that only reads T. G. and doth not understand the practice of the Roman Church would imagine all the dispute between him and me were whether the Saints in Heaven be capable of receiving any honour from men and whether that honour being given upon the account of Religion might be called Religious Honour or no This were indeed to wrangle about words which I perfectly hate I will therefore freely tell him how far I yield in this matter that he may better understand where the difficulty lyes 1. I yield that the Saints in Heaven do deserve real honour and esteem from us and I do agree with Mr. Thorndike whose words he cites therein that to dispute whether we are bound to honour the Saints were to dispute whether we are to be Christians or whether we believe them to be Saints in Heaven For on supposition that we believe that the greatest excellencies of mens minds come from the Grace of God communicated to men through Iesus Christ and we are assured that such persons now in Heaven were possessed of those excellencies it is impossible we should do otherwise than esteem and honour them For honour in this sense is nothing else but the due apprehension of anothers excellency and therefore it must be greater or lesser according to the nature and degree of those excellencies Since therefore we believe the Saints in Heaven are possessed of them in a higher degree than they were on earth our esteem of them must increase according to the measure of their perfections 2. That the honour we have for them may be called Religious honour because it is upon the account of those we may call Religious excellencies as they are distinguished from meer natural endowments and civil accomplishments On which account I will grant that is not properly civil honour because the motive or reason of the one is really different from the other And although the whole Church of Christ in Heaven and Earth make up one Body yet the nature of that Society is so different from a Civil Society that a different title and denomination ought to be given to the honour which belongs to either of them and the honour of those of the triumphant Church may the better be called Religious because it is an honour which particularly descends from the object of Religion viz. God himself as the fountain of it as civil honour doth from the Head of a Civil Society 3. That this honour may be expressed in such outward acts as are most agreeable to the nature of it And herein lyes a considerable difference between the honour of men for natural and acquired excellencies and divine graces that those having more of humane nature in them the honour doth more directly redound to the possessor of them but in Divine Graces which are more immediately conveyed into the souls of men through a supernatural assistance the Honour doth properly belong to the Giver of them Therefore the most agreeable expression of the honour of Saints is solemn Thanksgiving to God for them for thereby we acknowledge the true fountain of all the good they did or received However for the incouragement of men to follow their examples and to perpetuate their memories the primitive Christians thought it very fitting to meet at the places of their Martyrdom there to praise God for them and to perform other offices of Religious worship to God and to observe the Anniversary of their sufferings and to have Panegyricks made to set forth their vertues to excite others the more to their imitation Thus far I freely yield to T. G. to let him see what pittiful cavils those are that if men deserve honour for natural or supernatural endowments surely the Saints in Heaven much more do so Who denyes it We give the Saints in Heaven the utmost honour we dare give without robbing God of that which belongs only to him Which is that of Religious worship and consists in the acknowledgements we make of Gods supream excellency together with his Power and Dominion over us and so Religious worship consists in two things 1. Such external acts of Religion which God hath appropriated to himself 2. Such an inward submission of our souls as implyes his Superiority over them and that lyes as to worship 1. In prayer to him for what we want 2. In dependence upon him for help and assistance 3. In Thankfulness to him for what we receive Prayer is a signification of want and the expression of our desire of obtaining that which we need and whosoever beggs any thing of another doth in so doing not only acknowledge his own indigency but the others power to supply him therefore Suarez truly observes from Aquinas that as command is towards inferiours so is prayer towards Superiours now to this saith he two things are requisite 1. That a man apprehends it is in the power of the Superiour to give what we ask 2. That he is willing to give it if it be asked of him The expectation of the performance of our desire is that we call dependence upon him for help and assistance and our acknowledgement of his doing it is Thankfulness Now if we consider Prayer as a part of Religious worship we are to enquire on what account it comes to be so not as though thereby we did discover any thing to God which he did not know before nor as though we hoped to change his will upon our prayer but that thereby we profess our subjection to him and our dependence on him for the supply of our necessities For although prayer be looked on by us as the means to obtain our requests yet the consideration upon which that becomes a means is that thereby we express our most humble dependence upon God It being the difference observed by Gul. Parisiensis between humane and divine prayer that prayer among men is supposed a means to change the Person to whom we pray but prayer to God doth not change him but fits us for receiving the things prayed for This one consideration is of greater importance towards the resolution of our present question than hath been hitherto imagined for the Question of invocation doth not depend so much upon the manner of obtaining the thing we desire i. e. whether we pray to the Saints to obtain things by their merits and intercessions which is allowed and contended for by all in the Roman Church or whether it be that they do bestow the things themselves upon us which they deny but the true State of the Question is this whether by the manner of Invocation of Saints which is allowed and practised in the Roman Church they do not give that worship to Saints which is only peculiar to God Now we are farther to consider wherein that act of worship towards God doth lye which is not in an act of the mind whereby we apprehend God to be the first and independent cause of all good but in an act of dependence upon him for the
To excite their devotion that when they made their addresses to these Images they might believe they made them to the Gods themselves And according to T. G. what harm was there in all this provided that these were declared not to be proper likenesses of the Deity and so we see they were by their best and wisest men But the people might imagine the Gods to be like them and what then may they not do the same in the Roman Church and with as good reason when they see God painted like a Pope with his Crown and Pontifical Vestments may they not as reasonably think that as the Pope is Gods Vicar on earth God himself is the Pope in Heaven If they say they take care the people be better informed not too much of that neither but did not Cicero and others do the like by the Heathens who argued against the folly of supposing the Gods to be like men and derided the Epicureans for asserting it as men that neither understood the nature of Gods or Men. And Cicero in the same place is so far from looking on this practice of worshipping the Gods in Images of humane shape as Universal that he confesses it to be almost peculiar to the Greeks and Romans and saith that the Epicureans who did assert the Gods to have the members of mens bodies but made no use of them did only droll and in words assert a Deity which in Truth they denied Maximus Tyrius debates the case about the several ways of representing God and although he makes the manner as indifferent as whether our words be expressed in Phoenician or Ionian or Attick or Aegyptian Characters they being all intended only as helps to our understandings and Memories and as far distant from the Deity as Heaven from Earth yet he saith they are useful to the duller part of mankind who like Children are taught to read and understand by these broader characters which are intended only as a Manuduction to them yet he prefers that which he calls the Greek way of representing the Gods with the most exquisite art in humane Figures but he doth it so timorously that he only saith it is not unreasonable not that he imagined the Gods to be like them but only because the Soul of man comes nearest to God and that habitation which God had chosen for a divine Soul seemed the fittest to be a Symbol of the invisible Deity But he does not blame the other Nations which made use of other wayes of representing the Deity which he must have done if he had thought the Greek Images the proper likenesses of God for although he disputes against the Persians and Aegyptians yet he concludes all at last with this saying whether men worship God by the art of Phidias as the Greeks or by the worship of living Creatures as the Aegyptians or by the worship of Rivers or of Fire as other Nations I condemn not the variety let them only understand and love and remember him whom they worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in T. G.'s Translation let a man only direct his intention towards God and then without doubt the actions go whither they are intended And upon these grounds none of the Heathens were to blame in the worship of Images provided they looked on them only as Symbols or Analogical representations of the Deity as Maximus Tyrius saith they did and directed their worship towards the Supreme Being as he adviseth them all to do For saith he God who is the Father and Maker of all things elder than the Sun and Heaven better than Time and Age and all Fluid things a Lawgiver without name that cannot be expressed with words or seen with eyes whose essence being incomprehensible by us we make use of all helps from sounds and words and living Creatures and Images of Gold and Ivory and Silver and Plants and Rivers and Mountains to bring us to the Conception of him and because of our Weakness those things we account good we attribute to him as lovers use to do who delight in any representation of him they love and behold with great pleasure the harp or the dart or the seat he sate upon or the place he ran in and whatever brings him to mind What need I say any more concerning Images Let God only be in the mind Is not this a Vindication of Heathen Idolatry to T. G.'s hearts desire For saith T. G. Is it not an honour to the King to kiss his Picture And the very light of nature teaches that the honour or dishonour done to a picture or Image reflects upon the person represented by it Now saith Max. Tyrius we look upon Images and Trees and Rivers and Mountains but as so many imperfect pictures and representations of the Deity but although they do not come near his beauty yet we honour them for the sake of him whom they represent wherein we do but as great lovers do we kiss the footsteps where he trod we embrace admire and value things as they represent him and bring him to our minds And is there any thing more natural than this For is it not an honour to the King to kiss his picture or as the Emperour Iulian more elegantly expresses it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He that loves the King takes pleasure in seeing the picture of the King he that loves his Child loves any representation of him and so doth he that loves his Father even so saith the devout Emperour Iulian by the meer light of Nature every one that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Lover of God loves the representations of the Gods and beholding their Images doth secretly fear and reverence them which although invisible themselves do behold him Wherein we see how admirably Iulian and T. G. have hit not only on the same principle of nature but the very instance and almost the very same expressions It seems this great man did not corrupt himself in those things he knew naturally but pursued the light of Nature towards the Defence of Pagan Idolatry making the Worship of Images a part of Natural Religion as T. G. doth But what spight is this for me to mention Julian and T. G. together whereas it is well known that Julian was against Invocation of Saints and called that as great Idolatry as the Heathens as T. G. notably observes against Dr. St. But for all this Iulian though an Apostate and great enemy to Christianity was a shrewd understanding man and found out the very fundamental principle of the worship of Images and resolved it into the Light of Nature as T. G. doth But Julian supposed these Images to be proper Likenesses of the Gods and consequently the worship of them as such is condemned no such matter I assure you Iulian was a more Orthodox man than so he was no follower of that damnable heretick called Anthropomorphus for so I find him in an ancient Catalogue of Hereticks Iulian
obtaining that good we stand in need of For a man may apprehend God to be the first Author of all good and yet make no prayer to him nor use the acts of Religious worship because he may suppose that God may have committed the care of humane affairs to inferiour Deities and therefore all our addresses and acts of worship are to be performed to them on this account the worship proper to God must lye in dependence upon him as the Sole Author of all Good to us and this to be expressed by our Solemn Invocation of him For although the internal desire be sufficiently known to God yet the necessity of external Religious worship and owning this dependence upon God to the world doth require the expression of it by outward duties and offices of Religion in such a manner that our sole dependence upon God be understood thereby Now the Question between T. G. and me is this whether the doctrine and practice of the Roman Church in the Invocation of Saints and Angels be consistent with the acknowledgement of our sole dependence upon God for all our Blessings The doctrine of their Church is thus delivered by himself in the words of the Council of Trent It is good and profitable for Christians humbly to invocate the Saints and to have recourse to their prayers aid and assistance whereby to obtain benefits of God by his Son our Lord Iesus Christ who is our only Redeemer and Saviour Where we take notice of the phrase suppliciter invocare to invocate them after the manner of suppliants and that not only voce but mente with words but mental prayers as the Council adds which words seem to be put on purpose to distinguish it from that office of Kindness in one man to another when he desires him to pray for him for this is as much as they would use concerning the Saints in Heaven praying to God that they do suppliciter invocare this phrase then doth not limit the signification of this invocation to be no more than praying to the Saints to pray for us For a man doth I suppose answer the signification of that phrase by praying to them to give rather than by praying to them to pray for the one imports more the humility of a suppliant than the other doth And if there had been apprehended any danger of praying to them as the givers of blessings is is not to be imagined but so wary a Council would have expressed it as it was most easie to have done and most necessary to avoid that danger if they had any regard to the good of mens souls And that man must have an understanding indeed of a very common size that can apprehend that the Council of Trent disallowed the praying to Saints as the Givers of Blessings which was known to be practised in their Church when they commend the humble invocation of Saints without the least censure of that manner of praying to them Nay farther which puts the matter out of dispute with all who do not wilfully blind themselves the Council of Trent commends the making recourse not only to the prayers of the Saints but to their aid and assistance what doth this aid and assistance signifie as distinct from prayers and expressing somewhat beyond them or else those words were very weakly inserted in such a place where they are so lyable to misconstruction unless it be that which they pray for to them viz. that they would help comfort strengthen and protect them Of which sort of prayers I produced several instances in their most Authentick Offices And what saith T. G. to this why truly these Forms of prayer to Saints cannot be denyed to be in use among them but yet the sense of them is no more than praying to them to pray for them and this is only varying the Phrase to say to the Blessed Virgin Pray for me or Help me and comfort me and strengthen me O Blessed Virgin But I asked him whence must people take the sense of these prayers if not from the signification of the words He answers not meerly from Lilly 's Grammar Rules but from the doctrine of the Church delivered in her Councils and Catechisms and from the common use of such words and expressions among Christians I am content with this way of interpreting the sense of these prayers provided that a generally received practice never condemned by their Councils but rather justified by them and a doctrine agreeable to that practice allowed and countenanced in that Church be thought a sufficient means to interpret the sense of these prayers And to make the matter more plain besides the prayers already mentioned I shall give only a Tast of some few of those which are recommended to the Use of the devout Persons of their Church in the Manuals and Offices which are now allowed them in our own language in which we may be sure they would be careful to have nothing they thought scandalous or repugnant to the doctrine and practise of their Church In the Manual of Godly Prayers which hath been often printed and once very lately I find these words under the title of A Most Devout Commendation to our most Blessed Lady O most singular most excellent most beautiful most glorious and most worthy Mother of God most Noble Queen of Heaven and most entirely beloved and most sweet Lady and Virgin Mary so often from the bottom of my heart I do salute thee as there be in number Angels in Heaven drops of water in the Sea Stars in the Firmament leaves on the Trees and grass on the earth I do salute thee in the union of love and by the blessed and most sweet heart of thy most dear Son and of all that love thee I do commend and assign my self unto thee as to my dear Patroness to be thy proper and loving Child And farther I humbly beseech thee O blessed Lady that thou wilt vouchsafe to entertain and receive me and obtain of thy dear Son that I may be wholly thine and thou next unto God may be wholly mine that is my Lady my Ioy my Crown and my most sweet and faithful Mother Amen Lilly's Grammar I confess will not help us out here nor the Construing Book neither I do not think any Rules will do it It must be a special gift of interpreting that can make any one think that no more is meant by all this but to pray to the Blessed Virgin to pray for them In the same Manual I find another Recommendation to the Virgin Mary in these words O my Lady Holy Mary I recommend my self into thy blessed trust and singular custody and into the bosome of thy mercy this night and evermore and in the hour of my death as also my Soul and my Body and I yield unto thee all my hope and consolation all my distress and miseries my life and the end thereof that by thy most holy intercession and by thy merits all
them he so much sets forth the Divinity of the Stars and the Heavens he must either contradict himself or attribute only an inferiour Divinity to them and that he did not speak so clearly of the worship of the Supreme God because he looked on him as incomprehensible and that he could not so well know in what way it was fit to worship him However he invocates him in several places especially when he was to speak concerning the Gods and in his Epistle to Hermias Erastus and Coriscus which he writ when he was grown old he calls to witness the God over all Governour of all things and times and Father of the Lord and Cause of things but as to the publick manner of worship he saith that no man ought to teach unless God himself direct him He farther shews that notwithstanding Plato spake so much and so well concerning the true God yet he attributed the title of Divinity to several ranks of Spirits to the Heavens the Sea to the World to Zamolxis to Mercurius Trismegistus and to good men in general to whom he commands sacrifices and other acts of worship to be performed Quod in Religione nostra justissimè fit Sanctis Divis which is with great reason done among us to Saints and Deified men I now appeal to T. G. whether Aug. Steuchus doth not bring this matter very home to them when he saith that they either worshipped Angels so he saith Philo renders their Daemons or Saints as they verily believed and supposed the honour of these was very well pleasing to the Supreme God whom they constantly acknowledged as he at large proves not only concerning Plato but Aristotle and all the Philosophers of any reputation and he saith that Socrates in Plato not only confessed the true God but that he ought to be worshipped and observed by men and that for his sake men ought never to forsake the way of righteousness and therefore he resolved rather to follow God than the advice of his Friends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot be better rendred than in the Apostles words It is better to obey God than men It would be endless to repeat the places wherein he shews at large that Plato and the rest of the Philosophers did acknowledge the Unity Power Wisdom Goodness and Providence of the Supreme God And after all these acknowledgements is it possible to conceive that they should never intend to refer the honour they gave to inferiour Deities and their Images to this Supreme God nay it is not possible say some they should do otherwise since they believed all the other Deities they worshipped to be created and dependent Beings But I need not make use of such a way of proving it Paulus Benius Eugubinus hath made it appear he saith that according to Plato the Supreme God is to be worshipped after a singular and peculiar manner And he gives this account of the Platonick principles of divine worship as to inferiour Deities 1. That Plato's Gods were no other than our Angels and that he sets God the maker of them at a mighty distance from them 2. That when he speaks so much of the worship of the heavenly Bodies he doth not thereby intend the worship should be given so much to the bodies as to those Blessed Minds that moved them yea saith he to them properly and precisely and so that they being removed no honour or worship is to be given to the bodies themselves Which certainly is no more Idolatry on this supposition than adoration of the Host is upon one far more extravagant But he saith by one place in Plato's Epinomis it may be questioned whether he intended the stars should be worshipped otherwise than as Images of the Gods and therefore saith he very ingenuously Plato did scarce at all differ unless in words from the doctrine of the Roman Church in this matter 3. That Plato did put a difference in the nature and kind of the worship which he gave to inferiour Deities and that which was due to the Supreme God and the same kind of difference as is made among them and that when he acknowledges them to be created by him he could not give Soveraign worship to them 4. That when Plato gave worship to Daemons the difference is only about words because by Daemons he understood an inferiour Order of Angels whom he supposed to be good and holy and to have a care of mankind The only difference then that this learned man could find worth taking notice of between Plato's worship and theirs was this that they worshipped those for Saints and Deified men and the Images of such who were not truly Saints not being Canonized by the Pope but if they had been such he then confesses that they did nothing amiss in the worship they gave to them or their Images Alioquin saith he ea cultus venerationisque ratio cum nostra magnopere congrueret So that all the dispute comes to this whether Mercurius Trismegistus were not as good a Saint as Thomas Becket and as much deserved to be worshipped or Socrates as Ignatius Loyola not whether we account them so but whether they upon their supposition of their excellencies and vertues might not as innocently worship them as the Papists do the other P. Lescalopier a late Iesuit saith that Plato makes so palpable a distinction between the Supreme God maker of all things and other Deities that no one but an Epicurean Backbiter can deny that Plato did openly and constantly assert one God and that he did not give equal honour to any as he did to him and delivers this as the substance of his opinion Unum Deum imprimis adorandum cujus gratiâ caetera numina colenda sunt One God to have Soveraign worship given him and others to have a relative and inferiour worship And now I hope I have brought this matter home to T. G. and made it appear from their own Writers that these Philosophers went upon the same principles of Divine Worship that they do in the Roman Church The only appearance of difference is about the worship of Deified men and that not as to the nature and kind of the worship but only as to the persons and yet as to this it ought to be considered 1. That it was only a mistake such a one as many may be guilty of in the Roman Church who it is possible may worship those for Saints in Heaven who are in a worse place 2. Many of those worshipped by the Heathens are confessed to have been good men so Campanella confesses of Ianus whom he took to be Noah and he said deserved to be worshipped as well as Moses and Peter and Paul and the Prophets and he saith farther that many Wise and Vertuous men were worshipped by the Heathens who did not look on them as essentially Gods Thus many learned men have shewed that the Veneration of Adam and Eve of Noah
that came from them 4. The humane shape it self which he saith is a very notable argument to make men think that Images live because men do especially he saith if it be said so by Wise men But whatever the reasons be he saith he would prove that the Heathens believed ipsa idola esse Deos the very Images themselves to be Gods Now what could be more contradictory to this assertion than those words of the Heathens in Arnobius are So that the Per se which T. G. charges me with leaving out adds rather more weight and Emphasis to the Testimony 4. After all this I say that Arnobius doth reject the worship of Images on such grounds as do hold against the worship of the true God by an Image For he brings that as the objection of the Heathens against the Christians that supposing they had never so right apprehensions of the nature of those Beings which the Heathens worshipped for Gods yet they were to blame for not worshipping their Images Nec eorum effigies adoramus saith Arnobius of the Christians which I beseech T. G. to remember are the words I translate for fear he should take the next words Templa illis extruimus nulla and then cry out there is no such thing as Images in the words that I have cogged in the word to serve my turn that this is setting up a flag in a Fireship Dolus an Virtus with such kind of laudable plain-dealing Nay Arnobius goes yet farther For saith he what greater honour can we attribute to them than that we place them there where the Head and Lord and King of all is to whom they owe the same acknowledgements that we do But do we honour him delubris aut Templorum constructionibus with Images and Temples So I render it without the fear of T. G's new charge of disingenuity for besides that the delubra were saith Festus wooden Images it is certain that afterwards according to Varro the most learned of the Romans when delubrum was applyed to a place it signified such a one in quo Dei simulachrum dedicatum est and in the old Glossaries it is rendred into Greek by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore to honour God sine delubris must be to worship him without Images and this was the reason why the Christians denyed they had any Temples because the Heathens supposed there could be no proper Temples without Images therefore in S. Hierom Sanctorum Basilicas in Templa convertere is all one as turn Churches into Idol Temples and both in Origen and Minucius the Heathens joyn those accusations together that the Christians had no Altars nor Images nor Temples and Vitruvius in the building of a Temple takes the greatest care of placing the Images that they may stand so that the Images may look on those who come up to the Altars And it appears by the discourse in Arnobius that they valued no Temples where there were no Images thence came the suspicion that Hadrian intended to worship Christ because he commanded Temples to be built in all Cities without any Images as Lampridius saith in the Life of Alexander Severus It is all one to our purpose whether Hadrian had any such intention or no for its being believed that he had from this Reason because the Temples were without Images is a most undeniable evidence that the Christians then did not worship God or Christ by any Images in their Churches After this Arnobius argues against the use of Images for this Reason if you believe your Gods to be in Heaven to what purpose do you make Images of them to worship cannot you as well pray to the Gods themselves But it may be you will say because you cannot see the Gods themselves you represent them as present by those Images But saith he he that thinks he must have Gods to be seen doth not believe any at all However say they we worship them through these Images And what saith he can be more injurious or reproachful than to know God to be one thing and yet to pray to another to expect help from the Deity and yet to fall down before a senseless Image which is like a man that should pretend to take advice from men and to ask it of Asses and Swine Is not that saith he not meer mistake but madness supplicare tremebundum factitatae abs te rei to fall down trembling before a thing made by your selves Besides this he argues from the matter form and design of them how ridiculous it is to worship Images and after exposing the other pretences of the Heathen Idolaters in the last place he considers this that the ancients understood well enough Nihil habere Numinis signa that there was no Divinity in Images T. G. sees I am for the singular number still and I think Numen is so too but that Images were set up to keep the rude people in awe which he saith they were so far from that they only made their Gods contemptible and thereby encouraged them more in their Wickedness I desire now the Reader to reflect whether these arguments are peculiar to the worship of false Gods and whether they do not with as much force hold against the worship of the true God by Images And if it be possible to suppose that a man that hath not the stupidity of an Image should object those things against their worship which would be returned upon his own and never provide in the least for any defence of it So that after all the loud clamours and insolent charges of T. G. we find that Arnobius himself doth fully prove that the Divinity cannot be worshipped by Images and that what the Heathens plead for themselves in him doth shew that they believed there was no Divinity in Images but what only comes from their consecration to such an Use. The next Testimony he charges me with foul-dealing in is that of S. Austin wherein I say the Wiser Heathens deny that they worshipped the Images themselves but they add that through them they worship the Deity After this T. G. sets down those words of S. Austin Videntur sibi purgatiores esse Religionis c. And because in the following expressions mention is made of the Corporeal Creatures or the Spirits that rule over them as worshipped by their Images therefore he charges me with great disingenuity in saying that the Heathens in S. Austin affirmed that through their Images they did worship the Deity and yet as it falls out these are the very words I translated in S. Austin Non hoc visibile colo sed Numen quod illic invisibiliter habitat and I now appeal to men of any common ingenuity what usage I have met with from this Adversary who passes by the very words I translated as near to the signification as possible and produces other passages and then Hectors and Triumphs and cryes out of my disingenuity when