Temples Altars Priests or Prayers though by such worship he Idolized the Heavens the Earth and Man Let this then from the Premises be the conclusion of the present Chapter that the Gods of the Heathen are Idols and Vanities and unworthy the submission of any reasonable creature CHAP. VI. Concerning the Idolatry of the Jews and particularly of their worshipping the Golden Calf Also of the Egyptian Symbol of Apis as at that time not extant And of the probable Reasons which set up Moses as the Original Apis. PART 1. Of the Provisions made by God against Idolatry among the Jews THE Israelites by their Constitution were of all Nations a people the most averse to Idolatry Their first Commandment prescribeth the Worship of one God Their second forbiddeth external religious honour to graven Images which by the exhibition of that honour whatsoever they were before become very Idols Wherefore St. Cyprian thus renders the sense of the Command Thou shalt not make to thy self an Idol And the contention about the Translation of Pesel by Graven thing Idol or Image is with respect to the design of Moses an unnecessary Grammar-War This second Command against the Worship of Images the Jews have esteemed the great Command of all Their very Moneys have had on the Obvers the name of Moses inscribed and on the Revers that second precept or prohibition Their third Command Thou shalt not take or bear in thy mouth the name of Jehovah thy God in vain may seem also to discountenance Idols and to forbid all Oaths of promise made by them in the name of God by which they often called their false Deities It may seem to forbid not so directly the breach of Neder a Vow to the Lord as Schefugnah according to the distinction of the Jews a Vow by the Lord or by his Name when that Name was used in signifying some Idol I say it may seem so to do for that it does so I rather guess than affirm In this conjecture I am helped by Tertullian That Father discoursing concerning the unlawfulness of naming the Gods of the Gentile-world maketh use of this distinction he teacheth that the bare naming of them is lawful because it is necessary in Discourse but he condemneth the naming of them in such manner as if they were really Gods After this distinction he pursueth the Argument in this manner The Law saith You shall make no mention of the names of other gods neither shall they be heard out of your mouths This it commanded that we should not call them gods For it saith in the first part or Table of it Thou shalt not take up the Name of the Lord thy God in vain that is in an Idol He therefore fell into Idolatry who hononred an Idol with the name of God But if they must be called gods I should add something by which it may appear that I do not own them to be Gods For the Scripture it self calls them gods but then it addeth by way of discrimination their gods or the gods of the Nations In such manner David called them gods when he said the gods of the Nations were Devils It is a customary wickedness to say Mehercule And it proceeds from the ignorance of some who know not that they swear by Hercules Now what is swearing by those whom in Baptism you have forsworn or renounced but a corrupting of the Faith with Idolatry For who does not honour those he swears by To this purpose are those words in Hosea Though thou Israel play the Harlot yet let not Judah offend and come not ye unto Gilgal neither go ye up to Beth-aven or Bethel now become a house of iniquity vanity or Idolatry nor swear the Lord liveth That is seeing they worship the Golden Calves which are really Idols though they give to them the name of Jehovah as setting them up for his Symbol yet use not you that word there or the form of their oath by Jehovah for thereby you will take up the name of God and the name by which he is most eminently distinguished in vain or in an Idol Idols are Elilim or vanities they are very lyes at once to use the terms the Prophet gives them and to allude to the Syriack Version of the third Command Thou shalt not take up the name of the Lord thy God with a lye He therefore who sweareth by them without distinction calling them gods or giving them any names which signifie Divine Power He that sweareth or voweth by Coelum or Coelus that is the Heavens by Pluto or the Earth such a one does not only dishonour the name of the true God but he doth also by interpretation forswear himself for he sweareth by an Idol lie or vanity vowing by its help to perform his Oath which therefore he cannot by that means perform because he trusteth to an helpless thing though by his trust he honoureth it as a Divine Power Further one great end of the fourth Command was the prevention of Idolatry The seventh day was observed as a Memorial of that one God the Creator of the World and the God of Israel and they who kept it holy kept it holy to Jehovah and made profession hereby that they were not Gentiles who worshipped many Gods but the seed of Abraham who served but one the God of that Patriarch and of Isaac and Jacob. This saith Mr. Mede was the end of the Sabbath that thereby as by a Symbolum or sign that people might testifie and profess what God they worshipped He ought it may be to have spoken this with limitation and called it a great end and that it was such is evident from the Text of Moses than whom no man better understood the Levitical Oeconomy To him God spake saying Speak thou also to the children of Israel saying Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep for it is a sign between me and you throughout your Generations that ye may know that I am the Lord who doth sanctifie you or set you apart as my Worshippers distinct from those who worship Idols Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their Generations for a perpetual Covenant It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and on the seventh day he rested or ceased and was refreshed or was pleased with that exceeding good and beautiful frame of things which his Wisdom Goodness and Power had made A like end there was of the Levitical Sacrifices God needed them not the Sacrifice of a pure and humble mind was more agreeable to him who is an Intellectual Spirit But the Israelites doted on such a gross manner of expressing their devotion And seeing they must needs offer Sacrifice it pleased God to give them a Law which might at once indulge them in their inclination and restrain them from sacrificing unto
and Causes of Idolatry being considered I intend in the next place to inquire into the time of its Birth so far as the silence or uncertainty of Tradition will permit It is one of the Aphorisms of Philo the Elder if he were the Author of the Book of Wisdom that Idols were not from the beginning And it is a question among the Learned whether Idolatry was any of those pollutions which defiled the old World and brought the deluge upon it It doth not appear that it was extant before the flood and many believe it to be no older than Cham. Tertullian it is true was of opinion that Idolatry began in the days of Seth and that Enoch restored true Religion and is for that Reason said in Scripture to have walked with God He hath given us his opinion but he hath concealed the grounds of it And I can think of nothing so likely to move him to this belief as the reverence he had for the fictitious Prophesie of Henoch which he often citeth and in which are contained severe Comminations both against the makers and worshippers of Idols S. Cyril of Alexandria is much of another mind affirming in his first Book against Julian the Apostate That all men from Adam to the days of Noah worshipped that God who by nature was one And he strengtheneth his opinion with this Reason Because no man is by Moses accused as a worshipper of other gods and impure Demons If that false Religion had then set foot in the World it would scarce have escaped that Divine Historian but he would in likelihood both have mention'd it plainly and severely reproved it For this is no sin of a mean stature It is in the judgment of Tertullian the principal crime of mankind the chief guilt of the world the total cause of Gods judgment or displeasure He meaneth that it is a kind of Mother-sin containing in it all other evils on which the Judg of the World passeth sentence of condemnation Lactantius goeth higher still in his censure of it giving to it the name of an inexpiable wickedness And S. Gregory Nazianzen sheweth what apprehension he had of the greatness of this guilt when he calleth it The last and first of evils So monstrous a sin if it had been in those early times committed it would a man would think have been as soon reflected on by Moses as the violence or injustice which then filled the earth or the unclean mixtures of the sons of God with the daughters of men That is as I guess in the same sense in which the tall Trees of Lebanon are called the Cedars of God the unbridled appetites of the High and Potent who made their Power subservient to their lust In the infancy of the World there were many Causes which might prevent the sin of Idolatry By the fresh date of it from the Creation in which God almost beyond miracle it self discovered his Almighty Being and Oneness by the appearance of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Son of God to Adam and others of which appearance largely afterwards by the long-lives of Adam and Seth and the rest of the Holy Line who could often inculcate to their families what themselves were so abundantly assured of and possibly also by the conviction of him who was the head of the degenerate Line unrighteous Cain himself who having seen God in his Shechinah could not propagate either direct Atheism or Idolatry though he was the Father of evil manners By these and perhaps by other Causes to us unknown it might come to pass that the worship of Idols was either not in being or at least not in frequent exercise in those first Generations We know nothing of those times but by the Pen of Moses and a doubtful word of his hath inclin'd some to refer the Origine of Idolatry to the days of Enos In his time saith Moses men began to Profane as some would render his Text instead of translating it as our Church doth to call upon the Name of the Lord. It is true that the Hebrew word Hochal doth sometimes signifie Prophaned But there is no Reason which may enforce such an exposition of it in this place the Name of God having been formerly profaned and with great irreverence abused in the irreligious Families of Cain and Lamech Neither is the termination of our worship on the creature instead of the Sovereign God the only prophanation of his Holy Name A rude Tongue and an immoral Life commit that offence and not only an Idolatrous mind or body Such profaneness the Arabian Metaphrast imputeth to that time whilst he thus turneth the Hebrew of Moses Then began men to recede from their obedience to God But to me the Chaldee Interpreter seemeth to come nigher to the scope of the Words the sense of which he expresseth in this manner In those days men began to make supplications in the name of the Lord. That is the numbers of Families increasing in the days of Enos they appointed more publick places for Gods service in which at set-times they might together and in a more solemn Congregation worship their great Creator I must confess that this exposition doth much disagree with the mind of Maimonides For he doth not only refer the beginning of Idolatry to the times of Enos but he accuseth Enos himself of that gross and stupid wickedness For thus he begins that short Book which he hath written on that Subject In the days of Enos men erred very greatly and the minds of the wise-men of that age were overborn with stupidness Even Enos himself was one of them who thus erred Now this was their error the worship of the Stars A very rash and rude reflexion upon so holy a Patriarch and relishing of Rabbinical dotage For certainly divers of those Writers if any others have had a flaw in their Imaginations though Maimonides amongst them all may be allowed the largest intervals of sobriety From Cham therefore rather than from Enos the Learned derive the beginning of Idolatry though I know not whether under him it may not be dated a little too soon The heart of Cham being before the flood deeply depraved it was rather hardened by the escape than warned by the mighty danger of that general Deluge Insomuch that it was just with God to give him up to the further seducement of his sensuality and to the visible power of the old Serpent who may seem to have been for a time chained down by the Curse in Paradise but was now as I conjecture let loose again for the punishment of those whom Gods severe and miraculous discipline did not cleanse of their folly He therefore is esteemed the Father of Idolatry that Monster in Religion which in his corrupt Loyn was by degrees multiplied into innumerable heads But S. Cyril of Alexandria in two places beginneth Idolatry at the confusion of Languages and with Belus rather than
principally the Sun though great men likewise when deified after their deaths obtained that Name as a Title of highest renown And from the many names of Canonized Heroes given to the Sun hath risen a great part of that uncertainty and confusion with which the Reader is perplexed in the Labyrinths of Heathen Mythologers This however is generally confessed that the Sun was the first Idol instead of which why Jarchi hath put men or herbs into the first place is hard to understand till he come and be his own Elias Maimonides begins with the Stars and he hath ground not only from natural Reason but from the Authority also of Job and Moses Job thus expresseth the Idolatry of those ancient times in which he lived If I beheld the sun when it shined or the Moon walking in brightness And my heart hath been secretly enticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand If with devotion of Soul or profession of outward Ceremony I have worshipped those heavenly bodies which by their heighth motion and lustre ravish the senses This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge for I should have denied the God that is above Moses giveth caution to the people of Israel who were coming out of that Idolatrous Land of Egypt and were journeying towards Idolatrous Canaan who were coming from temptation and going likewise towards it That when they lifted up their eyes to the Heavens they should arm their minds against that inchantment to which they were subject by the sensible glory of the Sun Moon and Stars Rabbi Levi Ben Gerson glossing upon this place in Moses Observeth that the Sun is first named because his vertues are most manifest The most ancient inhabitants of the World saith Diodorus Siculus meaning them that lived soon after the Flood and particularly the Egyptians contemplating the World above them and being astonished with high admiration at the nature of the Universe believed that there were eternal Gods and that the two principal of them were the Sun and the Moon Of which they called the first Osiris and the second Isis. And of late years when the Mariners Compass directed men to a new World in America peopled no doubt from several distant parts of the old many different Idols were found in peculiar places but for the Sun it was a Deity both in Mexico and Peru. Babylon was the Mother of this kind of Idolatry not Egypt as the Author de Dea Syria and some in Diodorus Siculus who make Sol the first King of it have erroneously conjectured For Egypt was not a Nation when the Sun began to be worshipped in Chaldea where Ur it may be in aftertimes with respect to the worship of that hot Luminary was a kind of lesser Babylon Babylon infected Egypt Assyria Phaenicia and they spread the contagion throughout the World To the worship of the Sun Moon and Stars and other appearances in Heaven or the Air such as Comets and Meteors for the worship of the former was apt to draw on that of the latter succeeded the false Religion towards Heroes confounded as I guess with original Demons or Angels And this came to pass in the days of Serug according to Eusebius Epiphanius and Syncellus The Sun was no sooner called Bel Baal or El that is Lord or Governour but the souls of men of renown were also flattered with like Appellations and became properly the Idols of the people Nimrod and Osiris were Baals and the King of Phaenicia was Bel and they had Religious veneration payed to them If other Demons were worshipped as no doubt they were being permitted to appear to them it is a question whether the Gentiles did not by them misunderstand the deified Souls of some of their Ancestors distinctly or confusedly remembred rather than natural Genii or Angels For such Beings owed much of their manifestation as such to the Tradition conveyed in the Loyn of Abraham and Moses The worship of Demons was followed by that of Pillars or Artless Monuments of remembrance Such a Monument was that Pillar anointed by Jacob. It was no Idol in the quality in which he made it but a Record of the Divine presence But it is commonly thought that others did take from it a pattern of their follies Statues or Images were of a like antient date as is plain from the History of the Teraphim though Artists were then rare The infancy of this new World being also the infancy both of Mechanical and Liberal Arts. Idolaters likewise chose for their Deities living Statues such as the Bull in Egypt for the heavenly Taurus according to Lucian or rather for the Deity of the Sun or of an Hero according to truth Pausanias in his Survey of Greece findeth Stones sharpened at the top to have been the earliest Symbols of their Gods They were it may be Cones relating to the Sun the parent of fire which as was before noted ascendeth a Pyramis and was thought to be an element of Triangular figure by the ancient Philosophers of Greece Scaliger in that learned Appendix of his to his Book of the Emendation of the accounts of time doth mention Rude Stones as the original Statues in Phenicia What the first Symbols amongst the Romans were is not distinctly understood One would guess by Numa's Temple they were Symbols of the Universe But for particular Images we have it upon the good authority of a most learned Roman That an Hundred and Seventy years were passed ere they came in amongst them Under Christianity the vanity and veneration of Images succeeded the Symbol of the Cross. At this day the Barbarians on the Coasts of Africa reverence Stones like our greater Land-marks as Fetiches or Divine Statues believing them to be as ancient as the World it self It appeareth by this short account of the Original of Idols that they may plead antiquity But still their age is nothing if we compare it to his who is God everlasting CHAP. V. Of those who are charged with Idolatry and of the conformity or inconformity of their worship to the Nature of Idolatry Of Gentiles Jews Mahometans Christians Amongst them who have professed Christianity of the Gnosticks Manichees Arrians Socinians Roman-Catholicks the real Catholicks of the Communion of the Church of England And first of the Idolatry charged on the Gentiles PART 1. How far the Gentiles were Ignorant of one Supreme God I Have insisted hitherto on the Nature Occasions and Commencement of Idolatry The next consideration shall extend to the persons charged with it and in the first place to them who have first and most generally transgressed that is to say the Gentiles Concerning their worship it is here proper for me to attempt the resolution of three Questions First Whether the Gentiles acknowledged one Supreme God Secondly Whether they made Religious Application to him Thirdly Whether upon the concession of such acknowledgment and Application they may be and really are chargeable with
loud and plain a voice that he who is dull of hearing cannot mistake them unless he by obstinacy make himself deafer still and will not distinctly hear them In them we find this Prayer made by the pious King Hezekiah when he was distressed by Sennacherib O Lord of Hosts God of Israel that dwellest between the Cherubims Thou art the God even thou alone of all the Kingdoms of the Earth Thou hast made Heaven and Earth Incline thine ear O Lord and hear open thine eyes O Lord and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib who hath sent to reproach the living God Of a truth Lord the Kings of Assyria have laid wast all the Nations and their Countries and have cast their Gods into the fire for they were no gods but the work of mens hands wood and stone therefore they have destroyed them Now therefore O Lord our God save us from his hand that all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know that thou art the Lord even thou only Other places there are to the same purpose and amongst them these Let them the Nations or Gentiles give glory unto the Lord and declare his praise in the Islands The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man He shall prevail against his enemies I have declared and I have saved and I have shewed when there was no strange god among you therefore ye are my witnesses saith the Lord that I am God Yea before the day I was he I will work and who shall let it Thus saith the Lord the Redeemer I am the Lord your holy one the Creatoâ—… of Israel your King He that raiseth you out of mean estate and ruleth over you Thus saith the Lord who maketh a way in the Sea and a path in the mighty waters Who would not fear thee O King of Nations The stock is a doctrine of vanities but the Lord is the true God he is the living God and an everlasting King Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain so the Lord shall make bright clouds and give them showers of rain to every one grass in the field For the Idols have spoken vanity The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole Earth The King of Chaldea shall gather the captivity as the sand and shall scoff at Kings Then shall his mind change and he shall pass over and offend imputing this his power unto his god Art thou not he from everlasting O Lord my God mine Holy One we shall not die O Lord thou hast ordained them the Powers of Chaldea for judgment and O mighty God! Thou hast established them for correction Who hath f directed the Spirit of the Lord or being his counsellor hath taught him with whom took he counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment Behold the Nations are as a drop of a bucket See here the Spirit of God asserting the Divinity of the one God of Israel against Idols by displaying his Wisdom and Power in the Natural and Political Government of the World But lest the evidence of these places should be weakened by any as Scriptures of the Old Testament relating to times before our Lord was actually made by the Eternal Father the King of the World I will add a few more which may tend to the preventing of such an Evasion Isaiah prophesying of the Baptist and of the blessed times of the Gospel introduceth that voice thus crying out to Jerusalem and Judah Behold your God Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand and his arm shall rule for him He shall feed his flock like a shepherd In the same Isaiah for I scarce seek further than that Evangelical Prophet the God of Israel repeateth this profession Before me there was no God framed neither shall there be after me Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is no God And yet of the Logos the Socinians will profess as did Nathaniel Thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel and as doth the Book of the Revelation that he is Alpha and Omega the first and the last The God of Israel had said also in the foregoing Chapter I even I am the Lord and besides me there is no Saviour Is there a God besides me yea there is no God I know not any Yet of the Logos Socinians and Arians make confession in the words of St. John saying That he was in the beginning with God the Father The design of all these places ought not in reason to be baffled by saying with confidence these two things First That the Power which Christ had was given him by God and in order to his Glory Secondly That it is not unlawful but our duty to worship a Creature by Gods command though without his permission it be Idolatry If Christ had not been more than a creature God would not have enjoined us so high a Worship of Him neither would it have been consistent with his incommunicable Omnipotence and Wisdom to have given him all power in Heaven and in Earth This as Athanasius speaketh were to turn his Humane Nature into a second Almighty The Logos was so before all Worlds and ceased not to be so by assuming the Humane Nature into Unity of Subsistence To say then that Christ is a Creature yet made such a God who can hear all Prayers supply all wants give all Graces needful to his Body the Church know all the secrets of all Thoughts not directed to him govern and judg with Wisdom all the World and to Worship him under this Divine Notion what is it else than the paying an homage to a presumed Creature which is due only to the one very God for what apprehensions greater than these do we entertain concerning the true God when we call upon him confide in him or revere him He then that meeteth such an Inscription in Racovia as he may find often in Misna in this manner D. O. S. and at length Deo Omnipotenti Sacrum and meant of Christ to whom in the Verses set underneath the application is particularly made How must he expound it He must either interpret it of Christ Transubstantiated as 't were by their fancy into the Father or worshipped like Neptune in the D. M. at Rome in the quality of the true God whilst he is confessed to be but a Creature For they will own but one God in nature and person and yet will give to Christ not acknowledged as a coeternal Subsistence that which belongeth in eminent manner to his Idea His Idea sure it is for that Being appeareth to our mind as the best and greatest which with such mighty Goodness Power and Wisdom governs the insensible sensible rational and Christian World I end this Chapter with the
other days of the week though put together the Lords day not excepted On that day rather than on our Lords Martin Navarre and Lewis the Eleventh of France desired to die As it is said of the Father that no man cometh to Christ except he draw him So it is said of the Virgin by Augustine Wichmans who calleth her the Treasuress of Graces that no man cometh to her Son unless she draw him by her most holy Aids As in the Litany the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons and one God are invoked so in the next place they pray thrice to the Virgin saying Holy Mary pray for us Holy Mother of God pray for us Holy Virgin of Virgins pray for us Other Saints as also Angels have there but one compellation The Jesuit Canisius in his Manual for Catholicks hath made up his fifteenth Exercise of three Litanies of which the third is that of the Missal But the first is the Litany of Christ who in it is addressed to in fourty-four compellations And the second is the Litany of the Virgin who hath just so many and these amongst them Thou cause of our joy Thou seat of Wisdom Thou Ark of the Covenant Thou Gate of Heaven Thou Refuge of Sinners Thou Comforter of the afflicted Thou help of Christians Thou Queen of Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins All Saints As in the Bible the Lord hath one hundred and fifty Psalmes so saith the Pope's Bull the Lady hath an hundred and fifty Salutations in her Rosary which was therefore at first called her Psalter As Christ is the Lord in whom the Church hopeth so the Virgin is called in the Roman Offices The only hope of Sinners As Christ is said to be in Scripture the Life so the Virgin is called by the Marians the Mother of Life As devout Christians commend their souls when they leave this world into the hands of Christ so these Marians commend theirs into the hands of the Virgin being taught a form of so doing And they tell us that upon this account the worship of the Virgin is chiefly to be commended that she is always present with her Clients in the agony of death as a faithful Patroness and Mother This is said by Horstius who immediately crys out thus in a pang of Marian devotion “ O how many hath she snatched out of the Jaws of death O how many hath she restored to “ the favour of her Son and unto Heaven Such another Suppliant was the late Jesuit Labbee who when he was dying applied those words to the Virgin which are used of Christ I need not here add the Litany added to the Psalter of Bonaventure in which our Lady instead of God is desired to have mercy to deliver us from all evil and from particular evils in such Forms as this From the anger of God from despair pride luxury good Lady deliver us That which I have mentioned before this is such hyperdulia or excess of Veneration that by ascribing too much to a particular Saint it diminisheth the Honour of our common Saviour Thus it was not from the beginning but the superstitious world hath departed from the first measures of the reverence due to the Virgin and run into this insufferable extreme And how this has come to pass one of that Church and one of the most judicious and disinteressed amongst them has faithfully told us After that the impiety of Nestorius had divided Christ making two Sons and denying him to be God who was born of the Blessed Virgin the Church to inculcate the Catholick Truth in the minds of the Faithful made mention of her in the Churches as well of the East as of the West with this short form of words in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latin Maria Mater Dei that is Mary the Mother of God This being instituted only for the Honour of Christ was by little and little communicated also to the Mother and finally applied to her alone So when Images began to multiply Christ was painted as a Babe in his Mothers arms to put us in mind of the worship due unto him even in that Age But in progress of time it was turned into the worship of the Mother without the Son he remaining as an Appendix in the Picture The Writers and Preachers especially those that were contemplative carried with the torrent of the Vulgar which is able to do much in these matters leaving to mention Christ invented with one accord new Praises Epithetes and Religious services insomuch that about the year 1050 a daily Office was instituted to the Blessed Virgin distinguished by seven Canonical hours in a Form which anciently was ever used to the honour of the Divine Majesty And in the next hundred years the worship so increased that it came to the heigth even to attribute that unto her which the Scriptures speak of the Divine Wisdom And amongst these invented Novities this was one her total exemption from Original sin yet this remained only in the breasts of some few private men having no place in Ecclesiastical Ceremonies or amongst the Learned At last about the year 1136 the Canons of Lions dared to bring it into the Ecclesiastical Offices Secondly The Honour of Christ is diminished by that Veneration though of an inferior nature which is given to so many Angels and Saints as Presidents and Patrons in the Government of the Church It is true that the Honour of a Prince is increased by the multitude of his Attendants Our Church therefore reverently declareth of Christ That ten thousand times ten thousand minister unto him But delegation of Power to many by commission as Presidents and not as Angels and Messengers Ministers and Attendants is a diminution of Honour by cantonizing of Power And he is most absolute and reserveth most of dependance and thanks and trust and reverence to himself who dispatcheth all things by his immediate Authority For Commissions cut power into many channels and import either love of ease or want of power to execute in person The Roman Emperors were in their Dominions high and mighty Potentates and their Vassals flattered them as Deities in flesh But they would have appeared greater still if they had not cut their Empire into its Eastern and Western parts and administred affairs by Prefects Vicars Counts Dukes Consuls Correctors Presidents and others executing power by subordinate Lieutenancy And doubtless the Praefectus Praetorio of Italy had many thanks paid him for his favours without any acknowledgment made to the Emperor though the fountain of his Power In such cases men look not beyond the State-officer who befriends them by virtue of his Patent and his derived Authority But they would look to the Prince if he immediately dispensed all honours and favours though attended with a numerous guard and employing many messengers and ministring Spirits A Caviller would here say that by this Argument
the notion of pious frauds A Priest skilled as much in Physick as Divinity knows the sick Romanist to whom he is Confessor to need a vomit He exhorteth him to invoke the holy Virgin he biddeth him view well her Image which he hath put into an Antimonial cup he adviseth him to drink of that liquor into which her Image and her blessing hath infused virtue and to repeat his devotions to the Virgin his Patroness The sick ignorant man obeys believes him dischargeth his stomack and is presently eased He crys out a Miracle a Miracle he is constant to his Aves all his days There are some who know this to be an History though I have told it in the form of a supposition Seventhly Many Wonders and Apparitions are the delusions of the Devil and dangerous snares in which he entangleth the commonalty of that Church By this means he often reconciles himself to their favour and they take him in this disguise for a real Angel of Light What other construction can a wise man make of the story in Mathew Paris concerning the Specter said to appear to the Earl of Cornwall The same hour saith the Reporter that William Rufus fell by the hand of Sir Walter Tyrrell the Earl of Cornwall being alone in the Forrest met with a great hairy black Goat carrying the King black and naked and wounded through the midst of his breast He adjuring the Goat by the holy Trinity to tell what this meant the Goat made him this reply I carry to his doom your King or rather your Tyrant William Rufus For I am an evil spirit and an avenger of that malice of his with which he raged against the Church of Christ and I procured his murther They who believe these Legends and take such Apparitions as measures of their Faith will think the Devil good-natur'd towards Christianity and an executor of vengeance on the enemies of it though in truth he himself is its greatest and most inveterate foe and wounds it deepest when he strikes at it in the disguise of a friend The stories concerning the appearance of the Virgin to her Clients are very numerous and of them too many represent her in unbecoming postures And such appearâ—…nces should rather move the dread and abhorrence than encourage the Invocation of the Romanists being either the Images of an unclean brain or the Specters of impure Devils Lastly Let not the Papists prove their worship of Saints as the Heathen did their worship of Daemons And here I end my Discourse concerning the Worship of Saints in the Roman Church as Patrons and Patronesses as Presidents and Lieutenants in the Government of the World with the sense of the judicious and moderate Archbishop of Spalato This in my judgment is the great objection against the Invocation of Angels the Holy Virgin or other Saints whose souls are with God in Heaven that it is in the nighest degree of peril to become Religious Worship for it is out of doubt that the ruder people do religiously invoke the Saints and that many are internally more affected with religious passion towards the Virgin or some Saint than towards Christ himself For they invoke not a Saint as one that prayeth for them but as the principal Helper Neither say they Pray for me but help me Come to my Aid Save me Nor do they express it in words or understand it in their minds that these things be done for them by the Saints praying for them but that the Saints themselves do immediately perform these things And in invocating of them many wholly devote themselves all their soul and and spirit to the Virgin Mary and the Saints and subject themselves wholly to them in Spirituals which is a kind of formed Idolatry Now though by this Discourse I may have given offence unto the Marians or rather said that which will be made an offence by their misconstruction I am not jealous that I have at all offended those blessed spirits if they have knowledg of that which I write For they are not covetous of undue honour but cast those Crowns with high indignation under their feet which are set on their heads to the dishonour of God by the Idolatrous flatteries of foolish men CHAP. XI Of the Idolatry Charged on the Papists in their Worship of Images And first of the Worship of an Image of God IT still remaineth that I speak of the Worship of Images in the Roman Church and of that degree of Idolatry with which it seemeth to be stained And for Images I will briefly consider those of the Trinity of God of Christ of the Saints and under that of Christs the statue of the Cross. For the Image of the Trinity we must not charge either the making or the worshipping of it upon the very constitution of the Church of Rome though men of that Communion have often done both and the Missals Breviaries and Manuals Printed with license in these times abound with such Pictures Formerly that Church was very severe against such practices And Pope John the 22d arraigned certain people in Bohemia and Austria who had painted God the Father as an old man and the Son as a young man and the Holy Ghost as a Dove as violaters of Religion And he pronounced them Anthropomorphites and condemned some of them to the Fire It seems the modern Popes are not so strict neither did the late Printers of the Missal at Paris or of the Manual of Horstius at Colen dread their Fire they having adorned the Copies of those Books with such dangerous Sculptures And it should seem by what Mr. Baxter hath said That some among our selves have had a zeal for such Pictures for he tells of a Tumult raised where he had dwelt upon a false rumour that the Church-wardens were about to obey the Parliaments Order in taking down the Images of the Trinity about the Church But most probable it is that the zeal of the multitude was ready to defend such Images or paintings in windows rather as the ornaments of the place in general than distinctly as Pictures of the mysterious Trin-unity Concerning the Image of God I find not now as in former times in the publick Books of the Church of Rome any forms of Benediction by which it should be consecrated though there be forms enough of the consecration of Crosses and of the Images of Christ and his Saints Neither doth the Council of Trent ordain either the making or the veneration of the Image of God though it supposeth that it is sometimes painted in sacred story for the use of their people For it giveth order that the people be instructed so far as not to take such a Picture for Divinity figured Nay the Catechism by Decree of that Council speaketh thus in the explication of their first Commandment Moses when he would turn the people from Idolatry said to them You saw no similitude on the day in which the Lord
them who on earth can reveal to us whilst eye hath not seen it neither hath ear heard it But for the Images or Pictures of the Saints in their former estate on earth if they be made with discretion if they be the Representations of such whose Saintship no wise man calleth into question if they be designed as their honourable Memorials they who are wise to sobriety do make use of them and they are permitted in Geneva it self where remain in the Quire of the Church of St. Peter the Pictures of the twelve Prophets on one side and on the other those of the twelve Apostles all in wood also the Pictures of the Virgin and St. Peter in one of the Windows And we give to such Pictures that negative honour which they are worthy of We value them beyond any Images besides that of Christ we help our memories by them we forbear all signs of contempt towards them But worship them we do not so much as with external positive signs for if we uncover the head we do it not to them but at them to the honour of God who hath made them so great Instruments in the Christian Church and to the subordinate praise of the Saints themselves They who worship such Images do either worship them as the Statues of such invisible Powers as do under God govern the world or of holy Spirits who hear them in all places and pray to God particularly for them or who only pray for them in general or as so many Shechinahs of ruling or interceding Saints And First If they worship them as Representations of ruling Daemons they are Idolatrous For they thereby give away the honour of Gods reserved power to a Creature They honour as Clients the statue of a Saint whilst God is by right their Patron Secondly If they worship the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who pray for them and hear them in any place by the help of that God whose essence is every-where and who enabled the Prophet to know the actions of Gehazi when he was out of his sight they are still thereby in peril of Idolatry for if God does not enable them to hear and they pray with confidence in them as hearing they relye on a power in the Creature which God hath not communicated to it Thirdly If they honour the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who in general pray for them they are not to be thence condemned as Idolaters for should they so far debase their reason as to give to the Image the same honour which is due to the Saint they honour but a creature that is inferior with the honour of a creature superior to it who prayeth for them in the mass of mankind And if they bow to such an Image that external sign of worship can't reasonably be interpreted by the beholders as a sign of Divine honour because they bow to that which appears no other than the Image of a Saint and not a Crucifix or Image of Christ the eye sufficiently distinguishing these and therefore it hath no higher honour than the Prototype which is a Creature I except here such bowing and kneeling to the Image of a Saint as is in use in the Roman Church and is accompanied with a form of Prayer proper to be addressed to God and particularly that form which Christ hath taught us For though the Catechism of Trent requireth the Parish Priest to let the people understand that when any one pronounceth the Lords-Prayer to the Image of a Saint he should think only that he joineth his Prayers with those of that Saint to God for him Yet the people are not so apt to receive the instruction and to be free from mistake and this the Catechism it self supposeth whilst it speaketh of the need there is of the greatest caution in this matter need of it not only for the moment of the thing but for the easiness of erring in it Fourthly If they worship them as Shechinahs of ruling Daemons they honour that as the presence of a power which God is pleased every-where to exercise and which he hath not fixed in such Statues in order to any eminent operation Wherefore they give the honour of Gods Schechinah to that which is not such and their trust is in an Idol And here the practice of the Church of Rome is scandalous if its constitution be not There is a common perswasion among that people that Prayers are more effectually heard and that Miracles are sooner done before an Image than in the absence of it That one Image is a more excellent Shechinah than another that our Lady will perform things at Loretto which she will not do at Rome it self And they who desire blessing of St. Winifred think they soonest attain it at her well The Liber Festivalis as they called it in use here in England in the time of Henry the seventh aboundeth with stories of Divine power working in Images and amongst other tales it telleth of the power of the Image of St. Nicholas in keeping mens Goods in safety and how certain Thieves who were permitted for a time to steal a few Goods committed to its care were by St. Nicholas forced to speedy restitution We read in Krantzius that Count Gerhard Uncle to Waldemare of Sleswick went to battel against the Danes with the Image of the Virgin about his neck after the manner of Sylla the Dictator who used in such emergencies certain little statues of Apollo or Jove one of which after his escape in a very dangerous Fight he kissed saying O Jupiter I had almost fallen with you this day and you with me And the Books of the most learned Papists are full of Legends which by telling of the motion of the Images themselves in wonderful manner or of the miraculous events succeeding the Addresses made at them do incline the people to come thither with confidence as to the Shechinahs of God Curtius the Provincial of Belgium is one of these writers and I find this story in him There was a certain poor man who in extreme need beseeched our Saviour to preserve him from perishing by some small Alms. At this Prayer the Image or rather Christ in the Image bowed himself and gave to the beggar his right shoo as a help in his need Away went the man with this new prize but the neighbours hearing of it redeemed the shoo with the equal weight in gold But that shoo to this day could never be fitted again to the foot but is supported with a Chalice It seems this Crucifix was made of Cedar by Nicodemus himself but methinks with no good fancy the Artist having carved a Crown of Gold instead of one of Thorns upon the head of our holy Lord. Lipsius a man rather learned than wise telleth of the many drops of blood which distilled from a certain wooden Image of the Virgin at Halla And on this he looked as on a miracle
observed This if it needeth to be avouched by authority after a serious view of the state of Egypt and Israel in their parallel and disparity I may cite to my purpose that excellent Interpreter of the Scriptures St. Chrysostome At what time said he God delivered the Hebrew people from the Egyptian troubles and barbarous tyranny of Pharaoh seeing them still to retain the Relicks of Impiety and to be addicted even to madness to all things which fall under the senses and to be struck with the admiration of beautiful Temples he himself commanded that a Temple should be made for them excelling and obscuring all others not only in the magnificence of the matter and variety of art but also in the form of its structure And as a good Father who has at length received a Son returning to him after much time spent in dissolute company does with honour and safety put him into circumstances of greater abundance lest being reduced to any straits he calls to mind his former pleasures of debauchery and be afresh affected with a desire of them So God perceiving the Jews infected most sottishly with propenseness to sensible things does in these very things make something for them highly excellent that they might never for the future linger after the Egyptians or after the things of which they had experience whilst they sojourned amongst them PART 5. Of the Shechinah of God from Moses to the Captivity BEfore this Temple was built or shewn so much as in the model of it to Moses the Word of God assuming an Angel appeared to him in the luster of flame in a bush on Mount Horeb. Moses calleth him in the second verse of the third of Exodus the Angel of God and God in verse the fourth and in the sixth verse he stileth himself the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and in the eighth verse he is said to have descended “ Now he saith Justin Martyr that called himself the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob was not the Universal Creator but the minister of his will With him agree Eusebius St. Hilary and St. Ambrose The words of St. Ambrose are to this sense The God himself who was seen by Moses saith my name is God This is the Son of God who is therefore called both Angel and God that he might not be thought to be he of whom are all things but he by whom are all things Philo the Jew himself calleth the Voice to Adam to Abraham to Jacob to Moses from the Bush the effect of the Logos of God This Lord afterwards when the people of Israel had under the Conduct of Moses begun their Journey from Egypt did miraculously direct them by the continued Shechinah of a Pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night This we read in the 13th of Exodus He who in that Chapter is called the Lord is in the following Chapter called the Angel of God who as formerly he had gone before the Camp for their Guidance so now the Egyptians pursuing he stood behind it as their defence With allusion to this appearance Eusebius having first proposed it as the Title of his Chapter That the Logos of old appeared and then began the Chapter with some places of Scripture relating to the cloudy Pillar he proceedeth in making this demand Who was he that spake but the Pillar of Cloud which had formerly appeared to the Fathers in the figure of Man And indeed whilst Moses is not contented with the promise of an assistant-Angel but expresly petitioneth for the continuance of Gods Presence he leaveth not us in want of a Commentator to tell us what kind of Angel was present with him That Angel no doubt it was who is called by that name in the Hebrew of the 6th Verse of the 5th of Ecclesiastes but by the Seventy Interpreters the Face of God Lactantius will have this Angel to have gone before the Israelites and divided the Waters His Power might do it but that his Shechinah did so is contrary to the Sacred Text The people being arrived nigh Mount Sina in Arabia Moses especially beheld the Shechinah of God whilst the Word assuming it may be a principal Angel and being attended as Jupiter by his Satellites if I may compare small things with great by a numerous retinue of other blessed Spirits did with solemnity and terror deliver the Law Where the Psalmist alludeth to that Solemnity in which God appeared with many Chariots of the Heavenly Host he in the very next verse useth the words which the New Testament interpret of Christ Thou art gone up on high thou hast led captivity captive As if both at Sinah and Sion and the Mount of the Messiahs Ascension God had triumphed in the Shechinah of his Son He saith Tertullian who spake to Moses was the Son of God who was always seen That is whenever the Divinity vouchsafed a visible appearance it was not by the Father but by the Son This Pamelius reckoneth as one of the Errors of Tertullian but by doing so he perhaps ran into one himself Tertullian doth not only affirm this but secondeth his Authority with a reason For Jesus said he not Moses was to introduce the people into Canaan Theodoret in his Commentary on the second to the Colossians mentioneth certain defenders of the Law who induced others to worship Angels saying that the Law was given by them They had been much more in the right if they had urged the worship of Christ the Angel of that Covenant The Law was given by Angels in the hand of a Mediator which whether it be meant of Moses or of Christ is a dispute amongst many though the margent of some of our English Bibles interpreteth it of the former That Title might have been as well applied to Christ not yet God-man yet the Minister of the Father And so St. Chrysostome and Theophylact do apply it And St. Chrysostome teacheth that therefore Christ gave the Law that he might have Authority when it was convenient to put an end to it And they who stiffly oppose such Ministration of the Logos give suspicion to jealous heads as if they look'd towards Racovia For if there were a second Person he surely must be fit for that great Office But I forbear to urge a place of uncertain sense and chuse rather to consider what the same Apostle saith in his first Epistle to the Corinthians He there saith concerning the Israelites that they tempted Christ in the Wilderness And this Christ whom they tempted is in the Old Testament called Jehovah Hence therefore it followeth that he who appear'd to the people in the Wilderness was the Logos of God This opinion which ascribeth to the Logos the delivery of the Law is by the learned Hugo Grotius in his Notes on the Decalogue branded with the name of a grievous error And it is not the manner of
Virgin asserted and also a proof of the Imposture of such Appearances from the Story it self which representeth not a blessed Saint ascribing all Glory to the great God but a vain perfon delighted with the unjust flatteries of her self This then is the way in which I conceive the Church of Rome giveth away a degree of the Honour of God the Father to wit by her disposal of the Government of the World though in subordination to his Supremacy unto Angels and Saints without any sufficient declaration from him that he hath been willing so to prefer them and by her worshipping of them in that quality which her own imagination hath enstated them in I am next to consider how the Church of Rome doth by such estimation and worship entrench on the Divine Honour with respect to Christ as Mediator God hath not owned any Substitute besides his Son who hath all power given to him being as God-man most capable of it And though the Church of Rome doth acknowledg Christ to be the Author of Salvation and the Supreme Patron and Mediator yet still it doth entrench upon his Honour in its worship of Saints three several ways First More particularly in that Worship which is given to the Virgin In the second place More generally in the worship given to so many Saints and Angels Thirdly In the frequency of the worship given both to the Virgin and to the other Heavenly spirits First The Honour of Christ is particularly abated in the customary worship of the blessed Virgin Abated I say not quite removed For the Prayers to her are still per Dominum through Christ her Son though it seemeth sometimes to be intimated as in the Monstra Te esse Matrem Shew thy Mother-hood in the Hymn Ave Maris stella that she can command his Answers And when God is invoked by her Merits her Merits are supposed to be derived from his But an abatement there is of Christs Honour by that supereminent Advancement which is given to her by the practice of that Church without any declaration contrary to it For that Church doth set her as Solomon did his Mother in the Throne with himself though on that hand which signifies that he is still the Supreme Now it is manifest that Honour is diminished both where it is equally shared and where a second keepeth not distance but doth obtain a point next to the first For from degrees of Power and Distance arise degrees of Honour and a Prince that sitteth alone in the Chair of State is thereby in possession of higher Honour than he who hath a Second sitting next him though on the less honourable hand And accordingly it was esteemed a defect in Policy both through the occasion given by it of being supplanted and through the diminution it made of Supreme Honour of which each degree is a degree of Power when any Princes in the Roman Empire such as AElius Adrianus and Antoninus the Philosopher admitted Seconds to sit with them in the Throne of Government though themselves reserved still the first Place and remained as it were the Heads of the Empire Now it is the practice of the Church of Rome to celebrate the Virgin as a kind of Co-Ruler with her Son to salute her as we heard but now from the Office of her Seven Allegresses as a Queen on the right hand of Christ in his Throne The Scripture hath in it this Prophecy of the Messiah There shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jess and a branch or flower shall grow or rise out of his roots Hierom Xaverius hath wrested this place even from the sense of the Vulgar Translation and he thus readeth it in his Persic Gofpel A true branch shall rise out of the root of Jesse and out of that branch a flower shall be born Misapplying the first to the Virgin and the second to Christ whilst both are spoken of him To this misinterpretation he might be led by the Hymn in the Breviary which saluteth her by the Title of the Holy Root And it is evident by the Psalter of Bonaventure which is known to turn Lord into Lady throughout the Psalms not omitting to Travest that place of The Lord said unto my Lord into Our Lady said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand and by Salazar who in his Commentary on the Proverbs interpreteth Wisdom of the Virgin that the Marians would scrue up the sense of the Old Testament into the assertion of a kind of coequality of the Virgin with Christ. Hence Baronius himself calleth her the Ark in one place and in another the Tabernacle The things relating to Christ under the New Testament are equally perverted by this inordinate devotion to that Virgin who cannot give those a welcome reception who with such affront to her Son make their Court to her As the Scripture mentioneth the Nativity of Christ celebrated by a Quire of Angels so doth the Roman Church observe the Nativity of the Virgin from a story of melody heard from Heaven by a devout man in a Desart on her birth-day Hierom Xaverius hath set down this Story for Gospel among the Indians and Innocent the fourth upon that report caus'd the dav to be Sacred As Christs triumphant Ascension is spoken of in the Scripture and observed in our Church so in the Legends of Rome there is frequent mention of her Assumption and it is in that Church celebrated with pomp Before that Office she is pictur'd in the Missal lately Printed at Paris ascending with a glory about her head in equal shew of triumph with Christ. As Christ is said in the Te Deum to have opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers so is the Virgin called by them the Gate and the Hall-gate of Heaven As he is called Gods beloved Son so is she called Gods beloved Daughter As Christ is said to be exalted above all things in Heaven and Earth so is the Virgin called the Queen of Heaven and sometimes the Queen of the Heavens in reference to the Angels and sometimes the Queen of Heaven and Earth Nay the Jesuit Rapine hath enstated her in that Empire without any mention of the King her Son as above her As Christ is acknowledged by Christians to be the Head of the Church and the only Mediator and Advocate so the Virgin is stil'd in the Synod of Mexico the Universal Patroness and Advocatress As the day has been divided into several portions in which devout people have prayed to God and Christ so seven Canonical Hours have been appointed for the worship of the Virgin As God and Christ have the Sunday sacred to them so in the Roman Church the Virgin hath Saturday On that day therefore saith Augustine Wichmans more Requests of miserable mortals are sealed by her the Chancelaress of the greatest King in the Court of Heaven than on all the