Rulers of the World in certain Precincts especially in this Western Church to wit the Invasion of the Northern Nations who sought their preferment by quitting their own Country In Rome it self a great number of the Senators worshipped Idols in the very reign of Theodosius the Great And many worshippers of false gods upon the Sack of Rome by the Goths under Alaricus did saith St. Austin in the Argument of his Book of the City of God charge the calamity on the Christian Religion and blaspheme the true God with bitterer words than it was their custome to use And this as he declareth stirred up his zeal and moved him for the stopping of their ungodly mouths and refuting their Errors to write that Book For the Goths themselves the general body of them was barbarously Idolatrous though some of that people had received betimes the Christian Faith for Theophilus a Gothick Bishop was at the Council of Nice and the Vandals were wholly Pagans Neither were there under Heaven a people more zealously devoted to Daemons than the Scythians Getes or Goths Of the Thracian Getes Pausanias saith in his Baeoticks that they were a more acute Nation than the Macedonians and by no means so negligent in the worship of their gods Schedius in his Dissertations concerning the German-gods hath remembred very many Gothick Deities and there is a Learned man of our own Nation who tells us that he hath not numbred the half of them Of Herald the first King of Norway it is reported by Crantzius that he offered two of his own Sons unto his Daemons for the obtaining at Sea such a Tempest as might disperse that Armado of Herald the sixth King of Denmark which was prepared against him and that he obtained that for which he had bidden so dear and bloody a rate After the further Conversion of those Northern people none more corrupted their worship than they with the observance of Tutelar Saints In the Chronicle of Swedeland the inferior Deities of that place exceed the number of the Villages and I need no further instance than that which I find in Felix Faber a Monk of Ulma A Town saith he night to Ulma is Seflingen in which is the Blessed Virgin presiding in the Garden of Virgins and keeping on the West the Walls of that City On the South is situate the Village of Wiblingen in which St. Martin armed both with the Temporal and Spiritual Militia is the Patron of the Church and the Guardian of the Ulmenses Nigh also is Schuvekhofen an ancient Town where at this day standeth a Church in which S. John the Evangelist watcheth over Ulma On the East is the Village Pful where standeth the Mausoleum of the Blessed Virgin in the publick street There she demonstrates by certain Miracles that she dwells in that place Thence she looks upon Ulma with the eyes of mercy and defends it In that Village S. Udalricus is Patron of the Church an excellent Guardian of the Citizens who implore his Aid On the North on the Royal Mountain of Elchingen is placed a lofty Throne of the Blessed Virgin to the terror of all that have evil will at Ulma He further mentions St. George St. Leonard all Saints with the Virgin in the midst of them St. James and St. Michael as Patrons and defendants of that place And for St. Michael he is placed on a Mountain on the West-side as a Watchman looking over the whole City and in Armour as the Protector of it Now the Northern Barbarians being so inclined to the worship of Tutelar Daemons it is no wonder if many Christian Romans to mollifie their savageness and to induce them to Christianity so far complied as to offer them Tutelar Saints and holy Angels instead of their evil Guardian Spirits This I suppose they did because I find the Concurrence of their Invasion and stay in Italy and of the rise and growth of Daemon-worship there both happening in the fourth and fifth Centuries And it may not be unworthy the Observation of the Reader that in the fifth Century St. Michael the Archangel a most eminent Patron as we just now heard from Felix Faber among the Northern Christians was first Commemorated in the Western Church by a solemn Feast I would here further note that Woden not the Mercury but the Mars of the Northern Idolaters was in highest esteem among them That Michael answereth to him being as the Roman Litanies stile him the Prince of the Heavenly Host That this Feast of St. Michael was then instituted when Peace was desired betwixt Odoacer King of the Heruli who came first from Scandanivia and were called afterwards Lombards and Theodorick the first King of the Goths in Italy Having thus aimed at the resolution of the fiast Inquiry the occasion of Daemon-worship in the Church I proceed to shew in the second place That this worship derogateth from the Honour of God as Governour of the World by his immediate self though also by a Substitute for he is likewise the same Essential God It is both by the Romanists and the Reformed acknowledged that God is the Governour of the World That in him we live and move and have our being That he giveth us life and breath and all things That to him all glory is to be referred Neither hath he anywhere declared that he hath divided the Regiment of the World into several Lieutenancies of Angels or Saints He hath no-where shewed us that he hath given to this Angel and that Saint not to a Saint especially a Commission to rule in such a Precinct or a Patent to practice as a Supernatural Physician in such a City or Town or any-where in the cure of such a disease or Orders to assist at this Mass and that Confession If therefore such effects of Protection Health and assistance follow and are believed to comefrom this or the other Saint though as subordinate to God the supreme Governour and infinite Physician yet a degree of Trust is put in them as Plenipotentiaries or Substitutes of the King of the
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
that of Naaman's He doubtless did some other homage separately from his Master to shew his supposed Religion and they have none leaning on them unless by accident by complement to whom they may interpret the sign in part of a civil respect But how doth one external sign split in each single exhibition of it into two significations appear to signifie doubly to the common spectators That no mistake may be committed the Roman Assemblies had need be so many Conventions of great Clerks and wise Schoolmen But in all Assemblies how few are good Judges And how many Spies are there Jewish and Mahometan and Heathen to whom it is morally impossible to know their distinctions And how many of the same Communion have gross and stupid minds and devotions begotten of ignorance And what uncharitableness is it to make a Ditch in the daily walks of the Blind and the Weak and the inadvertent and what a scandal is this in India or China where the Gestures are seen and the Books that explain them are not understood or handled by one of a thousand And where their own worship of Images maketh them think the Christians not far from their Religion They who use Images in their devotions and are as discreet in their devotions as that usage will give them leave these profess that they bow not to the Image at all but only to God before it for thus S. Gregory Durandus Halcot Biel seem to profess And it is honour enough to the Image that our devotion is on choice done at the foot of it They ought to profess that when they kiss the Image though the external sign of worship toucheth it and adheres to it yet it doth not so adhere to it in the quality of an object which it terminateth on but as a kind of resting-place in the way whilst it cannot reach its journeys-end by the body but by the mind only That being moved by holy passion towards the blessed Jesus they salute the Image of Christ not being able to reach his person and they may illustrate their meaning by the wish of Thomasinus who passionately breaketh into this language O that there were any man to whom I might be beholding for the Images of Molinus and Pignorius men to be by me eternally honoured that I might kiss the Portraict of those whom I cannot embrace in person They may further thus far apologize for the Heathens and say that when they worshipped the Sun by the kissing of their hand they did not so much kiss their hand as the presumed deity whom they could not reach They may add that when they kiss the Image of the Son they exhibit this Ceremonie not only as an effect but as a sign of their love to him For so a man that kisseth the Hemm of a Garment does in truth but touch the Hemm and offer it as it is a sign of observance unto the person The materiality of the Act reacheth the Image the formality the Prototype In England in the days of Henry the Seventh some Romanists spake not so rashly as Bellarmine who without necessity imposed on him by the Decree of Trent asserted a proper veneration of Images as objects terminating that worship in themselves and not as sustaining the place of the Prototype Amongst them I find an ancient Author who hath written in Folio an Exposition of the Ten Commandments in the way of a Dialogue betwixt Dives and Pauper And because he speaks soberly in this Argument and is not in many hands I will here transcribe some places out of him Dives Whereof serve these Ymages I wolde they were brent alle Pauper They serve for thre thynges for they be ordeyned to stere mannys mynd to thynke on cristes incarnation and on his passion and on his lyvinge and on other seintes lyvinge Also they ben ordeyned to styre mans affection and his herte to devocion For ofte man is more steryd by sight than be herynge or redynge Also they be ordeyned to be a token and a boke to the leude peple that they may reade in Ymagery and painture that Clerkes rede in in the Boke as the Lawe sayth de consecra distinct 3. prolatum where we fynde that a bisshop destroied Ymages as thou woldest do and forfendyd that no man shuld worship ymages He was accused to the Pope Seynt Gregory which blamyd him gretely for that he had so distroyed the ymages but utterly he prised him for ' he forfendyd them to worshyp ymages The 2. chaptre Dives How shuld I rede in the boke of paynture and of ymagery Pauper whanne thou seest the ymage of the Crucifixe thynk on him that died on the crosse for thy synne Take hede by the ymage howe his hede was crowned with a garlonde of thornes Take hede by the ymage how his armes were spradde abrode in token that he is redy to halse and clyppe the c. on this maner I pray the rede thy Boke and falle down to grounde and thanke thy God that wolde do so moche for the and worshyp above al thynge nat the ymage nat the stock stone ne tree but him that dyed on the tree for thy synne and thy sake So that thou knele if thou wylt before the ymage nat to the ymage make thy prayer before the ymage but nat to the ymage for it seeth the nat herythe the nat understondeth the nat make thyn offrynge if thou wilt before the ymage but nat to th' ymage make thy pilgramage nat to the ymage ne for the ymage for it may nat help the but to him and for him that the ymage representeth to the. For if thou doo it for the ymage or to the ymage thou doste ydolatry The 3. chaptre Dives me thynkith that whanne men knele before the ymage pray and loke on the ymage with weepyng teres bunche or knock their brestys with other such countynaunce they do al this to the ymage and so wenyth moche peple Pauper If they doo it to the ymage they synne gretly in ydolatry agenst reasone and kynde Dives how might they do alle before the ymage and not worshyp the ymage Pauper Oft thou seest that the Preest in the Chirch hath his boke before him he knelyth he stareth he loketh on his boke he holdeth up his hondes And for devocion in case he wepith and maketh devout prayers to whom wenyste thou the Preest doth alle this worship Dives To God and nat to the boke This instance by the way is not so proper for the Book though it relateth to Christ is not an object which representeth him nor doth the Priest speak to it as he doth often to the Crucifix And that 's the next Objection of Dives in the fourth Chapter Dives On Palm-Sunday at Procession the Prest draweth up the Veil before the Rode and fallith down to grounde with alle the people and saith thries Ave Rex noster Hayle be thou oure Kynge and soo he worshipeth that ymage
be invisible and the Son to be visible are exceedingly different from those of the Arians For the Arians degrading the Son to the condition of a Creature another a lesser a second God as Eusebius of Caesarea is bold to call him They suppose him to consist of a visible substance So Maximinus the Arian remembred by St. Austin makes the Son invisible only as the Angels by non-appearance and the Father invisible by reason of his superior and immutable essence In the mean time this was the Creed of the Catholicks that the whole Trinity was invisible in one Divine substance It was also their belief that the Son appeared and not the Father not from any difference of nature but of order only the Father being as it were the root or head of the Trinity and therefore not so fitly appearing as his Substitute the second Person And they could perceive no more mutability in the Logos when he appeared than in the Father when he not in shape but by voice did own him as his only begotten Son And by this reason Saint Austin might have answered the Arians without asserting as he does that in the Old Testament the whole Trinity appeared For the manner in which this Appearance of the Son of God was effected I conceive it to have been done by the Assumption of some principal Angel upon the greatest and most solemn occasions without any vital or personal union and by the ministry of some other holy spirits together with an extraordinary motion sometimes in the air and thence in the brain and sometimes in the brain only And in this opinion I have been the more confirmed since I found the concurrence of the very learned and judicious Mr. Thorndike in great measure If I were now to guess what Angel was assumed I would fasten my conjecture on Michael the Arch-angel whom the Hebrews call the Prince of Faces or the Prince of the Presence By the Son the Father made the World and what if I say he governed it also as by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word For in God we do not distinctly apprehend his way of working but conceive of it under the more general notion of his will and command If I declare that the Son always acted in the Father's name I make but the same Profession which Tertullian did many ages ago and avoid the Anathema which Marcus Arethusius or rather which others in the Council of Sirmium denounced against all who confess not that the Son ministred to the Father in the Creation of all things and who maintain that when God said Let us make man the Father said it not to the Son but to himself Accordingly where God is said in the Old Testament to have appeared they seem to mistake who ascribe it to an Angel Personating God and not to the second Person as the Shechinah or as Tertullian calleth him the Representator of the Father To this purpose it hath been often noted by others and ought by me in this argument to be again brought to remembrance how often there is mention in the ancient Paraphrases of the Jews of the Word of God Neither doth it enervate the force of this observation that what we translate the Word does often signifie I Thou or He. Both because several of the places will not admit of that other sense and because the Jews themselves so commonly own this and so often mention the Logos or Word of the Father Philo is very frequent in speaking of the Divine Logos as the Substitute and Image of the invisible God both in his Book of Dreams and of the Confusion of Tongues It is said Philo in that latter Book a thing well becoming those who so join together fellowship and science to desire to see God If that cannot be they must content themselves with his sacred Image his Word A saying which Eusebius esteemed worthy of an Asterick and accordingly transcribed it into his Book of Evangelical Preparation The same Jew giveth to the Logos the title of the shadow or Portraict of God adding that God Almighty used him as his instrument in framing the World It is true that by the Logos Philo doth often understand the World which by the greatness order and beauty of it declareth naturally the Power Wisdom and goodness of God and pleadeth with him in the quality of the Workmanship laid before the feet of the Workman But it is as true and manifest that he speaketh also of the Logos of this inferior Logos as the maker and governour of it In his Book de Mundi Opificio he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divine Word or the Word of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of God And he says further of it that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a super-coelestial Star the fountain of all the sensible or visible Luminaries And he had said in the former Page That the World was the Image of the Image or Archetypal Exemplar of the Logos of God PART 3. Of the Shechinah of God from Adam to Noah THis Substitute and Shechinah of God made Adam and he that gave him his Being gave him most probably the Law of it For so the Fathers interpret that in St. John The Word was God That or He was the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world And in this sense we are to expound St. Justin the Martyr where he speaketh of the Knowledg of God in Socrates by the Word He meaneth not that he was naturally a Christian but that so far as he was indued with such principles of Religious reason as Christianity owneth he had derived it from the Logos or Word of God who made the World and in it man a reasonable Creature To him he appeared as well as to others who sprang from him helping the mind as soon as it was seated in this thicker region of bodily fantasms And to Adam the Logos appeared I know not whether I should say in the shape of man or in the way of a bright cloud moving in Paradise when the wind began to rise and asking with a voice of Majesty after his rebellious subject And that this was the Son of God is insinuated by the Targum of Onkelos in the eighth verse of the third of Genesis The Text of Moses is thus translated And when they our first Parents heard the voice of the Lord God But this is the sense of the words of Onkelos And they heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God And amongst Christian Writers I may alledg Tertullian and St. Hilary of Poictiers who aboundeth in this Argument as also Theophilus Antiochenus whose words are so pertinent that I cannot forbear the enlarging of my discourse with the translation of them You will object said Theophilus that I teach that God cannot be circumscribed and yet that I say
doth the Scripture ever say that God answered by Thummim It saith not that God did forbear to answer Saul by Urim and Thummim but only that he did not answer him by Urim For the Moral Law was a standing Rule and not an Extemporary Oracle And we may observe from Diodorus Siculus that the Egyptian Judg whom he speaketh of when he put on his glorious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sign or image called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had also the Law in Eight Books laying before him AElian and Diodorus tell this story in differing manner and it may be the thirty Judges were so many of the seventy Elders and the Eight Books of Law were the Ten Commandments and the Saphire or Gems in the Pectoral were the twelve precious stones according to the number of the Tribes all used by the High-Priest of the Jews at Heliopolis where was Schismatically aped the worship and judgment of Jerusalem For in such matters the blunders of Historians are often more shameful than these Nay what if the Book containing the worship of the gods and bound about with scarlet-threads mentioned by the same Diodorus should be the Copy of the Moral Law in the Ark whose outside was wrought with gold with blue with purple with scarlet and fine-twined linnen This is none of my Faith yet many such imperfect Narrations are to be found in him and other Historians who write of things in such ancient and dark times For the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though that was given to the Pectoral or to the illustrious Gem or Gems on it and not particularly to the Law yet to the Law of God it well agreeth David saying concerning it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thy Law is Truth As congruous is the name of Thummim or Perfections the same Royal Prophet saying Thy Law is perfect 'T is perfect and without blemish in it though the Laws of men are stained with divers spots and imperfections It is perfect as a straight Rule it bendeth not to mens corrupt wills It is a compleat Rule extending to all our needful cases It is exceeding broad whilst there is an end of all other pretended Perfections Of the perfection of this Law the Son of Sirach speaketh saying A man of understanding trusteth in the Law and the Law is faithful unto him as an Oracle or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the reading of the Alexandrian Copy of the Seventy as the asking of or the answer to the Interrogatory at Urim In which words let the Reader well consider whether the Author does not oppose the Law to the Oracle as the Thummim to the Urim saying in effect The Law laid up in the Ark is as certain a Rule to go by in the Moral course of a mans life as the Oracle from above the Ark where the Urim was an appendage of Gods Shechinah was a direction in extraordinary cases And whereas Urim is only mentioned why Scaliger should say the meaning is The Law is faithful to him as Urim and Thummim he himself best knows But it may be thought from the force of the Premisses that he has in effect rendred the saying such a kind of Tautology as this The Law is faithful as the Law Another place there is worthy our observation in this Argument and the rather because it is a more Canonical portion of Scripture It is that of S. John who saith that the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. These words if I will serve my Hypothesis I must thus Paraphrase The Thummim or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Law was received from Gods substitute the Logos by Moses who delivered it to the people but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christian Law of the Gospel of Grace came not only from but by Jesus Christ the Logos made flesh as was said a verse or two before and he even God-incarnate did publish it with his own mouth If this notion hath any truth in it then that Prayer of Moses or blessing of Levi Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy One may be thus expounded let thy Law the ordinary Rule preferable before any extemporary Oracle and also thy extraordinary inspiration together with thy blessing be present with the linage of Aaron consecrated to the Priest-hood though thou wert angry with him for his carriage at the waters of Meribah or Massah and for that reason deniedst him an entrance into the land of Canaan But I will plainly acknowledge that notwithstanding all here said by me that may be true which Munster said That no mortal man can now tell what the Urim and Thummim were But in aiming with our conjectural Bolts at Truth as in shooting if the white be not hit it is some kind of felicity to come nigh the Mark. Now though the Logos appeared on the Ark both in the Tabernacle and the Temple and though he was also present with this lesser Ark the Pectoral yet he did not limit himself to these holy Instruments and the places of them He appeared elsewhere sometimes when the emergent occasion was remote from these Arks and when the privacy of the Revelation to those who were not High-Priests was expedient or necessary unless we should say that the less solemn and less majestick Apparitions were made by Angels That it was the Logos who shew'd himself to Joshuah giving to him a promise of defence is the joynt opinion of Justin Martyr Eusebius and Theodoret and likewise of one more modern yet not unworthy to be named amongst them the most learned Archbishop of Armagh But a fragment of an antient and venerable Greek Scholion produced by Valesius will have it to be Michael and not the very Son of God Be it the one or the other I hold â—…ot my self much obliged to concern my self as a party in the dispute Only I am inclined to think it the Logos because the place of the appearance was sacred Joshuah pulling of his Shoes in token of a Divine rather than of an Angelical presence Little is recorded of Gods Shechinah from the time of Joshua to David But David in his Psalms is very frequent in celebrating Gods presence in the Sanctuary on Mount Sion And of his being there where God was present by his Image or Shechinah in the Temple though not in the holiest place of it after deliverance from his enemies who stood in his way both to the holy City and holy Temple some interpret these words of his in the 17th Psalm As for me I will behold thy face or Shechinah in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness Or as I find it expounded in the Septuagint when I shall see thy glory or glorious presence Thy Temunah the word in the Hebrew thy Image of the Logos In Solomon's time the Ark was placed in a most magnificent Temple which
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.
themselves will disown Touching Artificial things and lifeless Statues the more Jgnorant sort worshipped them for their surprizing form and costly matter Such the Bramins in India moved to the worship of the great Idol Resora fixed nigh Jagrenate which is one of the mouths of Ganges For they fram'd him very curiously and set him forth very richly giving him two Diamonds for his Eyes and hanging another about his Neck And of these the least weighed about Fourty Carats Others not so very ignorant as to think with the former that the Deity was Gold or precious Stones venerated their Images as the places of residence of Divine Powers or perhaps as their Bodies or Closets their Temples being their Houses or common dwelling-places These were sacred to their Gods not as shelters of their Statues from Sun Wind or Rain as the Heathens in Arnobius cunningly apologize but as instruments whereby they might have their Gods with them behold them before their Eyes speak immediately to them and with them as present persons mingle as it were their Religious Colloquies Many Figures Statues and Images were made at first for very differing ends They were made as Memorials of a departed Child or Friend or Hero As Remembrancers of a living Friend or Governour remaining at a distance from us on earth as Monuments of some great Accidents in the World and preservers of the memory of things to late posterity the use they say of the Pillars of Seth. Likewise they were made as Mathematical Instruments as also as Hieroglyphicks and mystical Emblems such as a Dog the emblem of Sagacity and an Egg the Hieroglyphick of the material World The vanity of man the Imposture of the Heathen Priests the artifice and splendour of the Statues themselves effects apt to stir up admiration which followed their setting up or their remove or their worship though arising from other undiscerned Causes together with a multitude of feigned stories concerning their original or their discovery These things inclin'd the World to an opinion that they were receptacles of Divinity Each Temple of the Heathen was like that mentioned by Lucian in his Second Book of true Histories a Temple of Imposture And many Images were but the Instruments of Juglers Some of them were feigned to sweat and move as those in the great Temple of Syria mention'd by the Author of the Syrian Goddess Some were made very beautifully and some in such horrid shapes that they almost affright us in their Pictures Such are those Pictures which Lorenzo Pignoria has added to the Book of Cartari concerning the Images of the ancient Gods Some were in such manner contriv'd that they seem'd to hold immediate commerce with Heaven Thus in the Image of Serapis at Alexandria a little Window was so framed by Art that the Sun shone on the eyes lips and mouth of it and that the people believed it to be kissed by that Deity Some have been feigned to drop down from the Heavens as those of Troy and Ephesus Some to have been transported from place to place in the Air as the forementioned Image of Serapis said to be translated in a moment from Pontus to Alexandria And some by direction of Spirits to have been digged out of the earth or to have been miraculously pulled out of the Sea as the Golden Tripos of Apollo And pity it is that such Arts should be used by them who profess the Christian Religion which needeth no pious frauds for the support of it but is best propagated as it was from the beginning by plain and sincere dealing But some Roman-Catholicks have too frequently imitated the Sophistry of the Heathens and particularly in promoting the dangerous worship of our Lady at Loreto and Guadalupa It seems that her Image lay concealed in this latter place for the space of more than 600 years till it was by miracle as they say after this manner discovered An Heardsman seeking his strayed Cow found her at last but to appearance dead He went about therefore to take off her Skin but whilst he was attempting of it the Beast to his great astonishment did miraculously revive Then also did the Holy Virgin appear to him in glorious splendor and bid him not fear And she further gave him order to call the Ecclesiasticks of the City and in her name to promise them that if they digged in that place they should find her Image The poor man fearing they would not believe his report she promised to enable him with this sign to wit That he finding his Child dead at home should be able by his word to raise it to life again before them This being done the Image is sought and found for they that hide have ill memories if they can't find again and it is plac'd in a magnificent Temple and it becomes famous for working Miracles true as that of its own discovery By such Arts as these the people being induced to think that Images were the dwelling-places of Divine Powers it was difficult for them that had blind zeal thenceforth to suspend their Religious veneration The like means inclin'd them to worship Beasts or Birds as shrines and living Statues of some Deity Thus the Egyptians made the figure of the Bird Ibis the emblem of their Delta which it seems by its open Bill it represented though my fancy conceiveth not how it could represent the Basis of it and therefore under the favour of Schualenberg it fixeth rather on the Passus Ibidis or Trigon it made at every step To this they added That a certain Medicine of extraordinary virtue was found out by those Birds that a Feather of them stupified the Crocodile that they were hatch'd out of the Egg of a Basilisk that they defended Egypt from the flying Serpents of Arabia And this was enough with that Idolatrous Nation to turn the bodies of those Birds and the very figures of them likewise into Receptacles and Treasuries of Celestial virtue and to give Religious honour to them Concerning men on earth the pride and pomp of the great and the low and slavish dispositions of the mean begat sometimes the flattery sometimes the worship of them as Gods in humane shape This Honour was arrogated by Nebuchadnezzar who erected a mighty Colossus of Gold to no other Deity than himself requiring sacrifice and Religious adoration to be offered to it which when Sidrac Misach and Abednego refused to do he expostulated with them after the manner of an eminent Deity saying What God is there potent enough to deliver you out of my hands Of this blasphemous arrogance there were many instances in succeeding Ages and that of Alexander cannot escape the common Reader and he may find too many others in the Book of Political Idolatry written by the Learned Filesacus This kind of Idolatry flatterers helped forward and promoted as much as in them laid even amongst Christian Princes They fram'd for them the heavenly stile
of their Divinity and their Divine Precept words said to be used by Theodosius and Valentinian themselves Pacatus Drepanius in his Panegyric to Theodosius the Great describes the Emperour as one from whom Navigators expect a calm Sea Travellers a safe return and Soldiers Victory And of Constantine the Son of Constantius the uncertain Author of his Panegyrick affirmeth in deep Complement That his Beauty was great as his Divinity was certain But much of this flattery is so gross that it can scarce be swallowed by the common people who in private smile at their own publick fawnings For Spirits of all kinds men have seen some Apparitions and heard of more They have also had notions in the brain representing to them Images as spectres in the Air They have rightly judged the Soul so Divine in its operations as to superexist They have seen many external effects and could not guess at the Cause or ascribe it with such probability to Nature as to some higher invisible Power They have seen appearances in the Heavens and the very appearances have form'd in their fancy the counterfeit Idea of a Spirit For so the Heathen of the Eastern India believed the shadow of the Moon on the Eclipsed Sun to be a black Demon contending with it Men thus believing partly from good and partly from fanciful Reasons the existence of Demons and Ghosts and apprehending them truly as more spiritual active and superiour Beings it is not to be admired that their weakness ador'd them as dispensers of good and evil here below Touching Souls departed in particular Gratitude deified some but Admiration put more names into the Calendar The people were transported by their power and splendor on Earth and they thought their Puissance would increase in higher Regions Souls appeared otherwise to their mind than Bodies do to the eye to which they seem the lesser the higher they ascend And to this end the Devil was wont to represent Ghosts unto the eye or fancy of the Gentiles in vast proportions Such mighty figures Jamblichus where he writeth of the Egyptian mysteries ascribeth to Principalities and Archangels So that Solomon might aptly call the state of the dead the Congregation of Rephaim or Gyants Towards the advancement of the Souls of Heroes in the opinions of the Idolizers of them much was contributed by strange appearances real or invented at the time of their death So the Soul of Paul the Hermite was the more divinely esteemed of because S. Anthony as they tell us saw it flying to Heaven So Julius Caesar became one of the Roman gods whilst a Comet shining for Seven days together was judg'd to be his Soul receiv'd into Glory And this conceit they further inculcated by adding a Star to the top of his Statue Such Canonization of Heroes hath likewise been promoted by strange effects done or counterfeited at their Sepulchres and sometimes by their obscure manner of going out of the World which the people esteem'd an heavenly translation Empedocles hoping this way to arrive at Divine honour threw himself secretly into the flames of AEtna but his two Pattens which that Gulf of Fire cast up discovered his vain and miserable end Concerning the Soul of the World men seeing in all parts of the Creation motion and virtue judged erroneously of the greater World as they did truly of the lesser world of Man and made one Soul to be the Sovereign principle which actuated every part of it And some of the Stoicks esteem'd this Soul as a Form informing the Universe But the Platonists judged it rather a Form assistant imagining it unsutable to its Deity to be mixed with or vitally united to the grossest subcelestial matter and to have perception of all the motions of it This conceit is driven very far by the Indian Cabalists or Pendets Creation say those Doctors is nothing else but an extraction and an extension which God maketh of his own substance of those webs he draws from his own bowels as destruction is nothing else but a reprisal or taking back again of this Divine substance and these Divine webs into himself so that the last day of the World which they call Maperle or Pralea when they believe that all shall be destroyed shall be nothing else but such a general Reprisal This conceit in the superstitious maketh all things in nature adorable as parts of God And in the Atheistical it deifieth nothing at all for at the bottom of this imagination they think they see not God but Nature With them Coelum is the material Heaven Juno is the upper Air Neptune is the natural cause of water in the Caverns of the Earth Pluto is the thick Air next to this Globe and Rhea is the natural cause of showers Towards all the Idolatries already mention'd much was contributed by the figurative expressions of Orators especially by their Apostrophe's in the Encomiums of departed Hero's as also by the elegant fictions of Poets whose invention hath been justly reputed one of the great store-houses of Idols And for the Idolatry of Qualities I know not whence to fetch it so readily as by going thither For though the first ground of it was the consideration of many of these Qualities in their eminent degree as means by which the Pagan Heroes were Deified yet Poetry helped on that cause by shaping these Qualities into personal Powers negotiating as it were betwixt Heaven and Earth and conveighing them as the Angels did the Soul of Lazarus into a more heavenly habitation Poets design to move to surprize to make deep impression on the People They cannot do this so readily by proposing abstracted Truths to the mind as by cloathing them in such Metaphors and Pictures as may affect the brain Hence it is that they have used such a variety of fictions in which they have cloathed every thing they say with the appearances of a Person Peace and War Fame and Justice have such personal shape and action given to them as is necessary for the making a greater impression upon the Hearers For to give an ordinary instance in this matter it doth not so much affect us when a man says barely that a Kingdom shall want supplies of Bread as when he describes famine riding towards us pale and meager upon a Sceleton of Man or Beast attended with thousands of such ghastly objects from whence the uncloathed bones stare upon us and tell us that we after the dreadful extremities of hunger and thirst enforcing us to prey upon Toads and Serpents upon our Relations and our very selves shall become lean languishing dying as they By this transitory view of the Causes and Occasions of Idolatry so full of folly error and mistake it manifestly appeareth upon what weak and clay-like feet the Idols stand which the world hath worship'd with so vigorous a Devotion CHAP. IV. Of the Time in which the Vanity of Man introduced Idolatry into the World THe Nature