together and consequently have freed themselves from the force of the Laws which required no more but giving divine worship to the Deities publickly worshipped without any declaration of their minds concerning them For they might understand them as they pleased as we see the wise men among them did without any censure or reproach from others If it were lawful then for Christians to give a relative Latria to any creatures with an intention to honour God thereby I cannot see how the Christians were excusable in their sufferings for all that was required from them was only to obey their Laws and offer incense to their Gods Nothing being expressed by the Laws as to the disowning the true God nor as to declaring in what sense they did intend to worship them the Emperour declared he was for the Laws being observed and himself in his own writings had expressed his mind as to one God what was it then made the Christians refuse obeying the Laws when so many Philosophers had said that these Gods were only parts of the Universe and deserved divine worship because of Gods presence in them If they had not thought it Idolatry to give divine worship to any creature it is very hard to make out their title to Martyrdom For if we look over the Acts of the Martyrs we shall find it came to this pinch with them will you obey the Laws in offering incense or will you not When Iustin Martyr was summoned before Rusticus the Praefect of the City after some previous discourses Let us come saith he to the business in hand Come you Christians hither and sacrifice with one consent to the Gods Iustin answers No true Christian will forsake his Religion and return to errors and impiety and the rest agreeing with him the Judge pronounced their sentence that because they would not sacrifice to the Gods and obey the Emperours Edict they should be scourged and have the punishment of death inflicted upon them which was accordingly executed When Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria was summoned before Aemilianus he gives this account himself of the passages between them that he told Aemilianus plainly that he would worship none but the true God and that he would never depart from this resolution the Governour dismisses him for that time the next time he lets him know the Emperour had so great a regard to their safety that if they would but act according to reason and worship the Gods that preserved the Empire they might be safe Dionysius answers We saith he worship the one true God the Maker of all things who hath bestowed the Empire on Valerianus and Gallienus and to him we pray continually for the safety of the Empire But saith Aemilianus again who forbids you to worship that God you speak of and the other Gods too Dionysius then gave that as his final answer we worship none else besides him I might bring multitudes of instances to the same purpose but I instance in these two because they were men of eminency for their learning as well as piety Now I appeal to the conscience of T. G. whether upon the principles of worship which he delivers these men could have suffered for conscience sake any otherwise than as weak Brethren that wanted good information For they might have reserved the Sovereign worship due only to God on the account of his Supreme excellency and have given only a Relative Latria to those whom they called Gods but in truth were only Gods creatures and Subjects and what harm was there in all this O but saith T. G. they were called Gods but in truth were Devils whom they were to worship how doth that appear to have been the cause when they say no such thing and give no such reason of their refusals besides they might make them Gods by giving them absolute Latria for that is due only to God himself but no more was required of them than to sacrifice to them and they never debarred them of the freedom of directing their intention to the Supreme God and T. G. knows acts go whither they are intended and those whom they called Gods they might understand them only by way of participation or as some Analogical representations of the true God O but sacrifice was required of them and that is the worship peculiar to God but how comes sacrifice alone to belong to God and what sacrifice burning of Incense and that T. G. knows is allowed to be done to creatures with a respect to God by the Rules of their Church So that for all that I can see if relative Latria may be allowed to creatures the Primitive Christians were not so wise as they might have been and the Modern doctrines of worship in the Roman Church would have saved the lives of thousands of the Primitive Martyrs and not only of the common sort but of the best and wisest of them Who sacrificed their lives on this principle that Divine worship and not meerly Sovereign worship is to be given to none but to the Supreme God But if that pass for good Divinity that they who believe one Supreme God cannot possibly give the honour due to him to any creature I do not see why the Christians needed to have been so afraid of giving divine worship to any thing besides God for upon this principle they were afraid of impossibilities For as long as they preserved in their minds a just esteem of the incomparable excellency of God above his creatures they were uncapable of any real Idolatry But I think it is hard to pitch upon a principle more repugnant to the sense of the Primitive Church than this is as I hope to make it clear before I have done with this argument Athenagoras proceeds to dispute against the worshipping any of the parts of the Universe how beautiful or useful soever they be for why should we seek that from matter which it self hath not and can do nothing but in obedience to a higher Cause And let the things be never so beautiful yet they retain the nature of matter still for Plato confesses that the heavens and the Frame of the world are corporeal and therefore subject to mutability But saith he if I refuse to worship the Heavens and Elements as Gods whose workmanship I so much admire because I know them to be corruptible how can I be perswaded to do it to those things which I know to be made by men and thence shews not only the novelty of the Poetical Gods but of the art of framing Images which was so late he saith that they were able yet to name the first makers of them But Because it was pleaded by some among them that all the worship they gave to their Images was only a relative worship and that they looked on them only as representations of their Deities therefore he begs leave of the Emperours to search into the Nature of their Poetick Theology which he derives from Orpheus as the rest do
yet none of them do worship or adoration and elsewhere that only the Maker of all things ought to be worshipped admired and adored by us that neither the work of mens hands nor those assumed to the honour of Gods can be decently worshipped by us either without the Supreme God â—r together with him where the Latine Interpreter hath apparently shuffled rendring that place only thus nihilque praeter eum aut pari honore cum eo as though all that Origen condemned were only giving equal divine worship to other things besides God Whereas Celsus never pleaded for that but that men should give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in the very terms of the Council of Trent due veneration To which Origen answers we desire only to be followers of Christ who hath said Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve It is true saith he several Nations have avoided the worship of Images some for one reason and some for another but the Christians and Iews do it because of that Law Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve and several places to the same purpose so that we ought rather to die than to defile our selves with these impieties And they who did forbear Images did worship the Sun or Gods Creatures which we are forbidden to do This he so frequently insists upon throughout his Books that it would be to no purpose to bring all the places these being sufficient to shew that the state of the Controversie abouâ— Idolatry did not depend upon their giving soveraign worship to any thing besides God but any divine worship although they did acknowledge the Supreme God As Origen himself doth very often declare that the Heathens did S. Paul he saith spake truly of some of the Wise-men of Greece that they knew God and that God was manifested to them and elsewhere we testifie truly concerning them that they knew God but their fault was that after their grave disputations they worshipped Idols and Daemons as the rest did We cannot but assent saith he to what Plato hath said concerning the chief Good for God hath manifested this to them and whatever else they have said well but therefore they deserved punishment because when they had a right apprehension of God they did not give him the worship which was worthy of him and he quotes a little after Plato 's epistle to Hermias and Coriscus wherein he appeals to God as the Lord of all things and several other passages wherein his Government and Power and Iustice and Excellency are truly set forth and after several other passages of Plato and Celsus about the ways of knowing God which he allows he concludes with this that God is so great a lover of mankind that he made known his Truth and the knowledge of himself not only to his own people but to those who were strangers to the sincere worship and service of him Judge now Reader whether Origen himself T. G. 's single witness doth make the Supreme God of the Heathens an Arch-Devil and what reason he had upon so slender a Testimony to cry out The Fathers the Fathers But I have not yet done with him for if we come down lower into the times of the Christian Church when this controversie of Idolatry was again revived in the days of Iulian the Apostate we shall find the very same acknowledgements made by the most learned and judicious Fathers of the Christian Church S. Cyril of Alexandria who undertook to answer the three Books of Iulian againsâ— Christianity saith that the Greeks diâ— speak admirable things concerning God and that they did exceed themselves in those discourses and that they could not have attained to such a knowledge of God without some particular manifestation of himself unto them And afterwards hâ— produces the Testimonies of Orpheus and Homer and Sophocles concerning him Thales he saith made God the Soul of the World Democritus an active mind within a sphere of fire Aristotle a separate form resting upon the sphere of the World the Stoicks an active fire passing through the parts of the world Of these things he saith Plutarch and Porphyrius speak but above all he commends what Pythagoras and Plato and Hermes have said of God with several of the Testimonies before mentioned some of which are repeated by Theodoret to the same purpose But these things will be made more clear by considering the state of the Controversie between Iulian and S. Cyrill about Idolatry Iulian confesseth that there is a natural knowledge of God in the minds of men from whence comes that common inclination of all mankind towards a Deity and that supposition among all men that he who is the King over all hath his Throne in Heaven He acknowledgeth with Plato that God is the maker of all things that he is the Father of the Gods too and S. Cyril never quarrels with him for giving the title of Gods to those Superiour and Intelligent Beings for saith he we grant that there are some in Heaven that are called both Gods and Lords nay men are called Gods in Scripture Of these Gods ' according to Plato Iulian saith some are visible as the Sun and Moon and Stars and the Heavens but these are only images of the invisible and therefore Plato calls these later 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being invisible Deities represented by visible but one God is the Maker of them all But Iulian utterly rejected the Poetical Fables concerning the Gods and that for T. G 's reason because the Poets took the liberty to feign and say any thing nay he calls them incredible and monstrous Fables and this was the Scheme of his Theology That there was one Supreme God the common Father and Lord over all who had distributed the several Nations and Cities of the World to particular Gods as Governours over them but although all perfections were in the Supreme God yet they were scattered and divided among the inferiour Deities and so Mars had the care of Wars and Minerva of Counsels and Mercury of things that required cunning more than courage and every particular Nation followed the humour of the Gods that were set over them as he goes about to prove by the different tempers of Nations To which Cyril answers That great Princes do choose some of the Wisest of their Subjects to be Governours of Provinces but they who are so imployed do not Govern them by their own Laws but by their Princes and on all occasions set forth their greatness and pay all duties to them but these Deities assume those honours to themselves which are due only to God and by bringing in Images into Temples of several forms and figures they endeavour to cast dishonour upon God and by degrees draw men to the neglect of him Either then God despises the service of men
them therefore he saith they deny Christ and joyn with the Gentiles giving the same worship to several Gods I do not think any proposition in Euclid can be made more clear than it is from these expressions of Athanasius that he believed Idolatry to be consistent with the belief and worship of one God The same thing he urges in other places but if this be not proof enough I know not what will be S. Gregory Nazianzen parallels those who worshipped the Son or Holy Ghost supposing them to be creatures with those who worshipped Astaroth or Chemosh or Remphan because they were creatures too For whatever difference of honour or glory there be all creatures are our fellow servants and therefore not to be worshipped by us Might not the Arians have chared Gregory Nazianzen to have imitated Iulian the Apostate upon as good reason as T. G. doth me For however in words they professed to abhor the worship of Ashtoreth or Chemosh or Remphan as much as he did yet he did not regard their professions but thought it reasonable to judge by the nature of their actions And what profaneness would T. G. have accounted this to parallel the worship of the Son and Holy Ghost with that of Chemosh and Ashtoreth Yet we see Gregory doth not forbear making use of the similitude of the worship although there were so great a disparity in the objects Gregory Nyssen saith that the Devil by the means of Arianism brought Idolatry again insensibly into the world perswading men to return to the worship of the creature by his sophistry and that Arius Eunomius Eudoxius and Aetius were his instruments in restoring Idolatry under a pretence of Christianity In another place he hath this considerable passage God commands by the Prophet that we should have no new God nor worship any strange God but that is a new God which was not for ever and that is a strange God which is different from our God Who is our God the true God who is a strange God he that hath a different nature from the true God He that makes the Son a creature makes him of a different nature And they who make him a creature do they worship him or no if not they joyn with the Iews if they do worship him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they commit Idolatry Therefore we must believe him to be the true Son of the true Father that we may worship him and doing so that we be not condemned as worshipping a strange God To the same purpose he argues against Eunomius that it is the property of Idolaters to worship the creature or any new or strange God and that they who divide the Father and the Son must either wholly take away the worship of the Son or they must worship an Idol the very word used by S. Gregory making a creature and not God the object of their worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 placing the name of Christ upon an Idol that this was the fault of the Heathen Idolaters that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worship those which were not Gods by nature and therefore could not worship the true God where it is observable that he uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both for the worship given to Idols by the Heathens and for that which is proper to God from which it is evident that these Fathers knew of no such distinction of the nature of divine worship as is understood in the Roman Church under the terms of Latria and Dulia for if they had having to deal with subtile adversaries they would not have failed to have explained themselves in the matter which had been absolutely necessary to the force of their own arguments if any such distinction had been known or allowed in the Christian Church Again he saith that he that puts the name of Son to a creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be reckoned among Idolaters for they saith he called Dagon and Bel and the Dragon God but for all that they did not worship God and therefore he still urgeth against Eunomius that either with the Iews he must deny the worship of Christ or he must joyn with the Gentiles in the worship of the creature S. Basil charges the Arians and Eunomians with bringing in the Polytheism and Idolatry of the Greeks for they who say that the Son of God is a creature and yet worship him as God do worship a creature and not the Creator and so introduce Gentilism again And against Eunomius he urges the same places and reasons which I have already mentioned out of Nyssen viz. that if Christ be not the eternal God he must be a new and strange God and to worship that which by nature is not God is the fault S. Paul charges the Heathen Idolaters with Epiphanius proves that Christs being a creature and having divine worship given him are inconsistent according to the Scriptures and that those who worship a creature fall under S. Pauls reprehension of the Heathen Idolaters who did call the creatures God but true faith teaches us to worship the Creator and not the creature He thinks this Rule sufficient against all the arts and sophistry of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no creature ought to be worshipped For saith he upon the same reason we worship one we may worship all together with their creator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where we see he doth not speak of such worship as doth exclude the Creator but of that which is supposed to be joyned together with his nor of a Soveraign Worship to be given to them but of such as doth suppose the distance between the Creator and his Creatures Upon this principle he saith the Arians made the Son of God like to the Idols of the Heathens for if he be not the true God he is not to be worshipped nay he adds that those who said Christ was to be worshipped although a creature did build up Babylon again and set up the image of Nebuchadnezzar and by their words as by Musical instruments draw men to the worship of an Image rather than of the true God Is it credible saith he that God should make a creature to be worshipped when he hath forbidden men to make any likeness of things in Heaven or Earth and to fall down and worship it when the Apostle makes this the Idolatry of the Heathen that they worshipped the creature as well as the Creator wherein they became Fools for it is a foolish thing to attribute divinity to a creature and to break the first Commandment of the Law Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Therefore saith he the holy Church of God doth not worship any creature but the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father together with the Holy Ghost To the very same purpose he speaks in his Ancoratus If the Son of God be a creature
likewise for the adoration that is due to the Son and Holy Ghost S. Chrysostom saith that the Arians and Macedonians making one Great God and another less and created God did bring in Gentilism again For it is that which teacheth men to worship a Creature and to make one great God and others inferiour Such as these S. Paul condemns for giving worship to a creature and they are accursed according to the Law of Moses which saith Cursed is every one who worships a creature or any thing that is made S. Ambrose goes farther and saith S. Paul foresaw that Christians would be brought to the worship of Creatures and therefore not only condemns the Gentiles but warns the Christians by saying that God would damn those who worship the creature rather than the Creator Either therefore let the Arians cease to worship him whom they call a creature or cease to call him a creature whom they worship lest under the name of worshippers they be found to commit the greater sacriledge S. Augustin saith that the Arians by giving worship to Christ as God whom they believed to be a creature did make more Gods than one and break the Law of God which did forbid the worship of more than one God and set up Idols to themselves although they acknowledged one Great God and made the Son and Holy Ghost lesser and inferiour Gods From this unanimous consent of the Fathers in charging the Arrians with Idolatry it most evidently follows that according to them Idolatry is consistent with the belief and worship of one Supreme God which is not the only considerable advantage we gain by those Testimonies but from them it likewise appears 1. That it is Idolatry to give divine worship to any creature how great soever the excellencies of that creature be for none can be imagined greater than those which the Arians attributed to the Son of God 2. That the Fathers looked on the worship of Dulia as divine worship as appears by their applying that term to the worship which was given to Christ. 3. That the name of an Idol doth belong to the most real and excellènt being when divine worship is given to it for they give this name to Christ himself when he is worshipped as a Creature 4. That relative Latria is Idolatry when given to any Creature For this was all the Arians subterfuge that it could not be Idolatry to worship Christ as a Creature because they worshipped him only as the Image of God and relatively terminating their worship on God the Father through him notwithstanding which answer of theirs the Fathers with one consent declare such worship to be Idolatry and that it would make way for the worship of any creature and was the introducing of Heathen Idolatry under a pretence of Christianity These things which are here only observed in passage will be of great use in the following Discourses CHAP. II. Of the Nature of Divine Worship I Now come to the second Enquiry Wherein the Nature of that Divine Worship lies which being given to a creature makes that Worship Idolatry And that I may proceed with all possible clearness in this matter I shall enquire 1. What Worship is 2. What Divine Worship is and what are the proper acts of it 3. How the applying of these Acts to a Creature doth make the worship of it Idolatry What worship is Aquinas hath given this distinction between honour and worship that honour is quaedam recognitio excellentiae alicujus an acknowledgement of anothers excellency but cultus or worship in quodam obsequio consistit implies subjection to another The foundation of this distinction doth not lie so much in the force and signification of the words as in the different effects that excellency alone considered hath upon our minds from what it hath when it is joyned with Superiority and a Power over us Meer excellency doth produce only in our minds a due esteem according to the nature and degrees of it which is a debitum morale as the Schoolmen speak from us towards it i. e. something which according to nature and reason we ought to give it and therefore it is accounted a part of natural justice to esteem whatever excellencies we apprehend to be in others although we receive no benefit by them our selves and whatever implies a real excellencie whether it be intellectual or moral whether infinite or finite whether natural or acquired it deserves an estimation suitable to its kind and degree But the honour which is due to excellencie doth not only lie in an act of the mind but in a correspondent inclination of the will to testifie that esteem by such outward expressions as may manifest it to others and that either by words which is called Praise or by gestures as bowings of the body or by facts as gifts statues c. All these Aquinas tells us do belong to honour But Worship implies something beyond this which is subjection to anotheron the account of his Power over us for we may express honour and esteem towards equals or inferiours because the reason of it may be in those as well as others therefore there must be a different duty in us with respect to Superiority and this is worship So the Schoolmen define adoration adorare non dicimur nisi in dignitate constitutos quos nobis Superiores cognoscimus saith Vasquez Honor potest esse ad aequalem saith Suarez juxta illud ad Rom. 12. honore invicem praevenientes adoratio vero respicit alium ut excellentem superiorem Ex parte adorantis plane necessarium est saith Tannerus ut is rem adorandam concipiat tanquam aliquo modo se superiorem seu praestantiorem But more fully Bernardus Pujol Adoratio est submissio quaedam quasi humiliatio quam subditus facit propter excellentiam superioris in honorem illius and Gamachaeus Adoratio essentialiter includit subjectionem ac submissionem aliquam Adoratio est inferioris ad superiorem saith Ysambertus Cardinal Lugo goes farther saying of Cultus se apud probatos auctores videre semper eam vocem applicari ad significandam reverentiam erga superiores And although Arriaga thinks Cultus of a larger signification yet the definition he gives of adoration is that it is honor exhibitus superiori in signum submissionis humiliationis Bellarmine makes the first act of adoration to be in the mind and that only the apprehension of the excellencie of the object but the second in the will to be not only an inclination of it towards the object but a willing by some internal or external act to acknowledge the excellencie of the object and our subjection and to these he adds the external act either of bowing the head or bending the knee or some other token of subjection So that Bellarmine agrees with the rest in making the formal act of adoration to be
God through such an Image as a man or a Prince is but because of the danger men are in of giving divine worship to creatures they ought to abstain from it Very good but is there not as much danger of mens worshipping Stocks and Stones and Images as there is in worshipping Princes or mankind And if a relative Latria will not justifie the one much less certainly can it do the other But of this hereafter The thing I observe now is how careful even the Heathens have been notwithstanding they heard of the same pleas that are used in the Church of Rome to preserve the customs of external adoration peculiar to their Gods 2. I come now to shew That God by his Law hath appropriated some external acts of worship to himself so as to make it unlawful to use them to any other besides him Maimonides saith That to make a man guilty of Idolatry by the Law of Moses it was necessary that he were convicted of one of these two things 1. Either that he did use the acts of worship proper to the Idol therefore the Sanhedrin were to enquire not only whom men worshipped but in what manner Or 2. That he made use of any of those acts of worship to an Idol which God hath appropriated to himself for which he instanceth in Incurvation Sacrifice Incense and Oblations and adds That whatever worship was made proper to God by their Law the using of that to an Idol although it were not the proper worship of that Idol made a man guilty of Idolatry Here are two things farther to be enquired into 1. What those acts are which God did appropriate to himself 2. How far Gods appropriating them to himself doth now concern us i. e. whether the Church hath any liberty to alter the nature of those acts so as to make any to be common to God and his creatures which were then peculiar to God 1. What those acts are which God did appropriate to himself i. e. which he commanded to be used to himself and did forbid to be used to any other 1. And of these the most indisputable between us and our Adversaries is Sacrifice For they confess in words that Sacrifice is so peculiar to God that it ought not to be offered to any else because the words of Scripture are so plain to this purpose He that sacrificeth to any God save unto the Lord only shall surely be put to death which words are cited by Aquinas to this purpose and my Adversary T. G. doth confess that the offering of sacrifice not only by the custom of the Church but of all mankind as St. Austin teacheth is appropriated to signifie the absolute worship due only to God It seems so much the more strange to me that after this he should contend that Saints may have a share in the honour of sacrifices but he pretends that all that their Church means by it is no more than giving God thanks by a sacrifice offered to him for the vertues and prerogatives for instance he bestowed on the Blessed Virgin although the sacrifice be offered to God and not to her What the sense of their Church is will be best understood by the practice of it In the Missal of Sarum A. D. 1554. and in the Portiforium of Sarum 1556. and in an old Sarisbury Missal A. D. 1494. I find this prayer to be used by the Priest when he offers the Sacrifice as the express words of the Rubrick are Suscipe sancta Trinitas hanc oblationem quam ego indignus peccator offero in honore tuo B. Mariae omnium sanctorum pro peccatis offensionibus meis pro salute vivorum requie omnium fidelium defunctorum In nomine Patris Filii spiritus sancti acceptum sit omnipotenti Deo hoc sacrificium novum In the old and new Roman Missal and the Missal of Paris 1520. and the Missal of Lyons it is thus Suscipe sancta Trinitas hanc oblationem quam tibi offerimus ob memoriam passionis resurrectionis ascensionis Iesu Christi Domini nostri in honore B. Mariae semper Virginis B. Iohannis Baptistae sanctorum Apostolorum Pauli istorum omnium sanctorum ut illis proficiat ad honorem nobis autem ad salutem illi pro nobis intercedere dignentur in coelis quorum memoriam facimus in terris per Christum Dominum nostrum In the old Monastick Missals mentioned by Cardinal Bona the Offertory ran in this Form Suscipe sancta Trinitas unus Deus hanc oblationem quam tibi offerimus in memoriam beatae Passionis Resurrectionis Ascensionis Domini nostri Iesu Christi in honorem B. Mariae semper Virginis genitricis ejusdem Domini nostri omnium sanctorum sanctarum Coelestium virtutum vivificae crucis ut eam acceptare digneris pro nobis peccatoribus pro animabus omnium Fidelium defunctorum In the Ambrosian Missal it runs thus Et suscipe sancta Trinitas hanc oblationem quam tibi offerimus pro regimine custodia atque unitate catholicae fidei pro veneratione quoque B. Dei genitricis Mariae omniumque simul sanctorum tuorum pro salute incolumitate famulorum famularumque tuarum c. In the old Missal of Illyricus published by Cardinal Bona the form in other things agrees with the Roman Missal only after Iesu Christi it hath in honorem sanctorum tuorum qui tibi placuerunt ab initio mundi eorum quorum hodie Festivitas celebratur quorum hic nomina reliquiae habentur ut illis proficiat ad honorem nobis autem ad salutem c I desire to know of T. G. whether this be no more than giving God thanks for their vertues when a propitiatory sacrifice is offered up to God for their honour and that their honour may be increased by it and at the same time to pray that they would intercede with God for them What is joyning creatures together with God in the honour of sacrifice if this be not How comes a propitiatory sacrifice for sin and that both for the quick and the dead to be turned into a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the Graces of a particular Saint How strangely would it have founded among the Iews for a man to have offered a sin-offering to give God thanks for the Faith of Abraham or the meekness of Moses or the wisdom of Solomon And at the same time when this sacrifice was pretended to be offered only to God to pray that they would intercede with God for him Is not the address to be made to him to whom the sacrifice is offered And yet we find that this is not only practised but justified and defended in the Roman Church for Bellarmin not only saith that the Mass of St. Peter is so called because it is offered to God to give thanks for the Glory conferred
the Brazen Serpent stand to excite the devotion of the people towards God in remembrance of what he did to the people of old by the means of it But it seems Hezekiah had not looked over Aristotle's threshold so far as to know that acts go whither they are intended and therefore he took the giving of that part of worship which God had appropriated to himself to the Brazen Serpent to be sufficient ground for the demolishing of it without particular enquiry into the intentions of the persons Yet I must say for T. G. that he doth not seem so confident of the indifferency of this ceremony under the Law for he saith That it is not appropriated at least in the new Law to the worship of God and therefore it is in the freedom of the Church to determine how and when it shall be used If he means by the new Law the Rubricks or practise of their Church he saith true for Incense is appointed to be burnt to Images and Crucifixes and Reliques out of Religious honour to them but if by the new Law he means the Law of Christ that doth not that I can find make any thing that God had appropriated to himself as a sign of his own worship to be common to any creature with him but I am sure before that burning of Incense before Images was accounted one of the abominations of Israel 5. Solemn Invocation was an external act of worship appropriated to God himself My House is the House of Prayer saith our Saviour of the Temple by which it appears that solemn Invocation was then looked on as a peculiar part of divine worship But I need not prove this since it is granted by our Adversaries that one sort of Invocation is so proper to God that to give it to any besides him were Idolatry which is as T. G. expresseth it the Prayer we make to God as the Author and Giver of all Good but a lower sort of Invocation he contends may be given to Saints and Angels My business here is not to discuss the point of Invocation which is to be handled at large in its proper place but to shew in what sense it was understood among those to whom God gave the Laws of his worship and whether this inferiour sort of Invocation were thought consistent with the true worship of God We will then suppose that in the Temple of Hierusalem at the hours of prayer the Iews at the same time and with the same outward solemnity of worship should make their prayers first to God to have mercy upon them and then immediately to make their addresses to Abraham and Sarah Isaac and Rebecca Iacob and Ioseph and Moses and the Prophets to pray for them whether would this have been thought agreeable to the command of worshipping God alone especially if these prayers were said before the Images of those persons set up in the Temple for if the Law did only forbid the worship of Heathen Idols there would be no repugnancy to the Law in all this What course can we now take to resolve this Question I know but three waies of doing it 1. By comparing this practice with the precept of worship For God being to appoint the Laws and Rules of it we are to enquire in the first place what his will and pleasure was as to this matter for he best knew what worship was pleasing to him If he hath therefore appropriated all acts of Religious worship to himself as it is plain he hath done by that Law Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve then it is unlawful to give it to any other If it be said they do not give the worship proper to God I desire to know who shall judge what is the worship proper to God He by his Law or we by distinctions of our own making Hath God himself made any such distinction as this is Hath He bid men to pray to Him as the Author and Giver of all Good but to Angels or Saints as Mediatours and Intercessors to Him Nay hath He not forbidden it when he commands that all Religious worship without distinction be given to himself And where the Law doth not distinguish what presumption is it in us to do it 2. By the practise of the Iewish Church and it is granted by our Adversaries that there was no Invocation of Saints then used because say they the Saints were then only in Limbo and not in their perfect happiness nor placed over the Church as they are now but the Iews knew of no such reason as this to hinder them for they believed those great Saints to be in a state of perfect Felicity therefore this could be no ground to hinder them and withal they had so mighty a veneration for the Patriarchs and so great a dread of the Divine Majesty that if it had been lawful none would have been more ready to have made use of them as Mediators than they for we see how ready they were to entreat Moses to be a Mediator between God and them why should not they have continued this after his death if they had believed one to be as lawful as the other But although they did not Invocate Saints they might do Angels and some have attempted to prove they did although the Iews know of no such practice among them albeit they attribute so much to the Power of Angels that nothing but the fear of Idolatry could restrain them for they believe one to be a Spirit set over Fire and another over Water another over Clouds c. as the Eastern Idolaters did But did not Jacob pray to the Angel Gen. 48.16 the Angel that redeemed me from all evil bless the lads No saith Abarbinel it was only a prayer to God that had made use of his Angel for he saith God before whom my Fathers did walk the God which fed me all my life long unto this day the Angel which redeemed me c. if this were an invocation of the Angel it was an invocation of him as the Author and Giver of all Good which T. G. confesses to be Idolatry but Abravanel parallels it with that saying of Abraham The Lord God of Heaven which took me from my Fathers House He shall send his Angel before thee But we need not run to the Iews to clear this place for S. Athanasius supposing it to be an Invocation from thence proves that it must be understood of the Eternal Son of God for saith he Jacob would never have joyned a Creature together with God in his prayers and S. Cyrill more generally who would ever pray in the name of Angels And S. Hierome in terms as large and express as may be Nullum invocare i. e. in nos orando vocare nisi Deum debemus we ought to invocate none by praying to them but God himself and from thence he proves the Wisdom there spoken of
Stoicks forbear adultery and so may the Epicureans but the former do it because it is a thing repugnant to Nature and civil Society the latter because allowing themselves this single pleasure may debar them of many more so saith he in this matter those barbarous Nations forbear Images on other accounts than Iews and Christians do who dare not make use of this way of worshipping God Observe that he doth not say this of the way of worshipping false Gods or Images for Gods but of worshippin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Deity And he gives three principal reasons wherein they differed from those Nations 1. Because this way of worship did disparage the Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again by drawing it down to matter so fashioned 2. Because the evil spirits were apt to harbour in those Images and to take pleasure in the sacrifices there offered which reason as far as it respects the blood of Sacrifices doth relate to the Heathen Images standing over the Altars at which the Sacrifices were offered But then Celsus might say what is all this to the purpose my question is why you have no Images in your own way of worship therefore he adds his third reason which made it utterly unlawful for Christians as well as Iews to worship them which is the Law of God mentioned before now I say if Origen answered pertinently he must give this as the Reason why Christians used no Images in their own way of worship and consequently was so far from thinking the worship of Images indifferent that he thought Christians ought rather to suffer Martyrdom than to worship them But to put this beyond possibility of contradiction Origen mentions a saying of Heraclitus objected by Celsus that it is a foolish thing to pray to Images unless a man know the Gods and Heroes worshipped by them which saying Celsus approves and saith the Christians were Fools because they utterly contemned Images in totum the Latin interpreter renders it To which Origen thus answers we acknowledge that God may be known and his only Son and those whom he hath honoured with the Title of Gods who partake of his Divinity and are different from the Heathen Deities which the Scripture calls Devils i.e. causally if not essentially as Cajetan distinguisheth but saith he it is impossible for him that knows God to worship Images Mark that he doth not say it is impossible for him that knows the Idols of the Heathens to worship them or the evil spirits that lurk in their Images but for him that knows the true God and his Son Christ Iesus and the holy Angels to do it Is it possible after this to believe that Origen supposed the worship of Images to be indifferent in it self and that God and Christ and Angels might be lawfully worshipped by them Was all this only periculum offensionis jealousie of offence before the Heathen Idolatry was rooted out Which supposition makes the primitive Christians in plain terms jugglers and impostors to pretend that to be utterly unlawful even for themselves to do and to mean no more by it but this yes it is unlawful to do it while there is any danger of Heathenism but when once that is overthrown then we may worship Images as well as the best of them For my part I believe the primitive Christians to have been men of so much honesty and integrity that they would never have talked at this rate against the worship of Images as not only Origen but the rest of them the best and wisest among them did as I have shewed in the foregoing Chapter if they had this secret reserve in their minds that when Heathenism was sunk past recovery then they might do the same things which they utterly condemned now Which would be just like some that we have heard of who while there was any likelyhood of the Royal Authority of this Nation recovering itself then they cry'd out upon Kingly Government as illegal Tyrannical and Antichristian but when the King was murdered and the power came into their own hands then it was lawful for the Saints to exercise that power which was not fit to be enjoyed by the Wicked of the World So these men make the most excellent Christians to be like a pack of Hypocrites The Heathens every where asked them as may be seen in Lactantius Arnobius Minucius and others as well as Origen what is the matter with you Christians that you have no Images in your Churches what if you dare not joyn with us in our worship why do not you make use of them in your own Is it only humour singularity and affectation of Novelty in You If it be you shew what manner of men you are No truly say they gravely and seriously we do it not because we dare not do it for we are afraid of displeasing and dishonouring God by it and we will on that account rather choose to dye than do it Upon such an answer the Heathens might think them honest and simple men that did not know what to do with their lives who were so willing to part with them on such easie terms But if they had heard the bottom of all this was only a cunning and sly trick to undermine Paganism and that they meant no such thing as though it were unlawful in it self but only unlawful till they had gotten the better of them what would they have thought of such men no otherwise than that they were a company of base Hypocrites that pretended one thing and meant another and that the Wicked of the World might not worship Images but the Saints might when they had the Power in their hands although before they declaimed against it as the most vile mean and unworthy way of worship that ever came into the heads of men that there could be no Religion where it obtained that it was worse than the worship of Beasts that it was more reasonable to worship the artificers themselves than the Images made by them that rats and mice had less folly than mankind for they had no fears of what men fell down before with trembling and great shews of devotion These and many such things as these the Fathers speak freely openly frequently on all occasions in all places against the worship of Images and after all this was no more meant by it but only this Thou O Heathen must not worship Images but I may And why not as well might the Heathen reply Thou must not commit adultery but I may Does the nature of the commands you boast so much of alter with mens persons Is that indeed lawful for you that is not for us Where doth the Law of Moses say Thou shalt not worship the Images that we worship but thou maist worship the Images that Christians worship And if the Law makes no difference either leave off your foolish babbling against our Images or condemn your own For to our understanding yours are as much against the Law as ours are
herein did forbid himself to be worshipped by a Crucifix or such like sacred Image and he asserts that the design of the Law is only to forbid the Worship of Idols The first part he saith toucheth not the worship of Images nor of God himself by them but only the making them the second forbids indeed in express terms to bow our selves down to the Images themselves but speaks not one word of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of worshipping God himself by them To bow our selves down to the Images themselves without any relation to God is by the concession of all to worship them instead of God The Iews we know did worship God by bowing down before the Ark and the Cherubims and yet they did not worship them instead of God therefore he asserts that by Image an Idol is to be understood and that by Idol such an Image as is made to represent for worship a figment that hath no real Being and by similitude an Image or resemblance of some real thing but falsely imagined to be a God This is the sense which T. G. gives of the second Commandment But if I can make it appear 1. That there is no reason to take the word he translates Idol here for the representation of a meer figment set up for worship and that if it were so taken it would not excuse them 2. That the worship of God before the Ark and the Cherubims was of a different nature from the Worship of Images here forbidden and that the sense of the Law doth exclude all worship of Images then this interpretation of T. G. will appear to be very false and groundless 1. That there is no reason to understand what we render Image of such an Idol as represents a meer figment set up for worship If there were any colour of Reason for such an acception of the word Idol here it must either be 1. From the natural importance of the word or 2. From the use of it in Scripture or 3. From the consent of the Fathers or 4. From some Definition of the Church But I shall shew that there is no ground for affixing this sense to the Commandment from any one of these 1. Not from the natural importance of the word He that reads such an express prohibition in a divine Law of something so displeasing to God that he annexes a very severe sanction to it had need be very well satisfied about the sense he gives to the words of it lest he incurr the wrath of God and be found a perverter of his Law If a man should reject all humane Authority because the First Commandment saith Thou shalt have no other Elohim besides me but in Scripture Magistrates and Iudges are called Elohim therefore it is unlawful to own any civil Magistrates he would have much more to say than T. G. and his Brethren have in restraining the sense of the Law about Images to such Idols as are only representations of Imaginary Beings For the Original word hath no manner of tendency that way it signifying any thing that is carved or cut out of wood or stone and as I told T. G. before it is no less than forty several times rendred by the LXX by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and but thrice by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which is very observable although Exod. 20.4 they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet in the repetition of the Law Deut. 5.8 the Alexandrian MS. hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Deut. 4.16 in some copies of the LXX the same word is translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Isaiah 40.18 they translate it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is properly an Image and the Vulgar Latin it self useth Idolum Sculptile and Imago Isa. 44.9 10 13. all to express the same thing To this T. G. replyes that the LXX generally translating it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had some particular reason to render it Idol here and because this is a word of stricter signification it ought to regulate the larger and in the other places he saith there is still some term or clause restraining the words to such a graven thing or Image as is made to be compared with God or to be the object of divine worship that is to be an Idol Then it seems a graven Image when it is made the object of Divine worship becomes an Idol in T. G's sense and yet an Idol in the Commandment is the representation of a meer Figment but might not that be the sense of an Idol in this place which he grants is meant in another where the words are express concerning the representation of God as in Isaiah 40.18 And if he allows this to be the meaning of an Idol in the Commandment I will grant that the LXX had a particular reason to render Pesel by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here For Aquinas well observes that this Commandment doth not forbid the making any sculpture or similitude sed facere adorandam to make it for worship because it follows thou shalt not fall down to them and worship them And Montanus expresses the sense of the Commandment after this manner simulathrum divinum nullo pacto conflato Signa cultûs causa ne facito and Nicolaus Faber both learned men of the Roman Church Sculptilibus nè flecte genu pictaeve tabellae and again Non pictum sculptúmve puta venerabile quidquam If this be T. G's sense of an Idol I freely yield to him that the LXX had very good reason so to render Pesel in this place where it is supposed to be an object of divine worship But how can this agree with what T. G. saith that the Law speaks not one word of the unlawfulness of worshipping God himself by an Image For doth not the Law condemn the worship of an Idol And doth not T. G. say that an Image when it is made an object of Divine worship becomes an Idol And doth it not then follow that the Law in express terms doth condemn the Worship of God by such an Image Nay is it not the self-same T. G. that saith that the making such Images as are conceived to be proper Likenesses or representations of the Divinity is against the Nature and unalterable Law of God But what Law of God is there that doth forbid such Images if it be not this And if this Law doth forbid such Images then the signification of an Idol is not here to be taken for the representation of a Figment but of the greatest and most real Being in the World Have not I now far better reason to return his own words upon him such frequent self contradictions are the natural consequences of a Discourse not grounded upon Truth and although the Reader may think I take delight to discover them in my Adversary yet I can assure him it is a much greater grief to me to see so subtle a Wit so often intangled in them
about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when he gives an account of this Law in his Books against Celsus he never mentions it but useth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and saith the meaning of the Law was to forbid any kind of Images Tertullian saith that God hereby did forbid all kind of similitude quanto magis Imaginis suae how much more any Image of himself and elsewhere he makes an Idol and an Image the same thing and in another place that God did prohibit all similitudes to prevent any occasion of Idolatry for he adds thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them Therefore saith he the brazen Serpent was not against the Law being not for worship but for a Remedy nor the Cherubim being meerly Ornaments and therefore not falling under the Reason of the Law and afterwards he reckons up the several terms of the Law by Images Statues and Similitudes S. Cyprian interprets the meaning of the word Idols in the Commandment when he saith they are such as the Psalmist speaks of that have mouths and speak not c. which is certainly meant of Images of humane shape and in another place he saith the Heathen Idols were made ad defunctorum vultus per imaginem detinendos to preserve the countenances of the dead by Images which are almost the same words with those of Minucius Felix speaking of the same subject while they desired saith he defunctos Reges in imaginibus videre to see their Princes Images and to retain their memories in their Statues that which at first was intended for their comfort became an object of worship So Lactantius saith that their Simulachra their Idols in T. G's sense were either the monuments of the dead or of the absent and he makes the sense of the Law to be nihil colendum esse quod oculis mortalibus cernitur nothing to be worshipped that can be seen S. Augustin giving the sense of this commandment saith that therein any similitude of God is forbidden to be worshipped and therefore surely not the meer figments of mens brains or representations of Sphinxes and Tritons and Centaurs 3. That those very persons who put that sense upon the word Idol do yet make the sense of the Commandment to be against the practice of the Roman Church For both Origen and Theodoret make it unlawful by the force of this commandment to perform any external act of worship towards any representation whatsoever and the difference they both put between worship and service is that the latter is that of the mind and the former of the body but both they say are here forbidden and therefore I cannot imagine what comfort T. G. can have in supposing their Images are not forbidden under the name of Idols if they be forbidden under the name of similitudes and it be as unlawful to worship them under one name as under the other Our quarrel is not with them meerly on the account of the word Idolatry but it is on the account of their worships being contrary to the express Law of God and whether it be forbidden under the name of Idol or similitude it is all one to us as long as the worship they practise is as plainly against the sense of this Commandment as Perjury Adultery or Theft is against the other Commandments and that even in the opinion of Origen and Theodoret themselves Besides if we look into the sense of these two Authors we shall find their meaning was not as T. G. imagines to make those only Idols that were made to represent fictions of the brain but to shew that God had forbidden all sorts of Images Symbolical as well as others For saith Origen Moses being skilled in all the Wisdom of the Aegyptians did forbid those things which are used in their secret and hidden Mysteries i. e. their Symbolical and Hieroglyphical representations and Theodoret particularly mentions the Aegyptian Images with the face of a Dog and the Head of an Ox whereby it is plain that they thought Moses by this Law intended to forbid all manner of representations of things in order to worship whether it were by Hieroglyphicks or by proper similitudes So that neither Origen nor Theodoret by this interpretation do give the least countenance to the practice of the Roman Church 4. I shall in the last place shew that this interpretation of the term Idol is overthrown by the most learned persons of the Roman Church who do confess that the Images of real Beings may become Idols And that in these following cases 1. When proper Latria is given to an Image that is truly Idolatry saith Bellarmin when proper Latria is given to any thing besides God and it is not only Idolatry when an Idol is worshipped without God but when an Idol is worshipped together with God and from hence he concludes that no Image ought to be worshipped with proper Latria which conclusion cannot be of any force unless such an Image becomes an Idol but he goes farther and saith that those who worshipped an Image of Christ with divine honours although it be for the sake of Christ and not of the Image did commit Idolatry for saith he although a man pretends to give these honours for the sake of God or Christ yet in as much as he gives divine honours to them he doth really give it for themselves although he denies it in words which is a very fair confession and from hence those were condemned as hereticks who gave divine worship to the Image of Christ as appears by Irenaeus Epiphanius S. Augustin and Damascen According to which concession the dispute cannot any longer be whether the Images of Christ or the Saints be Idols or no if we can prove that divine honours are given to them by the doctrine and practice of the Roman Church And even T. G. himself saith Is not the giving Divine Worship to a Creature the same as to make it a false God And is it not Heathen Idolatry to worship a false God From whence it follows that it is the Worship makes any thing an Idol and not the representation of an Imaginary Being 2. When Images are worshipped as true representations of the Divine Nature So Sanders expresly He that goes about to represent the invisible Nature of God by an Image sins grievously and makes an Idol and he that proposes such an Image for worship commits Idolatry but such an Image is no representation of a meer figment of mens brains but a vain endeavour to set forth the most perfect Being If he had only said it had been a foolish and vain attempt he had only expressed the impossibility of the thing but when he makes such an Image an Idol when it is proposed for worship he doth imply that an imperfect representation of an infinite Nature when it is worshipped becomes an Idol This is not to be avoided by saying that such an Image is a
because in some he may see Moses painted with Horns on his Forehead I do not think our Church ever determined that Moses should have horns any more than it appointed such an Hieroglyphical Representation of God Is our Church the only place in the World where the Painters have lost their old priviledge quidlibet audendi There needs no great atonement to be made between the Church of England and me in this matter for the Church of England declares in the Book of Homilies that the Images of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost are expresly forbidden and condemned by these very Scriptures I mentioned For how can God a most pure Spirit whom man never saw be expressed by a gross body or visible similitude or how can the infinite Majesty and Greatness of God incomprehensible to mans mind much more not able to be compassed with the sense be expressed in an Image With more to the same purpose by which our Church declares as plainly as possible that all Images of God are a disparagement to the Divine Nature therefore let T. G. make amends to our Church of England for this and other affronts he hath put upon her Here is nothing of the Test of Reason or Honesty in all this let us see whether it lies in what follows 2. He saith That Images of God may be considered two waies either as made to represent the Divinity it self or Analogically this distinction I have already fully examined and shewed it to be neither fit for Pulpit nor Schools and that all Images of God are condemned by the Nicene Fathers themselves as dishonourable to Him 3. He saith That the Reason of the Law was to keep them in their duty of giving Soveraign Worship to God alone by restraining them from Idolatry This is now the Severe Test that my Reason cannot stand before And was it indeed only Soveraign worship to God that was required by the Law to restrain them from Idolatry Doth this appear to return his own words in the Law it self or in the Preface or in the Commination against the transgressors of it if in none of these places nor any where else in Scripture methinks it is somewhat hard venturing upon this distinction of Soveraign and inferiour worship when the words are so general Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them And if God be so jealous a God in this matter of worship he will not be put off with idle distinctions of vain men that have no colour or pretence from the Law for whether the worship be supreme or inferiour it is worship and whether it be one or the other do they not bow down to Images and what can be forbidden in more express words than these are But T. G. proves his assertion 1. From the Preface of the Law because the Reason there assigned is I am the Lord thy God therefore Soveraign honour is only to be given to me and to none besides me Or as I think it is better expressed in the following words Thou shalt have no other Gods but me and who denies or doubts of this but what is this to the Second Commandment Yes saith T. G. The same reason is enforced from Gods jealousie of his honor very well of His Soveraign Honour but provided that supreme worship be reserved to Him He doth not regard an inferiour worship being given to Images Might not T. G. as well have explained the First Commandment after the same manner Thou shalt have no other Soveraign Gods besides me but inferiour and subordinate Deities you may have as many as you please notwithstanding the Reason of the Law which T. G. thus paraphrases I am the only supreme and super-excellent Being above all and over all to whom therefore Soveraign Honour is only to be given and to none besides me Very true say the Heathen Idolaters we yield you every word of this and why then do you charge us with Idolatry Thus by the admirable Test of T. G's reason the Heathen Idolaters are excused from the breach of the First Commandment as well as the Papists from the breach of the Second 2. He proves it from the necessary connexion between the prohibition of the Law on the one side and the supreme excellency of the Divine Nature on the other For from the supreme excellency of God it necessarily follows that Soveraign Worship is due only to it and not to be given to any other Image or thing but if we consider Him as invisible only and irrepresentable it doth not follow on that account precisely that Soveraign worship or indeed any worship at all is due unto it Which is just like this manner of Reasoning The Supreme Authority of a Husband is the Reason why the Wife is to obey him but if she consider her Husband as his name is Iohn or Thomas or as he hath such features in his face it doth not follow on that account precisely that she is bound to obey him and none else for her Husband And what of all this for the love of School Divinity May not the reason of obedience be taken from one particular thing in a Person and yet there be a general obligation of obedience to that Person and to none else besides him Although the features of his countenance be no Reason of obedience yet they may serve to discriminate him from any other Person whom she is not to love and obey And in case he forbids her familiarity with one of his servants because this would be a great disparagement to him doth it follow that because his Superiority is the general Reason of obedience he may not give a particular Reason for a special Command This is the case here Gods Supreme Excellency is granted to be the general Reason of obedience to all Gods Commands but in case he gives some particular precept as not to worship any Image may not he assign a Reason proper to it And what can be a more proper reason against making or worshipping any representation of God than to say He cannot be represented Meer invisibility I grant is no general reason of obedience but invisibility may be a very proper reason for not painting what is invisible There is no worship due to a sound because it cannot be painted but it is the most proper reason why a sound cannot be painted because it is not visible And if God himself gives this reason why they should make no graven Image because they saw no similitude on that day c. is it not madness and folly in men to say this is no Reason But T. G. still takes it for granted That all that is meant by this Commandment is that Soveraign worship is not to be given to Graven Images or similitudes and of the Soveraign worship he saith Gods excellency precisely is the formal and immediate Reason why it is to be given to none but him But we are not such Sots say the
Heathen Idolaters again to give Soveraign worship to our Images of Mercury or Apollo c. therefore the Reason of your Command doth not reach us but we may worship our Images as well as you do yours 3. He proves it ad hominem thus I grant that no perfect Image of God can be made and that God need not by a Law forbid an impossible thing but from the Divine Natures being invisible it only follows that men ought not to presume to make any Image or likeness to represent it as it is i. e. a perfect Image and the Law in vertue of it must be to forbid making any such Image therefore according to my self the irrepresentableness of the Divine Nature as precisely considered cannot be assigned for the proper cause or reason of this Law Very subtilly argued What I said could not be the sense of the Law he takes to be the sense of it and from thence argues against the Reason I had given which is as if I should say to him T. G. denies That this Commandment doth contain any prohibition of the worship of God by an Image but the Law must be understood to forbid worshipping God by an Image therefore according to T. G. the Law doth forbid worshipping God by an Image Call you this arguing ad hominem One would think it were to a creature of a lower rank He saith I deny that the Law forbids making an impossible thing i.e. a perfect Image of God he asserts That the Law must be understood to forbid the making of any such Image and from hence he infers that according to my self that cannot be the reason of the Law which I assigned because from that reason that only follows to be forbidden by the Law which I said could not be the thing forbidden by the Law and he saith must be only forbidden by it Before T. G. had gone about to prove any thing from hence against my self he ought to have shewed 1. That Gods irrepresentable Nature doth only hold against making impossibilities that is perfect Images of God 2. That this must be the meaning of the Second Commandment which he saith I denied 3. That when I denied and he barely affirmed it he can argue ad hominem from my denial and his affirmation of the same thing against the Reason alledged by me viz. I assigned from Scripture that no Image is to be made of God because He is Infinite and Invisible now saith T.G. I will prove from your own words this cannot be the Reason of this Law How so You say that the Law doth not forbid making a perfect Image of God for that is impossible And what then doth it hence follow that the Law doth not forbid making a possible Image of God Hold saith T. G. Gods infinite Nature doth only hold against a perfect Image and this must be the meaning of the Commandment which I utterly denied And so if T. G. will argue ex concessis it must proceed thus I deny that the Law doth forbid an impossible Image of God or that Gods infinite Nature doth only hold against such Images and therefore according to my self this infinite Nature of God cannot be the reason why Images are forbidden in the Second Commandment Can any man in the earth discern the consequence of this When I say the Law is made against possible Images and that the Nature of God is represented so perfect to deter men from making the most imperfect Images of God because they are a disparagement to Him doth it follow from my words that this Reason cannot hold against the making of Images T. G. having given us such a Test of his Reason I now follow him to the interpretation he gives of the places of Scripture produced by me To the First Isa. 40.18 To whom will ye liken God Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him He Answers That there is a likeness of representation and a likeness of Comparison if the words be understood of the former then he saith it only follows that such a likeness is not to be made Which is all that I desire But again he is at it That I deny the prohibition hereof to be any part of the Law Is it possible for T. G. to say this when my design is to prove the contrary but By Likeness T. G. understands a perfect representation why doth he not say then by likeness is understood sameness which is not representation but the thing it self All representation by the art of man must fall very much short of the perfection of the meanest animal and no Image can represent a thing as it is but as it appears not in regard of its invisible nature but of its outward lineaments either therefore T. G. must deny any likeness of representation or he must yield that to be a likeness of representation in an Image of God which doth not perfectly represent him For if it had the Perfection of God it would be God If the words be understood of a likeness of comparison then the meaning he saith is that none of the Idols of the Heathens are to be compared to Him in Wisdom Greatness or Power But me thinks if not the Hebrew words nor the Chaldee Paraphrast nor the LXX nor other versions could prevail with T. G. yet the Vulgar Latine should have had Authority enough to let him know that these words are not spoken of Heathen Idols but of an Image of God Cui ergo similem fecistis Deum aut quam Imaginem ponetis ei which surely ought to signifie more with him than meerly the Contents of the Chapters do with us To Deut. 4.15 he answers That de facto no manner of similitude was seen at the giving of the Law by the people that afterwards they might not take occasion to conceive it to have been a proper representation of the Divinity and so entertain an erroneous conceit of God And doth T. G. think there was not as much danger of dishonouring God by worshipping any such representation of God as by entertaining an erroneous conceit of God in their minds But why must this be understood only of a proper representation when the words are no manner of similitude is there no manner of similitude but a proper representation and yet after all this the Images of God allowed and worshipped in the Roman Church are as much in danger of making men entertain erroneous conceits of God as any similitude of that time and therefore as much against the Reason of this Commandment But T. G. very modestly denies these words to contain a Reason of this Commandment although they be For ye saw no manner of similitude c. Therefore take heed lest ye corrupt your selves and make a graven Image c. but the matter of fact was made use of by him as a motive to induce the People to the observance of the Law in a Sermon he makes Deut. 4. to press them to that duty
I see T. G. is resolved to make just such another Test of Scripture as he did of Reason Could it ever enter into a mans head waking that these words are a general reason of the Whole Law and not a particular Reason of that Command which immediately follows it and by the very words relates to it Ye saw no similitude therefore make no similitude this is proper and natural and easie to all capacities but ye saw no similitude therefore obey my Law Hold there saith T. G. himself if he be not in a dream and hath forgotten himself to be supremely excellent is the proper reason of Obedience and not the seeing no similitude therefore this is no proper Motive to obedience whatever the Contents of Chapters or tops of the Pages of our Bibles say which are the pitiful refuges T. G. betakes himself to to escape down-right sinking But some men would rather give all for lost than think to save themselves by such a mean defence Well but T. G. hath something yet to say which is That supposing all this to be true which I have said as to the Reason of the Law yet this doth not reach home to them for it doth not follow from hence that Christ according to his humanity cannot be represented but with great disparagement to him or that to put off our hats when we behold the figure of his sacred body with intent to worship him must be extremely dishonourable to him This argument therefore doth not concern Catholicks in making the Image of Christ and his Saints with respect to their honour This is the last effort of T. G. on this argument and as weak as any of the rest For 1. it is a false and most disingenuous representation of their practises as may appear to any one that will but look back on what I have said upon that Subject One would think by T. G'S words they had never used or allowed or worshipped any Images of God or the Trinity in the Church of Rome which he knows to be otherwise and I have abundantly proved it already 2. The force of the second Command extending to Christians doth equally hold against the worship of Christ by an Image as it did under the Law against worshipping God by an Image For if the Law be perpetual as the Christian Church alwaies believed and Christ be only the object of worship as He is God we are as much forbidden to worship Christ by an Image as the Iews were to worship God by one I do not say there is as great an incongruity in representing the humane nature of Christ as there was in representing the infinite nature of God but I say there is as great an incongruity still in supposing an Image of whatsoever it be can be the proper object of divine worship For the humanity of Christ is only capable of receiving adoration from us as it is hypostatically united to the divine nature and S. Austin saith Being considered as separated from it is no more to be worshipped than the Robe or Diadem of a Prince when it lies on the Ground and if the humane nature of Christ be not what then is the Image of it What union is there between the Divine Nature and a Crucifix All that can be said is that imagination supplies the union and Christ is supposed to be present by representation but this overthrows all measures and bounds of worship and makes it lawful to worship any Creature with respect to God it contradicts the argument of S. Paul For then God may be worshipped with the Work of mens hands it is contrary to the sense and practice of the Primitive Church which interpreted this Commandment to hold against all Images set up for worship as well those proper to Christians as others among Iews or Gentiles 3. The last way I proposed to find out the sense of the Law was from the Iudgement of the Law-giver which was fully manifested in the case of the Golden Calf and the two Calves of Ieroboam This he calls a solid principle indeed to work upon I am glad to see that we Protestants can fall into the way of Principles and more glad that Gods judgement recorded in Scripture is acknowledged for such a Principle but after all he calls this meer imagination and it must undergo the Test of his Reason The force of my argument as he laies it down is this That the Israelites were condemned by God of Idolatry for worshipping the Golden Calf and yet they did not fall into the Heathen Idolatry by so doing but only worshipped the true God under that Symbol of His presence To this T. G. opposes his Opinion That the Israelites herein fell back to the Egyptian Idolatry Here then is the state of the Question between us to resolve which and to bring it home to our business I shall propose these two things 1. Whether the Israelites did in worshipping the golden Calf fall back to the Egyptian Idolatry 2. Whether it be sufficient to T. G's purpose to prove that they did so for in case the Egyptians themselves did worship the true God under Symbols T. G. falls short of his design if he could prove that the Israelites did relapse to the Egyptian Idolatry for it would then appear however to be Idolatry to worship the True God by an Image 1. I shall examine the evidence on both sides whether the Israelites did fall back to the Egyptian Idolatry I offered several reasons to prove that the Israelites had no intention to quit the worship of that God who had so lately given them the Law on Mount Sinai 1. From the occasion of this Idolatry which was not any pretence of infidelity as to the true God or that they had now better reasons given them for the worship of other Gods besides him but all that they say is that Moses had been so long absent that they desired Aaron to make them Gods to go before them To this T. G. answers that the very text I mention shews their infidelity viz. in their despair of Moses returning But if their infidelity had been with a respect to God it had been far more pertinent to have said Up make us Gods to go before us for as for this God who gave us the Law we know not what is become of him but they only speak of Moses and not of God and the reason was because immediately before Moses his going up into the Mount the last promise God made to the People was of an Angel going before them and they understood that there was to be an extraordinary Symbol of his Presence among them but what it was they could not tell and Moses being so long absent as the text saith they grew impatient of having this Symbol and so put Aaron upon making the golden Calf T. G. saith they had forgotten this promise or thought that God was not able to perform it for
meet with either ancient or modern when I had done this I compared those observations I had made with the Sense of the Scriptures and of the Fathers of the several Ages of the Christian Church who had managed the Charge of Idolatry against Heathens or Hereticks From hence I framed the First Part of the following Book wherein I have not only examined and confuted T. G.'s false notion of it but endeavoured to settle the True one in its place Which being dispatched and the main principles of his whole Book thereby weakned and overthrown I betook my self to the particular Defence of the Charge of Idolatry practised in the Roman Church in the Worship of Images and I apprehended nothing of greater consequence in this Debate than to give a true Account of the state of the Controversie between us which T. G endeavoured with all his art to blind and confound After which I have given a distinct Answer to every thing material or plausible in that part of his Book Which swelling this Discourse beyond my expectation I must respite the other part to a farther opportunity which I may the better do because the Remainder of T. G's Book hath already received a sufficient Answer from a learned and worthy Person THE CONTENTS PART I. A General Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry CHAP. I. T. G's notion of Idolatry examined and confuted page 1 CHAP. II. Of the Nature of Divine Worship p. 184 PART II. Being a particular Defence of the Charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images CHAP. I. The State of the Controversie about the Worship of Images between Christians and Heathens p. 349 CHAP. II. The State of the Controversie about Images in the Christian Church p. 487 CHAP. III. Of the Sense of the second Commandment p. 670 CHAP. IV. An Answer to T. G 's charge of Contradictions Paradoxes Reproach of the second Council of Nice School disputes and to his parallel Instances p. 784 PART I. A General Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry CHAP. I. T. G's notion of Idolatry examined and confuted TO make good the Charge of Idolatry against the Roman Church which is my present business there are two things necessary to be done 1. To lay down the right notion of Idolatry 2. To examine what T. G. and others have said to justifie themselves from the particulars of this Charge I begin with the consideration of the Nature of Idolatry not only because my Adversary calls me to it in these words Here the Ax is laid to the root and if ever the Dr. will speak home to the purpose it must be upon this point He must speak to the Nature of the thing c. But because the weight of the whole matter in debate depends upon it and whosoever reads through T. G 's answer to me will find the only strength of it to lie in a very different notion of Idolatry which he sets up which if it prove true the main of my charge must fall to the ground although however by his way of writing he can hardly answer the character I had given him either of a Learned or ingenuous Adversary The notion of Idolatry which T. G. lays down may be gathered from these assertions of his That God being the only supreme and superexcellent Being above all and over all to him therefore Sovereign honour is only to be given and to none beside him That as no command of God can make that to be not Idolatry which is so in the nature of the thing so no prohibition if there were any could make that to be Idolatry which hath not in it the true and real nature of Idolatry That the worship of Images forbidden in the Commandment is the worshipping Images instead of God and the reason of the Law was to keep the people in their duty of giving Sovereign worship to God alone by restraining them from Idolatry That this Law was made particularly to forbid Sovereign worship to be given as he saith it was at that time given by the Heathen to graven Images i. e. representations of imaginary Beings or to any similitude i. e. the likeness of any thing which although it had a real being yet was not God That the Image-worship condemned by S. Paul was the worshipping Images for Gods or as the Images of false Gods That evil Spirits or false Gods did reside in their Images by Magical incantation That the supreme God of the Heathens was not the true God but a Devil and that the Poets who call him the Father of Gods and men were those whom Horace confesseth that they took the priviledge to dare to feign and say thing From these assertions it is no hard matter to form T. G 's notion of Idolatry viz. That it is The giving the Soveraign worship of God to a creature and among the Heathens to the Devil And now who dares charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry I do not wonder that he calls this so foul so extravagant so unjust a charge and parallels me with no meaner a person than Iulian the Apostate saying That surely a more injurious Calumny scarce ever dropt from the pen of the greatest enemy of Christianity except that of Julian the Apostate But I am so used to their hard words that I can easily pass them over and immediately apply my self to the debate of these things which will tend very much to the clearing the true notion of Idolatry 1. Whether Idolatry be not consistent with the acknowledgement of one Supreme Being 2. Wherein the Nature of that Divine Worship lies which being given to a Creature makes it Idolatry For if those who acknowledge one Supreme Being the Creator and Governour of the world were notwithstanding this guilty of Idolatry and that Idolatry be as T. G. confesseth the giving the worship due to God to a creature then if we can prove that the Church of Rome doth give any part of that worship which is due to God to any thing besides him we may still justly charge them with Idolatry although they believe one Supreme God and reserve some worship which he calls Sovereign to him 1. Whether Idolatry be not consistent with the acknowledgement of one Supreme Being Creator and Governour of the world Whom I suppose T. G. will not deny to be the true God It is agreed by him that the whole Heathen world was guilty of Idolatry without excepting the more intelligent and wiser persons among them therefore our only business as to them is to enquire whether they did acknowledge this Supreme Being and it is without dispute that all Christians do acknowledge the True God if I can then prove that such have notwithstanding been charged with Idolatry by those whose judgement T. G. dares not refuse I hope these two things being made out will be sufficient to prove that those may be guilty of Idolatry
wood and silver and Gold to be Gods and consequently give divine worship to them but if these are infinitely distant from each other as far as the clay is from the Potter which forms and fashions it why are we charged with impiety for not giving the same honour to the Clay that we do to the infinitely wise Framer of these things And if the artificer shews his skill in the vessels he makes the honour is given to him and not to the vessels so it is here the honour and glory is not to be given to the matter but to the wise contriver who is God himself therefore if we look upon any of the several parts of matter as Gods we shall thereby discover how little sense we have of the true God by making things corruptible equal to him that is eternal But wherein could they make them equal not believing them to be equal in Power and Wisdom for he supposed before that one Supreme God was allowed on both sides it could be therefore no otherwise than by giving divine honour to the creature as well as to the Creator and that not for their own sakes for he still supposeth them to be thought the Works of God but although it were designed to give honour to the Supreme Architect by falling down before any parts of matter he thought it as senseless and unreasonable a thing as for a man to honour an artificer by falling down before his Work It was not then we see the supposing evil Spirits to dwell in Images which made the Christians so peremptorily deny divine worship to them but because in so doing they should make the creature equal to the Creator Although saith he the beauty and greatness and capacity and figure and order of the world deserve our admiration yet we ought not to worship the world but only the Maker of it As when any of your Subjects make their addresses to you would it be well taken for them to pass you by and turn themselves to your Palaces but men are not so foolish as to do so but they admire the beauty and excellency of them in passing by and pay their whole respect and service to your selves If we look upon the World as a Musical instrument well tuned and harmoniously struck we ought not therefore to worship the instrument but him that makes the Musick and those who are the Iudges at the Musick exercises do not crown the Vial but him that plaid upon it If it be said that all this proceeds upon the supposition that the Supreme God is passed by and hath no peculiar honour given to him I answer 1. The contrary appears by what I have already said for they did give particular honour to the Supreme Deity as such 2. It is unreasonable to suppose that those who believe one Supreme God to be the Maker of all things should in their inward intention wholly pass him by in the worship they give to his creatures Mr. Thorndike indeed saith suposing in a man as uncorrupted opinion of the incomparable distance that indeed is found between God and the most excellent of his creatures it is impossible for him to attribute the honour due to God alone to that which he conceiveth to be a meer creature Which would be true if all the honour due to God did lie only in the inward esteem of our minds but as Card. Tolet well observes although Idolatry do suppose an errour in the mind yet that errour lies in judging that to deserve divine honour which doth not which may be consistent with the belief of the Supreme excellency of God And I do not deny that those who acknowledge one Supreme God may have their minds so corrupted as to judge it fit to give that divine worship to a Creature which is only due to the Creator but I say it is unreasonable to suppose that as long as they acknowledge them to be creatures they should not give at least that relative Latria to them which T. G. saith is carried to the Creator at last But of these things afterwards 3. The reasons which Athenagoras gives do equally hold supposing the true God not to be wholly passed by for the creatures are still at as great a distance from the Creator which is the main reason he gives against the the worship of them 4. It is possible to suppose that those who believe a Supreme excellent Being may yet give him no eternal adoration at all not out of any disrespect to him but out of the great esteem they have of his excellency looking upon him as far above all our service and adoration And that this is not a bare supposition of a thing only possible appears by that testimony of Porphyrius produced by S. Cyril against Iulian Let us sacrifice but aâ— becomes us to the God over all i. e. as a Wise man said by offering up no sensible thing to him For every material thing is impure when compared with an immaterial Therefore the best sacrifice to God is to offer up our Lives to him for even our words and thoughts are below him which is the most proper Hymn to him and the most beneficial to ourselves And the same S. Cyril observes out of Dionysius Halicarnasseus that aâ— Numa would allow no Image of God in the Temples because unsuitable to his nature so he would not have any material sacrifices to be offered up to him on the same reason and some of the Platonists are quoted by him saying thaâ— the Supreme God being incorporeal stand in need of nothing without him but the other Gods especially those that are visible ought to be pleased with inanimate sacrifices Therefore we ought not to conclude that the Heathens did not believe one Supreme God if we do not find any peculiar and external sacrifices that were offered to him for we see they might forbear them out of the opinion they had of his supereminent excellency Aquinas supposeth this to have been one of the principles of the Heathens that only visible sacrifices belonged to other Gods and internal acts of the mind as being better to the Supreme God And the Supreme and Invisible God's being so far above any need of our service was the reason given by the Mandarins in China and the Ynca's of Peru why they shewed so little outward Reverence towards him whom they believed to be the Supreme God Were these persons Idolaters for the worship they did not give to the Creator or for the worship they did give to his Creatures and it is plain by Athenagoras the latter was the matter of their dispute for they did not quarrel with the Christians about the worship of the Supreme God but for not worshipping those things they looked on as his Creatures and if their fault only had been that they wholly passed by the Creator this would have been no reason against the Christians who might have worshipped the Creator and the creatures
and overthrows the worship of the Poetical Gods upon this principle because they were not eternal and were confessed to be at first made out of matter and why should we worship them which are material and generated and lyable to all sorts of passions according to the Poets description of them But it may be this was nothing but Poetical figments and they ought all to be understood of the natures of things as Empedocles explains them why then saith he should we attribute the same honour to matter which is subject to corruption and mutation as to the eternal unbegotten and immutable God Jupiter according to the Stoicks was the most active and fiery principle of matter Juno the air Neptune the water but they all agreed that by their Deities were understood the several parts of the Universe although with different manners of explication Now saith he against the Stoicks I thus argue and here Athenagoras knew that the Emperour M. Aurelius would think himself particularly concerned If you own one Supreme God eternal and unbegotten and all other things to be made up of matter and the Spirit of God to receive different names as it passes through the various changes of matter then these several kinds of matter will make up one body whereof God is the soul and consequently upon the general conflagration which the Stoicks acknowledged all the several names of matter will be lost by the corruptions of the kinds and nothing will be then left but the Divine Spirit why should we therefore look on those as gods that are lyable to such a change And so he proceeds to argue against the other hypotheses as the Egyptians and others whereby all their Deities were reduced to the principles of nature too from the same principle viz. that because these things were made and corruptible they were not capable of receiving divine honour from us By all which we see that the fundamental principle which Athenagoras went upon in this elaborate discourse of his to one of the Wisest Emperours Rome ever had was this that nothing but the eternal God ought to receive Divine Worship from men whether they called it Soveraign or Relative or what name soever they gave it nay although they did acknowledge one supreme God yet if they gave divine worship to his Creatures as the Stoicks did the Christians thought it so unlawful that they would rather die than comply with them in it And here I appeal again to T. G 's conscience for since he hath shewed me the way I hope I may follow him in it whether he think so Wise and Vertuous an Emperour as Antoninus was would not have preserved the Christians from suffering persecution as they did very smartly in his days if they would have declared themselves to have understood the principles of the Roman Religion after the Emperours own way viz. by believing one Supreme God and worshipping the several parts of the Universe under the names of those Deities that were commonly received and they might have directed this worship as they had thought fit and have disowned all the ridiculous and prophane stories of their Poetical Gods as the Stoicks did and what principle then could hinder the Christians from complying with the Laws but this that they accounted it Idolatry to give divine worship to any created Being From Athenagoras I proceed to Clemens Alexandrinus who understood the principles of the Heathen Theology as well as any and exposes all their Poetical Fables and Greek Mysteries with as much advantage as any Christian Writer in his Admonition to the Greeks After he hath sufficiently derided the Poetical Theology and the Vulgar Idolatry he comes to the Philosophers who did he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make an Idol of matter the Images whereof were not surely the representation of a thing not existent as a Centaur or Sphinx and yet called an Idol and after reckoning up Thales Anaximenes Parmenides Hippasus Heraclitus and Empedocles he calls them all Atheists because with a foolish kind of Wisdom they did worship Matter and scorning to worship Wood and Stones did Deifie the Mother of them And so runs out after his way into a discourse about the several Nations that despised Images and worshipped the several parts of the Universe and the symbols of them as the Scythians Sarmatians Persians and Macedonians who he saith were the Philosophers Masters in the worship of these inferiour Elements which were made to be serviceable to men Then he reckons up other Philosophers that worshipped the Stars as animated beings others the Planets and the World and the Stoicks who said God passed through the meanest parts of matter yet after all this he confesseth that there is a certain divine influence distilled upon all men especially on those who apply themselves to learning by vertue of which they are forced to acknowledge one God incorruptible and unbegotten who is the only true Being and abides for ever above the highest Heavens from whence he beholds all the things that are done in Heaven and Earth who according to Euripides sees all things without being visible himself And for the proof of this he brings the Testimonies of Plato Antisthenes and Xenophon who all acknowledge Gods incomparable excellency as well as unity and then adds the Testimonies of Cleanthes and the Pythagoreans and not contented with the Philosophers he heaps the testimonies of the Poets to the same purpose as Aratus Hesiod Orpheus Sophocles Menander Homer and Euripides In the fifth Book of his Miscellanies for so his Stromata truely are he falls upon this subject again and then saith to the same purpose that there is a natural knowledge of one omnipotent God among all considering men he grants the Stoicks opinion about God to be agreeable to the Scriptures and shews that Thales confessed Gods eternity and omnisciency that Epicharmus attributed omnipotency to him and Homer the creation of the world which he described in the shield of Achilles and then makes this observation as though it were purposely intended for T. G. he that is called both in Verse and Prose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Iupiter carries our apprehension to God not to the Arch Devil as T. G. saith and therefore he is said to be all things and to know all things and to give and take away all things and to be King over all that Pindar the Baeotian being a Pythagorean said there was one maker of all things whom he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Wise Artificer and then he repeats several of the Testimonies which he had produced before to which he adds that of Xenophanes Colophonius proving God to be one and incorporeal and of Cleanthes reproving the opinion of the vulgar about the Deity and of Euphorion and Aeschilus about Iupiter which for T. G 's better information I shall set down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iupiter is
subjection to a superiour but withal he makes the meer apprehension of excellencie to include the formal reason of it whereas meer excellencie without Superiority doth not require any subjection but only estimation For let us apprehend never so great excellencie in a Person that hath no Authority over us the only effect of it in us is only a mighty estimation whereas the apprehension of Power and Authority in a Person where there is not that opinion of excellencie doth naturally incline men to submission to him Nay although we apprehend a conjunction of Excellencie and Power together if that power doth not respect us we find no inclination in our selves by any acts to testifie our subjection to it As if we apprehend the greatest things in the world of the Emperor of China or Iapan how doth that apprehension move us to express any acts of subjection to either of them we are well enough contented for all that to let them govern at home and think it more our own interest and duty to submit to those who have the Power over our Selves Nay yet farther if according to the Epicurean Hypothesis we could suppose God himself to be a most excellent being but to exercise no power or Authority over the world there would be still reason for a great esteem left but not for the subjection of our selves to him and we might express that esteem by praises and other testimonies of his honour but there would be no ground for any proper service or worship of him either in prayers or thanksgivings or any rites of Religious worship which imply any dependence upon him or subjection to him So that the notion of Honour and Worship are in themselves distinct things the one arising from the apprehension of excellencie and the formal reason of the other being Superiority and a Power over us 2. For the nature of Divine Worship it must consist in such a subjection of our selves to God as is most suitable to the apprehensions we ought to have of his infinite Power and Soveraignty over us And because his Soveraignty is supreme absolute and peculiar to himself therefore our worship of him must approach as near to the expression of this as it is possible for us to come i. e. it must be of the highest nature with the greatest submission of our souls to him it must be entire not divided between him and others and it must have such a peculiarity in it as may not be given to any besides himself For whatever worship is common to him and others doth not serve to express the sense of our minds as to his peculiar Soveraignty over us and this is one of the inviolable Rights of Soveraignty to have such acts of Worship appropriated to it that the giving of these to any other is a violation of the Royal Dignity and this hath been looked on as a crimen Laesae Majestatis and to deserve as high a punishment as any other whatsoever because it is an immediate attempt upon the Soveraign Power and whatever lessens it tends to overthrow it If then God be acknowledged by all to have the only Supreme Power over us nothing can be more unreasonable in it self nor a greater affront to his Majesty than to make all outward expressions of our duty to him common to himself and his Creatures I know it is not denied by T. G. or his Brethren that there is a Soveraign Worship which belongs to God but we are to consider that withal they tell us 1. That the external acts of adoration or worship are equivocal and sometimes may signifie the honour which belongs to God and sometimes that which belongs to the Creature 2. That even sacrifice it self which they look on as most peculiar to God and an acknowledgement of the absolute worship due to him doth receive the formality of such an act from an intention to profess a total submission of our selves to God as the Supreme Author of life and death otherwise T. G. saith the material action of sacrifice may be done for several ends and intentions By which it appears that upon the whole matter the nature of divine worship is not according to them to be taken from any external acts but from the inward intention of the mind But that there are some peculiar external acts of Divine Worship which ought to be attributed to none but to God himself I prove 1. From the nature and design of Religious worship 2. From the Law of God appropriating some acts only to God 3. From the practise of the Christian Church condemning those for Idolatry who have given them to any creature 1. From the nature and design of Religious worship which is to put a difference between the worship we give to God and to his Creatures For since God hath appointed Government among men it is plain that his intention was that some kind of worship should be given from some of his creatures to others although of the same nature with themselves for where there is a power to punish and to reward there is the foundation of worship in those who are under that power which worship lies in expressing a due regard to that power by a care not to provoke it and an endeavour to obtain the favour of it which being among mankind living in Society with each other is therefore called civil worship Which denomination it doth not lose although we give that worship to Superiours upon a Religious account i. e. though I give worship to my Soveraign with a respect to God because he hath commanded it and I intend to honour him by it yet the worship doth not take its denomination from my intention but from the nature of the Act which being civil the worship continues to bear that name By which we see that the external circumstances which do accompany mens acts are those which do so circumscribe and limit them that from thence they become either civil or Religious I cannot therefore but extremely wonder to see men of understanding so much to seek in this matter because the same external acts are common to divine and civil worship but what then doth it therefore follow that there is no certain way to discriminate these one from the other I grant the same external act of adoration may be used to men which is used to God as Abraham bowed to the Children of Heth in token of civil respect as well as when he worshipped God but could not any one that considered the circumstances make a plain difference between these two sorts of adoration When the Roman Emperours would have divine honours given to them were any of the people of Rome so senseless to say they knew no difference between them and the worship given them before because they might use the same external acts of adoration in both cases Suppose the Pope one day to sit on a throne as a temporal Prince and on that account summoning his
such an act of adoration as is peculiar to God 4. The burning of Incense as a token of Religious worship For otherwise it is of the nature of the outward act of adoration and may be done on meerly civil accounts and so far T. G. was in the right when he said that burning incense is a ceremony of the like nature with bowing i. e. it may be accommodated to several uses but as I have proved that Religious adoration is a peculiar act of divine worship so I shall now do concerning the burning of incense when it is used as a token of Religious worship If there were any difference under the Law between the Altar of burnt offerings and the Altar of incense this latter seems to be more particularly appropriated to the worship of God For the High Priest is not only commanded to burn upon it perpetual incense before the Lord but it is said to be most holy to the Lord and it stood in a more holy place And we see by our Saviours interpretation of the precept of worship although the restrictive particle were not in the words of the Law yet he shews us that it was in the sense of it and that certainly is to be understood where a thing is said to be most holy to God i. e. appropriated to himself after a peculiar manner and we have seen by Maimonides that incense is joyned with sacrifice so that a person is made by their Law as guilty of Idolatry if he burns incense to an Idol as if he offered Sacrifice But we need not depend on the Iews testimony in this matter for the Scripture is express in it where it speaks of Hezekiah's breaking in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made for in those days the Children of Israel did burn incense to it Bellarmine cannot deny that burning of incense was a sacrifice among the Iews and that was the reason that Hezekiah brake the brazen Serpent in pieces but he saith it is not a sacrifice now But how comes it to change its nature hath it lost any part of its definition if not hath the Church power to make that which was a sacrifice to become none i. e. to take away an appropriate sign of Gods absolute worship for so they acknowledge sacrifice to be Paulus Maria Quarti in his late Commentaries on the Rubricks of the Missal confesses that all the material parts of the definition of a sacrifice agree to the burning of Incense in the Roman Church for it is an oblation made to God for his honour by the change of a sensible thing but he saith from Suarez that it is not a sacrifice among them but only an accidental appendix to a sacrifice and might not the same have been said among the Iews and yet himself afterwards grants that it is a part of Religious worship as honour is thereby given to those that are incensed and is to be determined according to the nature of the object if it be given to God it is Latria if to Saints it is Dulia c. It seems now it is become more than an appendix being a proper act of worship but all their care is to avoid its being a sacrifice because they give it to Saints and Images and when they are off from that difficulty they think they can dispose of it as they please Catharinus grants that burning of incense had the proper nature of a sacrifice among the Iews and that the reason why Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen Serpent was because they did not direct their incense to the thing represented by it but terminated their worship on the sign but 1. it seems then the Scripture gives a very lame account of the reason of it for that mentions no more but their burning incense before it which was no fault of it self but only that they did not direct their intention far enough 2. It seems that sacrifice it self may be offered to an Image for Catharinus grants that this had the nature of sacrifice and there was no harm in the meer oblation but only in the shortness of the intention Sanders saith that God commanded the Iews to give Religious worship to the brazen Serpent for he saith their very looking upon it was such and from thence he proves it lawful to worship Images but Cope or rather Harpsfield will not allow it to be of the same nature with Images easily discerning that the breaking of it down would make more against the worship of Images than the setting of it up ever made for them For Vasquez saith the peoples looking upon it in order to their being healed was no part of worship being no token of submission and that God intended no worship should be given to it And he ingenuously confesses that when Hezekiah brake it in pieces it was not because it was worshipped for a God among them or had the worship terminated upon it but because the people gave the same kind of worship to it which in the Roman Church they give to their Images but he thinks that worship was unlawful to the Iews which is lawful to Christians And then why not the offering sacrifice to Images as well as burning of Incense But T. G. thinks that perhaps the smoke of the incense when used as a sign of Religious worship troubles my eyes so that I cannot distinguish between the use of it as applied to God and as applied to his servants or other things relating to him It is pity T. G. had not been Hezekiahs Confessor to have better informed him about the Iews burning of Incense before the brazen Serpent for he would in all probability have done his endeavour to have preserved it and if Hezekiah had pleaded the Law that appropriated incense to the worship of God he would have desired him to clear his eyes a little better for then he might discern that burning incense was an indifferent ceremony and may be applied either to God or the creature and that the difference of these depends on the intention of the persons who do them now how could any man tell by the outward act what the intention of these persons was For all that appeared they intended only to honour God by it in memory of the great miracles he had wrought by means of it and then it was so far from being evil that it was an act of Latria to God And why should Hezekiah destroy the brazen Serpent for being an occasion of Gods honour This were fitter for Senacherib or Rabshakeh to do than one that professed to worship the true God Is not incense used daily in the Temple are not the Altar and the vessels of the Temple perfumed by it Why then should the brazen Serpent be profaned by that which sanctifies other things Therefore only advise them to direct their intention aright and there can be no harm in the use of such an indifferent ceremony and let
could be no created Wisdom So that neither Iews nor Christians did believe the Invocation of Angels to have been practised in the Church of Israel 3. In this case it is reasonable to appeal to the sense of Iewish Writers who must be presumed to understand their own customs best especially in respect to Idolatry which they have suffered so much for and they unanimously declare it to be against the sense of the Law to make Saints or Angels to be Mediators between God and them Maimonides makes this to be consequent upon the precept against Idolatry and makes it the fifth Fundamental of the Law That we ought to worship God alone and to make no Mediators between God and us neither Angels nor Stars nor Elements nor any such things because we ought to direct all our thoughts to God alone And Abravanel in his Commentary upon the Fundamentals of the Law saith their wise men interpreted that verse the Lord our God is nigh unto us in all that we call upon him for that they should only invocate God and not Michael or Gabriel c. and saith presently after That this sort of worship belongs only to God and to none else according to the sense of their Wise-men Maimonides saith That none of the Idolaters were ever so mad to think there was no God besides the Idol they worshipped or that the Figure they worshipped made and governed the World but they worship them as Mediators between the great God and them and so he interprets that place Mal. 1.11 Incense shall be offered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Nomini meo but propter me as though the Incense they offered to their Idols were for his sake and so it is a meer relative Latria and he adds That the Idolaters did believe one God but offended against the precept which commands Him alone to be worshipped The Paraphrase of Ionathan upon 1 Kings 18.21 If the Lord be God follow Him renders it thus Is not God thy Lord therefore serve Him alone and why do ye wander after Baalim in which there is no profit But I need mention no more since a Learned person of our Church hath proved in a set Discourse from the several Testimonies of Aben-Ezra Kimchi Iarchi Moses bar-Nachman R. Bechai Alschech and others of greatest reputation among the Iews that they were guilty of Idolatry by their Law who believed one true God but gave Religious worship to other things as Mediators between God and them 6. The last I shall mention as an appropriate act of divine worship is making Vows to God which the Scripture hath so fully declared to belong to God as a part of divine worship that our Adversaries do not offer to deny it For Vows are not only said to be made to God Numb 30.2 Deut. 23.21 23. but they are joyned with Sacrifice and Oblations Isa. 19.21 And therefore Aquinas makes vowing one of the proper acts of Latria and Bellarmin confesses That it is an act of Religion due only to God Who could now have imagined after such confessions to have found them in the Church of Rome making vows to Saints as solemnly as to God himself so that if ever men did condemn themselves for Idolatry they seem to do it by such plain confessions of both parts viz. that Vows are a part of the worship due only to God and that they give this worship to Creatures Here one would think we had them fast yet if we do not look to our selves they will slip through our fingers and escape Is not say I a Vow a part of Latria that is due only to God Yes say our Adversaries it is so Do not you make Vows to Saints as formally and solemnly as to God himself as the Dominicans Vow at entrance into their Order as Cajetan saith is made Deo Beatae Mariae Beato Dominico omnibus sanctis True say they this cannot be denied Do not you then give to the creature the worship proper to God which you confess to be Idolatry Hold say they we distinguish but about what about making Vows to Saints together with God for may not we make a Vow to men and to God too and who will say that is Idolatry as for instance may not a man Vow to A. and B. that he will give a hundred pound to an Hospital here the Vow is made both to God and to A. and B. But here A. and B. are only witnesses to the Vow but the formality of the Vow lies in the promise made to God to do such things for his service and honour and A. and B. have no concernment in this But may not men Vow obedience to Superiours and that is more than making them witnesses Very true but then this obedience is the matter of the Vow or the thing that is vowed and in all Vows of obedience there are many limitations implyed but there are none in the Vows made to God or the Saints but withal they Vow to God and the Saints that they will obey their Superiours So that their obedience to Superiours is but the matter of the Vow made to God and the Saints Well then say they suppose we do make the Saints the object of our Vows as well as God yet we do not consider the Saints as rational creatures but as they are Dii participativè as Cajetan and Bellarmin both say And is not this the very answer of the Heathens that they gave divine worship to creatures not as creatures but as Gods by way of participation Is it indeed come out at last that we are to look on the Saints as inferiour Deities and on that account may give to them the worship proper to God Votum non convenit sanctis saith Bellarmin nisi quatenus sunt Dii per participationem I see truth may be smothered a long time and kept under by violence but it will break out at last one way or other I began to suspect something when I found the Master of Controversies speak of the Saints being praepositi Ecclesiae set over the Church but I could hardly have expected to have found them owned for inferiour Deities for what are Gods by participation but such as derive their power from God and are employed by Him to take care of these lower things So he saith the Saints do curam gerere rerum nostrarum take care of our affairs and now I do not wonder to see them make Vows to them or perform any other act of Religious worship to them as well as to God But after all this ado may we not Vow to God upon a higher account and to the Saints upon a lower Yes no doubt just as a man may swear Allegiance to his Prince upon the account of his Soveraign Authority and to one of his Subjects as a less soveraign For if Allegiance be peculiar to Soveraign Authority how can it be given to any one that hath it not And in this case
it is confessed that Vows are a part of that worship which is proper only to God and how then can they be given to any else besides Him And Bellarmin confesseth That Vows in the Scriptures are alwaies taken for promises made to God for when they were written there was no such custom of vowing to Saints A very fair confession But how then comes that which all the time when the Scripture was written was peculiar to God to become common to Him and His Creatures why may not sacrifice be made common as well as Vows if it be in their power to change those things which God by the acknowledgement of our Adversaries hath throughout the Scripture made peculiar to himself 2. This therefore will require a farther debate viz. how far Gods appropriating these Acts of worship to himself doth concern us For which we are to consider 1. That it is granted by T. G. to be reasonable that there should be some external acts of worship peculiar to God because the reason of his worship is peculiar as he is the supreme Lord and Governour of the world 2. That acts of worship being designed to honour and please God he is the fittest to determine what those peculiar acts of worship shall be For S. Augustin mentions that saying of Socrates as a principle of natural reason Unumquemque Deum sic coli oportere quo modo se ipse colendum esse praeceperit that God ought to be worshipped according to His own appointment To which himself adds That if men worship God against His Will they do not worship Him but their own imagination and therefore they are to examine what worship this God doth reserve to himself and what He will allow to any other Origen embraces that saying of Celsus That no inferior Being ought to receive any Honour against the Will of the Supream and therefore he desires Celsus to prove that those Daemons and Heroes which had divine worship given them among them ever had the consent of the Supreme God for it but it rather came from the ignorance and barbarism of mankind which by degrees fell off from the true worship of God And he insists upon the demonstration of this as to all their Deities how they can shew that ever God gave way they should be worshipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we can prove saith he by evident arguments that it was the Will of God that all men should honour the Son as they do the Father Dei honorem per Deum docemur saith Hilary we understand how to worship God by himself S. Chrysostom saith Let us learn to honour Christ as he would have us for that is the most pleasing honour which he would have and not that which we would give S. Peter thought to honour Christ by refusing to be washed but this was not honour but directly contrary Which I desire T. G. to take notice of that he may better understand that God cannot be honoured by prohibited acts of worship whatever the intention of the person be But one would think this were a principle so reasonable in it self that I need not vouch Authorities for it yet we shall soon find that all these Authorities are no more than necessary 3. Acts appropriated to the worship of God by his own appointment must continue so till himself hath otherwise declared For who dares alter what God hath appointed Indeed if the peculiar acts of worship had depended only on the consent of mankind there might have been some reason for men by common consent to have changed the nature and signification of them But since God by a Law hath appropriated some parts of worship to himself we ought in manners to know his mind before we give away any part of that which was once peculiar to himself to any of his creatures 4. Christ hath no where made it lawful to give any Acts that were before appropriate to the worship of God to any creature We do acknowledge that Christ did take away by the design of his doctrine that external ceremonial worship that was among the Iews but he no where gives the least intimation that any acts which before were peculiar to God might now be given to any else besides him Nay instead of this he layes down the same Fundamental precept of worship which was in the Law Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve and he explains it more clearly to avoid all ambiguity in it by expressing that restrictive particle only which was implyed before His Apostles utterly refused any thing like divine honour being given to them and when one of them after an ecstatical manner fell down before an Angel he was severely rebuked for it and bidden to worship God So that our Adversaries grant that since the incarnation the Angels would not receive any adoration from men it seems then the Gospel is so far from giving any countenance to it that it suggests a new argument against it 5. The notion of Idolatry under the Gospel doth remain the same that it was before For we find such a sin often expressed and condemned and cautions given against it Neither be ye Idolaters as were some of them wherefore my dearly beloved flee from Idolatry Little Children keep your selves from Idols What notion of Idolatry could they have but what was the same which the Iews had from the Law of Moses The notion of Idolatry was a new thing among the Gentiles who knew no harm at all in giving divine worship to creatures from whence should they understand the sinfulness and the nature of it if not from some Law of God the Apostles pretended to give no new Law about it and never corrected any mistake among the Iews concerning it as they did in other things therefore the notion of Idolatry did continue the same that it was before 6. It was Idolatry among the Iews to give the appropriate acts of divine worship to any thing but God which I have already proved from the words of the Law and the concurrent Testimony of the Iewish Writers and from these things laid together it follows that it is Idolatry for men now to give any of the fore-mentioned appropriate signs of divine worship to any thing but God whether it be sacrifice or adoration or building Temples and Altars or burning incense or invocation or making Vows for if all these were things appropriated to the worship of God by his Law the using of these to any creature is not meer disobedience to his Law but a giving to the creature the worship proper to God which on all sides is confessed to be Idolatry No saith T. G. this proves only an extrinsecal denomination of Idolatry for if for instance God hath forbidden external adoration to be given to an Image his prohibition of such worship may make it indeed to be unlawful but hinders not the Act from passing whither it
was intended and consequently if it be intended or directed by the understanding and will to God though after an unlawful manner it will not fail to be terminated upon God and the act is an act of disobedience or of some other sin and called Idolatry only by a Metaphorical denomination as Idolatry is called Adultery and the Fields are said to be joyful and sing For as he saith elsewhere as no command of God can make that to be not Idolatry which is so in the nature of the thing so no prohibition if there were any could make that to be Idolatry which hath not in it the true and real nature of Idolatry To make this matter the more clear I shall here take away this cavil of T. G. because it relates to the right stating of the Nature of Idolatry which is agreed on both sides to be giving to the creature the worship due only to God and the controversie between us is this whether on supposition that God hath prohibited the act of adoration to an Image under the notion of Idolatry that act be real Idolatry or no The only pretence on their side that it was not was this that the intention of the Person being to terminate his worship on God and not barely on the Image it could not be real Idolatry my business was to remove this pretence which I did by this argument because God himself denyes to receive it and therefore it must be terminated on the creature the consequence of this T. G. rejects as utterly false because humane acts go whither they are intended and that the prohibition of God only makes the act unlawful and doth not hinder its going to its object To take off this I undertook to shew that where God hath prohibited any acts of worship that worship so given cannot be said to be terminated upon him because worship being as here understood an outward signification of honour and respect God making a rule for his own worship whatever hath disobedience in it must dishonour God and that were a contradiction to honour God by dishonouring him and therefore God giving it the denomination of Idolatry mens intentions could not excuse them from the guilt of it For I said whither soever men directed their intention it is plain from Scripture that God doth interpret this kind of worship to be terminated on the Image and therefore the Israelites are said to worship the molten Image although they directed their intention to God by it This is the short and true account of the force and design of that discourse upon which T. G. makes such clamours of vanity impertinency changing the Question contradiction downright Sophistry and what not save only answering the argument contained in it But I beseech T. G. to let me understand the Sophistry of this argument for he hath not yet discovered any thing like it but only that he did not or would not understand the strength and design of it I will therefore do him the kindness to make it plainer to him In all Acts of worship there are three things to be explained 1. The inward intention of the mind 2. The outward act of worship 3. The passing of that outward act according to the inward intention or the terminating of it 1. The inward intention of the mind is either 1. Actual cogitation of the object intended or 2. Directing the outward act to some particular end As when I see a picture that puts me in mind of a Friend the inward intention of the mind in the act of seeing is carried to the object represented which is no more than simple cogitation or apprehension of the Person by an Idea of him in my mind but when I kiss that picture out of the esteem I have for him the intention of the mind is by that outward act to shew the respect I have for his Person 2. The outward act of worship may be considered two wayes 1. Physically and abstractly from any Law and so it depends upon the nature of the intention 2. Morally as good or evil and so it receives its denomination from the Law and not from the bare intention of the Person as if a man steals with an intention of charity the goodness of his intention doth not hinder the act from falling under the denomination of theft 3. The passing of the outward act according to the inward intention or the terminating of it signifies no more out of these terms than that it was the intention of the person who did it to honour God by doing it but whether this be really an act of honour to God or no is not to be judged by the simple intention of the Doer but by the Law and Rule of worship which God hath given And how can God be honoured by a palpable act of disobedience and how can that worship be terminated as worship upon him who hath utterly refused it And supposing that God hath appropriated that outward act of worship to himself which is given to an Image this is giving the worship to a creature which is proper to God which T. G. cannot deny to be the definition of real Idolatry This was the meaning and intention of my former discourse however T. G. lamentably mistakes and perverts it 1. He saith this is changing the State of the Question how so Why forsooth my charge was of real Idolatry and my proof is only of Metaphorical Idolatry and by extrinsecal denomination What need is there that men have a care of their words that have to do with such Sophisters All that I said of denomination was no more than this The Divine Law being the rule of worship all prohibited wayes of worship must receive that denomination which God himself gives them what is this to Metaphorical Idolatry If I say that unjust reproaching ones neighbour or taking away his Goods or lying with his wife must receive that denomination which the Law gives them doth this imply that it is only Metaphorical Theft and Adultery and false Witness I do assure him I meant very real Idolatry under that denomination and that upon this reason which I have now more largely insisted upon viz. that it belongs to God to appropriate acts of worship to himself that God having appropriated them they become due only to him and therefore they who do these acts to any besides himself do give to the creature the worship due to God alone which is the very definition of real Idolatry T. G. contends for But the real Idolatry I meant he saith was that which was so antecedently to any prohibition as appears by my contending that the Church of Rome doth require the giving the creature the honour due only to God What strange arguing is this for so a subtile a Sophister Would not any one that had looked over Aristotles threshold to use his own phrase discern that if Idolatry doth consist in giving the creature the worship due only to God as many
wayes as worship may become due Idolatry may be committed Cannot God make any of the former appropriate acts of worship to become due only to himself cannot he tye us to perform them to him and then they become due to him and cannot he restrain us from doing them to any other and then they become due only to him and is not then the doing of any of these prohibited acts to a creature the giving to them the worship due only to God Is the outward act of sacrifice due only to God antecedently to a prohibition or no If it be due only to God antecedently to his will it is alwayes and necessarily due to him and to him alone and let T. G. at his leisure prove that antecedently to any Law of God it was necessary to worship God by sacrifice and unlawful so to worship any else besides him If it depends on the will of God then either it is no Idolatry to offer sacrifice to a creature and then the Sacrifice of the Mass may be offered to Saints or Images or if it be then real Idolatry may be consequent to a prohibition But he thinks he hath a greater advantage against me by my saying that any Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in the second Commandment This is downright trifling for if I should say that taking away a mans goods against his consent is Theft and on that account is forbidden in the eighth Commandment would any man imagine that I must speak of Theft antecedent to the Command for it implyes no more than that it is contrary to the Command But as it is in the case of Theft that is alwayes a sin although the particular species of it and the denomination of particular acts doth suppose positive Laws about Dominion and Property so it is in the case of Idolatry the general nature of it is alwayes the same viz. the giving the worship to a creature which is due only to God although the denomination of particular acts may depend upon positive Laws because God may appropriate peculiar acts of worship to himself which being done by him those acts being given to a creature receive the denomination of Idolatry which without those Laws they would not have done So that still the general notion of Idolatry is antecedent to positive Laws but yet the determination of particular acts whether they are Idolatry or no do depend on the positive Laws which God hath given about his worship And if T. G. had understood the nature of humane acts as he pretends he would never have made such trifling objections as these For is it not thus in the nature of the other sins forbidden in the Commandments as well as Idolatry that are supposed to be the most morally evil antecedent to any prohibition Suppose it be murder adultery or disobedience to Parents although I grant these things to have a general notion antecedently to any Laws yet when we come to enquire into particular acts whether they do receive those denominations or no we must then judge by particular Laws which determine what acts are to be accounted Murder Adultery or Disobedience as whether execution of malefactors be prohibited Murder whether marrying many Wives be Adultery whether not complying with the Religion of ones Parents be disobedience These things I mention to make T. G. understand a little better the nature of Moral Acts and that a general notion of Idolatry being antecedent to a prohibition is very consistent with the determining any particular acts as the worship of Images to be Idolatry to be consequent to that prohibition But I perceive a particular pleasure these men take to make me seem to contradict my self and here T. G. is at it as wisely as the rest thus blind men apprehend nothing but contradictions in the diversity of colours by the different reflections of light but the comfort is that others know that it is only their want of sight that makes them cry out contradictions But wherein lyes this horrible self-contradiction Why truly it seems I had said that an Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in the second Commandment Well! and what then where lyes the contradiction Hold a little it will come presently in the mean time mark those words on that Account but I say that the worship which God denyes to receive cannot be terminated on him but on the Image Is this the contradiction then No not yet neither The conceit had need be good it is so long in delivering but at last it comes like a thunder-showre full of sulphur and darkness with a terrible crack either I mean that this worship cannot be terminated on God antecedently to the Prohibition because on that account the worship of an Image is forbidden in the second Commandment or if it cannot be terminated on the account of the Prohibition then it is not on that account forbidden What a needless invention was that of Gunpowder T. G. can blow a man up with a train of consequences from his own words let him but have the laying of it Could I ever have thought that such innocent words as on that account should have had so much Nitre and Sulphur in them For let any man read over those words and see if he can find any thing antecedent to the prohibition in them For having in that place shewed that the words Idolum sculptile imago are promiscuously used in Scripture I presently add By which it appears that any Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in this Commandment By which it appears mark that this T. G. pares off as not fit for his purpose i. e. from the sense of the word in Scripture that any Image being made so far the object of divine worship that men do bow down before it i. e. if men do perform that act of worship to an Image which God hath forbidden the doing towards it what then then say I it becomes an Idol for whatever hath divine worship given to it is so and on that account i. e. of its having that act of divine worship done to it by bowing before it it is forbidden in this Commandment i. e. it comes within the reach of that prohibition the meaning of all which is no more than to shew that adoration of Images is Idolatry by vertue of that Commandment But thus are we put to construe and paraphrase our own words to free our selves either from the ignorance or malice of our Adversaries But with this fetch T.G. stands and laughs through his fingers at the trick he hath plaid me and bids me with a secret pleasure at his notable
foregoing Discourse But T. G. seems to understand no difference between titles of respect and acts of worship between expressions of esteem and devotion between Religious and Civil worship for he blunders and confounds all these together and whatever proves one he thinks proves all the rest these are not the best wayes of reasoning but they are the best the cause would bear Well but yet the matter seems not altogether so clear for the worship we are to give to Princes is as they are Gods Vicegerents and this is given on a Religious account because God commands us to give honour to whom honour is due the place urged by T. G. Rom. 13.7 To this a very easie answer will serve Worship may be said to be Religious two wayes 1. As it is required by the Rule of Religion and so the worship given to Magistrates is Religious 2. In its nature and circumstances as it consists of those acts which God hath appropriated to his worship or is attended with those circumstances which make it a Religious performance and then it is not to be given to Princes or any Creatures but only to God himself This will be made plain by a remarkable instance among the antient Christians While Divine honours were challenged by the Emperours to themselves i. e. the honours belonging to consecrated men for they meant no other the Christians refused giving to them those external acts of Reverence which might be supposed to have any Religious worship in them although they expressed the greatest readiness at the same time to obey their Laws that did not require any thing against Christianity and to pray for their safety and prosperity This being known to be the general practice of Christians Pliny in his Epistle to Trajan mentions this as one of the wayes of trying Christians viz. whether they would Imagini Caesaris thure vino supplicare give Religious worship to Caesars Image by burning incense and pouring out wine before it which were the Divine honours required This Pliny saith all that were true Christians refused to do and those who did it presently renounced Christ. Thus this matter stood as long as the Emperours continued Gentiles who were presumed to affect Divine honours but when Constantine had owned Christianity and thereby declared that no Religious worship was to be given to him the Christians not only erected publick Statues to Emperours but were ready to express before them the highest degrees of Civil worship and respect This Iulian thought to make his advantage of and therefore placed the Images of the Gods among those of the Emperours that either they might worship the Gods or by denying Civil Worship to the Emperours Statues which the custom then was to give they might be proceeded against as disaffected to the Emperour And when he sate on the Throne distributing New-years-gifts he had his Altar of Incense by him that before they received gifts they might cast a little incense into the fire which all good Christians refused to do because as Gothofred observes the burning of incense was the same tryal of Christians that eating of Swines flesh was of Iews But after the suspicion of Religious worship was removed in the succeeding Emperors the former customs of Civil worship obtained again till Theodosius observing how these customs of Civil adoration began to extend too far and border too much upon Divine honours did wholly forbid it in a Constitution extant to that purpose and that for this reason that all worship which did exceed the dignity of men should be entirely reserved to God By this true account of the behaviour of Christians in this matter T. G. may a little better understand what that worship was which the primitive Christians refused to give to Emperours and what difference they made between the same external acts when they were to be done on a Civil and on a Religious account which are easily discerned either by the nature of the acts themselves as the burning incense or the circumstances that attend them as in adoration It were needless to produce any more Testimonies of Antiquity to prove that Divine worship is proper only to God since T. G. confesses it but gives quite another sense of Divine worship than they did for under this they comprehended all acts of Religious worship as appears by the worship they denyed to Emperours It remains therefore to shew that those who spake most for the honour of the Saints did not by that mean any Religious acts of worship but expressions barely of honour and esteem Iulian objected this against the Christians as it was common with the Heathens to object many false and unreasonable things that instead of the Heathen Gods they worshipped not one but many miserable men To this S. Cyrill answers that as to Christ he confesses they worshipped him but they did not make a God of a man in him but he was essentially God and therefore fit to be worshipped but for the Martyrs they neither believed them to be Gods nor gave them the worship which belongs to Gods Which is unquestionably S. Cyrill's meaning or he doth not answer to the purpose For Iulian never charged the Christians with giving that worship to Martyrs which is proper to the Supream God considered as such but that they gave to them that Religious worship which Iulian pleaded to be due to the inferiour Gods as appears by the State of the Question between them This therefore S. Cyrill denyes that they gave to Saints and Martyrs which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to give them the worship which the Heathens gave to their inferiour Deities what they gave to the Martyrs was upon another account it was only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 respectively and by way of honour And lest any should suspect he meant any kind of Religious worship by this he presently explains himself that what he said was only to be understood of those honours they gave to them for their generous suffering for the faith despising all dangers and thereby making themselves great examples to other Christians and after he let us understand what these honours were when he brings the instance of the Athenians meeting together at the sepulchres of those who were slain at the Battel of Marathon for the liberty of Greece and there making Panegyricks upon them and therefore he wonders why Julian should exclaim so much against these honours done to the Martyrs since this was all the reward they could give them And elsewhere he saith these honours consisted in preserving their Memories and praising their vertues and brings the very same instance of the Athenians again but for any matter of worship towards them he utterly denyes it because they were bound to give it to none but God And that we might fully understand what he means when he saith that Christians do not give to Saints the worship the Heathens gave to their inferiour Gods
together sacris sacrificiis sometimes Religione Sacris sometimes Religionis ritibus sometimes Religionis obsequio by all which he understands the same thing viz. the acts of Religious worship which for distinction sake he calls Latria as that service or worship that men owe to one another he saith is called by another name and I confess I cannot find S. Austin applying the term of Dulia to any service we owe to Saints or Angels in Heaven but he avoids the term of Service and denyes it be due to them and only calls it by the name of Love and Fellowship with them and therefore Martinus Peresius had good reason to quarrel with the use of the word dulia because we are only fellow servants with them and Bellarmin gives him no sufficient answer by bringing that place Gal. 5. serving one another in love for that only relates to persons in equal conditions where the mutual offices may be alike which cannot be supposed in this case And therefore I had reason to say that Dulia is used by S. Austin as a term expressing the service we owe to God as our Lord but T. G. thinks he hath run me down by producing the foregoing place which he saith I purposely concealed from the Reader for fear he might infer that if some degree of the service called Dulia might be given by servants to their Masters surely a high degree of it may be given to Holy Angels Very finely argued and as much against S. Austins sense as is possible For he saith in plain terms those Angels that require service from us are Devils for this he makes the character of them that they do invite us ut sibi serviamus but saith he we honour good Angels by love and not by service But T. G. is not more mistaken in S. Austins sense of Dulia than he is about Latria for he saith that he understands it of sacrifices and that when he saith blessed Spirits are not willing we should sacra facere it ought not be rendered equivocally as it is by me to perform any sacred offices but to dedicate and sacrifice to them or consecrate our selves or any thing of ours to them by the Rites of Religion by which he saith it is evident that he speaks of the worship which is due to God alone that is of such dedications and consecrations as were performed by the Heathens to their Daemons as Gods To this I answer that I grant that S. Austin speaks of the worship due to God alone and of those rites of Religious worship which were performed by the Heathens to their Gods but the Question is what he understands by those Religious rites whether only dedications and sacrifices and consecrations or other acts of Religious worship For T. G. cannot be so ignorant as not to know that adorations and prayers were as constant as solemn as proper acts of Religious worship both by the Law of God and the Heathen customs as those he mentions thence orandi causa fanum adire in Cicero Deos immortales precari venerari atque implorare debetis ut urbem defendant and scarce any Greek or Latin Writer that mentions their Religious rites but under them they take notice of adoration and prayers and not only so but some of them give an account of the Forms of them and the manner and order of Invocation in their Litanies for the word is as old as Homer wherein they invocated their Gods in order that they would be favourable and propitious to them and Pliny saith in general that no sacrifice was offered without prayers and Macrobius Servius and Arnobius say they began their invocations with Janus not because they looked on him as chief but as a Mediator who was to carry up their prayers to the superiour powers and they ended in Vesta for the same reason and that these were comprehended under the Sacra is not only manifest from their conjunction with sacrifices but from the old form of obsecration in which they used ob vos sacro for obsecro I would now understand from T. G. why he thinks that S. Austin should purposely leave out in these words Adoration and Invocation which were by all Nations looked on as some of the proper acts of Religious worship especially when he mentions both these before and after For the occasion of the dispute was about the intercession of created Spirits and mens addresses to them and afterwards he joyns adoration together with sacrifice as a thing peculiar to God putaverunt quidam deferendum Angelis honorem vel adorando vel sacrificando c. in a place already cited If this be not shutting ones eyes against noon-day light it is a drawing a curtain before it lest it grow too hot But for all this T. G. is very confident that S. Austin was for the performing Religious worship to Martyrs because he saith expresly that it was the custome of the Christian people in his time to celebrate with Religious solemnity the Memories of the Martyrs and very kindly after his mode he charges me with corrupting the words of S. Austin by translating them thus that it was the custome of the Christians in his time to have their Religious Assemblies at the Sepulchres or Memories of the Martyrs I did not pretend to translate as T. G. knew well enough by the character but ill will never speaks well but I still say and stand to it that this is his sense as will appear by considering the design of his words Faustus the Manichean had charged the African Christians with Idolatry in the honour they gave to the Memories of the Martyrs S. Austin answers that they did so celebrate the Memories of the Martyrs that they erected no Altars to any Martyr but to the God of Martyrs although it was for their memories For who of the Bishops or Priests that officiates at the Altar in the places of their Sepulchres ever said We offer to thee Peter or Paul or Cyprian but that which is offered is offered to God who crowned the Martyrs but it is done at their Sepulchres whom he hath crowned that by the very places our affections may be raised and our love quickned both to those whom we may imitate and to him by whom we are enabled to do it Now I desire to know what part of Religious worship was here performed to the Martyrs If the Christian Sacrifice that were Idolatry according to T. G. and would have justified Faustus to purpose but S. Austin utterly denyes this to be performed to them All that the Martyrs are concerned in as to the Religious Solemnity was no more than that the offices of Religion were performed at their Sepulchres this was an Honour to them I grant but no part of Religious worship And although the design of the worship was only to honour God yet the place of doing it was out of honour to the
which Herodotus calls the Image of Mars and he saith they sprinkled the blood of the Sacrifice upon it Clemens Alexandrinus and Arnobius tell us from Varro that the antient Romans worshipped a Spear for Mars which is also affirmed by Iustin and the Thespians a Bough for Cinxia or Iuno the Icarians an unhewn piece of Wood for Diana the Samii a frame of Wood for Iuno the Pessinuntii a Flint for the Mother of the Gods which was carried by the Roman Ambassadours from Phrygia to Rome saith Livy called Religiosa silex by Claudian The Arabians an unpolished stone which was square saith Maximus Tyrius of a black colour saith Suidas without any shape or figure upon it four foot high and two broad to which they sacrifice and sprinkle the blood upon it Euthymius charges the Mahumetans with Idolatry for kissing the stone Bracthan concerning which they have several fabulous traditions of its being one of the stones of Paradise and coming down from thence with Adam c. which is placed in one of the corners of the Caaba or Temple at Mecca above two cubits above ground and was stolen from thence by the Karmatiani hoping to draw away the Pilgrims but finding it would not do they restored it to the inhabitants of Mecca twenty years after who knew it to be the genuine stone as they said by its swimming above water which our learned Dr. Pocock conjectures to have been one of the Idols of the old Arabs as the Temple at Mecca was one of their Idol-Temples but the Mahumetans say they worship it out of a respect to Abraham as they do another stone wherein they say are the footsteps of Abraham to be seen at which they say their prayers as others do at Loretto before a Madonna of the same complexion with the stone Bracthan of which colour I suppose the same reason may be given which the Mahumetans do of the stone Bracthan viz. that it came purely white out of heaven but was turned black by the sins of the people Such another Idol was Manah or Meneth which was of old worshipped between Mecca and Medina which the Arabick Writers call a rock or a stone and was probably as the same Author conjectures the Meni mentioned Isa. 65.11 and Saad which he describes to be an oblong stone lying on the shore The Paphians Max. Tyrius saith worshipped Venus under the representation of a white Pyramid and the Lacedaemonians saith Pausanias erected after the ancient custome seven pillars to the seven planets and the same Author affirms it to have been the ancient custome of all the Greeks to set up unpolished stones instead of Images to the honour of the Gods which Testimony is very considerable not only because it makes it the most ancient but an Universal Custome among the Greeks and near the Statue of Mercury he saith there were thirty square stones which the Pharii worshipped and gave to every one the name of a God Pausanias mentions many other such Images remaining in Greece after the ancient Mode as of Hercules in Boeotia of Cupid among the Thespienses of the Graces among the Orchomenii where he saith the people worship the stones which they believed to have dropt down from heaven They were wont saith Hesychius to have Altars before the Doors in the fashion of a pillar which was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some saith Harpocration make these proper to Apollo others to Bacchus others to both these were common at Athens as appears by the Testimonies of Cratinus Menander and Sophocles quoted by Harpocration and Sophocles he saith applyed that Athenian custome to Troy in his Laocoon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. whom Suidas follows Stephanus Byzant saith the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were Obelisks erected to the honour of the Gods for which he quotes Eupolis It seems both Pyramids and Altars were called by this name among them being both designed for the worship of their Gods and it is not improbable those rude Pyramids in Yorkshire mentioned by Cambden called the Devils bolts and many such in Denmark by Olaus Wormius might be first erected for the same purpose this custome having been so general Peter della Valle in his late Travels in the Indies saith that at Ahmedabad there was a famous Temple of Mahadeù wherein there was no other Image but a little column of Stone after a Pyramidal form but ending at the top in a round figure which Mahadeù he saith in their language signifies the great God and after this fashion he saith it is the custom of the Brachmans to represent Mahadeù the like he observes at Manèl Although that Author takes the liberty to call this an Idol I do not see with what conscience T. G. could do it for an Idol according to him doth signifie either a representation of some imaginary being or in the utmost sense something which is falsely esteemed and worshipped as God but this Pyramid to represent Mahadeù or the great God was neither a representation of an imaginary Being nor was it self taken for God and therefore was no Idol nor the worship given to God by it Idolatry and upon his principles the worship of the Gioghi is very justifiable by the Law of God for this is not a representation by which men are in danger of being Anthropomorphites but only hath some analogical and metaphorical signification and therefore it is no disparagement to the Deity to be thus represented Thus it falls out as I foresaw that T. G. could not justifie the practice of their own Church but he must unavoidably justifie that which is condemned by it viz. the Heathen Idolatry But to proceed Herodian describing the Worship of Alagabalus at Emesa in Phoenicia saith that he had no kind of Image after the Greek or Roman fashion made by mens hands but a great stone round at the bottom lessening by degrees after the fashion of a Cone and of a black Colour like the stone Bracthan which they say was not made by mens hands but fell down from heaven It is great pity Gretser had not put it into his Book de Imaginibus non manufactis together with that of the Pessinuntii in Herodian and of Diana of Ephesus and of the Graces among the Orchomenii which were all believed to have come from heaven as well as those mentioned by Gretser and the evidence is much alike for them all and for the miracles wrought by them Peter della Valle saith that the Image of Mahadeù was in great reputation among the Indians for working miracles and in another place he saith there were persons who believed themselves cured of sore eyes by the Idols and made their presents of silver and golden eyes and some Iewels as they do in other places on occasion of the like miracles And notwithstanding what Della Valle intimates of the
Law given by Moses against the making any Image of God in the place before mentioned and which he there asserts to be still obligatory to Christians But although he there repeats the Command at large against all sorts of Images yet it is observable that when he goes about to set down all the Commandments this by some artificial hand is conveyed out of the way and the second Commandment is Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord c. which made me not a little wonder finding Clemens so often in other places expressing his zeal against Images But it is not hard to guess what hands his Greek Copies have passed through since the second Nicene Council yet we are beholding to them for leaving so much evidence of their foul dealing behind them for within few Pages he saith the tenth Commandment takes in all sorts of Concupiscence and therefore the precept against Images must be a distinct Command to make up the number so that Sylburgius justly complains that the place is mutilated If Clemens did not think this precept concerned Christians he would never have objected it as an absurdity against a sort of Gnosticks that thought themselves bound to oppose the Law why then saith he when God said Thou shalt not make any Graven Image you were best go and worship Images By all which we see that he thought the precept to be still in force and that it was intended against the worship of Images and those Images such as respect God and not meerly the Heathen Idols Origen saith that for the sake of that Law Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image the Christians would rather die than defile their Faith with such impieties as the worship of Images and therefore their case was very different from that of the Scythians Numidians Seres and Persians with whom Celsus joyned them in the contempt of Images When Symmachus pleaded with Valentinian for the toleration of the Pagan Religion on this pretence that the same God was worshipped by all and that by several waies men aimed at the same end S. Ambrose answers That God himself was fittest to teach what way he would be served in You worship the Work of mens hands we account it an injury to God to call anything by His Name that can be made by man Non vult se Deus in Lapidibus coli God hath declared He will not be worshipped after such a manner Whereby we see the Primitive Christians fixed themselves on the Command of God as upon an immoveable rock against the Worship of Images Thus much may suffice to have shewn in this place that the Controversie between the Christians and Heathens about the worship of Images was not whether they were proper Likenesses of God from the apprehensions they had of their Images I proceed now to shew it 2. From the Notions they had of their Gods And here I must in the first place exclude those who in Truth were Atheists and not Idolaters I mean the Epicurean Philosophers who although they seemed to assert some pleasant Beings that lived in perfect ease far from the noise and smoke of the World yet they utterly overthrew all foundations of worship in Prayers or Sacrifices by denying the Gods to have any regard to the actions of men for fear of disturbing their sweet repose These indeed made their Gods like men but so thin and airy that they could not bear the least justle of Atoms and so quiet and still that the least thought of business would destroy their happiness These were only made for fine Idea's to amuse the people with but any one might see that they were never intended for the objects of worship and therefore Plutarch and Athenaeus say That Epicurus took away all the worship of the Gods however he complyed with the common practises of the people and when he lift up his Hands to his Mouth in token of adoration he could not but laugh through his Fingers at the Gods they worshipped But we may see by the discourse of the Academick and Stoick with the Epicurean in Cicero how much they abhorred this Epicurean doctrine of the Gods being like to men and Velleius the Epicurean doth in effect confess there were no Philosophers of that mind besides themselves For he reckons up all the opinions of the other Philosophers concerning the Nature of the Gods after such a manner as to discover that this opinion was peculiar to their own Sect. He acknowledges that Thales asserted God to be an Eternal Mind which framed all things out of Water even Anaximander and Anaximenes who held only Material Gods or first principles for even the Atheist were willing to have matter believed to be a God by them to avoid the odium of Atheism among the people yet these rejected a humane form at which the Epicurean is displeased as though they might have flattered the people as they did in the fashion as well as in the name of a Deity Some have undertaken to clear Anaximenes and to make him of the same opinion with Thales concerning an incorporeal Deity saying that by Air he meant only a Divine Spirit and therefore in Plutarch he compares it to the Soul of Man which being Air doth animate the body and Diogenes Apolloniates his disciple held Air only for matter and Reason for the efficient cause as St. Augustin tells us However Anaxagoras another disciple of Anaximenes is confessed by Velleius to hold God to be an infinite and active mind free from all mixture of matter as the words of Anaxagoras in Simplicius do express his meaning and S. Augustin under takes his vindication against the Epicurean objections which suppose it impossible for us to understand any such thing as Mind without the conjunction of sense and Matter Pythagoras said That God was a quickening Spirit diffused through the World which is best expressed by Virgil in those words after the sense of Pythagoras Spiritus intus alit totosque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet Xenophanes falls under the same condemnation with the rest for asserting God to be a Mind but he went somewhat farther for in the Verses cited out of him by the Fathers he said That God was like to man neither in body nor in mind and for men to make an Image of God like to themselves was all one as if a Horse should paint him with a long tail and four feet if he had understanding enough to make a representation of the Deity or an Ox or a Lion should draw him by their own Figures Parmenides made God to be of a circular figure in the fashion of a Crown or Orb of Light compassing about the Heavens Whatever the opinions of Alcmaeon Empedocles Protagoras Diogenes Apolloniates were it is certain the Epicurean despises them all because they either appeared too doubtful and obscure in
of Divine worship and see upon what grounds they become guilty of Idolatry which will not reach home to themselves Card. Bessarion hath written an elaborate vindication of Plato against Trapezuntius wherein he shews that Plato did assert the Unity Power and Goodness of God and the Creation of all things by him and that he doth this frequently and constantly in his Parmenides Phaedrus Phaedo Philebus Timaeus Sophista Laws Politicks Epistles every where But Trapezuntius charges Plato that although he did acknowledge God he did not worship him and that he sacrificed only to the inferiour Gods to this Bessarion answers that in his Books of Laws which were made for the People he doth not expresly prescribe any worship to God under the name of One or First or Ineffable which were the Titles he had given him in his Dialogues and were not known to the People but in his eighth book of Laws he appoints twelve solemn Feasts to the twelve Gods of whom Iupiter was chief under which name the Supream God was known among the People than which name in the proper importance of it none could have been more significant of the Nature of the Supreme God and that he retained the other common names of the Gods worshipped among them that he might not seem to innovate any thing in Religion although the Philosophers understood them in another sense than the common people did by Iove they meant the First Being or Supreme Deity by Minerva Wisdom by Mercury Reason by Saturn Eternity by Neptune Form by Iuno Matter by Venus Nature by Apollo the Sun by Pan the Universe but when they spake to the People about the worship of them they did not mention Wisdom or Reason or Eternity but Minerva Mercury Saturn and he saith it would have been folly in them to have done otherwise the People being accustomed to worship the Gods under these names and nothing more was requisite but to make them understand them aright But for Plato himself he saith he worshipped the Supreme God after the best manner i. e. with inward Reverence and adoration in Plato's own expressions by thinking the best and most worthy things of him which Bessarion interprets in Spirit and in Truth and he adds that Plato looked on Sacrifices and Images as unworthy of him who was a pure mind and could not be represented by any Image to men But Plato's Adversary charges him with giving the worship of Latria to inferiour Gods and Creatures to which Bessarion saith that Latria among the Heathens signified only a stricter kind of service which some men paid to others that were above them and that the worship by sacrifice by a long custome from the time of Zamolxis and Orpheus was looked on as common to all things worshipped by them but saith he he referred all that worship which others gave to many and different Gods to the First and Chief Principle of all things and again mentions that saying in his Epinomis that the most suitable worship of God is to think honourably of him Which I suppose Plato would have said was the same thing which those of the Church of Rome call Latria and that he could by no means understand how sacrifices come to be appropriated to it and to this purpose Bessarion quotes the saying of Porphyrius that God is to be worshipped in Silence and with a pure mind and with the sacrifice of a good life And as to other Deities which Plato allowed to be worshipped he saith that he supposed them to be inferiour and subordinate to the Supreme and dependent upon him and that he did not worship empty Statues but one God the principle of all Which being compared with Plato's Law and practice about worshipping according to the Custome of the Countrey doth imply that he worshipped Images with a respect to the True God Let now the Reader judge whether according to the judgement of this learned Cardinal Plato was guilty of worshipping only the Images of false Gods But Trapezuntius still urges hard upon Plato that if he allowed the worship of a second and third Order of Gods which were but creatures he might on the same ground worship any creatures because all creatures are infinitely distant from the Creator Bessarion like an understanding man tells him that this argument would hold as well against the Church of Rome as against Plato which worships Angels although they be Creatures but yet he doth not think the argument will reach to the worship of all creatures because though all creatures be equally distant as to existence yet some come nearer than others as to perfection This Trapezuntius takes off by saying that Plato worshipped Daemons which Bessarion grants but by Daemons he saith Plato and Aristotle and other Philosophers did not understand such evil Spirits as we do but certain aereal Beings lower than Gods and above men whom they looked on as Mediators and intercessours between God and men but for evil Spirits he saith they were not received into their Religion and that Lucifer was looked on as accursed by them under the name of Ate. And he shews farther from S. Augustin that all the Poetical Theology was rejected by Plato So that the whole dispute with Plato about worship must come to these two points 1. Whether it be lawful to worship the Supreme God by external and visible representations supposing that a man direct his intention aright towards the honour of God by them 2. Whether it be lawful to give an inferiour worship to any Created Beings whose excellencies are supposed to be far above mens in order to their intercession between God and Us And now let T. G. judge whether I have not brought my Discourse home to their own doors I omit Marsilius Ficinus as a man that may be supposed too partial to Plato but I hope Augustinus Steuchus Eugubinus may pass for a sound Catholick being an Italian Bishop and a Roman Courtier that had so much zeal as to vindicate Constantines Donation against Valla and therefore his Testimony cannot be rejected He undertakes at large to prove that Plato acknowledged one True and Supreme God and that all other Beings are created by him and when he seems to attribute Divinity to other things it is only a Divinity by way of gift and participation such as Angels and holy men are said to have which doth not hinder our believing them to be all at first created by one God There were three sorts of inferiour Deities he saith asserted by the Philosophers viz. Daemons or Gods with aërial bodies who have a particular care of humane affairs Intelligences or the Spirits which animate and move the Stars and Coelestial Deities who converse with the Supreme God now all these he makes appear from many passages in Plato especially the famous one in his Timaeus to have been made by God And that when in his Books of Laws and the Epinomis or Appendix to
avoid being mistaken In what in thinking they did not worship Images after as well as before their conversion no but in supposing that they made use of the same Images afterwards which they did before and what if they did what harm was there in it on T. G's principles supposing the intention be directed aright Nay T. G. after all his clamour yields the thing for saith he St. Gregory turned the Pagan Festivals into Christian Assemblies and Heathen Temples to Christian Churches without ever pulling them down to build them up again and supposing the worship of Images lawful why not those to be used as well as Temples And yet I no where say that they made use of the very same but they melted them down and made new ones of them which is plainly to say that though they did not allow those particular Images yet they did not condemn the Use of Images for divine worship but of the materials of the former Images they made new ones to be used by them as Christians after that manner of worship which the Iesuits delivered to them which was all that was necessary to my purpose And now I leave the Reader to Judge whether in all this charge about these citations T. G. hath not shewed himself to be a man of admirable ingenuity and whether he be not well accomplished in the most laudable vertue of a Writer of Controversies viz. sincerity and fair dealing CHAP. II. The State of the Controversie about Images in the Christian Church HAving thus far endeavoured to State the Dispute about Image-worship as it was managed between Christians and Heathens I now come to the Rise and Progress of this Controversie in the Christian Church Wherein I shall proceed according to these following Periods 1. When Images were not used or allowed in the Christian Church 2. When they were used but no worship allowed to be given to them 3. When inferiour worship was given to them and that worship publickly defended 4. When the doctrine and practice of Image-worship was settled upon the principles allowed and defended in the Roman Church and from thence to shew wherein lie the main points of difference between us and the Church of Rome as to this Controversie about the Worship of Images 1. As to the First Period I had said in my former Discourse That the Primitive Christians were declared enemies to all worship of God by Images but I need the less to go about to prove it now since it is at last confessed by one of the most learned Iesuits they ever had that for the four first Centuries and farther there was little or no use of Images in the Temples or Oratories of Christians but we need not their favour in so plain a Cause as this as shall be evidently proved if occasion be farther given This T. G. had no mind to and therefore saith Not to Dispute the matter of fact of which he confesses there was some little use much as if I should say that T. G. hath shewn little or no ingenuity in his Book and he to his great comfort should infer there was some little ingenuity in it but Petavius his words are supprimi omittique satius visum est it was thought better to suppress them and let them alone was it all one in T. G's sense to use them and to omit the use of them And for the little reason he saith he had to doubt my sincerity in relating Petavius his words from what I did with Trigautius in truth there was as little as might be but I have great reason to believe from his usage of me about other citations that if he could have found any words before or after that he could have interpreted to another sense he would have made little or no conscience of saying those were the words I translated thus and thus But instead of debating the matter of fact as to the Primitive Church he saith he will give me the answer of Mr. Thorndike that at that time there might be jealousie of Offence in having Images in Churches before Idolatry was quite rooted out of which afterwards there might be no appearance and therefore they were afterwards admitted all over for it is manifest the Church is tyed no farther than there can appear danger of Idolatry This he calls Mr. Thorndikes answer but it is truly the answer of Petavius from whose words it seems to be translated dum periculum erat saith Petavius ne offensionis aliquid traheret externa quorundam rituum species cum iis que ab Ethnicis celebrabantur similitudine ipsa congruens c. Therefore I shall consider it as the answer of Petavius and here examine whether this were the ground on which the Primitive Church did forbear the use and worship of Images I shall prove that it was not from these two Arguments 1. Because the Reasons given by them against the worship of Images will equally hold against the worship of Images among Christians 2. Because the notion of Idolatry which they charged the Heathens with may be common to Christians with them 1. This supposes the Primitive Christians to look on the worship of Images as in it self indifferent and to be made good or evil according to the nature of the object represented by them which is a supposition as remote from the sense of the Primitive Church as any thing we can easily imagine For then all the arguments used by them against the worship of Images must have been deduced only from the objects represented or the nature of the worship given to them whereas they frequently argue from the unsuitableness of Images as a Means of worship and the prohibition of the Divine Law Would any man of common sense that had thought the worship of Images in it self indifferent have said as Origen doth that the Christians as well as the Iews abstain from the worship of Images for the sake of the Law of God which requires rather that we should dye than defile our selves with such impieties Yes it may be said this is acknowledged that the Law of God did forbid the worship of the Heathen Images but they who make this answer never looked into Origen or have forgotten what they read there for Origen doth not there give an account why the Christians did not comply with the Heathen Idolatry but why the Christians had no Images in their own worship For Celsus charges this upon the Christians that they thought it such a mighty matter that they had no Images whereas herein saith he they were but like the barbarous Scythians Numidians and Seres and other Nations that had neither Religion nor civility To this Origen answers that we are not only to look at the bare action but at the reason and ground of it for those that agree in the same thing may yet have very different principles and they that do it on a good principle do well and not otherwise as for instance the
And so the primitive Christians thought who very honestly and sincerely declared as much in their words and actions witness not only the opinions of all the Writers in behalf of Christianity not one excepted that ever had occasion to mention this matter but the Decree of as good a Council as was to be had at that time I mean the Eliberitan in the famous Canon to that purpose Can. 36. It pleaseth us to have no pictures in Churches lest that which is worshipped be painted upon walls It is a pleasant thing to see what work our Adversaries make with this innocent Canon sometimes it is a meer forgery of hereticks I wonder such men do not say the same of the second Commandment sometimes the Bishops that met there were not so wise as they should have been no nor Moses and the Prophets nor Christ and the primitive Christians in this matter sometimes that they spake only against pictures upon walls because the Salt-Peter of the walls would be apt to deface them or because in case of persecution they could not do as Rachel did carry their Teraphim along with them but that which Petavius sticks to is that the Memory of Heathen Idolatry was yet fresh and therefore it was not thought expedient to have Images in the Oratories or Temples of Christians So that after all the tricks and shifts of our Adversaries the thing it self is yielded to us viz. that this Canon is against such Images as are now used and worshipped in the Roman Church But saith he the reason doth not hold still for then the memory of Heathen Idolatry was not out of mens minds It is a wonderful thing to me that these Spanish Bishops should be able to tell their own reason no better than so You say you will have no Images in Churches why so I beseech you Lest that say they which is worshipped be painted upon walls worshipped by whom do you mean by Heathens no we speak of the Churches of Christians But why may not that which is worshipped be painted We think that reason enough to any man that considers the Being worshipped and that which is painted and the mighty disparagement to an infinite invisible Being to be drawn in lines and colours with a design to honour him thereby This to me seems a reason that holds equally at all times For was the Being worshipped more unfit to be drawn so soon after Heathen Idolatry than he would be afterwards methinks it had been much better done then while the skilful Artificers were living But those were Heathen Idolaters suppose they were you must make use of them or none if that which Tertullian and others say hold true that it is forbidden to Christians to make Images which surely they would never have said if they had thought the time would come when the Heathen Idolatry should be forgotten and then the Christians might worship Images Well but all this is only against Pictures upon walls but for all that saith Bellarmin they might have Images in Frames or upon Veils It seems then that which is adored might be painted well enough provided it be not upon a wall but methinks it is more repugnant to an infinite Being to be confined within a Frame than to be drawn upon a wall and the Decree is to have no pictures in Churches but if they were in Frames or upon Veils would they not be in Churches still What made Epiphanius then so angry at seeing an Image upon a Veil at Anablatha Was not Heathen Idolatry forgotten enough yet It seems not for it was coming in again under other pretences But that good mans spirit was stirred within him at the apprehension of it and could not be quiet till he had rent asunder the Veil and written to the Bishop of Hierusalem to prevent the like enormity One would have thought by this time the jealousie of Offence might have been worn out the Heathen Idolatry being suppressed but yet it seems Epiphanius did not understand his Christian Liberty in this matter Nay so far from it that he plainly and positively affirms that such an Image though upon a Veil and not the Walls was contra autoritatem Scripturarum contra Religionem nostram against the Law of God and the Christian Religion But it may be this was some Heathen Idol or Image of a False God no so far from it that Epiphanius could not tell whether it was an Image of Christ or of some Saint but this he could tell that he was sure it was against the Authority of the Scriptures And was Epiphanius so great a Dunce to imagine a thing indifferent in it self and applyed to a due object of worship should be directly opposite to the Law of God Men may talk of the Fathers and magnifie the Fathers and seem to make the Authority of the Fathers next to infallible and yet there are none who expose them more to contempt than they who give such answers as these so directly against the plainest sense and meaning of their words I confess those speak more consonantly to their principles who reject the Authority of this Epistle at least of this part of it but there is not the least colour or pretence for it from any M S. and Petavius ingenuously confesseth that he sees no ground to believe this part added to the former epistle God be thanked there is some little ingenuity yet left in the World and which is the greater wonder among the Iesuits too for not only Petavius but Sirmondus owns the Epistle of Epiphanius to be genuine quoting it to prove the Antiquity of Veils at the entrance of the Church If it be good for that purpose it is I am sure as good for ours and so it was thought to be by those who were no Iconoclasts I mean the Author of the Caroline Books and the Gallican Bishops who made use of this Testimony although themselves were against rending of painted Veils But commend me to the plain honesty of Iohn Damascen who saith one Swallow makes no Summer and of Alphonsus à Castro who tells us that Epiphanius was an Iconoclast i. e. a terrible heretick with a hard name materially so but not formally because the Church had not determined the contrary It seems it was no matter what the Law or Christian Religion had determined for those were the things Epiphanius took for his grounds But he good man was a little too hot in this matter and did not consider that when the Pagan Idolatry was sufficiently out of mens minds then it would be very lawful to have Christ or Saints not only drawn upon Veils or Screens but to have just such Statues as the Pagans had and to give them the very same worship which the Prototypes deserve provided that the people have forgotten Mercury Apollo and Hercules and put S. Francis or S. Ignatius or S. Christopher or S. Thomas Beckett instead of them O the Divine power of names
worship contrary to the Law of God we have the same reason to believe that evil Spirits are the Causes of them as the Primitive Christians had that evil Spirits were worshipped by the Heathens under the notion of Good 5. The Arrians believed Christ to be a Creature and yet were charged with Idolatry by the Fathers If it be said that they did give a higher degree of worship to Christ than any do to Saints I answer that they did only give a degree of worship proportionable to the degrees of excellency supposed to be in him far above any other Creatures whatsoever But still that worship was inferiour to that which they gave to God the Father according to the opinion of those Persons I dispute against For if it be impossible for a man that believes the incomparable distance between God and the most excellent of his Creatures to attribute the honour due to God alone to any Creature then say I it is impossible for those who believed one God the Father to give to the Son whom they supposed to be a Creature the honour which was peculiar to God It must be therefore on their own supposition an inferiour and subordinate honour and at the highest such as the Platonists gave to their Coelestial Deities And although the Arrians did invocate Christ and put their trust in him yet they still supposed him to be a Creature and therefore believed that all the Power and Authority he had was given to him so that the worship they gave to Christ must be inferiour to that honour they gave to the Supreme God whom they believed to be Supreme Absolute and Independent But notwithstanding all this the Fathers by multitudes of Testimonies already produced do condemn the Arrians as guilty of Idolatry and therefore they could not believe that the owning of Saints to be Gods Creatures did alter the State of the Controversie and make such Christians uncapable of Idolatry 2. I come to the second Period wherein Images were brought into the Christian Church but no worship allowed to be given to them And I am so far from thinking that the forbearance of the Use of Images was from the fear of complyance with the Pagan Idolatry that I much rather believe the introducing of Images was out of Complyance with the Gentile worship For Eusebius in that memorable Testimony concerning the Statue at Paneas or Caesarea Philippi which he saith was said to be the Image of Christ and the Syrophoenician woman doth attribute the preserving the Images of Christ and Peter and Paul to a Heathen custome which he saith was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. saith Valesius inconsideratè imprudenter contra veterem disciplinam incautè very unadvisedly and against the ancient Rules of the Church And yet to my great amazement this place of Eusebius is on all occasions produced to justifie the antiquity and worship of Images if it had been only brought to prove that Heathenish Customes did by degrees creep into the Christian Church after it obtained ease and prosperity it were a sufficient proof of it Not that I think this Image was ever intended for Christ or the Syrophoenician Woman but because Eusebius saith the people had gotten such a Tradition among them and were then willing to turn their Images to the Stories of the Gospel Where they finding a Syrophoenician Woman making her address to our Saviour and a Tradition being among them that she was of this place and there finding two Images of Brass the one in a Form of a supplicant upon her Knees with her hands stretched out and the other over against her with a hand extended to receive her the common people seeing these figures to agree so luckily with the Story of the Gospel presently concluded these must be the very Images of Christ and the Woman and that the Woman out of meer gratitude upon her return home was at this great expence of two brass statues although the Gospel saith she had spent all that she had on Physitians before her miraculous cure and it would have been another miracle for such an Image of Christ to have stood untouched in a Gentile City during so many persecutions of Christians especially when Asterius in Photius saith this very Statue was demolished by Maximinus I confess it seems most probable to me to have been the Image of the City Paneas supplicating to the Emperour for I find the very same representations in the ancient Coines particularly those of Achaia Bithynia Macedonia and Hispania wherein the Provinces are represented in the Form of a Woman supplicating and the Emperour Hadrian in the same habit and posture as the Image at Paneas is described by Eusebius And that which adds more probability to this conjecture is that Bithynia is so represented because of the kindness done by Hadrian to Nicomedia in the restoring of it after its fall by an earthquake and Caesarea is said by Eusebius to have suffered by an earthquake at the same time and after such a Favour to the City it was no wonder to have two such brass statues erected for the Emperours honour But supposing this tradition were true it signifies no more than that this Gentile custome was observed by a Syrophoenician Woman in a Gentile City and what is this to the worship of Images in Christian Churches For Eusebius doth plainly speak of Gentiles when he saith it is not to be wondered that those Gentiles who received benefits by our Saviour should do these things when saith he we see the Images of his Apostles Paul and Peter and Christ himself preserved in Pictures being done in Colours it being their custome to honour their Benefactors after this manner I appeal to any man of common sense whether Eusebius doth not herein speak of a meer Gentile custome but Baronius in spight of the Greek will have it thus quod majores nostri ad Gentilis consuetudinis similitudinem quà m proximè accedentes at which place Is. Casaubon sets this Marginal Note Graeca lege miraberis but suppose this were the sense of Eusebius what is to be gained by it save only that the bringing of Images among Christians was a meer imitation of Gentilism and introducing the Heathen customes into the Christian Church Yet Baronius hath something more to say for this Image viz. that being placed in the Diaconicon or Vestry of the Church of Paneas it was there worshipped by Christians for which he quotes Nicephorus whom at other times he rejects as a fabulous Writer And it is observable that Philostorgius out of whom Nicephorus takes the other circumstances of his relation is so far from saying any thing of the worship of this Image that he saith expresly the contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giving no manner of worship to it to which he adds the reason for it because it is not lawful for Christians to worship either Brass or any other matter no not
the object of worship but that the acts of worship were to be performed to the Images themselves The former use of Images doth suppose them to be only of the nature of Books which represent things to our minds without any act of adoration performed to that which is only an instrument of intellection although the thing represented to the mind be a proper object of adoration As if by reading a Book an Idea of God is represented to my mind whom I ought to worship yet no man can imagine that from hence I should fall down upon my knees out of honour to the Book or with a design to worship it When a man reads his prayers out of a Book and makes use of that only as a means or instrument to help his understanding and direct his expressions no man can have any colour of Reason to say that he worships the Book which he uses for a quite different purpose It is the same case as to Images when they are used for no other end but barely to represent to the mind an object of worship as a Crucifix may do our Saviour then it is no more than an external Note or Character and hath the same use that words have But those who go no farther than thus stand condemned and Anathematized by the second Council of Nice For that not only determines with a great deal of assurance that Images are to be set up in Churches and houses and wayes in order to the worship of them but very freely Anathematizes all sorts of dissenters either in judgement or practice Anathema be to all those who do not Salute the Holy and Venerable Images Anathema to all hereticks Anathema to those that follow the Council against Images Anathema to them that do not salute the Images of Christ and his Saints Epiphanius in the sixth Session declares this to be the sense of the Council Those who say that Images are to be had only for memory and not for worship or salutation are half-wicked and partly true and partly false they are so far right as they are for Images but they are in the wrong as they are against the worship of them O the folly of these men saith Epiphanius But this is not all for as it was not sufficient to have Images for helps to memory so neither was it to give them some kind of honour or reverence nothing but worship would satisfie them So the Patriarch Tarasius saith in plain terms they who pretend to honour Images and not to worship them are guilty of Hypocrisie and self-contradiction For worship saith he is a Symbol and signification of Honour therefore they who deny to worship them do dishonour them This was the Patriarchal way of arguing in this famous Council And this he proves from the saying of Anastasius Bishop of Theopolis Let no man be offended with the name of adoration or worship for we worship men and Angels but do not serve them and worship is an expression of Honour And it would do one good at heart to see how all the Reverend Fathers clap their hands for joy at the subtle Criticism which it seems that Bishop had discovered viz. that when our saviour said Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him Only shalt thou serve that Only was not applyed to Worship but to Service Mark that cryes the Council Only belongs to Service and not to worship therefore although we may not serve Images yet we may Worship them If the Devil had been so subtle might not he have said to our Saviour Mark that you are forbidden Only to Serve any else but God but you may Worship me notwithstanding that command The Patriarch Tarasius in his Epistle to Constantine and Irene expresses this worship by the very same word which is used to God for when God saith Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve he restrains Service to himself but allows Worship to other things therefore saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the least doubt or dispute it is a thing acceptable and well pleasing to God for us to worship and salute the Images of Christ and the B. Virgin and of the Holy Angels and Saints If any man think otherwise and have any doubt in his mind or any wavering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the Worship of the Venerable Images the Holy and Oecumenical Synod hath Anathematized him and what is an Anathema but a Separation from God And thus it becomes no less than damnation to doubt of the Worship of Images O blessed Change from what it was in the primitive times when it was damnation to worship them This worship he expresses in the same Epistle by Kissing by bowing by prostration all which he shews from the signification of the word and the use of it in Scripture And in the Definition of the Council among the Acts of worship are reckoned the oblation of Incense and Lights because the honour of the Image passes to the thing represented by it So that all external acts of adoration were by the Definition of this Council to be performed to Images and the same have been practised by the approbation of the Roman Church wherein this Council of Nice is received as a General Council and appealed to by the Council of Trent supposing the Decrees of that Council to be still in force In the Constitutions of Thomas Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury made in the Convocation of the Bishops and Clergy begun at S. Pauls 14 Ian. A. D. 1408. we have a particular enumeration of the several Acts of worship which were required to be performed to Images and the places and Reliques of the Saints viz. processions genuflections bowing of the body thurifications deosculations oblations burnings of Lights and Pilgrimages and all other forms and modes of worship which have been practised in the times of our predecessours or in our own and this not only the People were required to practise but the Clergy to teach and preach up the worship of the Cross and other Images with these acts of adoration And this Constitution is extant in Lyndwood as part of the Canon Law then in force who in his Notes upon it observes that offering incense was a sacrifice as it was burnt upon the Altar and a part of Latria and therefore he saith the same incense was not used to the Clergy and people with that burnt upon the Altar but of another sort which was not consecrated In the Records of the Tower is extant the Form of Renunciation imposed on the Lollards wherein are these words concerning the worship of Images I do swear to God and to all his Seynts upon this Holy Gospell that fro this day forward I shall Worship Images with praying and offering unto them in the worschop of the Seynts that they be made after And yet after all this plain evidence some have had the confidence to tell
But it may be T. G. thinks to escape by saying that when he saith an Image being made the object of divine worship is an Idol he doth not understand it of an Image of God but when the Image it self is taken for God which evasion can do him no service for 1. He grants that Images which are made for Likenesses of God are condemned by the Law of God and that they are an infinite disparagement to the Divine Nature 2. I have at large shewed that in the Roman Church Images of God and Christ are made the objects of Divine worship And 3. That the very Heathens did not take the Images themselves for Gods 4. The place he answers Isa. 40.18 doth imply that the Images of the Divinity are therefore condemned because nothing can be made like unto God But of that afterwards Let us then suppose that the LXX had particular reason to render Pesel by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Commandment yet what is this to the representation of a meer figment for worship Doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so properly so naturally so necessarily signifie a figment that it cannot be taken in any other sense I see T. G. makes only use of good Catholick Lexicons such a one as that called Catholicon which Erasmus is so pleasant with that assure him what the sense of a word must be in spight of all use of it by prophane and heretical Authors thus simulachrum must signifie only Heathen Images and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sphinx a Triton or Centaure and why so did it alwaies signifie so did all Greek Authors use it only in that sense Doth the Etymology of it imply it no none of all these what then is the reason that a word should be so restrained against the former and common acception of it The reason is very plain for if it be taken for the representation of real Beings then for all that we know the Image of the Trinity or of the B. Virgin or of any other worshipped in the Roman Church may prove Idols and therefore this must be the sense because the Church of Rome cannot be guilty of Idolatry This is the real Truth of the case but it is too great Truth to be owned Only Bellarmin who often speaks freelier than the rest confesses their design herein is to shew that the Images worshipped in the Church of Rome cannot be Idols because they are representations of real Beings A very miserable shift as will appear by the examination of it Let us therefore see whether there be any pretence from the use and importance of the Word for restraining the sense of an Idol to an imaginary representation And I am so far from T. G's opinion that by the best enquiry I can make the proper signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a representation of something that really is So Hesychius interprets it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the old Greek and Latin Glossaries render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and simulachrum by each other and notwithstanding T. G's severity against me for translating simulachra Images I can make it appear from some of the most authentick Writers of the Roman Church that they do not scruple calling such Images as they worship simulacra I leave T. G. then to judge whether they be not Idols too Isidore makes Idolum to be properly Simulachrum quod humana effigie factum consecratum est an Image made and consecrated in the figure of a man as Plutarch calls the Image of Sylla 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Porphyrie in the beginning of the Life of Plotinus when Amelius desired a Picture of him he answered Is it not enough to carry such an Idolum about me but I must leave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Image of an Image So we find Idolum used in the Chaldaick Oracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where Psellus observes That according to the Platonists the mind is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of God and the rational soul the Image of the mind and the irrational the Image of the rational and nature of the irrational soul and the body of the Image of Nature and Matter of the Body But Isidore applying Idolum to an Ecclesiastical sense supposeth not only representation but consecration to be necessary to it wherein he follows Tertullian who speaking of the created Beings that were worshipped saith Eorum Imagines Idola imaginum consecratio Idololatria Their Images were Idols and the consecration of them is Idolatry and a little before he saith That all service of an Idol is Idolatry and every representation is an Idol Omnis forma vel formula Idolum se dici exposcit For saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a form or representation of a thing Or as the Greek Etymologist thinks it comes immediately from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resemble Among the Philosophers it was taken for the Image of things conveyed to our sight so Diogenes Laertius saith That Democritus held Vision to be performed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the incursion of Images 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plutarch Empedocles saith he joyned raies to the Images 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Democritus and Epicurus said that reflection in a glass was performed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the subsistence of the Images Cicero Lucretius and S. Augustin render these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Imagines Catius the Epicurean called them Spectra Macrobius Simulacra but all of them understood the most proper representations of things to our sight which Epicurus was so far from thinking that they represented things that were not that he made them infallible criteria of the truth of things The Poets and some other Authors made use of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie Spectres and Apparitions but still they supposed these to be the representations of some real Beings So Homer calls the soul of Elpenor that appeared to Ulysses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Eustathius there observes That these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were exactly like the Persons they represented as to Age Stature Habit and every thing and so Homer himself expresses it saying that Apollo made an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a representation of Aeneas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So in another place speaking of Minerva's making a representation of Iphthima 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which we see that the very Poetical use of the word for a Spectre doth imply an exact resemblance to some real Being which it represents from whence then hath this signification of an Idol come into the Roman Church that it must signifie a representation of something that is not but from whenceoever it comes we are sure it is neither from the natural importance nor the use of the word among Greek Authors 2. Not from the use of it in Scripture
The Author of the Book of wisdom gives this account of the beginning of the worship of Idols viz. That Fathers having lost their Children made Images of them and appointed solemnities to be kept before them as if they were Gods then by degrees Princes passed these things into Laws and made men to worship graven Images and thus either out of affection or flattery the worship of Idols began where it is observable that he makes the representation of Persons that were really in Being to have been the first Idols and he distinguishes the bringing in of Idols from the worship of the Elements or heavenly bodies and he thinks these much more excusable than those who worship the Work of mens hands the folly of which he there elegantly describes but he still supposes these Idols to have the resemblance either of man or some living creature To the same purpose Diophantus the Lacedemonian in Fulgentius saith That Syrophanes the Egyptian being greatly afflicted for the loss of his son made an Image of him and all his servants to please him did what they could to adorn this Image and some when they had offended ran to it as a Sanctuary from hence saith he came the worship of Idols And Eutychius gives the like account of the Original of Idols That when a great man was dead they set up his Image on his Sepulchre from whence the World was filled with Idols i.e. with Images of Men Women and Children this he thinks began among the Chaldeans and Egyptians but Herodotus saies the Egyptians were the first who made Images of their Gods Lucian that they borrowed this custom from the Assyrians Epiphanius makes the beginning of Idolatry to be in the time of Seruch but he saith that it went no farther than to Pictures in his time and came to Images and Statues in the time of Nahor Cedrenus saith That Seruch and his Companions made Statues for the honour of those who had done any famous action which their posterity misunderstanding worshipped them as Gods Thus far we find that the first Idols that are supposed to have been in the world were the representations of things that had real Beings The only people that could be suspected to be meant in Scripture as those who had such Idols as were representations of what had no real Beings must be the Phoenicians and Egyptians who besides the worship of Beasts and the Images of them had many extravagant Images Sanchoniathon saith Taautus made the Images in Phoenicia with Wings Saturn with four and the rest of the Gods with two And Dagon and Atergatis or Derceto is supposed to be an Image whereof the upper part is of humane shape and the lower of a Fish among the Egyptians one of their Images had the face of a Ram and another of a Dog c. If these be the Idols T.G. thinks are prohibited in the Second Commandment I desire him to consider 1. Whether the Images of humane shape were not prohibited by the Law equally with these or whether it were lawful to worship such Images as did represent real beings in that manner that it was unlawful to worship those Images that were only Chimaera's and fancies of mens brains If not this distinction serves to no purpose at all To make this more plain I ask T. G. whether it were unlawful to worship God among the Egyptians under the representation of an Image with the body of a man and the Head of a Hawk which was a representation of something that had no real Being just like it but it was lawful to worship Him with the Image of a man as Eusebius saith that Oneph or the Creator of the world was worshipped under such a representation among them It is certain that both these sorts of Images were among the Egyptians and according to T. G.'s notion one of these was an Idol and the other not But is it possible for men of common understandings to suppose that God by the words of the Law hath forbidden the one and not the other when both were intended to represent the same Being But according to this sense the Inhabitants of Thebais of whom Plutarch saith That they only worshipped Oneph the immortal God or the Creator under the Image of a man were altogether as innocent as those in the Roman Church who worship God under a like representation And can it enter into T. G.'s head that God should notwithstanding all the words of this Commandment allow such a kind of worship of Images as was received among the Egyptians But if this were condemned in them then if the Second Commandment be in force the like worship must be condemned in the Church of Rome 2. That there is a distinction to be made between such Images as have no real resemblance in nature and such Images which represent that which hath no real Being for although the Phoenician and Egyptian Images had nothing in nature which answered to their figure yet there might be something which answered their representation i. e. they were only Symbolical Images and the Nature of those Symbols being understood there was no difference as to matter of worship between these and other Images As for instance a Sphinx is one of those Images which T. G. would have to be understood for an Idol in the Second Commandment supposing then that I allow him as a Sphinx was painted among the Egyptians with wings and the face a man and the body of a Lion that it was the representation of something that had no real Being agreeable to it yet Clemens Alexandrinus saith That their design was to represent hereby that God was both to be loved and feared now this Image did Symbolically represent a real object of worship and therefore could be no Idol even in T. G.'s sense So Kircher saith one of the chief and most common Images of the Egyptians was a winged Globe with a Serpent passing through the middle of it by the Globe saith he they represented the Divine nature by the Serpent the spreading of life and by the wings the Spirit of the World Here is an Image that hath no real Being correspondent to it and yet it represents the infinite nature and power and goodness of God Sometimes saith he they represented Providence by a Scepter with a Dogs head within a Semicircle by which and innumerable other waies they represented the hidden Mysteries of the Divine Being and they thought this Symbolical way most pleasing to God and was certainly farthest from that danger which T. G. thinks to be most considerable in Images viz. making men Anthropomorphites To avoid which the Egyptians generally mixed the figures of men and beasts together not so much to shew the communion of nature as Porphyrie imagines as that these were meer Symbolical Images and not intended for any proper Likenesses and therefore according to T. G.'s principles those which he calls Idols were
false representation for it is no otherwise false than every Image of a man is so for no Image can represent the invisible Nature of a Man And it adds much force to this that the Author of the Greek Excerpta about the use of Images from the Nicene Council and the Writers of that time saith that the design of the second Commandment is against making any Images of God which he looks on not only as an absurd but a very wicked practice and which he saith was then common among the Aegyptians 3. When an Image is worshipped for the sake of any sanctity vertue or Divinity abiding in it Whosoever doth so saith Iacobus Almain is an Idolater and so much is implyed in the Council of Trent it self when it declares that no worship is to be given to an Image on any such account if so then the doing it is a thing forbidden and unlawful and not only so but they looked on this as the certain way of putting a difference between Idolatry and their worship but men may suppose sanctity vertue and Divinity to be in an Image of a real Being and therefore such an Image may be properly an Idol and so Vasquez confesses that this is Idolatry to give worship although it be inferiour to any inanimate being as an Image is for the sake of any thing belonging to it or inherent in it Thus I have shewed that there is no pretence to excuse the worship of Images from being Idolatry and a breach of the second Commandment because an Idol is only a representation of only imaginary beings as T. G. saith such as Sphinxes Tritons Centaurs or the like 2. I now come to shew more particularly what the sense of the Law is by considering what T. G. saith in answer to what I had formerly said about it the original Question between us was whether God by this Law hath forbidden the giving any worship to himself by an Image No saith T. G. he hath not but what he forbids there is only giving his worship to Idols To resolve this Question being about the sense of a Law I proposed three wayes 1. From the Terms in which the Law is expressed 2. From the Reason annexed to it 3. From the judgement of the Law-giver himself But before T. G. comes to the handling of these he lays down some arguments of his own to shew that God did not intend by this Law to forbid the worshipping of himself by an Image but only the worship of Idols 1. Because the Iews did worship God by bowing down before the Ark and the Cherubim 2. Because S. Austin makes this Commandment to be only an explication of the first To these I shall give a distinct answer 1. T. G. on all occasions lays great weight on the worshipping of God before the Ark and the Cherubims which he makes to be the parallel of their worshipping God by bowing or kneeling before a Crucifix to which instance I had given this Answer 1. That the Iews only directed their worship towards the place where God had promised to be signally present among them which signifies no more to the worship of Images than our lifting our eyes to heaven doth when we pray because God is more especially present there 2. That though the Cherubims were there yet they were alwayes hid from the sight of the people the High-Priest himself going into the Holy of Holies but once a year and that the Cherubims were no representations of God but his Throne was between them on the Mercy Seat but that they were Hieroglyphical Figures of Gods own appointing which the Iews know no more than we do which are plain arguments they were never intended for objects of worship for then they must not have been meer appendices to another thing but would have been publickly exposed as the Images are in the Roman Churches and their form as well known as any of the B. Virgin But T. G. still insists upon it that the Reverence which the Iews shewed to the Ark and Cherubims was of the same nature with the worship they give to Images and he thinks I have not answered the argument he brought for it Therefore to give him all reasonable satisfaction I shall 1. Compare their worship of Images and these together 2. Examine all the colour of argument he produces for the worship of these among the Iews 1. For comparing their worship of Images with the Iews worshipping God before the Ark and the Cherubims As to their worship of Images I need only repeat 1. That they are publickly set up and exposed for worship in their Churches and over their Altars 2. That they are consecrated for this end 3. That the people in their devotions bow to them kneel and pray before them with all expressions of Reverence 4. That the Councils of Nice and Trent have decreed that worship is to be given to them on the account of their representation because the honour given to them passes to the exemplar 5. That the Images themselves on the account of their representation are a proper object of inferiour worship and that considered together with the exemplar they make up one entire object of supreme worship in these their Divines generally agree and condemn the opinion of those who say That they are only to worship the exemplar before the Image as contrary to the Decrees of Councils But if the Ark and Cherubims were neither set up nor exposed nor consecrated as objects of worship if the People of the Iews never thought them to be so nor worshipped them as such if the utmost were only that which the Divines of the Roman Church condemn viz. making them only a circumstance and not an object of worship then I hope the difference will appear so great that T. G. himself may be ashamed of insisting so much on so weak a parallel In external Acts of worship these two things are to be distinguished 1. The Object of worship or the thing to which that worship is given 2. The local circumstance of expressing that worship towards that object That there is a real difference between the object and local circumstance of worship by our lifting up our hands and eyes towards heaven when we worship God but no man that understands our Religion can say that we worship the heavens but only God as present in them wherefore God is the object and looking up to heaven barely the circumstance When we praise any person for some excellency in him if he be present we naturally turn our face towards him to let others by that circumstance understand of whom we speak but which way soever we looked the same person would be the object of our praise when we do this at anothers mentioning his name no man of common understanding will say that the praise is directed to the very name of the Person and if a man makes a Panegyrick upon another and reads it out of
were expressly forbidden to worship them Thus I hope I have made it appear how very little the worshipping of God before the Ark and the Cherubims doth prove towards the lawfulness of the worship of Images in the Roman Church The second Argument of T. G. is From the judgement of S. Augustine who makes that which we call the Second Commandment to be only an explication of the First Which I thought so weak and trifling an Argument that I gave a short answer to it in these two particulars 1. That S. Augustine did not seem constant to that opinion 2. That supposing he were yet it doth not follow that according to his judgement these words are only against Heathen Idols and not against the worship of God by Images Here T. G. thinks he hath the bit fast between his teeth and away he runs raising a dust to blind the eyes of beholders but he must be stopt in his carier and brought to better Reason I asked T. G. how he was sure this was S. Austins constant judgement since in his latter Writings he reckons up the Commandments as others of the Fathers had done before him upon this he insults and calls it a new way of answering Fathers and the readiest he ever met with except it be that of denying them and if this be allowed when an express Testimony of a Father is alledged there is no more to do than to ask how he is sure that the Father did not afterwards change his mind but he saith he is sure he hath his judgement professedly for him in his former Writings and that I ought to bring better evidence of his being of another mind than I have done But if I do evidently prove that S. Augustine was of our mind in the main point as to the unlawfulness of the worship of God by Images then what matter is it whether it be the first or second or third or fourth Commandment so we are sure it is one of the Ten And I have already produced sufficient Testimonies from him to this purpose For doth not S. Augustine declare That it is unlawful to worship God by an Image when he saith it were impiety for a Christian to set up a corporeal Image of God in a Temple and that they who do it are guilty of the Sacriledge condemned by S. Paul of turning the glory of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible man Doth not St. Augustine commend Varro for speaking so reproachfully concerning the very manner of worshipping the Deity by an Image and he saith That if he durst have opposed so old a corruption he would have both owned the unity of the Godhead Et sine simulachro colendum esse censeret and have thought he ought to be worshipped without an Image Doth not S. Augustine when he purposely explains that which he accounts the First Commandment say That any similitude of God is thereby forbidden to be worshipped because no Image of God is to be worshipped but what is God himself i. e. his Son And can any one speak more expressly our sense than S. Augustine here doth Let not T.G. then boast of his possession of S. Augustine unless it be as he did lately of all the Fathers and in truth the reason is much alike for both But as to the division of the Commandments he is of T. G 's side and what is that to our business If S. Augustine be of our side as to the sense of the Commandment I can allow him to find out something of the Mysterie of the Trinity in having three Commandments of the First Table and I can be contented with this that the generality of the Fathers were for the other division and upon more considerable Reasons But T.G. saith That S. Augustine translates this Precept Thou shalt not make to thy self any Idol and the sense of the Law to be the forbidding the giving the worship of God to Idols One would think by this S. Augustine had no other word but Idolum here whereas he uses both figmentum and simulachrum both which words he elsewhere uses about the Images of the True God But this is their common method if they meet with a word in the Fathers that sounds their way they never stay to consider the sense of it but presently cry out Idolum Idolum and then with the Man at Athens take all that comes for their own So doth T. G. boast of the possession of the Fathers upon as slight grounds as he did and makes up by the strength of Imagination what is wanting in the goodness of his title if at least imagination can sway him so much against the plain evidence of Reason Having thus cleared the way by removing these mighty difficulties which T. G. had laid in it to obstruct our passage I now come to consider the several methods I proposed for finding out the sense of this Law The first whereof was from the general Terms wherein it is expressed which are of so large and comprehensive a sense as to take in all manner of representations in order to worship and I challenged him to shew where the word Temunah which they render similitude as well as we is ever used in Scripture to signifie such an Idol as he supposes this Law intends And to what purpose are words of the largest signification put into a Law if the sense be limitted according to the most narrow acceptation of one word mentioned therein for there is no kind of Image whether graven or painted whether of a real or imaginary Being but is comprehended under the signification of the words set down in the Law To this T. G. answers that how large soever the signification of this word Temunah or similitude be when taken by it self yet in our present case it is limited by the following words Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them to signifie something which is made to be worshipped as God that is to be an Idol And so by the word Idol in the Commandment he understands such an Image as is made to represent for worship a Figment that hath no real Being and by similitude an Image or resemblance of some real thing but falsely imagined to be God but he saith it was nothing to the purpose to put the word similitude in its largest meaning that is as signifying any Image whatsoever though made with respect to the worship of the true God when God himself commanded the Ark and the Cherubims to be made with that respect doth he mean to represent the true God or to be objects of worship which I have already shewed to be false That which I am to prove he saith is that the word Similitude is to be taken so here whereas he affirms that the word similitude is to be restrained to the similitude of false Gods And to make all sure he interprets similitude only of the representation of false Gods and
bowing down to and worshipping that similitude is the Worshipping that Similitude as God i. e. taking the Likeness to be the Thing it self I cannot blame T. G. for making the thing forbidden in the Commandment if it be possible more absurd than their practice in the worship of Images is but whether he hath made the sense of the Law or himself more ridiculous let the Reader judge By similitude he saith is here to be understood only the Similitude of False Gods as the Sun Moon and Stars and other like things which they worshipped as Gods this I confess is intelligible and true although not the full meaning of the Commandment but what then is bowing down to and worshipping this similitude that is saith he to worship this similitude as God How is that Is it by believing the Similitude to be the Thing as the Image of the Sun to be really the Sun this is absurd enough of all Conscience and they were sottish Idolaters indeed that did so Or is it that they thought there was no other God besides that similitude That were strange indeed they should think the similitude to be God and not the thing represented by it But so the wise Pope Gregory 2. interpreted this Commandment in his incomparable Epistle to Leo Isaurus The Emperour tells the Pope he durst not allow the Worship of Images because of this severe Prohibition of any kind of similitude and he desires him to shew who it was that since had made it lawful to worship the work of mens Hands The Pope for this calls him an Ignoramus a dull and insolent Fool and bids him lay aside his pride and haughtiness and come and learn of him the meaning of the Commandment And now we expect something becoming an Infallible Head of the Church This Commandment saith the Pope was made for the sake of the Idolaters who lived in the Land of Promise that worshipped living Creatures of Gold and Silver and Wood and all sorts of Creatures and Fowls of the Aire and said These are our Gods and there is no God besides them and for the sake of this workmanship of the Devil God said that we should not worship them but there is other Workmanship for the Honour of God and this men may worship Exceedingly well spoken The mischief is Maimonides saith there never were such Fools in the world to believe there was no other God but their Idols but what is Maimonides his saying to the Head of the Church I am not yet satisfied about T. G's worshipping a similitude as God and so making it an Idol If it be a God how is it the similitude of a God If it be not how comes it to be worshipped as God What is it the similitude of of God yes But it is God it self to him that worships it as God and so it is the similitude of it self So that the similitude here forbidden to be worshipped is a Thing that is like its own self T. G. in another place saith the thing forbidden in the Commandment is bowing our selves down to the Images themselves and this by the Concession of all is worshipping them instead of God What is this bowing down to the Images themselves Is it supposing them to be really Gods then they are not worshipped as similitudes and this seems to be his meaning when he saith To bow down our selves to the Images themselves without any Relation to God is to worship them instead of God But I am still to seek for his meaning is it bowing down to Images themselves without relation to any other God that must suppose that those who do so worship them believe there is no God besides the Images and that were to make God to forbid a thing that we never read to be practised in the World Or is it to suppose those Images themselves to be Objects of Worship if it be then all those stand condemned for Idolaters who assert that Images themselves are to be worshipped Which I have shewed to be the common opinion of their Divines and by them thought to be the Decree of the Councils for the worship of Images Or lastly is the worshipping Images themselves without relation to the True God the worshipping them instead of God but this is both false and impertinent It is false because they who worship Images without relation to the true God may yet worship them barely as they represent a false God as the wisest of the Heathens did and therefore not as God and Eusebius saith in general of the Heathens that they did not look on their Images as Gods it is impertinent because by the confession of their own Writers as I have shewed an Image that hath relation to the True God may be worshipped as God when divine worship is given to an Image of God or Christ. And therefore all this adoe is to no purpose for this Commandment must then be so understood as to exclude the worship of the True God by an Image Otherwise it cannot be unlawful to give any kind of worship to an Image of the True God and so the Gnosticks were not to blame in the worship they gave to the Image of Christ although they stand condemned in all Ages of the Church for it If this were unlawful as they all say it is unlawful to Sacrifice to an Image then some kind of worshipping the True God by an Image is forbidden by the second Commandment And now let the Reader judge how well T.G. hath acquitted himself in his admirable undertakings when he saith with so much confidence that the second Commandment speaks not one Word against the worshipping God himself by an Image which is to charge the whole Christian Church with Folly and Ignorance in condemning the Carpocratians for worshipping the Image of Christ with divine worship who saith Bellarmin sine dubio Imaginem ejus propter ipsum colebant without all doubt worshipped the Image of Christ with relation to him But still when T. G. is miserably mistaken the Fathers must bear the blame of it Alas poor Fathers Must you bear the load of all his miscarriages It is but doing you justice to vindicate your innocency in this righteous Cause He tells me that I must prove against these Fathers viz. Origen and Theodoret and the general sense of the Church of Christ for so many hundred years that the word similitude is to be taken in the second Commandment for any Image made with respect to the worship of God A very easie undertaking in it self but by no means either against those Fathers or the sense of the Christian Church for many hundred years which is as plainly on my side in this case as it is in the Articles of the Creed as may be seen in the foregoing Chapters But T. G. is again unlucky when he pretends to the Fathers for those two Fathers he mentions are point-blank against him in this matter witness the many
immediately to obey me methinks this would seem too harsh and unpolitick and too dangerous for so new a Government as his was a little Indulgence for tender consciences for a time with the sweetest words had better become such an Achitophel as T. G. calls Ieroboam This this had been the way to have wheadled and drawn in the silly and injudicious multitude By telling them what an oppression it was for them to be under the jurisdiction of the High Priest and his Brethren at Ierusalem and that there was no Reason such a vast number of lazy Priests and ignorant Levites should be maintained out of their labours by Tythes and Offerings that all the pretence of the true worship of God being confined to the Temple at Ierusalem was only out of a design to enrich the Priests and the City that it was only zeal for their own interest and revenues which made them so earnest for that particular way of worship which was so different from the rest of the World What! could they imagine that God had no other people in the World but such as went up to Ierusalem to worship what would become of the Catholick way of worship which was in all the Nations round about them Was it credible that God should suffer so great a part of mankind to run on in such Idolatry as a few Iews accounted it If it were so displeasing to God could it ever be thought that the Wisest King they ever had viz. Salomon should in the wisest time of his Life viz. in his old Age fall to the practice of it Besides all this they ought to consider how much the honour and safety of the Nation was concerned in embracing the same Catholick way of worship which prevailed round about them Their pretending to greater purity of worship than their Neighbours made them hated and scorned and reproached by their Neighbours of all sides viz. by Moab and Ammon and Amalek the Philistins and those of Tyre but if they returned to the worship of the Neighbour Nations they might be sure of the assistance of the King of Egypt with whom Ieroboam had lived many years who would be ready to help them on all occasions and their lesser enemies would then be afraid to disturb them Thus we see what plausible pretences there were to have drawn the people off from the Law of Moses to the Idolatries of Egypt but we read not the least intimation of this Nature in the whole History of this Revolt but Ieroboam only saith These are thy Gods which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt which was the most unpolitick way of perswading them to return to the Gods of Egypt Besides he not only appointed a Feast like unto that in Iudah but it is said That he offered upon the Altar and sacrificed unto the Calves which he had made i. e. according to the custom of the Iewish Sacrifices than which nothing could be more repugnant to the Egyptian Idolatry as I have already proved But T. G. saith The Text speaks but of one Feast it is very true it mentions but one but it is said afterwards in several places That they departed not from the way of Ieroboam and that very Feast being accompanied with so many Sacrifices was a plain evidence it was not the Egyptian Idolatry which he then set up And it is remarkable to this purpose that every one who was to be consecrated a Priest to the Golden Calves was to be consecrated with a Sacrifice of a young Bullock and of seven Rams which according to the Rites of the Egyptian Idolatry were enough to have profaned the most sacred Person And Iosephus who may be allowed to have understood the mind of Ieroboam as well as T. G. saith expressly That in the speech he made to the People he only pleaded that God being every where present he might be worshipped at Dan and Bethel as well as Jerusalem and that for their greater conveniency he had set up the Calves at Dan and Bethel that there they might worship God Thus we see that in this worship at Dan and Bethel Ieroboam intended no more than to worship the God of Israel there I will not deny that Ieroboam was for Liberty of Conscience and allowed the practice of Egyptian Idolatry and appointed Priests to serve at the several Altars as the People had a mind but the established worship at which himself was present was at the Calves of Dan and Bethel For it is said That he offered on the Altar there But we read that he appointed Priests not only for the Calves but 1. for the High places which were of two sorts 1. Some for the worship of false Gods as those which Salomon allowed to be built for Chemosh and Moloch on the Mount of Olives 2. Others were for the worship of the true God in the ten Tribes For there being some dissenting Brethren among the Israelites who would neither join with the House of Iudah in the worship at Hierusalem nor with Ieroboam in the worship of the Calves at Dan and Bethel to keep these secure to his interest he permits them to worship God on the High places i. e. Altars erected to that purpose upon an ascent of ground And this I prove from that passage of Elias They have thrown down thy Altars speaking of the Children of Israels demolishing them in the time of Ahab who was the eighth in succession from Ieroboam And in the Reformation of Iosiah he puts a difference between the Priests of the High places for some of them were permitted to eat unleavened bread among their Brethren and others he slew upon the Altars Which shews that both in Iudah and Israel there were some who did still worship the true God on the High places 2. Ieroboam appointed Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pilosis to the hairy ones which I wonder how it come to be translated Devils both here and Levit. 17. since in above fifty places of Scripture it signifies Goats and but in one the LXX render it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there Aquila hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Vulgar Latine Pilosi and our translation Satyrs and since the worship of Goats and other hairy animals was so frequent among the Egyptians as of Dogs Wolves Cats Ichneumons Apes c. but especially the Goats as Herodotus Strabo Diodorus Plutarch and others relate and the Pan and Faunus and Silenus and Silvanus and Satyri were but a sort of Goats for the Arabick word Satar is a Goat and the Egyptian name for Pan is Mendes which saith Bochartus signifies a Goat too And since this worship was so common in Egypt was there not reason to forbid it by a Law Levit. 17.7 and is there not cause where we meet with this word relating to an object of worship to understand it according to the common practice of Idolaters
union and at last this Representation is nothing but an act of Imagination which doth not make the object any more really present there than any where else against which Imagination we set the positive Law of God forbidding any such kind of worship as I have already proved 4. He saith in defence of his Nicene Fathers That although the Image of Christ can only represent the humane Nature as separate from the Divine yet the charge of Nestorianism doth not follow because the Object of their worship is that which is conceived in their minds and worship being an act of the Will it is carried to the Prototype as it is conceived in the understanding but their understandings being free from Nestorianism their Wills must be so too which is all the sense I can make of T. G's answer Who doth not seem at all to consider there are two things blamed by the Church in Nestorianism 1. The heretical opinion 2. The Idolatrous practice consequent upon that opinion of the separation of the two Natures in Christ. Now the argument of the Constantinopolitan Fathers proceeds not upon their opinion as though they really believed the principles of Nestorianism who worshipped Images but they were guilty of the same kind of worship for since an Image can only represent the humane nature of Christ if it were lawful to worship that Image on the account of Christ then upon the Nestorian principles it would be as lawful to worship the humane nature of Christ although it had no hypostatical union with the Divine For could not the Nestorians say that when they considered Christ as a humane Person yet that humane Person did represent to them the Divine Person who was the proper object of worship and although they were not really and hypostatically united yet by representation and an Act of the mind they directed their worship towards the Divine Person For if a bare Image of the humane Nature be a sufficient object of worship much more is the humane Nature it self and if on the account of such representation the worship of Christ may be directed to his Image with much greater Reason it might be towards Christ as Homo Deiferus in regard of that humane Nature which had the Divine Nature present although not united And upon this Ground the Constantinopolitan Fathers did justly charge the worshippers of Images with Nestorianism as to their worship and that they could not defend themselves but they must absolve the Nestorians whom the Christian Church and this Nicene Synod it self would seem to condemn For there is a greater separation between the Image of Christ and Christ than the Nestorians did suppose between the Divine and humane Nature for they did still suppose a real presence although not a real Union but in the case of Images there is not so much as a real presence but only by representation therefore if the Nestorians were to blame in their worship much more are those that worship Images As to the last Answer being only a desire that I would bear in mind against a fit season that the Eucharist is called by the Constantinopolitan Fathers an Honourable Image of Christ I shall do what he desires and I promise him farther to shew the Nicene Fathers Ignorance and Confidence when they said It was contrary to the Scriptures and Fathers to call the Eucharist an Image of Christ. All the other arguments of the Constantinopolitan Fathers to the number of eight T. G. passes over and so must I. From hence I proceed to the next Charge which is That I mix School disputes with matters of Faith For I desired seriously to know whether any worship doth belong to Images or no if there be any due whether is it the same that is given to the Prototype or distinct from it If it be the same then proper Divine Worship is given to the Image if distinct then the Image is worshipped with Divine Worship for it self and not relatively and subordinately as he speaks and which side soever is taken some or other of their Divines charge the worship with Idolatry so that it is in mens choice which sort of Idolatry they will commit when they worship Images but in neither way they can avoid it To this T. G. answers several waies 1. That this is a point belonging to the Schools and not at all to Faith which I said was their common Answer when any thing pincheth them but to shew the unreasonableness of that way of answering I added that both sides charge the other with Idolatry and that is a Matter of Conscience and not a Scholastick Nicety For if the worship of Images be so asserted in the Church of Rome that in what way soever it is practised there is by their own confession such danger of Idolatry the General Terms of Councils serve only to draw men into the snare and not to help them out of it 2. He answers this by a drolling comparison about the worship due to the Chair of State whether it be the same which is due to the King or no if the same then proper Regal worship would be given to something besides the King which were Treason if distinct then the Chair would be worshipped with Regal Honour for it self and not relatively which were for a man to submit himself to a piece of Wood. This he represents pleasantly and with advantage enough and supposing the Yeomen of the Guard to have done laughing I desire to have a difference put between the customes of Princes Courts and the worship of God and it is strange to me T. G. should not see the difference But whatever T. G. thinks we say that God by His Law having made some Acts of worship peculiar to himself by way of acknowledgement of His Soveraignty and Dominion over us we must not use those Acts to any Creature and therefore here the most material Question can be asked is whether the Acts of worship be the same which we are to use to God or no i. e. whether they are acts forbidden or lawful for if they are the same they are forbidden if not they may be lawful But in a Princes Court where all expressions of Respect depend on custom and the Princes Pleasure or Rules of the Court the only Question a man is to ask is whether it be the custom of the Court or the Will of the Prince to have men uncovered in some Rooms and not in others no man in his wits would ask whether that be the same Honour that is due to the King himself or who but T. G's Clown could suspect it to be Treason to put off his Hat in the Presence Chamber or to the Chair of State let it be done with what intention he pleases If the Yeomen of the Guard should see an old Courtier approach with many bowings to the Chair of State and there fall down upon his Knees and kiss the Arms of the Chair and deliver
his Petition to it for a good Office at Court and observe that he doth this frequently and with great gravity I am afraid they would hardly hold their Countenances long to see such a solemn Fop and yet this pleasant Courtier might pretend that he did all this as imagining the King to be there present by representation and that he did not give this Honour to the Chair of State absolutely considered as a piece of Wood but only Relatively and for the sake of his Master that he knew better what belonged to the Honour due to Soveraign worship than such rude fellows as they that his intention was to shew what esteem he had for his Prince by all this and though as to the substance of the act this was the same that was done to the Person of the King yet it fell upon the Chair of State after an inferiour Manner as a thing relating to the King and purely for his sake I leave the substantial Yeomen of the Guard T. G's Iudges in this Controversie to determine in a General Council among them whether T. G's Quaker or this old Courtier were the more ridiculous By which instance we see that even in Princes Courts men may over-act their Reverence and make themselves laughed at for their foolish and extravagant Relative worship for in all such cases the Rules of the Court are to be observed where there is no intrenchment upon Divine Laws and every man that comes to Court enquires after the Orders of the Court and he that keeps within them doth his duty and never fears the Yeomen of the Guard If the Orders of the Court were for men to pass through the Presence or other Chambers without any Ceremony would not the Yeomen of the Guard be as ready to observe those who used it Their business is to observe Orders themselves and to see that others do it And this is the only way how this parallel can reach to our Case all that we plead for is that the Rules and Orders be observed which God hath given us for His Worship since He hath given Laws we ought to obey them and since He hath appointed what He will have done and what He will not we must follow His Rule and not our own extravagant Fancies pretending that we have pretty devices to honour Him with which He hath expresly forbidden In such a case we have Reason to enquire whether the Acts of Worship be the same that He hath forbidden or no but not where the whole matter depends on custom and general Rules which every man may easily know and no one hath any reason to be scrupulous as long as he keeps within the measures of Decency But withal the force of my Question lay in the confession of our Adversaries who acknowledge on one side That if the Act of Worship be the same that is given to the Prototype it is Idolatry on the other side if it be distinct it is Idolatry and then I had all the reason in the world to put this Question because either way they are entangled by the confession of their own party But as if Yeomen of the Guard should be so senseless as some of them to tell a poor Countryman when he is going through the Presence Chamber that if he gives the Chair of State the same Honour he gives the King he commits Treason and others say if he does not he worships the Chair for it self and so commits Treason would not any man say the Countryman had reason to stand and scratch his head and consider what he does for he doth not care to commit Treason and if he must do it one way or other for his part he would go some other way or be better resolved what he is to do Thus in our case Bellarmin saith It is Idolatry to give the same worship to an Image which is due to God Vasquez saith It is Idolatry to give distinct worship therefore if a man would avoid Idolatry he must give none at all especially when there is no necessity at all of doing it and therefore it is in no case parallel with the difficulties about sight and motion which T. G. makes use of to shew that such subtilties ought not to hinder men from doing things Not when they are in themselves necessary to be done but when it is a doubtful case and so doubtful that their most learned men say there is danger of Idolatry either way I do not know a more prudent consideration to keep a man from the Practice of it Therefore T. G. after all his complaint of mixing these School disputes and letting me know what edge-tools these School distinctions are as any one might guess by his manner of handling them yet at last he resolves to venture upon clearing the point 1. He saith The Councils declare in this matter that we are not to give Latria to Images or the worship due only to God and this without any distinction of absolute or relative Latria 2. He confesses That S. Thomas and those of his way do hold that the same worship is to be given to Christ and to His Image Can any two things appear with a face of greater opposition than these two But saith T. G. Latria is twofold one absolute and that is due to God himself and the other relative that may be given to the Image or rather in the same act of worship is a double Notion the one as it tends to God himself which is absolute Latria the other as it reflects on the Image for His sake which is relative Latria Which distinction I have already examined and shewed the vanity of in several places and that there are many in the Church of Rome who hold absolute Latria to be given to Images and that upon the grounds of a Relative Latria any Creature may be worshipped therefore I shall keep to what is proper to this place 1. I said this distinction is just as if an unchaste Wife should plead to her Husband that the Person she was so kind with was extremely like him and a near Friend of his that it was out of respect to him that she gave him the honour of his bed can any one think that such an excuse as this would be taken by a jealous Husband How much less will such pretences avail with that God who hath declared himself particularly jealous of His honour in this Command above others and that he will not give His glory to another but hath reserved all Divine Worship as peculiar to himself and no such fond excuses of Relative inferiour and improper worship will serve when they encroach upon His Prerogative To this T. G. answers That the object of Iealousie is a Rival or what hath relation to or Union with Him not what may serve to express affection and respect to the Person who ought to be loved But I have already shewed from the confession of their own Writers and
think the Name of Iesus equal to an Image of Christ. I am now come to his last Instance viz. bowing towards the Altar he would insinuate as though the Church of England were for giving some kind of worship to the Altar although under the degree of Divine Worship due to God alone and saith that as the allowing this would render me a true Son of the Church of England so the allowing the like to the sacred Images of Christ would make me in this point a perfect Proselyte of the Church of Rome Which is in effect to say that the Church of England in allowing bowing to the Altar doth give the very same worship to it which their Church requires to be given to Images and that they who do one and not the other do not attend to the Consequence of their own Actions I shall therefore shew 1. That the Church of England doth not allow any worship to be given to the Altar 2. That the adoration allowed and practised in the Church of England is of a very different Nature from the Worship of Images 1. That the Church of England doth not allow any Worship to be given to the Altar For this I appeal to that Canon wherein is contained the Explication of the sense of our Church in this particular Whereas the Church is the House of God dedicated to his holy Worship and therefore ought to mind us both of the Greatness and Goodness of his Divine Majesty certain it is that the acknowledgement thereof not only inwardly in our hearts but also outwardly with our bodies must needs be pious in it self profitable unto us and edifying unto others We therefore think it very meet and behooveful and heartily commend it to all good and well affected People members of this Church that they be ready to tender unto the Lord the said acknowledgement by doing Reverence and obeysance both at their coming in and going out of the said Churches Chancels or Chappels according to the most ancient Custome of the Primitive Church in the purest times and of this Church also for many years of the Reign of Q. Elizabeth The reviving therefore of this ancient and laudable custome we heartily commend to the serious consideration of all good People NOT WITH ANY INTENTION TO EXHIBITE ANY RELIGIOUS WORSHIP TO THE COMMUNION TABLE THE EAST OR THE CHURCH or any thing therein contained in so doing or to perform the said gesture in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist upon any Opinion of the CORPORAL PRESENCE OF THE BODY OF JESUS CHRIST ON THE HOLY TABLE OR IN THE MYSTICAL ELEMENTS but ONLY for the advancement of Gods Majesty and to give him ALONE that honour and glory that is due unto him and NO OTHERWISE And in the practice or omission of this Rite we desire that the Rule of charity prescribed by the Apostle may be observed which is That they which use this Rite despise not them who use it not and they who use it not condemn not those that use it This is the full declaration of the sense of our Church about it made by those who met in Convocation and were most zealous for the practice of it Agreeably to this Archbishop Laud speaks when this was charged as an innovation To this I answer saith he First That God forbid that we should worship any thing but God himself 2. That if to worship God when we enter into his House or approach his Altar be an Innovation it was a very old one being practised by Jacob Moses Hezekiah c. And were this Kingdom such as would allow no holy Table standing in its proper place yet I would worship God when I came into his House And afterwards he calls it doing Reverence to Almighty God but towards his Altar and Idolatry it is not to worship God towards his holy Table Now with us the People did ever understand them fully and apply them to God and to none but God From whence it appears that God is looked on as the sole Object of this Act of Worship and that our Church declares that it allows no intention of exhibiting any Religious worship to the Communion Table or East or Church or any Corporal Presence of Christ. 2. That the adoration allowed and practised in the Church of England is of a very different nature from the worship of Images For as I have fully made it appear in the State of the Controversie the Church of Rome doth by the Decrees of Councils require Religious worship to be given to Images and that those who assert this inferiour worship do yet declare it to be truly Religious worship and that the Images themselves are the Object of it whereas our Church declares point-blank the contrary nay that those Persons are looked on by the Generality of Divines in the Roman Church as suspected at least if not condemned of Heresie who practise all the external acts of adoration to Images but yet do not in their minds look on them as Objects but only as Occasions of Worship which make the difference so plain in these two cases that T. G. himself could not but discern it But to remove all scruple from mens minds that suspect this practice to be too near the Idolatrous worship which we reject in the Roman Church I shall consider it not only as to its Object which is the main thing and which I have shewed to be the proper Object of worship viz. God himself and nothing else but as to the nature of the act and the local circumstance of doing it towards the Altar 1. As to the nature of the act so it is declared to be an act of external adoration of God which I shall prove from Scripture to be a lawful and proper act of Divine Worship I might prove it from the general consent of Mankind who have expressed their Reverence to the Deity by acts of external adoration from whence I called it a natural act of Reverence but I rather choose to do it from Scripture and that both before the Law had determined so punctually the matters of Divine Worship and under the Law by those who had the greatest regard to it and under the Gospel when the spiritual nature of its doctrine would seem to have superseded such external acts of worship 1. Before the Law I instance in Abraham's servant because Abraham is particularly commended for his care in instructing his Houshold to keep the way of the Lord in opposition to Heathen Idolatry and this was the Chief Servant of his House of whom it is said three times in one Chapter That he bowed his head worshipping the Lord the Hebrew words signifie and he inclined and bowed himself to the Lord for the word we translate worship doth properly signifie to bow and both the Iews and others say It relates to some external act of the body whereby we express our inward Reverence or Subjection to another
he is not to be worshipped for it is folly and wickedness to worship a creature But these are not the only persons whom Epiphanius charges with such Idolatry as is consistent with the belief of one True God for he charges those with Idolatry who gave Divine Worship to the B. Virgin and saith that this was that very Idolatry which God condemned in the people of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there shall be worshippers of the dead which worship of the B. Virgin was offering up a Cake to her which surely is not so much as mens offering up themselves to be her slaves and offering up their devotions and services to her yet this Epiphanius cryes out upon as rank Idolatry and destructive to their Souls who did it and the device of the Devil who always brought in Idolatry saith he under fair pretences Which of all the Prophets ever suffered a man to be worshipped not to speak of a woman And although she have never so great excellencies yet her nature remains the same with others But neither is Elias to be worshipped although still alive nor S. John although he received extraordinary favour from Christ nor Thecla nor any other of the Saints For saith he the old deceit shall not prevail over us to leave the living God and to worship the things that are made by him for they saith S. Paul served and worshipped the creature more than the Creator and therein became Fools But if it be not lawful to worship Angels how much less to worship the Daughter of Anna Of whom our Saviour said on purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what have I to do with thee Lest any should think more than was fitting of her he calls her Woman as foreseeing the Schisms and Heresies that would come into the world on her account We are not to imagine that these people were so silly to take the B. Virgin for the Great God nor that they did forsake the worship of God and Christ for that of the B. Virgin but all that Epiphanius saith of them is that they brought her in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of a Deity i. e. that they gave divine honour to her and whosoever did give this to a creature they looked on them as guilty of forsaking the true God however they might in words still profess and acknowledge him So he charges those with Idolatry who worshipped Iephthas daughter and Thermutis the daughter of Pharaoh but it were madness to think that either of these were esteemed by their worshippers the Supreme Deity But Epiphanius fully explains himself when he saith that Idolatry comes into the world through an adulterous inclination of the mind which cannot be contented with one God alone like an adulterous woman that is not satisfied with the chast embraces of one Husband and wanders in her lust after many Lovers Therefore as adultery is consistent with the owning of one lawful Husband so is Idolatry with the profession of one true God Therefore Epiphanius bids men have a care of too great an admiration of the Saints lest it should lead them into this dangerous error that the safest way is to honour their Lord that those are equally to blame who too much extol the B. Virgin as those who depress and vilifie her too great praises being apt to become an occasion of others falling and therefore he repeats it twice as the saying he would have all Christians remember 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Honour the Virgin but worship God and lest any should think worship were a part of that honour which was due to her he saith expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let no man worship the B. Virgin for that belongs neither to the Woman nor to her Husband nor to Angels but to God alone How punctually hath the Church of Rome followed the Counsel of Epiphanius But of this at large hereafter S. Cyril of Alexandria likewise makes those guilty of Heathen Idolatry of worshipping the creature rather than the creator who give adoration to Christ supposing him to be a creature and he undertakes to demonstrate out of Scripture that no creature ought to be worshipped as God and that nothing which doth give adoration to God ought to receive it from others which he proves from the examples of Peter to Cornelius the Angels to S. Iohn and Manoe and that whatever excellency we suppose in creatures it doth not make them capable of divine worship but although they have different excellencies yet one sort is not to worship another but all of them are to worship God alone and his Son Christ Iesus Again if Christ be not God and we give him worship we shall be found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worshipping the creature rather than the Creator where we are to observe that S. Cyril applies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to proper divine worship Again it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve how then if he be a creature can he be worshipped by us And elsewhere the question being proposed whether we may worship Christ as man he answers God forbid for saith he this would be vanity errour and deceit and we should differ nothing from those who worshipped the creature rather than the Creator and be liable to the same charge S. Paul draws up against the Heathen Idolaters viz. that they changed the Truth of God into a lie c. and at large there shews that this would be relapsing into the old Idolatry In his Commentaries on S. Iohn he shews that although Christ had never so divine excellencies communicated to him yet he was not a fit object for our worship if he were not the true God because we are bound to serve and worship God alone and that if he be not so not only mankind but the Angels will be guilty of Idolatry in giving him adoration In his Dialogues about the Trinity he saith it is one of the great blessings we have by Christ to be delivered from the worship of the Creature but in case we return to that the institution of Moses will be found better than that of Christianity for that did strictly forbid all worship of creatures and called men from them to the worship of God alone that this was the reproach of the Gentiles that they worshipped Creatures and that the Christians returned to Gentilism if they worshipped a Creature together with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and afterwards he calls this a falling from Christ all which doth fully discover S. Cyrils judgement that Idolatry is consistent with the acknowledgement and worship of one Supreme God Theodoret saith he that came to take away the worship of the creature would never set it up again for this would be a most absurd thing to bring them back again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the worship of creatures where he uses dulia
by an Image since Images are intended to represent the absent but God is every where present But if there ought to be any Image of God which he calls simulachrum Dei and surely doth not signifie an Idol in T. G's sense and I hope here he will not charge me with want of fidelity in translating it Image it ought to be living and sensible because God lives for ever therefore that cannot be the Image of God that is made by the Work of mens hands but Man himself who gives all the art and beauty to them which they have but poor silly men as they are they do not consider that if their Images had sense and motion they would worship the Men that made them and brought them into such a curious figure out of rude and unpolished matter Who can be so foolish to imagine there can be any thing of God in that Image in which there is nothing of man but the meer shadow But their minds have the deepest tincture of folly for those who have sense worship things that have none they who think themselves wise things that are uncapable of Reason they that live things that cannot stir and they that came from heaven things that are made of earth What is this saith he but to invert the order of Nature to adore that which we tread upon Worship him that lives if ye would live for he must dye that gives up his Soul to things that are dead And after he hath fully shewn his Rhetorick in exposing the folly of worshipping Images he concludes very severely quare nonest dubium quin Religio nulla sit ubicunque simulachrum est Wherefore there can be no true Religion where there is the worship of Images no although it be simulachrum Dei the worship of God by an Image for his reason holds against all Religion saith he is a divine thing and whatever is divine is heavenly but whatever is in Images is earthy and therefore there can be no Religion in the worship of Images What sport do Tertullian Minucius and Arnobius make with the Images which were consecrated to divine worship from the meanness of the matter they are made of the pains and art that is used to bring them into their shape the casualties of fire and rottenness and defilements they are subject to and many other Topicks on purpose to represent the ridiculousness of worshipping such things or God by them O saith Arnobius that I could but enter into the bowels of an Image and lay before you all the worthy materials they are made up of that I could but dissect before you a Jupiter Olympius and Capitolinus Yet these were dedicated to the worship of the Supreme God Would men ever have been such Fools to have exposed themselves rather than such Images to laughter and scorn if they had used any such themselves or thought them capable of relative divine worship How easily would a Heathen of common understanding have stopt the mouths of these powerful Orators with saying but a few such words to any one of them Fair and soft good Sir while you declaim so much against our Images think of your own what if our Iupiter Olympius or Capitolinus be made of Ivory or Brass or Marble what if the Artificer hath taken so much pains about them what if they are exposed to Weather and Birds and Fire and a thousand casualties are not the Images of S. Peter and S. Paul or the several Madonna 's of such and such Oratories liable to the very same accusations If ours are unfit for worship are not yours so too if we be ridiculous are not you so and so much the more because you laugh at others for what you do your selves So that we must either think the first Christians prodigious Fools or they must utterly condemn all Images for Religious Worship and not meerly the Heathens on considerations peculiar to them And that we may not think this a meer heat of Eloquence in these men we find the same thing asserted by the most grave and sober Writers of the Christian Church when they had to deal not with the rabble but their most understanding Adversaries We have no material Images at all saith Clemens Alexandrinus we have only one intellectual Image who is the only true God We worship but one Image which is of the Invisible and Omnipotent God saith S. Hierome No Image of God ought to be worshipped but that which is what he is neither is that to be worshiped in his stead but together with him saith S. Augustin Where it is observable that the reason of worship given to this Eternal Image of God is not communicable to any Image made of him as to his humane Nature for it cannot be said of the humane nature it self that it is God much less of any Image or representation of it Therefore let T. G. judge whether the worshipping Christ by an Image be not equally condemned by the Fathers with the worship of God by an Image but of that hereafter Eusebius answering Porphyrie about the Image of God saith What agreement is there between the Image of a man and the Divine understanding I think it hath very little to a mans mind since that is incorporeal simple indivisible the other quite contrary and only a dull representation of a mans shape The only resemblance of God lies in the soul which cannot be expressed in Colours or Figures and if that cannot which is infinitely short of the Divine Nature what madness is it to make the Image of a man to represent the Figure and form of God For the Divine Nature must be conceived with a clear and pure understanding free from all corruptible matter but that Image of God in the likeness of man contains only the Image of a mortal man and that not of all of him but of the worst part only without the least shadow of Life or Soul How then can the God over all and the Mind which framed the World be the same that is represented in Brass or Ivory S. Augustin relating the saying of Varro about representing God by the Image of a mans body which contains his Soul which resembles God saith that herein he lost that prudence and sobriety he discovered in saying that those who first brought in Images among the Romans abated their Reverence to the Deity and added to their errour and that the Gods were more purely worshipped without Images wherein saith S. Augustin he came very near to the Truth And if he durst speak openly against so ancient an errour he would say that one God ought to be worshipped and that without an Image the folly of Images being apt to bring the Deity into contempt Is it possible to condemn the worship of God by an Image in more express words than S. Austin here does 2. Because the worship of God by Images is repugnant to his Will Clemens Alexandrinus mentions the