subjects to give homage to him and another day to be placed upon the Altar as he is after his election by the Orders of the Roman Church there to receive adoration from the Cardinals as the Vicar of Christ would any man say he could see no difference in these because the same postures may be used in both Although then the outward acts may be the same yet the signification of those acts may be far from equivocal because determined by the circumstances which do accompany them I grant then that the meer external act of adoration in bowing or kneeling may be given both on the account of honour and worship i. e. upon the account of excellencie and superiority as some of the Patriarchs bowed to Angels as a token of honour of their excellencies and not out of Religious worship and men may bow and kneel to their Soveraign Princes on the account of civil worship and Children to their Parents in token of their subjection to them as well as creatures to their Creator in their solemn acts of devotion but I say in all these cases the different signification of these acts is to be gathered from the circumstances of them And that acts of Religious and civil worship might be distinguished from each other came the appointment of set times and places and solemn rites for the performance of Religious worship From hence Cicero gives that definition of Religion Religio est quae superioris cujusdam naturae quam divinam vocant curam ceremoniamque affert therefore they thought the solemn rites and circumstances of Religious worship were sufficient to discriminate the nature of that worship from any other and these they thought so peculiar to the divine nature that whatever Being they gave this solemn worship to they thought to deserve the name of a Deity although inferiour and subordinate because these acts of worship were appropriated to a Divine Being Aquinas cannot deny that there are some external acts of Religion so peculiar to God that they ought not to be given to any other and on this account he makes Religion a moral vertue and a part of justice because it is its office reddere cultum debitum Deo to give God the worship which belongs to him now saith he because the excellencie of God is peculiar to himself being infinitely above all others therefore the worship which belongs to him ought to be peculiar Ad Religionem pertinet saith Cajetan exhibere reverentiam uni Deo secundum unam rationem in quantum sc. est primum principium creationis gubernationis rerum But since this reason of Religious worship from the creation and government of the world is so peculiar to God as to be incommunicable to any else besides him is there not all the reason in the world that the Acts of this worship should be peculiar to him too And upon this ground Aquinas doth grant it in the case of sacrifice hoc etiam videmus in omni Republica observari quod summum Rectorem aliquo signo singulari honorant quod cuicunque alteri deferretur esset crimen laesae Majestatis ideo in lege divina statuitur poena mortis iis qui divinum honorem aliis exhibent From whence we infer not only that there ought to be peculiar external acts of Religious worship appropriated to God but that the giving the worship done by those acts to any creature is a crime of the highest nature The same Aquinas disputing against the Heathens saith that it is an unreasonable thing to those that hold one first principle to give divine worship to any other besides him and we give worship to God not that he needs it but that hereby the belief of one God may be confirmed in us by external and sensible acts which cannot be done saith he unless there be some peculiar acts of his worship and this we call divine worship Besides this external worship is necessary to men to raise in their minds a spiritual reverence of God and we find that custom hath a great influence on mens minds but it is a custom among men that the honour or worship given to the Supreme Governour should be given to none else therefore it ought to be much more so towards God because if a liberty be allowed of giving this worship to others of a higher rank and not only to the supreme then men and Angels might give divine worship to one another To which he adds that the benefits we receive from God are peculiar to him as that of creation and preservation and that he is our Lord by a proper title and Angels and the best of creatures are but his servants therefore we ought not to give the same worship to them that we do to God as our Lord. In his disputation about Idolatry he shews that the command Exod. 20. doth reach to external as well as internal worship and he argues against those who pleaded that all visible and external worship ought to be given to other Gods and only internal to the supreme God as being much better upon this principle that the external belongs only to him to whom the internal belongs and he disputes against those Hereticks who thought it lawful in time of persecution to give external worship to Idols as long as they preserved the true faith in their minds for saith he the external worship is a profession or sign of the internal but as it is a pernicious thing for a man to speak contrary to his mind so it is to act contrary to it and therefore S. Augustin condemned Seneca as so much the more culpable in the worship of Idols because he acted against the sense of his own mind In the next article he shews that Idolatry is a sin of the highest nature for saith he as in a commonwealth it is the greatest crime to give the honour due to the Soveraign to any other for this is as much as lies in a man to put all things into disorder and confusion so among the sins that are committed against God that seems to be the greatest whereby a man gives divine worship to a creature and saith that it includes blasphemy in it because it takes away from God the peculiarity of his dominion Cajetan there saith that the Idolater as much as in him lies tollit à Deo suam singularem excellentiam qua solus est Deus robs God of that peculiar excellencie whereby he is God alone Thus we see the necessity of some peculiar external acts of divine worship is asserted by these men in order to the preserving the belief and worship of one God in the world Suarez grants that as the excellency of God is singular and above all creatures so he ought to have a singular and incommunicable worship as is plain from those words of Scripture Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve but then he makes this worship
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
and the very way was sprinkled with blood after these the Magistrates of the City followed and the Consuls and Senatours all bearing torches before the Host which was carried under a silken Canopy with a most profound Reverence then came in the last place the Governour the Nobility and a vast multitude of all sorts of people and for eight dayes together many people walked the same round out of great devotion I do not think this Procession can be matched by the supplications and the Pompa Circensis of old Rome or by any of the Processions with their Idols which Peter della Valle describes among the Heathen Indians which he confesses to be very like those used among Christians when the Images of Saints are carried in procession when any Body or Fraternity go in Pilgrimage to Loreto or Rome in the Holy Year The Iesuits boast very much of their zeal in setting up the worship of the Images of the B. Virgin in Flanders and especially of these solemn processions with her Images particularly at Courtray for nine dayes together wherein there have been nine thousand persons In the year 1636. the plague raging there a solemn supplication was appointed with a Procession of the Image through the City with wonderful devotion and at Bruges A. D. 1633. with an incredible number of people and a thousand torches of Virgin wax and the like solemnities were set up by their means at Brussels Antwerp Mechlin and other places Otho Zylius a Iesuite sets down the order of the Procession wherein the Image of the B. Virgin that was before worshipped at Boisleduc was carried to Brussels upon the shoulders of four Capucins the Infanta Isabella following it with all the Nobility and infinite number of people with the highest expressions of Pomp and Devotion and at last it was placed in the middle of a Chappel just over the Altar where it hath solemn worship given to it and wonderful cures are said to be wrought by it I cannot conclude this Discourse without giving some account of another notable Procession at Brussels of an Image of the B. Virgin the occasion whereof was this a new confraternity was instituted in Spain of the Slaves of the B. Virgin by one Simon Rojas whose custome was to salute one another with those words Ave Maria instead of Your humble Servant and this Sodality was established with large Indulgences by Paul 5. and afterwards was begun in Bruges A. D. 1626. having fetters as the badge of this Slavery and new Indulgences from Urban 8. for the establishing this Society it happened luckily that an officer of the King of Spain 's Fleet being sick at Dunkirk pretended to discover a great Secret to Barth de los Rios then Preacher to Isabella Clara Eugenia viz. that he had a most admirable Image of the B. Virgin which had been worshipped for 600 years in the Cathedral Church of Aberdene and had spoken to the last Catholick Bishop and had miraculously escaped the Hereticks hands and was designed for a present to Isabella but he wretch that he was upon a promise made by the Franciscans of his own Countrey in Spain of praying for his Soul and his Families had intended to have carried it thither which he found was displeasing to the B. Virgin by his dangerous sickness and he hoped upon this confession she would have mercy upon him and therefore he desired him to present this Image to her Highness in the name of the Catholicks of Aberdene which was received by her with wonderful devotion and she said her prayers before it morning and evening but this did not satisfie her for she resolved to have this Image carried to Brussels with a solemn procession and for that purpose obtained an Indulgence from Urban 8. for all those who should attend it and a rich and magnificent Altar was erected over which the Image was to be placed and banners were made with this inscription In Nomine Mariae omne genu flectatur c. after which on May 3. the Procession was performed with all imaginable Pomp and kept for eight dayes together and yet after all this one Maxwel a learned Scotchman shewed in a Discourse presented to Isabella that upon the best enquiry he could make this famous Image was a meer imposture and a trick of a crafty merchant to procure some advantage to himself by it but the poor man was imprisoned for this discovery and forced to make a publick Recantation and the Worship of this Image was advanced and a solemn supplication and procession with it observed every year as the same Author informs us and the Confraternity of the slaves of the B. Virgin highly promoted by it Several other solemn processions are related by him as of B. Maria de Remediis B. Maria de Victoriâ with the Popes Bulls for establishing the Society of slaves of the B. Virgin but these are enough to shew that the Roman Church in its constant and allowed practises doth not come behind old Heathen Rome in this part of the Worship given to Images CHAP. III. Of the Sense of the second Commandment HAving endeavoured with so much care to give a just and true account of the Controversie between us as to the Worship of Images and therein shewed from the Doctrine and Practice of the Roman Church 1. That they set up Images in Churches over Altars purposely for worship 2. That they consecrate those Images with solemn prayers for that purpose 3. That they use all the Rites of Worship to them which the Heathen Idolaters used to their Images such as bowings prostrations Lights Incense and praying 4. That they make solemn Processions in honour of Images carrying them with as much Pomp and Ceremony as ever the Heathens did their Idols The Question now is whether these Acts of Worship towards Images were unlawful only to Heathens and Iews but are become lawful to Christians But if these Acts of Worship be now equally unlawful to us as to them then Christians performing them are liable to the same charge that the Iews and Heathens were and if the Scripture calls that Idolatry in them it must be so in Christians too as much as Murder or Theft or Adultery is the same in all for the words of the Law of God makes no more difference as to one than as to the other We are therefore to enquire on what account the Sense of this Law is supposed to be consistent with the practice of the same things among Christians which were utterly forbidden by it to Iews and Heathens The words of the Law are these Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image nor the Likeness of any Thing which is in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath or in the Waters under the Earth Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them for I the Lord thy God am a Iealous God c. My Adversary T. G. denies that God
saith S. Augustine Quis sanctus est in cujus honore ador as scabellum pedum ejus Genebrard acknowledges likewise that S. Hierome translates it so and Suarez yields that not only the Greek but S. Augustine and S. Hierome read it For He is holy 2. Those words do not imply that the Iews did make the Ark the object of their worship for the Chaldee Paraphrast renders them Worship Him in His Sanctuary and the last verse of the Psalm where the same sense is repeated interprets this Worship at his holy hill for the Lord our God is holy where the holy Mountain is the same with the Foot stool before mentioned and so Muis confesses who saith withal That by the phrase of worshipping His Foot-stool no more is meant than worshipping God at His Foot-stool and the Sanctuary he saith is called Gods Foot-stool not only by the Chaldee Paraphrast and Kimchi but Lament 2.1 And so Lyra interprets it Ante scabellum pedum ejus worship before His Footstool or worship at His Footstool as it is Psalm 182.7 And it would be very strange if the Psalmist should here propose the footstool for an object of worship to them when the design of the whole Psalm is to call all Nations to the worship of God as sitting between the Cherubims Psal. 99.1 i. e. in His Throne which is surely different from His Footstool I will not contend with Suarez about the sense of the Footstool of God here mentioned although he confesses that Basil and Vatablus understand the Temple by it but I will yield him that the Ark is most probably understood by it because of his sitting between the Cherubims being mentioned before in which respect the Ark may properly be called his Footstool For the Cherubims were the Mercabah or the Divine Chariot and so called 1 Chron. 28.18 where the Vulgar Latine renders it Quadriga Cherubim in such a Chariot Pyrrhus Ligorius the famous Italian Antiquary saith The Deities were wont to be drawn and Livy and Plutarch take notice of it in Camillus as an extraordinary thing that he made use of such a Triumphal Chariot which had been before looked on as proper to Iove the Father of Gods and Men. Such a Triumphal Chariot I suppose that to have been in the Holy of Holies but without any representation of the Divine Majesty and this Chariot is that we call the Cherubim and the Ark was a kind of Footstool to the invisible Majesty that sate between the Cherubims and there delivered his Oracles Now I appeal to the understanding of any reasonable man whether God being represented as sitting upon His Triumphal Chariot without any visible Image of Him the worship was there to be performed to the invisible Deity or to the visible Chariot and Footstool which is all one as to ask whether persons approaching to a Prince on his Throne are to worship the Prince or his Footstool or Chair of State But Lorinus and Suarez say The Hebrew particle being added to a word implying worship doth not denote the place but the object of worship which is sufficiently refuted by those two places before mentioned viz. the last verse of this Psalm and Psalm 132.7.3 Those of the Fathers who understood this expression of the object of worship do declare by their interpretation that it was not lawful to worship the Ark after that manner Therefore Lorinus saith most of the Fathers understood it of the humanity of Christ as S. Ambrose S. Hierome S. Augustine and others generally after him and among the Greeks he reckons S. Athanasius and S. Chrysostome But what need all this running so far from the literal sense in case they had thought the Ark a lawful object of worship Let S. Augustine speak for the rest The Scripture saith he elsewhere calls the Earth Gods Footstool and doth he bid us worship the Earth This puts me in a great perplexity I dare not worship the Earth lest He damn me who made the Heaven and the Earth and I dare not but worship His Footstool because He bids me do it In this doubt I turn my self to Christ and from Him find the resolution of it for His Flesh was Earth and so he runs into a discourse about the adoration due to the flesh of Christ and the sense in which it is to be understood And elsewhere saith That the humane nature of Christ is no otherwise to be adored than as it is united to the Divinity Which plainly shews that he did not think the Ark literally understood to be a proper object of worship But T. G. adds that S. Hierome saith That the Iews did worship or reverence the Holy of Holies because there were the Cherubims the Ark c. It is well he puts in Reverence as well as worship for Venerabantur signifies no more than that they had it in great veneration and that not only for the sake of the Ark and Cherubims but for the pot of Manna and Aarons Rod and doth T. G. think in his conscience that the Iews worshipped these too But S. Hierom explains himself when he saith immediately after That the Sepulchre of Christ is more venerable than that which he interprets by saying It was a place to be honoured by all And are these the doughty proofs which T. G. blames me for not vouchsafing an Answer to them I think he ought to have taken it as a kindness from me Let him now judge whether I have neither Scripture nor Father nor Reason to abet me in saying That the Iews only directed their worship towards the place where God had promised to be signally present among them As to the worship of the Cherubims all his attempts come only to this They might be worshipped although they were not seen and if it were lawful for the High Priest to worship them once a year it was alwaies lawful but I deny that the High Priest ever worshipped them for he only worshipped the God that sate upon His Triumphal Chariot and their being hid from the sight of the People was an argument they were not exposed as objects of worship as Images are in the Roman Church Their being Appendices to the Throne of God he saith was rather a means to increase than diminish the Peoples Reverence to them If by Reverence he means worship we may here see an instance of the variety of mens understandings For no less a man than Vasquez from hence argues That the Cherubims were never intended as an object of worship because they were only the Appendices to another thing but a thing is then proposed as an object of worship when it is set up by it self and not by way of addition or ornament to another thing with whom Lorinus Azorius and Visorius agree And even Aquinas himself grants That the Seraphim he means the Cherubim were not set up for worship but only for the sign of some Mysterie nay he saith the Iews
instead of the Pictures of their Friends should wear Ants and Flies in Crystal cases and instead of their own pictures the Apes and Asses should be sent them which I brought in so lamely and the Tygers too if they can catch them as greater resemblances of their Perfections These passages I hope were intended for sallies of Wit which do become T. G. as well in this argument as dancing upon the Ropes would do a Capucin Frier in his habit But whence comes all this Rage of Wit this arming all the Pencils and brushes of the Town against me this Appeal to the Ladies against the pernicious consequences of my opinion this hurrying of me from the Playhouse and the Scenes there to the Bear-garden to the Apes and Asses and Tygers All this ariseth only from this innocent saying that it seems more reasonable to me to Worship God by prostrating my self to the Sun nay to an Ant or a Fly than to a picture or an Image for in the other I see great evidences of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of God which may suggest venerable apprehensions of God to my mind whereas these can have nothing worthy admiration unless it be the skill of the Painter or Artificer Hinc illae lachrymae Could I ever have imagined that these words being spoken meerly with a respect to the representation of God in order to Worship should have raised the Arriereban of all the Ladies and Painters against me If nothing will satisfie T. G. but having it under my hand that I had no malicious intention against the ingenious art of Painting nor any design to ruine the company of picture-drawers I do hereby give it him and with this humble acknowledgement I hope the parties concerned will rest satisfied It is not in the point of bare representation I compare pictures and Gods Creatures but it is in representing those perfections which are the ground and Reason of Worship and here I stand to it that the least living Creature is a far better Image of God than an old Man in Pontifical habits or the best Crucifix in the world can be i.e. it represents more those perfections for the sake of which I give divine Worship to God But T. G. saith that Atheists will deny the perfections of the Creatures to be any evidence at all of the being we call God but cannot deny a Crucifix to represent to their own thoughts that Person whom we believe to be God This is very ill put for he should have parallel'd blind men and Atheists together and I dare say no blind man discerns more of the excellency or likeness of a Picture than Atheists do of the perfections of God by his Creatures If men will shut their eyes what can a Crucifix do to raise affections and if their eyes be never so open it can only represent that which falls infinitely short of being a Reason for Divine Worship For as to the meer representation of Christs humanity by an Image whoever disputed with T. G. about the lawfulness of it but if he goes no farther than representation or a help to memory or apprehension T. G. knows well enough he falls short of what is required of him by the Decrees of their Councils and the constant practice of their Church about which our Controversie with them is To the former paradox I added these words that I cannot for my heart understand why I may not as well nay better burn incense and say my Prayers to the Sun having an intention only to honour God by it as to do both those to an Image Here T. G. gives me warning not to say my Prayers to the Sun no more than they do to Images he needs not give me that warning for I never intend to do it so much for although he would insinuate that I know they do not I hope he will change his mind when he reads the account I have given of their practises in that particular but I only pretended to pray to the Sun having an intention to honour God by it and in this sense I am sure T. G. cannot deny that they pray to their Images But if I do not say my prayers to the Sun but only bow down to it so it be not out of ignorance or Heathenism or to give scandal to weak Brethren he gives as much liberty as I could wish and he quotes S. Leo for it too in that very place where he condemns it as appears by the last words he cites out of him let the Faithful therefore abstain from so perverse and worthy to be condemned a Custome nor let the honour due to God alone be mixed with their rites who serve the Creatures for the Holy Scripture saith Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Where the reason he gives against it is not as T. G. insinuates because there were some Reliques of Paganism remaining but because it was giving the Creature part of that Honour which is due to God alone But T. G. offers to give me a clear solution to my scruple which he does in two particulars 1. That although the Creatures do represent God after their manner yet it is so rudely remotely darkly and imperfectly that there is need of a great deal of discourse to discover the analogy or proportion to their Creator and they are called the footsteps of God whereas an Image for example of Christ is so apparently representative of him that upon sight thereof our thoughts fly presently unto him By which argument S. Paul was strangely mistaken when he talked of the Eternal Power of God being so known or manifest by the things that are seen that even the Heathens were left without excuse no such matter saith T. G. the Creatures represent God rudely remotely darkly and imperfectly which make an excellent paraphrase on the words of the Psalmist The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament shews his handy-work Mens handy-work by Images will do it rarely presently effectually inflamingly but Gods Work doth it dully remotely rudely and imperfectly O how much the skill of a painter exceeds the Power of God! Whereas in truth the least work of Nature infinitely exceeds the greatest art of man in curiosity beauty strength proportion and every thing that can discover Wisdom or Power But saith T. G. they are called Gods footsteps and to gather the height and bigness of Hercules from his footstep was not the Work of every vulgar capacity which is a very Childish way of reasoning and taken only from such a Metaphorical expression that Vasquez calls it a frivolous argument that is taken from it I but the pretty story of Hercules and that put together make a pleasant jingling and looks like Reason to those that know not what it means Must men take the measure of God just by the same Geometrical proportions that he did that gathered the height and bigness of Hercules by
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
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
obtaining that good we stand in need of For a man may apprehend God to be the first Author of all good and yet make no prayer to him nor use the acts of Religious worship because he may suppose that God may have committed the care of humane affairs to inferiour Deities and therefore all our addresses and acts of worship are to be performed to them on this account the worship proper to God must lye in dependence upon him as the Sole Author of all Good to us and this to be expressed by our Solemn Invocation of him For although the internal desire be sufficiently known to God yet the necessity of external Religious worship and owning this dependence upon God to the world doth require the expression of it by outward duties and offices of Religion in such a manner that our sole dependence upon God be understood thereby Now the Question between T. G. and me is this whether the doctrine and practice of the Roman Church in the Invocation of Saints and Angels be consistent with the acknowledgement of our sole dependence upon God for all our Blessings The doctrine of their Church is thus delivered by himself in the words of the Council of Trent It is good and profitable for Christians humbly to invocate the Saints and to have recourse to their prayers aid and assistance whereby to obtain benefits of God by his Son our Lord Iesus Christ who is our only Redeemer and Saviour Where we take notice of the phrase suppliciter invocare to invocate them after the manner of suppliants and that not only voce but mente with words but mental prayers as the Council adds which words seem to be put on purpose to distinguish it from that office of Kindness in one man to another when he desires him to pray for him for this is as much as they would use concerning the Saints in Heaven praying to God that they do suppliciter invocare this phrase then doth not limit the signification of this invocation to be no more than praying to the Saints to pray for us For a man doth I suppose answer the signification of that phrase by praying to them to give rather than by praying to them to pray for the one imports more the humility of a suppliant than the other doth And if there had been apprehended any danger of praying to them as the givers of blessings is is not to be imagined but so wary a Council would have expressed it as it was most easie to have done and most necessary to avoid that danger if they had any regard to the good of mens souls And that man must have an understanding indeed of a very common size that can apprehend that the Council of Trent disallowed the praying to Saints as the Givers of Blessings which was known to be practised in their Church when they commend the humble invocation of Saints without the least censure of that manner of praying to them Nay farther which puts the matter out of dispute with all who do not wilfully blind themselves the Council of Trent commends the making recourse not only to the prayers of the Saints but to their aid and assistance what doth this aid and assistance signifie as distinct from prayers and expressing somewhat beyond them or else those words were very weakly inserted in such a place where they are so lyable to misconstruction unless it be that which they pray for to them viz. that they would help comfort strengthen and protect them Of which sort of prayers I produced several instances in their most Authentick Offices And what saith T. G. to this why truly these Forms of prayer to Saints cannot be denyed to be in use among them but yet the sense of them is no more than praying to them to pray for them and this is only varying the Phrase to say to the Blessed Virgin Pray for me or Help me and comfort me and strengthen me O Blessed Virgin But I asked him whence must people take the sense of these prayers if not from the signification of the words He answers not meerly from Lilly 's Grammar Rules but from the doctrine of the Church delivered in her Councils and Catechisms and from the common use of such words and expressions among Christians I am content with this way of interpreting the sense of these prayers provided that a generally received practice never condemned by their Councils but rather justified by them and a doctrine agreeable to that practice allowed and countenanced in that Church be thought a sufficient means to interpret the sense of these prayers And to make the matter more plain besides the prayers already mentioned I shall give only a Tast of some few of those which are recommended to the Use of the devout Persons of their Church in the Manuals and Offices which are now allowed them in our own language in which we may be sure they would be careful to have nothing they thought scandalous or repugnant to the doctrine and practise of their Church In the Manual of Godly Prayers which hath been often printed and once very lately I find these words under the title of A Most Devout Commendation to our most Blessed Lady O most singular most excellent most beautiful most glorious and most worthy Mother of God most Noble Queen of Heaven and most entirely beloved and most sweet Lady and Virgin Mary so often from the bottom of my heart I do salute thee as there be in number Angels in Heaven drops of water in the Sea Stars in the Firmament leaves on the Trees and grass on the earth I do salute thee in the union of love and by the blessed and most sweet heart of thy most dear Son and of all that love thee I do commend and assign my self unto thee as to my dear Patroness to be thy proper and loving Child And farther I humbly beseech thee O blessed Lady that thou wilt vouchsafe to entertain and receive me and obtain of thy dear Son that I may be wholly thine and thou next unto God may be wholly mine that is my Lady my Ioy my Crown and my most sweet and faithful Mother Amen Lilly's Grammar I confess will not help us out here nor the Construing Book neither I do not think any Rules will do it It must be a special gift of interpreting that can make any one think that no more is meant by all this but to pray to the Blessed Virgin to pray for them In the same Manual I find another Recommendation to the Virgin Mary in these words O my Lady Holy Mary I recommend my self into thy blessed trust and singular custody and into the bosome of thy mercy this night and evermore and in the hour of my death as also my Soul and my Body and I yield unto thee all my hope and consolation all my distress and miseries my life and the end thereof that by thy most holy intercession and by thy merits all
citations I there produced out of Origen wherein he saith the Christians durst have no Images of the Deity because of this Commandment and that they would rather dye than defile themselves with such an impiety And even Theodoret himself saith they were forbidden to make any Image of God because they saw no similitude of him and which is more to T. G. even the Nicene Council and the great Patrons of Images for a long time after did yield that the second Commandment did forbid the making or worshipping any representation of God as I have already at large proved If I might advise T. G. I would never have him venture at the Fathers again but be contented to bear his own burdens and out of meer pity to them not to load them with the imputation of his own infirmities if not wilful mistakes To make it appear that the intention of the Law was not meerly against the Idols of the Heathens I added these words If this had been the meaning of the Law why was it not more plainly expressed why were none of the words elsewhere used by way of contempt of the Heathen Idols here mentioned as being less liable to ambiguity why in so short a comprehension of Laws is this Law so much enlarged above what it might have been if nothing but what he saith were to be meant by it For then the meaning of the two first precepts might have been summed up in very few words Thou shalt have no other Gods but me and Thou shalt worship the Images of no other Gods but me To all this which is surely something more than saying that it is ridiculous to imagine the Law means any thing else T. G. answers not one word but instead of that he spends some pages about two similitudes one of mine and another quainter of his own which must stand or fall according to the Reason given for the sense of the Law and therefore I shall pass them over Only for his desiring me to make my similitude run on all four as the Beasts mentioned in it it is such a piece of Wit that I desire he may enjoy the comfort of it But he hath not yet done with the word Pesel which he saith the LXX would never have rendred it here contrary to their custome Idol without some particular Reason for it What particular Reason was there here more than in the repetition of the Commandment Deut. 5.8 where they translate it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Alex. M S. and in other Copies of the LXX Deut. 4.16 Was there not as much reason to have used the same word in those places as in this since the Commandment is the very same And for the other places he mentions as Isaiah 40.18 44.9 10 13. I dare leave it to the examination of any man whether they do not far better prove that an Idol in Scripture is an Image set up for worship than that by graven Image is meant an Heathen Idol This I am certain of that Pet. Picherellus an excellent Critick and learned Divine in the Roman Church was convinced by comparing of these places that the signification of an Idol in the second Commandment is the same with that of a graven Image and that the using any outward sign of worship before any Image is the thing forbidden in this Commandment and that the doing so is that Idolatry which God hath threatned so severely to punish which I beseeth T. G. and those of his Church to consider and repent The second way I proposed to find out the sense of the Commandment was from the Reason of it which I said the Scripture tells us was derived from Gods infinite and incomprehensible nature which could not be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it For which I produced Isaiah 40.19 20 21 22. To whom will ye liken God or what likeness will ye compare to him The workman melteth a graven Image and the Goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold c. Have ye not known have ye not heard hath it not been told you from the beginning Have ye not understood from the foundation of the earth It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth c. Whence I desired to know whether this reason be given against Heathen Idols or those Images which were worshipped for Gods or no or whether by this reason God doth not declare that all worship given to him by any visible representation of him is extremely dishonourable to him And to this purpose when this precept is enforced on the people of Israel by a very particular caution Take ye therefore good heed to your selves lest ye corrupt your selves and make you a graven Image the similitude of any figure c. the ground of that Caution is expressed in these words For ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you If the whole intention of the Law had been only to keep them from worshipping the Heathen Idols or Images for Gods to what purpose is it here mentioned that they saw no similitude of God when he spake to them For although God appeared with a similitude then yet there might have been great Reason against worshipping the Heathen Idols or fixing the intention of their worship on the bare Image But this was a very great Reason why they ought not to think of honouring God by an Image for if he had judged that a suitable way of Worship to his Nature and Excellency he would not have left the choice of the similitude to themselves but would have appeared himself in such a similitude as had best pleased him This Discourse T.G. saith is apt enough to delude a vulgar Auditory out of the Pulpit I with their Pulpits had never any worse before not vulgar Auditories but altogether empty and insignificant when brought to the Test of Reason That is to be tried whether my Reason or his Answer will be found so However he saith this doth not prove it Idolatry No! that is very strange for if the Image of God when worshipped be an Idol and forbidden as such in the Commandment then I suppose the worship of it is Idolatry But none so blind as they that will not see Now for the terrible Test of Reason He saith 1. That all representations of God are not dishonourable to him and for that he produces a Hieroglyphical Picture of a three corner'd light within a Cloud and the name Iehovah in the midst of it in the Frontispiece of a Book of Common Prayer by Rob. Barker 1642. from whence he inferrs that the Church of England doth not look on all visible representations as an infinite disparagement to God As though the Church of England were concerned in all the Fancies of Engravers in the Frontispieces of Books publickly allowed He might better have proved that we worship Iupiter Ammon in our Churches
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
and the common sense of the word Therefore I grant that Ieroboam did permit the Egyptian Idolatry but he established the Golden Calves as the Religion of the State 2. I shewed that the true God was worshipped by the Golden Calves because the sin of Ahab who worshipped Baal is said to be so much greater than the sin of Jeroboam And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Ieroboam that he took to wife Iezabel daughter of Baal King of the Zidonians and went and served Baal and worshipped him and he reared up an Altar for Baal in the House of Baal which he had built in Samaria Yes saith T. G. Ahabs sin was greater because he added this Idolatry to the other Who denies that his sin might have been greater in that respect but that it was not so to be understood appears by the opposition between God and Baal in the words of Elijah How long halt ye saith he to all the People between two opinions if the Lord be God follow Him but if Baal then follow him Now there being three several waies of worship among the people if two of the three had not agreed in the same object of worship viz. the God of Israel Elijah could not have said that they halted only between two opinions of God and Baal if some were for the God of Israel others for the Gods of the Egyptians and others for Beel Samen or the God of the Zidonians But saith T. G. Elijah supposes a general Apostasie of the ten Tribes to Baal in the next Chapter And what then It was but very lately so and they were not yet so fixed but they might be put in mind that they were lately of another opinion and some render it How long will ye pass from one extreme to another how long will ye be so uncertain in Religion now for God and then for Baal So Vatablus renders it Quousque tandem alternis c. Now of one side then of the other or as some imagine they themselves worshipped the Calves and sometimes Baal So that notwithstanding what T. G saith the opposition is here plain between the God worshipped by the Calves which was the publick and established worship of the ten Tribes and the worship of Baal which was newly introduced and so the True God is supposed to be worshipped by those who did not worship Baal To confirm this I added that Iehu magnifies his zeal for Iehovah against Baal when it is said of him but a little after That he departed not from the Calves of Dan and Bethel which evidently shews the opposition between the God of Israel worshipped by the Calves and the worship of Baal No saith T. G. Iehu's zeal for the Lord doth not acquit him from Idolatry in following Jeroboam any more than the lawful act of Matrimony acquits a Husband from the Crime of Adultery who defiles his Neighbours Bed I perceive T. G. grew very sleepy when he wrote this and forgot what we were about for I never intended to clear Iehu from Idolatry by his zeal for Iehovah but from such an Idolatry as excludes the worship of the True God For that was my business to shew that he might be guilty of Idolatry and yet worship the true God by the Calves of Ieroboam as he not only shews by that expression to Ionaedab but by distinguishing between the Priests of the Lord and the Priests of Baal and yet soon after that character is twice given of Iehu That he departed not from that worship which Ieroboam had established To the last instance I brought of the Samaritans who sent to the King of Assyria for an Israelitish Priest to teach them the accustomed worship of the God of the Land who accordingly came and dwelt in Bethel and taught it them upon which it is said They feared the Lord T. G. returns a strange answer viz. That there is no mention at all made of his teaching them to worship him in the Calves as Symbols of his presence here T. G. nodded again For if he would but have held his eyes open so long as to have looked back on the 22 and 23 verses of the same Chapter he would have found these words For the Children of Israel walked in all the sins of Ieroboam which he did they departed not from them until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight as he had said by all his servants the Prophets So was Israel carried away out of his own Land to Assyria and then immediately follows this story of the Samaritans desiring to know the worship of the God of the Land what can this refer to but to the worship established by Ieroboam I leave this to be considered by T. G. when he is awake for he seems to have written these things in a Dream As to what he saith of his having confuted my conjectures or rather Monceius his when it is apparent I differ from Monceius in his main ground to any man that hath read him I leave it as a fresh token of his kindness when he will not so much as suffer me to be the Author of such weak conjectures which he hath so easily and so pleasantly confuted and for the phrase of my plowing with his Heifer I suppose it hath relation to the Calves of Dan and Bethel which I take notice of that he may not think his Wit is lost upon me To conclude this point of the meaning of the Second Commandment I said That since the Law giver hath thus interpreted his own Law we need not be solicitous about the sense of any others yet herein I say we have the concurrence of the Iewish and Christian Church The Iews have thought the prohibition to extend to all kinds of Images for worship and almost all for ornament and the Image worship of the Church of Rome is one of the great scandals to this day which hinder them from embracing Christianity All that T. G. answers to this is That he would gladly know whether we must stand or fall by the interpretation of the Iews Did I bring their Testimony for that purpose or intimate the least thing that way did I not use so much caution on purpose to prevent such a cavil I declared that I did not need their Testimony in so clear a case and yet it is no small advantage to our Cause that we have herein the concurrence of all that had any Reverence to this Law of God whether Iews or Mahumetans and not barely of them but of the whole Christian Church for so many Ages as I have fully proved in the precedent Chapters As to the Prophetical confutation of my opinion about Idolatry and the Second Commandment by Mr. Thorndike I do assure him if I could have thought what that learned Person had said in this matter to have been agreeable either
signifying Daughters implies the lesser Deities and Olla taal the Supreme God as the words signifie which he proves from Sharestanius that the old Arabs did acknowledge Abraham Ecchellensis speaking of the Religion of the old Arabians saith that those who were of the Sect of Chaled went upon this principle that there was one Creator and Governor of all things most Powerful and most Wise Besides these there were those who worshipped Intelligences or Celestial Spirits and these saith he although they confessed one Creator of the World most holy wise and powerful yet they said we had need of Mediators to him therefore they invoked those Spirits with all rites of Religious worship and these saith he were called the Daughters of God as they are in the Alcoran not much different from these were the worshippers of Images whom he describes as we have done before But he tells us there was a Sect of Dahritae among them whom he calls Philosophers who were meer Atheists and asserted the Eternity of the World and these being excepted he saith that the ancient Arabs did believe the creation of the world and he tells out of them their particular history of it But Ecchellensis was aware of the parallel between the worship practised in the Church of Rome and that among the Arabians supposing they acknowledged one true God and therefore puts the Qustion whether they did worship their Idols for Gods without relation to any Superiour or only took them for second causes and gave them the name of Gods only Analogically It was a question seasonably put but not so wisely answered For as if he had quite forgotten what he had said before he saith without all doubt the most of them looked upon the Gods they worshipped as of Supreme Authority and Majesty and Independent of any other What although they acknowledged but one Supreme God and called all the lesser Deities his Daughters Although all of them a very few excepted believed the creation of all things by one most Wise and Powerful Being But alas he did not think of this Question when he said the other things and he was not bound to remember them now but to say what served best for his present purpose to clear the Roman Church from Idolatry I will not deny then but there might be a Sect of Dahritae who did only in name own any thing of God and Religion that did assert the Eternity of the world and that there were no other Gods but the Sun Moon and Stars both among the Phoenicians and Chaldeans as well as Arabians but I say these were Atheists and not Idolaters those who where charged with Idolatry among them were such as believed a Supreme Deity but gave Divine Honours to Beings created by him The like is suggested by some concerning the Persians as though they attributed omnipotency and divine worship only to the Sun and those who take all things of this nature upon trust meerly from Herodotus or Iustin or other Greek and Latin writers may think they have reason to believe it but if we look into those who have been most conversant in the Persian writings we shall find a different account of them Iac. Golius in his Notes on Alferganus saith that the Persians gave the names of their Gods to their Months and Days according to the ancient Religion of the Persians and Magi whereby they did believe their Gods to preside over them for it was a principle among them as well as other Nations of the East that the things of this lower world are administred by Angels and accordingly they had their particular prayers and devotions according to the several Days and Months and not only so but their very meat drink clothing and perfumes were different and they had their Tables or Rubricks to instruct them And what worship they gave to the Planets was not saith he to themselves but to those Intelligencies which they supposed to rule them nay they supposed particular Spirits to rule over all the material parts of the world the Spirit over fire was called Adar and Aredbahist the Spirit over Herbs and Trees Chordad the Spirit over Bruits was Bahmen the Spirit over the Earth was Asfendurmed and so they had an Angel of Night and another of Death and the Spirit over the Sun was called Mihrgîan from Mihr the Sun whence the word Mithras but above all these they believed there was one Supreme God whom they called Hormuz and Dei and the Persian Writers say that Zoroaster appointed six great Festivals in the year in remembrance of the six days creation And to this is very agreeable what the Persees in Indosthan do to this day deliver of the principles of their Religion for they affirm God to be the maker of all things but that he committed the Government of the world to certain Spirits and they worship the fire as a part of God and call the Sun and Moon Gods great witnesses and the description of them in Varenius fully accords with this that they acknowledged one Supreme God every where present that governs the world but he makes use of seven chief Ministers for the management of it one over men another over bruits another over fire as is before described and under these they place 25 more who are all to give an account to the Supreme God of their administration With this account agrees the relation of Mandelslo concerning them who saith that the Parsis believe that there is but one God preserver of the Universe that he acts alone and immediately in all things and that the seven servants of God for whom they have also a great veneration have only an inferiour administration whereof they are obliged to give account and after the enumerating these with their particular charges he reckons up 26 under them with their several names but they call them all in common Geshoo i. e. Lords and believe he saith that they have an absolute power over the things whereof God hath intrusted them with the administration Whence it comes that they make no difficulty to worship them and to invocate them in their extremities out of a perswasion that God will not deny them any thing they desire on their intercession Schickard relates a particular story of the Persian King Firutz or Perozes which shews the acknowledgement of a Supreme Deity among the Persians in his time which was about the time of the Council of Chalcedon there happened a mighty drought in Persia so that it rained not for seven years and when the Kings granaries were utterly exhausted and there was no hope of further supplies he called his People out into the open Fields and there in a most humble manner he besought the great God Lord of Heaven and Earth to send them rain and gave not over praying till a plentiful shower fell upon them which saith he is another example after the Ninivites of Gods great mercy
after a publick and solemn repentance But that this Prince was yet a worshipper of the Sun appears by what follows when the Emperor Zenâ— had him at his mercy and made him promise fidelity to him by bowing of himself to him he to avoid the reproach of it among his People carried himself so that he seemed only to them to make his Reverence to the Sun according to the custom of his Country But it will add yet more to the conviction of T. G. and to the discovery of the Nature of Idolatry to shew that those Nations which are at this day charged with Idolatry by the Church of Rome have acknowledged one Supreme God And I shall now shew that those Idolaters who have understood their own Religion have gone upon one of these three principles either 1. that God hath committed the Government of the world under him to some inferiour Deities which was the principle of the Platonists and of the Arabians and Persians Or 2. that God is the Soul of the world and therefore the parts of it deserve divine honour which was the principle of Varro and the Stoicks Or 3. That God is of so great perfection and excellency that he is above our service and therefore what external adoration we pay ought to be to something below him which I shall shew to have been the principle of those who have given the least external adoration to the Supreme God These things I shall make appear by giving a brief account of the Idolatry of those parts of the world which the Emissaries of the Church of Rome have shewed their greatest zeal in endeavouring to convert from their Idolatries There are two Sects in the East-Indies if I may call them so from whom the several Nations which inhabit there have received what principles of Religion they have and those are the Brachmans and the Chineses and the giving account of these two will take in the ways of worship that are generally known among them For the Brachmans I shall take my account chiefly from those who have been conversant among them and had the best reason to understand their Religion Francis Xaverius who went first upon that commendable imployment of converting the Indians saith that the Brachmans told him they knew very well there was but one God and one of the learned Brachmans in his discourse with him not only confessed the same but added that on Sundays which their Teachers kept very exactly they used only this prayer I adore thee O God with thy Grace and Help for ever Tursellinus saith that he confessed this to be one of their great mysteries that there was one God maker of the world who reigns in Heaven and ought to be worshipped by men and so doth Iarricus Bartoli not only relates the same passages but gives this account of their Theology that they call the Supreme God Parabrama which in their language signifies absolutely perfect being the Fountain of all things existing from himself and free from all composition that he committed to Brama the care of all things about Religion to Wistnow another of his Sons the care of mens rights and relieving them in their necessities to a third the power over the elements and over humane bodies These three they represent by an Image with three Heads rising all out of the same trunk these are highly esteemed and prayed to for they suppose Parabrama to be at perfect ease and to have committed the care of all to them But the Brachman Padmanaba gave a more particular account of the management of all things to Abraham Rogers who was well acquainted with him and was fifteen years in those parts Next to Brama they make one Dewendre to be the Superintendent Deity who hath many more under him and besides these they have particular Deities over the several parts of the world as the Persians had They believe both good and evil Spirits and call them by several names the former they call Deütas and the other Ratsjaies and the Father of both sorts to be Brachman the son of Brama In particular cases they have some saith Mr. Lord who conversed among them and to whom Mons. Bernier refers us to one who gave a faithful account of them whom they honour as Saints and make their addresses to as for Marriage they invocate Hurmount for Health Vagenaught for success in Wars Bimohem for Relief Syer c. and I suppose incontinent persons may have someone instead of S. Mary Magdalen to pray to The custom of their daily devotion as the Brachman Padmanaba said was first to meditate of God before they rise then after they have washed themselves they repeat 24 names of God and touch 24 parts of their bodies upon Suâ— rising they say prayers and pour down water in honour of the Sun and then 〈◊〉 down upon their knees and worship him and after perform some ceremonies 〈◊〉 their Idols which they repeat in the evening The particular devotion which theâ— have to their Saints and Images aâ—â— Reliques is fully described by Boullaye-le-Gouz in his late Travels into those parts Mandelslo saith that in the time of the publick devotions they have long Lessâ—â— about the Lives and Miracles of the Saints which the Bramans make use 〈◊〉 to perswade the people to worship them Intercessors with God for them Amoâ—â— their Saints Ram is in very great estimâ—tion being the restorer of their Religiâ—â— and a great Patron of their Braman Kircher supposeth him to be the 〈◊〉 with him whom the Iaponese call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Chinese Ken Kian 〈◊〉 Kircher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kia saith Marini and those of Tunquin Chiaga or as Marini Thic-Ca in all which parts he is in very great veneration him they look on as the great propagator of their Religion in the Eastern parts and they say he had 80000 disciples but he chose ten out of them all to disperse his opinions From whence it is supposed that the Religion of the Brachmans hath spread it self not only over Indosthan but Camboia Tunquin Cochinchina nay China it self and Iapan too where it is an usual thing for persons to drown burn or famish themselves for the honour of Xaca This Sect was brought into China 65 years after Christ from Indosthan as Trigautius or rather Matthaeus Riccius tells us for Bartoli assures us that Trigautius only published Riccius his papers in his own name which he supposes was brought in by a mistake for the Christian Religion and surely it was a very great mistake but for all that Trigautius hath found a â—trange resemblance between the Roman Religion and theirs For saith he they worship the Trinity after a certain manner with an image having three Heads and one Body they extol coelibate 〈◊〉 a high degree so as to seem to condemn marriage they forsake their Families and go up and down begging i. e. the Order of Friers
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
So it is said of the People of Israel when they heard that the Lord intended to deliver them out of Egypt They bowed their heads and worshipped when Moses declared the Institution of the Passeover to all the Elders of Israel it is said again The People bowed their heads and worshipped 2. Under the Law when they were so strictly forbidden in the same words to bow down or worship any Image or similitude yet the outward act of adoration towards God was allowed and practised So Moses commanded Aaron and the seventy Elders of Israel to bow themselves a far off the very same word which is used in the second Commandment And when God had so severely punished the Israelites for bowing to the Golden Calf yet when He appointed the Pillar of Fire for the Symbol of His own presence it is said That when all the People saw the Cloudy Pillar stand at the Tabernacle door they rose up and bowed themselves every man in his Tent-door When God appeared to Moses it is said That he made hast and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped And when Moses and Aaron came to the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation they are said to fall upon their faces In the time of David upon his solemn thanksgiving to God it is said All the Congregation blessed the Lord God of their Fathers and bowed down their heads and worshipped the Lord and the King And in the time of Hezekiah When they had made an end of offering the King and all that were present with him bowed their heads and worshipped 3. Under the Gospel we are to observe the difference between the same external act of worship when it was used towards Christ and toward His Apostles When the Syrophoenician woman came to our Saviour in one place it is said She worshipped Him and in another That she fell at His feet but in no place is there the least mention of any check given to her or any others who after that manner worshipped Christ But when Cornelius came to S. Peter and fell down at his feet and worshipped him he would by no means permit it but said Stand up I my self also am a man And when S. Iohn fell down at the feet of the Angel he would not suffer it but bade him worship God That which I observe from hence is that even under the Gospel the external acts of Religious adoration are proper and peculiar to God so that men are to blame when they give them to any Creature but no Persons are condemned for giving them to God And I desire those who scruple the lawfulness of giving to God such external adoration under the Gospel how they can condemn those for Idolatry who give it to any Creature if it be not a thing which doth still belong to God But if all the scruple be about the directing this Adoration one way more than another I say still it is done in conformity with the Primitive Church as our Canon declares and which every one knows did worship towards the East and this at the most is but a local circumstance of an Act of Worship which I have already shewed to be very different from an Object of it when I discoursed of the Nature of the Israelites worshipping toward the Ark and the Cherubims Thus through the Assistance of God I have gone through all the material points of T. G's Book which relate to the General Nature of Idolatry and have diligently weighed and considered every thing that looketh like a difficulty in this Controversie about the Worship of Images and do here sincerely protest that I have not given any Answer or delivered any Opinion which is not agreeable not only to the inward sense of my Mind but to the best of my understanding to the sense of Scripture and the Primitive Church and the Church of England And if the subtilties of T. G. could have satisfied me or any other Argument I have met with I would as freely have retracted this Charge of Idolatry as I ever made it For I do not love to represent others worse than they are but I daily pray to God to make both my self and others better and therein I know I have the hearty concurrence of all who are truly Good FINIS 2 Cor. 7.5 Concil Tolet. 3. 〈…〉 Marian. de rebus Hisp. l. 5. c. 14 15. Marian. l. 6. c. 1. Greg. Registr l. 1. ep 41. §. 1. T. G. p. 203. p. 64. p. 203. P. 39 p. 63. p. 67. p. 99. p. 103. p. 349. p. 348. p. 350. p. 27. §. 2. Act. 17.23 v. 24. v. 28. p. 348.349.352 v. 29. Euseb. Praep. Evang. l. 13. c. 12. Minuc Felix in Octav. p. 19. Orig. c. Cels. l. 5. Orig. c. Cels. l. 4. p. 196. ed. Cant. Orig. c. Cels. l. 1. p. 19. c. Voss. de Idolol l. 1. c. 37. Rom. 1.18 v. 19. v. 20. v. 21. v. 23. §. 3. p. 37.203 Th. Aquin. c. Gent. l. 1. c. 42. in fin Id. l. 3. c. 120. Aquin. Sum. p. 3. q. 25. art 3. Possev Biblioth l. 9. c. 25. Thom. à Iesu de Convers gent. l. 11. c. 2. Cajet in Th. p. 3. q. 25. art 3. In Aq. 2.2 q. 94. art 4. Mart. Peres de divin trad part 3. p. 120. Ferus in Act. 17. Kirch Oedip Aegy. synt 3. c. 1. c. 2. Petav. dogm The. To. 1. c. 1. §. 9. Max. Tyr. dissert 1 Oros. l. 6. c. 1. Petav. l. 1. c. 3. §. 3. Aug. c. Faust. l. 20 c. 10. c. 9. Ph. Faber Faven advers Atheos disp 1. c. 2. n. 27. Raim Bregan Theolog Gentil Mutius Pansa de Osculo Ethnicae Christianae Philoso Liv. Galant Christianae philosoph cum Platon comparat Paul Benii Eugub Platon Aristot Theolog Aug. Steuch Eugub de perenni Philo. §. 4. T. G. p. 350. Iustin. Martyr paraen p. 4. ed. Paris p. 6. p. 16. p. 18. p. 19. p. 22. p. 27. Baron A. 164. n. 14. Euseb. hist. l. 4. c. 17 p. 44. p. 68. p. 66. p. 57. p. 44. p. 55. p. 44. p. 65. p. 160. §. 5. Iul. Capit. vit Anton. Baron A. 164. n. 7 8 9. Anton. l. 6. §. 30. l. 2 3. l. 5.33 l. 5.21 l. 6.5.42 l. 5.32 l. 4.40 l. 7.9 l. 9.4 §. 6. De Aruspic Resp. c. 9. Euseb. Chronic. p. 118. Varro de Ling. Lat. l. 4. Plutarch in Numa Dionys. Halicarn Antiq. Rom. l. 2. Liv. hist. l. 1. c. 19. Aug. de Civ Dei l. 4. c. 31. Dionys. l. 3. Tacit. hist. l. 3. c. 72. Liv. l. 1. c. 53. Varro de Ling. lat l. 5. Plaut Capt. Act. 3. sc. 4. Liv. l. 2. Senec. Consol ad Marciam Liv. l. 5. c. 50. Ovid. Fast. l. 2. Cic. in Verr. 4. c. 58. Tacit. hist. 3.72 Plin. Panegyr Liv. l. 4. c. 32. l. 21. c. 63. Plin. hist. l. 15.30 Sen. ad Helv. c. 10. A. Gel. l. 7. c. 1. Lactant.