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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	write_v	year_n	zealous_a	12	3	8.7917	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64364	Of idolatry a discourse, in which is endeavoured a declaration of, its distinction from superstition, its notion, cause, commencement, and progress, its practice charged on Gentiles, Jews, Mahometans, Gnosticks, Manichees Arians, Socinians, Romanists : as also, of the means which God hath vouchsafed towards the cure of it by the Shechinah of His Son / by Tho. Tenison ...	Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715.	1678 (1678)	Wing T704; ESTC R8	332,600	446

though it may be and it is certain they have not in all Ages known according to what is in the Prophesie of St. John what Jesus Christ will do next yet that still by the spirit of Prophesie as it were the Saints have been guided to seek for those things at the hands of God and Christ which he was about to accomplish Also that the Saints in Heaven before the day of Judgment have a share and an hand in Christs government of the world and that they have a knowledg by the Angels that are continually Messengers from Heaven to Earth of the great things that are done here And he that writeth the Epistle to the Reader maketh this Application of Mr. Goodwins Doctrine Now saith he what may we think the Saints in Heaven who within these ten years last past lost their lives in the Cause of Christ he meaneth the Army-Saints from the year forty-four to that of fifty-four who dy'd in maintenance of the Bad Old Cause are EMPLOYED ABOUT at this time they understanding by the Angels what great changes are come to pass on our Earth Those of whose Saintship we have better assurance though in a state of rest and light are esteemed by the Fathers but a kind of Free Prisoners not being acquitted by the publick Sentence of the General Judgment And their opinion who give them a Lieutenancy under God in the Government of the World before that day does recall to my mind the Argument used by that truly great man Sir Walter Raleigh in his own unhappy Case He pleaded that the grant of a Commission from the King did argue him to be absolved and that he who had power given him over others was no longer under a sentence against his own life Abraham and Isaac do not now rule us and it may be they are ignorantt of us which whilst I affirm I do not wholly ground my Assertion on the Text in Isaiah That soundeth otherwise whether we take it in its positive or hypothetical sense It s positive sense may be this Doubtless thou art our Father notwithstanding we live not under the care of Abraham or Isaac but are by many generations removed from them who therefore knew us not or own'd us not we being not men of their times we are their seed however though at a great distance and to such also was thy promise made And for the Hypothetical sense it may be this Be it supposed that Abraham knows nothing of us yet certain we are that thou art the God of Israel whose knowledg and care of thy people never faileth I admit here that the Saints pray for the Church in general that Angels are concerned in particular Ministrations but that Angels and even Saints have shares of the Government of the World though in subordination to God so as to be Commission-Officers under the King of Heaven and not only Attendants on his Throne and as it were Yeomen and Messengers of his Court the general condition of the Angels I cannot admit without peril of Idolatry This in my conceit is the great resemblance betwixt the Romanists and the Gentiles Both of them suppose the World to be ruled under God by several Orders of Daemons and Heroes though I have confessed already that they are not so exactly alike but that Rome-Christian may be distinguished from Rome-Pagan For the Gentiles so much hath been shewn already and it may appear further from the place of the Greek Historian cited in the Margent And for the Romanists that too hath already been manifested in part and shall be further decl●…red and Rivallius in his History of the Civil Law or Commentary on the Twelve Tables does very honestly confess it He having commented on that Law which ordereth the worship of the Heathen gods both Daemons and Heroes letteth fall words not unfit to be here gathered up by us Christians saith he meaning those of the Roman Communion retain a Religion like to this for they worship God immortal and for those that excel in Virtue and shine with Miracles first with great pomp and inquisition they register them among the Deities or Saints and then they worship them and after that they erect Temples to them as we see in the case of S. John S. Peter S. Catherine S. Nicholas S. Magdalen and other Deities In this point then let us join issue and offer on our side the manifestation of these particulars First On what occasions this worship of Ruling-spirits came into the Church Secondly How it derogateth from the honour of God as Governour of the World Thirdly How it derogateth from the honour of Jesus as the Mediator and King ordained by God First For the occasions of this Worship I conceive them to be especially these two The Celebration of the Memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and the compliance of the Christians with the Northern Nations when they invaded Italy and other places in hope of appeasing them and effecting their conversion First I reckon as an occasion of this Worship the celebration of the memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and Monuments and Reliques and in the Churches sacred to God in thankfulness for their Examples The thankful and honourable commemoration of the Martyrs was very ancient and innocent at the beginning For as the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp testifies They esteemed the bones of the Martyrs more precious than Jewels They kept their Birth-days that is the days of their Martyrdom on which they began most eminently to live they pursu'd them with a worthy affection as Disciples and Imitators of Christ but they worshipped none but Christ believing him to be the Son of God But laudable Customs degenerate through time And this in the fourth Century began to be stretched beyond the reason of its first institution as appeareth by the Apostrophe's of St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen and others of that Age. Afterwards the vanity of men ran this Usage into a dangerous extreme and those who had been commemorated as excellent and glorified Spirits and whose Prayers were wished were directly invoked and worshipped as the subordinate Governours of Gods Church This Veneration of the Martyrs which superstition thus strained was occasioned by the Miracles which God wrought where his Martyrs were honoured Times of Persecution at home and of Invasion from abroad required such aids for the Encouragement of Catholick Christians and the Conversion of Infidels and misbelievers Thus in the days of St. Austin in whose Age the Getae or Goths sacked Rome and many of the barbarous people imputed the present misfortunes of Italy to the Christian Religion God pleased to work Miracles at the Bodies of the Martyrs Protasius and Gervasius in the City of Milan Thus as is reported by Procopius and Egnatius he miraculously saved those Christians at Rome and Pagans also both in the time of Alaricus and Theudoricus who

World and a degree of thanks is given to them as to such Delegates And God seemeth robbed of the honour of dispensing particular favours though the general Grant be derived from him Whereas it may be in many cases God himself hath done all without so much as the Ministry of an Angel much less of a Saint and consequently ought to have received the whole honour of which good part being though by mistake a mistake soon rectified by them who examine things ascribed to the Creature is therefore in that degree Idolatrous A good part is in these cases generally ascribed to Saints and it is well if some look up any higher at the time of their deliverance We see in the administration of political affairs that Subjects though owning notionally the supremacy of their Prince yet go often no further in their trust or thanks than to those men who by their Place and Office and deputed Authority can very effectually dispatch their affairs without higher Application And he that is protected as a servant to a Senator pays all his acknowledgment to his Master who received him kindly into his service and not to the King who is but the more remote though the supreme Author of this priviledg And it is plain from Romish History it self that the pay goes to that Saint who is believed in Commission whilst God is by supine inadvertence scarce remembred So the Liber Festivalis tells us That when S. Gilbert was afflicted with a soar Throat The Virgin took her feyre pappe and milked on his Throat and went her way and anon therewith he was hole and thanked our Lady ever after I will clear my meaning a little further by proposing more instances of which the first shall be made in the Annalist Baronius and applied unto the present occasion This laborious Writer is looked upon as the very Champion of the Papacy His Twelve Tomes of Ecclesiastical story are reputed so many Pillars of the Roman Cause That Great man in the Papacy Sixtus Quintus gave great encouragement to the Author and his work The Archbishop of Gnesna in Poland as likewise other great and zealous men who were Bygots for the Papacy thought it fit to be translated into all languages and set on foot a Polonian Italian and German Version If he speaks not like a true Roman Catholick from whom shall we hear the words of a son of that Church Hear him then at the end of his several Tomes and you will find him owning indeed the supremacy of God for that was an Article of his Faith But withal you will find him zealously asserting a delegation of considerable power to the Blessed Virgin as also making very thankful remembrances of her favours in the guidance and success of his Pen. And these remembrances are in such manner expressed that if by them nothing is meant of Assistance from the Virgin besides the help of her prayers for him I must search out some new Dictionary for the Interpretation of his Latin At the end of the first Tome of those his Annals he doth as it were hang up a Table in acknowledgment of those powers who had conducted him through that vast Sea as he rhetorically calls it of the matters of the first Age. His Doxology is offered to the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and likewise to the most holy Virgin under the Title of the Conciliatrix of the Deity For to her saith he as we refer all these our works they being received from her so likewise to her we offer them That the same Virgin may offer them how mean soever to her beloved Son That she may sanctifie them with the vouchsafe of her blessing and obtain that favour for the oblation that he may be to us a portion in the Land of the living And over the words of this Address she is pictured Crowned and with her Son as an Infant in her Arms and with a Retinue not only of Angels in General but of Cherubims the Attendants on Gods throne For his Second Tome this is a part of the Conclusion of it Here then let our Discourse wearied with a longer journey opportunely repose it self And being mindful of the benefit let it thankfully cast it self as is our custom at the feet of the most holy Mary the Mother of God That it may offer to her from whom it acknowledgeth the whole to be received whatsoever it understandeth it hath obtained of God by her Prayers And let it cast into her as into a most holy and living Treasury after the manner of the Widow two mites collected in poverty with great labour the two Tomes I mean of the Annals now finished Let that very Virgin be to us the most safe Ark in which our labours may be kept and in safe custody protected lest a thief breaking thorough to wit the appetite of vain-glory steal them away or the moth and rust adhering to them to wit vain and fallacious hopes corrupt them or eat through them For she is the true and divine Ark made of Shittim-wood which preserveth from corruption those things which are committed to her care In his third Tome this is his Peroration Seeing now as saith Ecclestastes Rivers return to the place whence they came that they may flow again it is plainly fit that to that Fountain whence all our labours have flowed they be recalled as to their proper Original and by reciprocal flux be thither refunded that thence they may be poured forth upon us in greater plenty To her therefore by whom the whole of this gift comes to us from God to the most holy Virgin I say Mary the Mother of God we offer very humbly this third Tome of Annals as we have already done those other which we have published His Peroration in his fourth Tome thus beginneth Now by your Aid Virgin Mary Mother of God pay we down the fourth part of our Task and to you we pay it from whence we received it For you have found it Wool and Flax and wrought it with the counsel of your hands Wherefore for the rest of the work perform it your self and weave those threds whatsoever they be and in your hand undoubtedly they will be golden into those Sacerdotal garments of which David thus speaketh Let thy Priests be clothed with righteousness I will deck her Priests with salvation I beseech thee make for us those two Garments for those of thy Family are said to be doubly clothed The fifth Tome hath a like conclusion to this sense This fifth issue Mother of God received from your favour conceived by your Prayers I here bring for a thankful acknowledgment as Anna did Samuel to you the living Tabernacle of God The sixth Tome endeth thus We are now in the Haven in which men sail not We contract our sails and we fasten our Cable to a solid Rock intending in due time to set sail again Now then what remaineth but

the Germans and absolved his Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance and who endeavour'd to set up a Papal Monarchy to the disquiet of all Nations Neither is it for the Honour of the Gospel of Peace to Saint either Pope Victor or Pope Stephen who first took upon them to be Bishops or rather Censurers out of the Diocess that belonged to them Nor did the ancient Church own them as Saints or Martyrs as doth the modern one of Rome Interest of State hath oftentimes exalted them to the Honour of Saints who had never obtained that high Title by their meer piety of life It hapned tolerably in respect of the person when Thomas Aquinas was registred among the Saints for he was a man of great Scholastick Learning and of a mighty zeal in the Roman way But for the true reason of his being Canonized it was secular enough For Pope John the Two and twentieth to depress the Franciscans who did for the most part adhere to the Emperour Lewis of Bavaria Excommunicated by him did canonize that Doctor and his Doctrine directly opposite to that of the Followers of St. Francis in the Article of the Virgins Immaculate Conception Money also maketh such gods being first made one it self And who knows whether it hath not sometimes Canonized evil men For they whom it thus bribeth are not usually beyond the outward colour and pretence respecters of Saintship Canonization they say secureth Christians from worshipping the damned instead of the blessed I wish saith the Archbishop of Spalato that it brings not to pass that very thing which they think it preventeth In this as he goes on are the faithful safe if they reduce their worship to the sole worship of God And here it is worthy our observation that Gregory the ninth complained on his death-bed of that vicious easiness of his whereby he listned to the dreams and visions of such who pretended to great sanctity and occasioned great schisms and disturbances in the Church He meaneth this in all likelihood of Catherine of Siena by whom he was deluded and thereby drawn into a desperate schism yet she is St. Catherine and her Clients are many It is a strange infallibility with which the Pope is invested if he can judg without error of the manners of such whom he has seldom in his eye and who want not their flatterers whatsoever is their party It is therefore much safer to own the ancient Saints such as St. Chrysostome and St. Ambrose whom the whole Church Canonized by its consent than such Modern ones as St. Catherine and St. Thomas of Canterbury whom the Authority of the Pope hath put into the Calendar Of some then the Saintship is doubtful and of some the very existence For are not the three Kings of Colen as such a very fiction yet are they worshipped in the Roman Church as Guardian-Saints And Horstius prayeth them to obtain for him the frankincense of devout Prayer the myrrh of Mortification and the gold of Charity Is not think you St. Almachius a substantial Patron yet such a one there is in some Roman Calendars the title of Sanctum Almanacum being first by mistake written too low against the first day of January yet a Saint he must be And Baronius is loth to part with him and in his Martyrology he will have him to be the same with St. Telemachus But secondly They will prove their Saints to be both Saints and Patrons by the miracles they work upon Invocation Thus the Popes in the Bullarium recite the many miracles wrought by their Saints and then they decree them a place in the Calendar Thus the Catechism of Trent proves the honour of Patrocinie to be due to the Saints by the wonders seen at their Sepulchres and Relicks Thus Baronius telleth of the Saintship and Miracles of the abovesaid Gregory the seventh and of a virtue in his Garments equal to that in the handkerchers of the Primitive Christians mentioned in the Acts. Thus Mr. White boasteth of the restitution of a leg cut off and buried four years to a young man who prayed to our Lady of Pilar affirming the story to be sufficient to convert the whole world To this second Allegation many things may be returned First When God wrought Miracles at the Tombs of the Martyrs he wrought them not as answers to them who invoked Martyrs for in those times they were honoured as Saints and as Soldiers dying in Christs cause and not invoked as Patrons but he thereby encouraged Christians in times of Persecution and honoured their Religion in the sight of the Heathen Secondly There is no reason to expect such Miracles in the setled Ages of Christian Religion though there might be at the first planting of it And Thirdly We have had a long time a fixed rule from whence we may learn the practical truth and duties of our Religion the Word of God Neither hath God left so great a part of his Worship as Prayer to be derived from the dreams of the Melancholy or the delusions of Satan or the Tales of men who write Legends for the advantage of their cause or other tricks of politick persons He hath required us in Scripture to call upon him through Jesus Christ and he hath confirmed this and his whole Gospel by the real Miracles of his Apostles after those of his Son and the Gospel being thus fixed we are not to expect any new discoveries of Evangelical duty by the voice or miracle of an Angel from Heaven who if he should be in such manner sent to us with any new Doctrinal or Moral Revelation ought to be looked on by us as one that trieth our Faith and not as one from whom a new rule of faith or manners is to be received Fourthly Many Romish Miracles are events not effects A Popish woman is extremely sick in body she causeth an Image of the Virgin as is the fashion now among some Romanists in England to be hanged within her curtains at the feet of her bed She invoketh the Virgin and useth Physick she recovers by Art by strength of nature by any other way of Gods Providence and the Virgin is entituled to the Cure because the event followed their Invocation of her Fifthly Many of the Miracles are too light to be ascribed to the Saints of Heaven The credulous Lipsius confirms the Invocation of our Lady of Halla by stories some of them very strange and some very ludicrous He tells of a Boy raised by her from the dead after three days Of a Taylor whom she helped to his needle and thread after they had been swallowed down by him Of a Soldier who by Miracle lost his nose having threatned to cut off that of her Image So Cantapratanus and Antoninus tell at large how the Virgin mended the hairy shirt of Saint Thomas of Canterbury Sixthly Many of them are mere cheats performed by cunning men under