principally the Sun though great men likewise when deified after their deaths obtained that Name as a Title of highest renown And from the many names of Canonized Heroes given to the Sun hath risen a great part of that uncertainty and confusion with which the Reader is perplexed in the Labyrinths of Heathen Mythologers This however is generally confessed that the Sun was the first Idol instead of which why Jarchi hath put men or herbs into the first place is hard to understand till he come and be his own Elias Maimonides begins with the Stars and he hath ground not only from natural Reason but from the Authority also of Job and Moses Job thus expresseth the Idolatry of those ancient times in which he lived If I beheld the sun when it shined or the Moon walking in brightness And my heart hath been secretly enticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand If with devotion of Soul or profession of outward Ceremony I have worshipped those heavenly bodies which by their heighth motion and lustre ravish the senses This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge for I should have denied the God that is above Moses giveth caution to the people of Israel who were coming out of that Idolatrous Land of Egypt and were journeying towards Idolatrous Canaan who were coming from temptation and going likewise towards it That when they lifted up their eyes to the Heavens they should arm their minds against that inchantment to which they were subject by the sensible glory of the Sun Moon and Stars Rabbi Levi Ben Gerson glossing upon this place in Moses Observeth that the Sun is first named because his vertues are most manifest The most ancient inhabitants of the World saith Diodorus Siculus meaning them that lived soon after the Flood and particularly the Egyptians contemplating the World above them and being astonished with high admiration at the nature of the Universe believed that there were eternal Gods and that the two principal of them were the Sun and the Moon Of which they called the first Osiris and the second Isis. And of late years when the Mariners Compass directed men to a new World in America peopled no doubt from several distant parts of the old many different Idols were found in peculiar places but for the Sun it was a Deity both in Mexico and Peru. Babylon was the Mother of this kind of Idolatry not Egypt as the Author de Dea Syria and some in Diodorus Siculus who make Sol the first King of it have erroneously conjectured For Egypt was not a Nation when the Sun began to be worshipped in Chaldea where Ur it may be in aftertimes with respect to the worship of that hot Luminary was a kind of lesser Babylon Babylon infected Egypt Assyria Phaenicia and they spread the contagion throughout the World To the worship of the Sun Moon and Stars and other appearances in Heaven or the Air such as Comets and Meteors for the worship of the former was apt to draw on that of the latter succeeded the false Religion towards Heroes confounded as I guess with original Demons or Angels And this came to pass in the days of Serug according to Eusebius Epiphanius and Syncellus The Sun was no sooner called Bel Baal or El that is Lord or Governour but the souls of men of renown were also flattered with like Appellations and became properly the Idols of the people Nimrod and Osiris were Baals and the King of Phaenicia was Bel and they had Religious veneration payed to them If other Demons were worshipped as no doubt they were being permitted to appear to them it is a question whether the Gentiles did not by them misunderstand the deified Souls of some of their Ancestors distinctly or confusedly remembred rather than natural Genii or Angels For such Beings owed much of their manifestation as such to the Tradition conveyed in the Loyn of Abraham and Moses The worship of Demons was followed by that of Pillars or Artless Monuments of remembrance Such a Monument was that Pillar anointed by Jacob. It was no Idol in the quality in which he made it but a Record of the Divine presence But it is commonly thought that others did take from it a pattern of their follies Statues or Images were of a like antient date as is plain from the History of the Teraphim though Artists were then rare The infancy of this new World being also the infancy both of Mechanical and Liberal Arts. Idolaters likewise chose for their Deities living Statues such as the Bull in Egypt for the heavenly Taurus according to Lucian or rather for the Deity of the Sun or of an Hero according to truth Pausanias in his Survey of Greece findeth Stones sharpened at the top to have been the earliest Symbols of their Gods They were it may be Cones relating to the Sun the parent of fire which as was before noted ascendeth a Pyramis and was thought to be an element of Triangular figure by the ancient Philosophers of Greece Scaliger in that learned Appendix of his to his Book of the Emendation of the accounts of time doth mention Rude Stones as the original Statues in Phenicia What the first Symbols amongst the Romans were is not distinctly understood One would guess by Numa's Temple they were Symbols of the Universe But for particular Images we have it upon the good authority of a most learned Roman That an Hundred and Seventy years were passed ere they came in amongst them Under Christianity the vanity and veneration of Images succeeded the Symbol of the Cross. At this day the Barbarians on the Coasts of Africa reverence Stones like our greater Land-marks as Fetiches or Divine Statues believing them to be as ancient as the World it self It appeareth by this short account of the Original of Idols that they may plead antiquity But still their age is nothing if we compare it to his who is God everlasting CHAP. V. Of those who are charged with Idolatry and of the conformity or inconformity of their worship to the Nature of Idolatry Of Gentiles Jews Mahometans Christians Amongst them who have professed Christianity of the Gnosticks Manichees Arrians Socinians Roman-Catholicks the real Catholicks of the Communion of the Church of England And first of the Idolatry charged on the Gentiles PART 1. How far the Gentiles were Ignorant of one Supreme God I Have insisted hitherto on the Nature Occasions and Commencement of Idolatry The next consideration shall extend to the persons charged with it and in the first place to them who have first and most generally transgressed that is to say the Gentiles Concerning their worship it is here proper for me to attempt the resolution of three Questions First Whether the Gentiles acknowledged one Supreme God Secondly Whether they made Religious Application to him Thirdly Whether upon the concession of such acknowledgment and Application they may be and really are chargeable with
Seventy to his worship and they sacrificed to Idols and profaned the Sabbath But some chose rather to sacrifice their own lives than to offer to Idols The Samaritans of all others were under this Tyrant the most disloyal to God they send Letters of flattery to this impious Monster of which Josephus in the Twelfth Book and seventh Chapter of his Antiquities hath given us a Copy They inscribe them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Antiochus the illustrious God They feign themselves to be the off-spring of the Sidonians and Persians that they may not be taken for Jews whom he hated They consecrate a Temple on Mount Gerazim to the Jupiter of Grece and by such vile arts they insinuate themselves into the favour of Antiochus who commandeth that they be esteemed and used as Grecians And yet a while after under Ptolomaeus Philometor they abhor Idols and contend with the Jews themselves about the sanctity of their Temple which they preferred before that of Jerusalem it self The Jews by this means and by former commerce with Grecians in divers of their Cities and Colonies and particularly in their own Jerusalem which Alexander himself is said to have visited and in Alexandria where the Ptolomies had advanced the Worship of Grece and in which Philo in his time numbered exceeding many Jews became leavened with the Grecian Demonology This Thales learnt in Egypt and he enlarged and propagated it in the Regions of Grece I cannot accuse the Jews of erecting Statues or of offering solemn Prayers or Sacrifices to them Yet all who mark that Translation of the Seventy which is commonly in mens hands may charge at least the Hellenistick Jews with a false and dangerous estimation of Daemons with an estimation of them as Presidents and Tutelar Spirits who under God did govern the World He that runs may read thus much in their Version of the eighth verse of the thirty-second of Deuteronomy When the most High divided the Nations when he separated the sons of Adam he set the bounds of the People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the number not of the Children of Israel as the Hebrew Copy readeth it but according to the number of the Angels of God who they say were seventy and whom they call the Sanedrim above Such Angels many Jews imagined to have their Thrones in several Stars whilst their footstools or inferior places of Government were in several parts of the Earth Hence Aben Ezra saith that it appeared by Experiments he meaneth sure miraculous effects succeeding the worship of Patrons of Places that every Nation and every City hath its particular Planet to which it is subject But he excepteth the people of Israel who being subject only to the Government of God had it seems no Planet for their Superintendent Also with allusion to the Government of the Nations by Angels in Stars and Constellations and not by immediate Providence the Jews in their Liturgy give to God the name of the King of the Kings of Kings that is the King of those Angelical Powers who rule over the Potentates on Earth This belief of the Hellenists containeth in it a twofold error That of the Lieutenancy of Angels and that of the Innocency of those Spirits which Christianity calleth Daemons in the most infamous signification of that name This double error is found in one passage of Josephus who recordeth it as one of the Precepts of Moses of Thales he might have said more truly That one Citizen ought not to blaspheme those Heavenly Powers which other Cities have in esteem as Gods The Jews after the coming of the Messiah had besides the motives of their Religion Political Reasons against Images or Idols For they have been forced by a just vengeance pursuing such bloody murtherers to live dispersedly under both Christian and Mahometan Power And in Dominions of both kinds the Worship of Graven Idols besides that their zeal against them and for their Sabbath was instrumental as the charracter of a Party to keep them still in some sort of body would have much obstructed their Toleration The Mahometans would have been from the other extreme averse to them their Law forbidding all Statues and graven or painted Images In pursuance of this Law their zeal defaced the Grecian and Roman Coins which had upon them the Image of their Emperours It did so formerly but since that time it is so much cool'd that they do not believe the Coin profaned by the Superscription Nay they prefer the Venetian Ducats which have Images upon them before their own Sultanies which have none but are stamped according to the will of their Prophet But so it is often seen that the principle of Avarice becomes much stronger than that of false Religion In the days of Julian the Jews were noted amongst the Gentiles as the Worshippers of one God and whatsoever their opinion was concerning Angels they were not observed for any external worship with which they honoured them That Apostate maketh this difference betwixt the Jews and the Gentiles of his Age that the Gentiles worshipped many Gods or Daemons but the Jews one God only And those unbelievers pretend at this day to the strictest observance of the second Command It may be here taken a little notice of how the Jews have been often accused by the Gentiles and amongst them by Juvenal Petronius and Strabo as Worshippers of the Clouds If this reproach had been cast upon that Religion whilst the Ark remained in the most holy place I should have thought it occasioned by that miraculous Cloud which shadowed the Mercy-seat and towards which the high-Priest did make his obeisance But the scandal cannot be traced so far as my knowledg leads me beyond the days of Augustus Mr. Selden once guessed that this reproach might arise from a mistake of the Idiom of the Jews who called the Majesty of God Heaven This Idiom Christ useth whilst he demandeth concerning the Baptism of John Whether it was of Heaven or of Men of Divine or Humane Authority Afterwards he was induced to think that the Slanderers of the Jews mistook them for the Gnosticks who made so much noise about their Heavens and AEons At last he rejected the accusation with scorn and placed it amongst such groundless and extravagant forgeries as that of their worshipping an Ass with which malicious ignorance had traduced them But it is not my purpose to write an entire History of the Jewish Worship or to tell how often they served one God and how often they worshipped many I will only insist on one Instance That Peccatum Maximum as the Vulgar Latine calls it their greatest sin to wit their Idolatry committed with the Golden Calf It is an instance which themselves take especial notice of thinking that in every Judgment sent to them by God there is as they speak an ounce of that Idol and it is a subject which hath occasioned a Controversie
original Quaker but as of one who by believing that God is not distinct from the Saints and by worshipping that which he calls his Light or Christ within him rejecteth the Person of our Redeemer and committeth Idolatry with his own imagination must not they make a like judgment of such as Anna Trapnell who believed for a while that God dwelt essentially in his Saints must not they also judg of Lodowick Muggleton as of a mad-man or of an Impostor selling his Blessings at a very profitable rate or of an Idolater worshipping nothing for the one true God but a confined person of flesh and bones For he owneth no other Godhead than that which was conceived in the womb of the Virgin and circumscribed by it for a season and as he blasphemously continues to speak such as lost it self for a while both in honour and knowledg not knowing till he was glorified that himself was God the Father but that Elias was his God and his Father For that also is one of his Blasphemies That God not finding it safe to trust the Angels upon his descent from Heaven he committed his place to the safer trust of Moses and Elias A blasphemy worse if possible than that in Irenaeus of the extravagant Gnosticks who supposed the place of the Logos to have been on earth supplied by the Angel Gabriel But I forbear any further repetition of his abominable Fancies which will cause as great pain in the ears of pious Christians as the Justice of the Magistrates has lately done in his own I shut up this Chapter with the Prayer of that Learned French-man Isaac Casaubon Thou O Lord Jesu preserve this church of England and give a sound mind to those Nonconformists who deride the Rites and Ceremonies of it CHAP. XIV Of the means which God hath vouchsafed the World towards the cure of Idolatry and more particularly of his favour in exhibiting to that purpose the Shechinah of his Son PART 1. Of the Cure of Idolatry THE Notion of Idolatry being stated and also illustrated by the practice of it amongst Gentiles Jews Mahometans and Professors of Christianity I proceed to shew the means which God in pity of our weakness hath given us towards the Cure of this Evil. Against all manner of false Gods and ruling-Daemons he gave to all the world a Principle of Reason which teacheth that there is one Supreme Being absolute in Perfection and by consequence that he being every-where by Almighty Power Wisdom and Goodness is every-where to be adored and trusted in as the only God The same Principle of Reason teacheth them that God can neither be represented by an Image nor confined to it neither knoweth it much more of the inferiour Powers of the invisible World save that they are and consequently it hath no ground for addresses to them For the Jews they had an express command for the worship of one God without Image and many declarations of God as governing the world by his immediate Providence Also Christian Religion sheweth plainly that the gods of the Heathens were Doemons or evil spirits and that there is but one God and one Mediator to be by Christians adored It establisheth a Church or Corporation of Christians who agree in the worship of one God in Trinity In Baptism or the Sacrament of admittance into that Society it prescribeth a solemn Renuntiation of the Devil and his works of which a part were the Pomps or Processions in honour of Idols In the Sacrament which is a memorial of the Passion of Christ the Head and Founder of this Society it offereth to us the Cup of the Lord in opposition to the cup of Devils On the First-day of the Week set a-part for publick worship it maketh a Remembrance of the Creation of the world by the Son by whom the Father made all things and not by any Doemons as also of the Resurection of Christ from the dead by which he conquered the powers of darkness In the Form of Prayer which our Lord taught the Church it prayeth for deliverance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that evil one from Satan the destroyer as Rabbi Judah was wont to petition and in the Doxology it ascribeth not with the Heathen world which then lay in maligno illo under the Power of the God of this world in general Idolatry the Kingdom Power and Glory to the Devil but to that one true God who was the Father of Jesus Christ. But upon most of these Subjects I have already inlarged It remaineth therefore that I speak of the means which God hath specially vouchsafed in the case of Images a Subject not commonly discoursed of and hinted only in the former Papers This Disquisition I will begin with the notion of the Invisibility of God proceeding thence to the condescension he vouchsafes towards the very eye and fancy of man in the Shechinah of his Son There is in the very Creation a great part of invisible matter and motion Many things besides God Almighty are not immediately subject to mans sense though his Reason can reach them after a Philosophical consideration of their palpable effects God indeed could have made that matter which is now invisible to have been seen by man in all the minute and curious Textures of it For what should hinder that omnipotence which formed the light and created the soul from framing the Fibers of the Nerves in such delicate manner in this life what possibly he may do in the coelestial body as to give to man a kind of natural Microscope But for his own Divine substance which hath neither limits nor parts nor Physical motion which is the division of Parts nor figure which is inconsistent with immensity nor colour which is an effect of figure and motion upon the brain it is certain that in this body we cannot see it and there is great reason to doubt whether we can do so in any other which though it be coelestial is still but body For this sight then we are not to hope unless we mean it of the fuller knowledg of Gods will and interpret the antecedent by the consequent in that place of Scripture which saith No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath reveal'd him St. John in that place denieth expresly actual sight as also he doth again in his first Epistle Tertullian in his refutation of Praxeas discourseth of the invisibility of God and the visibility of the Son of God illustrating his sense by the appearance of the Sun which is not seen in its very body but by its rays And he further noteth of St. Paul that he had to this purpose denied both the actual and potential sight of God No man said that Apostle hath seen God nor can see him No man whilest alive can see God as he is as he dwells in Heaven the Palace and
and Causes of Idolatry being considered I intend in the next place to inquire into the time of its Birth so far as the silence or uncertainty of Tradition will permit It is one of the Aphorisms of Philo the Elder if he were the Author of the Book of Wisdom that Idols were not from the beginning And it is a question among the Learned whether Idolatry was any of those pollutions which defiled the old World and brought the deluge upon it It doth not appear that it was extant before the flood and many believe it to be no older than Cham. Tertullian it is true was of opinion that Idolatry began in the days of Seth and that Enoch restored true Religion and is for that Reason said in Scripture to have walked with God He hath given us his opinion but he hath concealed the grounds of it And I can think of nothing so likely to move him to this belief as the reverence he had for the fictitious Prophesie of Henoch which he often citeth and in which are contained severe Comminations both against the makers and worshippers of Idols S. Cyril of Alexandria is much of another mind affirming in his first Book against Julian the Apostate That all men from Adam to the days of Noah worshipped that God who by nature was one And he strengtheneth his opinion with this Reason Because no man is by Moses accused as a worshipper of other gods and impure Demons If that false Religion had then set foot in the World it would scarce have escaped that Divine Historian but he would in likelihood both have mention'd it plainly and severely reproved it For this is no sin of a mean stature It is in the judgment of Tertullian the principal crime of mankind the chief guilt of the world the total cause of Gods judgment or displeasure He meaneth that it is a kind of Mother-sin containing in it all other evils on which the Judg of the World passeth sentence of condemnation Lactantius goeth higher still in his censure of it giving to it the name of an inexpiable wickedness And S. Gregory Nazianzen sheweth what apprehension he had of the greatness of this guilt when he calleth it The last and first of evils So monstrous a sin if it had been in those early times committed it would a man would think have been as soon reflected on by Moses as the violence or injustice which then filled the earth or the unclean mixtures of the sons of God with the daughters of men That is as I guess in the same sense in which the tall Trees of Lebanon are called the Cedars of God the unbridled appetites of the High and Potent who made their Power subservient to their lust In the infancy of the World there were many Causes which might prevent the sin of Idolatry By the fresh date of it from the Creation in which God almost beyond miracle it self discovered his Almighty Being and Oneness by the appearance of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Son of God to Adam and others of which appearance largely afterwards by the long-lives of Adam and Seth and the rest of the Holy Line who could often inculcate to their families what themselves were so abundantly assured of and possibly also by the conviction of him who was the head of the degenerate Line unrighteous Cain himself who having seen God in his Shechinah could not propagate either direct Atheism or Idolatry though he was the Father of evil manners By these and perhaps by other Causes to us unknown it might come to pass that the worship of Idols was either not in being or at least not in frequent exercise in those first Generations We know nothing of those times but by the Pen of Moses and a doubtful word of his hath inclin'd some to refer the Origine of Idolatry to the days of Enos In his time saith Moses men began to Profane as some would render his Text instead of translating it as our Church doth to call upon the Name of the Lord. It is true that the Hebrew word Hochal doth sometimes signifie Prophaned But there is no Reason which may enforce such an exposition of it in this place the Name of God having been formerly profaned and with great irreverence abused in the irreligious Families of Cain and Lamech Neither is the termination of our worship on the creature instead of the Sovereign God the only prophanation of his Holy Name A rude Tongue and an immoral Life commit that offence and not only an Idolatrous mind or body Such profaneness the Arabian Metaphrast imputeth to that time whilst he thus turneth the Hebrew of Moses Then began men to recede from their obedience to God But to me the Chaldee Interpreter seemeth to come nigher to the scope of the Words the sense of which he expresseth in this manner In those days men began to make supplications in the name of the Lord. That is the numbers of Families increasing in the days of Enos they appointed more publick places for Gods service in which at set-times they might together and in a more solemn Congregation worship their great Creator I must confess that this exposition doth much disagree with the mind of Maimonides For he doth not only refer the beginning of Idolatry to the times of Enos but he accuseth Enos himself of that gross and stupid wickedness For thus he begins that short Book which he hath written on that Subject In the days of Enos men erred very greatly and the minds of the wise-men of that age were overborn with stupidness Even Enos himself was one of them who thus erred Now this was their error the worship of the Stars A very rash and rude reflexion upon so holy a Patriarch and relishing of Rabbinical dotage For certainly divers of those Writers if any others have had a flaw in their Imaginations though Maimonides amongst them all may be allowed the largest intervals of sobriety From Cham therefore rather than from Enos the Learned derive the beginning of Idolatry though I know not whether under him it may not be dated a little too soon The heart of Cham being before the flood deeply depraved it was rather hardened by the escape than warned by the mighty danger of that general Deluge Insomuch that it was just with God to give him up to the further seducement of his sensuality and to the visible power of the old Serpent who may seem to have been for a time chained down by the Curse in Paradise but was now as I conjecture let loose again for the punishment of those whom Gods severe and miraculous discipline did not cleanse of their folly He therefore is esteemed the Father of Idolatry that Monster in Religion which in his corrupt Loyn was by degrees multiplied into innumerable heads But S. Cyril of Alexandria in two places beginneth Idolatry at the confusion of Languages and with Belus rather than
There Euphantus as may be probably imagined found Baal or some such word in the original Egyptian and gave us instead of it the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such honour of the Sun we find on the Antient Egyptian Obelisk interpreted by Hermapion and restored to its antient beauty by Sixtus Quintus On it the Sun is set forth as God as the Sovereign disposer of the World which it seems he committed to the Government of King Ramestes Others there were who mistook for the one supreme God the Soul of the World and it may be thought the Sun the Head in that great animated Body or the place of that Souls principal residence On this fashion Osiris in Macrobius describeth his Godhead The Heavenly world is my head my belly the Sea my feet the Earth In Heaven are my Ears and for my all-seeing Eye it is the glorious Lamp of the Sun Pornutus likewise reciting the Dogmata of the Heathen Theology discourseth to this effect As we men are governed by a Soul so the world hath its Soul also by which it is kept in frame And this soul of the World is called Jupiter Aristotle himself doth somewhere stile God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mighty Animal So apt are the highest Aspirers in Philosophy to fall sometimes into wild and desperate errors Amongst the Romans who excelled Varro in knowledg And yet S. Austin saith of him that he believed no higher God than the Soul of the World but that by disgusting Images as debasers of Religion he approached nigh to the true God Others both in Egypt and Persia worshipped for the true God a part only of his Idea whilst they removed from it the justice and mercy of sending preventing or taking away any temporal evils in which they thought the supreme Deity not concerned whilst they believed certain Demons to be the chastizers of those who had not purged themselves sufficiently from matter PART 3. How far the Gentiles owned one true God BUT it is not fair to fight always on the blind-side of Nature I come therefore in the next place to acknowledg that some Gentiles used a Diviner Reason than others and owned one supreme God the King of the World and a Being distinct from the Sun or the Universe or the Soul of it This appeareth from the Confession of many Christians and from the words of the Gentiles themselves First Divers of the Fathers though they shew the generality of their gods to have been but creatures yet they confess they had amongst them some apprehension of one supreme eternal Deity S. Chrysostom in a second Discourse in his sixth Tome concerning the Trinity doth charge upon the Arians and Macedonians the crime of renewing Gentilism whilst they professed one great God and another Deity which was less and created For it is Gentilism said that Father which teacheth men to worship a creature and to set up one Great or greatest God and others of inferiour order In this Discourse St. Chrysostom acknowledgeth that the Gentiles adored the one Sovereign God for him the Arians believed in and were in that point good Theists though no Orthodox Christians notwithstanding he accuseth them of Subordinate Polytheism S. Cyril of Alexandria speaks the same thing and in more plain and direct words It is manifest said he that they who Phylosophized after the Greecian manner believed and professed one God the builder of all things and by nature superiour to all other Deities And to come to the second way of proof above mentioned S. Cyril is very copious in the authorities which he produceth out of the Heathen Writers in order to the strengthening of his Assertion that they believed in one infinite God He introduceth Orpheus speaking as Divinely as David himself God is one he is of himself of him are all things born and he ruleth over them all He again after he had cited many Philosophers bringeth in the Poet Sophocles as one that professed the true God and the words which he there calleth to mind are worth the Transcribing Of a truth There is one God who made the Heavens and the spatious Earth and the goodly swelling of the Sea and the force of the Wind. But many of us mortals erring in our hearts have erected Images of gods made of Wood or Stone or Gold or Ivory as supports of our grief And to these we have offered sacrifices and vain Panegyricks conceiting in that manner that we exercised Piety He forbeareth not after this to cite Orpheus again and the Verses have their weight and contain this sense in them I adjure thee O Heaven Thou wise work of the great God! I adjure thee thou voice of the Father which he first uttered when he founded the whole World by his Counsels The Father calls to mind likewise many sayings of Porphyry and of the Author falsly called Trismegist But they were too well acquainted with Christianity to have Authority in this Argument of the one God of the Gentiles Such a Gentile one who dreamt not of any Gospel was Anaxagoras who as Plutarch testifies did set a pure and sincere mind over all things instead of fate and fortune In Laertius we may hear him speaking in his own words and they admit of this interpretation All things were together or in a Chaos Then came the Mind and disposed them into order But on this declaration of Anaxagoras I will not depend because his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mind might be such as the Platonick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Soul of the World I like better the words of Architas the Pythagorean who speaks of God in the singular and says he is supreme and governs the World But nothing is more close to the purpose than that which hath so often been said by Plato It is his opinion recited in Timaeus Locrus That God is the Principal Author and Parent of all things And this he adds after an enumeration of the several Beings of which the Universe consisteth He affirmeth in his Politicus “ That God made the great Animal of the World and that he directeth all the motions of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that there are not two Gods governing the World with differing Counsels In his Sophista he determineth that God was the maker of things which were not that is as such before he framed them In his Timaeus he calleth God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Maker and Father of every being Adding that it is difficult to find out this Father of the Universe and that when he is found out it is not fit to declare him to the vulgar He was it seems a Jehovah not ordinarily to be named They who have read his works with care know what distinction he maketh betwixt God and the gods And how he extolleth the Divine goodness and maketh it the very Essence of the supreme God It is indeed to be
form and a prayer of which the following words are a part Shew me that which is hidden in thy bosom Oh thou who art indu'd with majesty and honour I see nothing of moment to be further said by me in this Argument and therefore I here conclude it And happy were it for the world if the superstition of Mahomet might have as speedy an end The like may be said of that kind of Idolatry which hath infected many who profess the true or Christian Religion And that false worship is my next Subject CHAP. VIII Of the Idolatry with which some are charged who profess and â—…all themselves Christians And first of the Idolatry of the Gnosticks and Manichees PART 1. Of the Idolatry of the Gnosticks WHen Christ was incarnate he soon weakned the visible Empire of the Devil removing his Idols and putting his Oracles to silence One of his great designs in coming in the flesh was to perswade the World to leave Idols and the Atheism of many gods as Maximus speaketh He manifested the one true God in Trinity declaring that there were three in Heaven and that they Three were One. He revealed much of the nature of the Daemons which had been worshipped in the World and decried them as wicked and malicious spirits God in him gave to the World the greatest help against the worship of Daemons and Idols as shall afterwards be shewed at large if God permit His Apostles and followers spake and wrote with zeal against Idols and God be thanked not without admirable success Amongst them was St. John the Beloved Disciple And he having shewn the Son in one of his Epistles to be the true Image of the Father and very God of very God does thence proceed to exclude all other Symbols in this dehortation Little children keep your selves from Idols And with that as with advice of moment and fit to be reserved for a word to take leave with he closeth his Epistle Idols also were with zeal declaimed against after him by divers Christians of whom some were converted Jews who had lived under an express Law against Images and others were converted Gentiles who bent themselves quite another way from their former Rites And these expressed their detestation of Idols in such severe manner that they looked upon Statuaries and Painters as men of unlawful Callings Others there were Christians by profession who though they worshipped not unless by fear or stealth as Epiphanius noteth the same Statues and Deities with the Gentiles yet did they set up afresh an Idolatrous worship which was in truth but disguised Heathenism Such were the Scholars of Simon Magus Menander Saturninus Basilides Carpocrates or according to Epiphanius Carpocras Valentinus Cerdon Marcion Secundus Ptolomaeus Marcus Colorbasus Heracleon Lucian Apelles and very many others who from their arrogant boasting of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sublime and extraordinary sort of knowledg obtained the name of Gnosticks These I will consider as worshippers firft of Daemons and secondly of Images The worship of Daemons they learned from the Cabala of Thales Pythagoras and Plato It was the Dogma of Menander and after him of Saturninus that this outward World was made by Angels that is that it was framed and composed by those Encosmical gods formerly mentioned and spoken of by Sallust the Platonist Alcinous a Disciple of the same School in his Introduction to the Philosophy of Plato professeth the same Doctrines He teacheth it as a Dogma of his Master That God did not properly make but rather adorn and excite the Soul of the World awakening it as it were out of its profound inactivity that thenceforth as an awakened man who stretcheth out his arms it extended it self far and near and joined and conserved the whole of Nature And to this eternal Soul of the World a principle which in some sort comprehended in it the inferior Angels the Gnosticks perhaps alluded in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fulness of the Godhead to which St. Paul opposeth the true principle by which God made all things his eternal co-essential Son Beyond the Daemons Alcinous doth not extend the care of God but setteth them as his Sons over other things And he ascribeth the formation of Animals and even of man himself to Junior Daemons Basilides was an Alexandrian where the Pythagorean Cabala had gotten deep footing and it appeareth by the Errors of Origen that the very preaching of St. Mark had not worn out the prints of it Some of them are easily discerned in the writings of that Father and especially in his Book which hath the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basilides enjoin'd silence to them to whom his Mysteries were revealed both in imitation of the silence in the School of Pythagoras and as a means to avoid the trouble which might arise by the more open publication of them Carpocrates and Valentinus both of them were professed Pythagorean Platonists Valentinus placeth his Bythus or Profundity and Siges or Silence as the first conjugation of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Fullness And by this he might mean the Soul of the World awakened out of that deep inactivity which just now we heard of in the Jargon of Alcinous Marcion expresly maintained the two Principles of Pythagoras and he taught that they were distinct and without beginning and infinite These Hereticks worshipped a Deity under the mystical name of Abraxas or Abrasax according to the inscription on some Basilidian Gems This name some think they took up with respect to the imposition of that of Abraham By it they understood a supreme Power and seven subordinate Angels the Presidents of the seven Heavens together with their three hundred and sixtyfive Virtues answering to the number of the days of the year and by Basilides in Epiphanius set over so many members of the body of man By the name as one word they understood their one Deity and under it the Eighth Sphere which the Platonists called the highest Power by which all things were circumscribed By the seven Letters of that one word they understood the seven Angels and under them the seven Orbs. And therefore Gassendus if the Printer hath not injured him committeth a mistake in writing it ABRSAX as sometimes he doth He spoileth their Mystery by the diminution of one Letter Such injury the Engravers have done them in their Gems unless they designed by false Letters to render them still more mysterious By the Numeral Powers of their seven Letters in Greek they amounting to the sum of 365 days they understood the abovesaid Virtues Members and Days of the Year St. Austin in his Catalogue of Heresies seems in this matter to commit a mistake for he representeth Basilides as one that held 365 Heavens and affirmed them to be the makers of this World Whereas Basilides and Saturninus ascribed such power to the several Virtues of the seven Angels St.
numbered Amongst them beyond the Seas I will name only Danaeus and Hottinger Daneus in his Appendix to the Catalogue of Heresies written by St. Austin recounteth the Hereticks who had offended as he thought in particular manner against the several precepts of the Decalogue And under the second Commandment he placeth the Simonians the Armenians the Papists and some others as notorious violaters of it Hottinger distributeth the false worship of the Papists into six kinds of Idolatry under the Greek names of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bread-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Marian-worship to wit that of the Blessed Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Saint-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Relick-worship and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the worship of Images PART 2. Of the mitigation of the charge of Idolatry against the Papists THE learned Hugo Grotius especially in his Annotations on the consultation of Cassander in his Animadversions on the Animadversions of Rivet and in his Votum pro Pace The learned Mr. Thorndike in his Epilogue and in his Just Weights and Measures Curcellaeus in his Epistle to Adrian Patius These three together with some others have pronounced a milder sentence in this cause though they approved not of such Invocation of Saints and worship of Images as is practised in the Church of Rome But it is not my design to decide the controversie by the greater number of modern Authorities but rather to look into the merits of the cause And this I purpose to do so far only as Angels or rather Saints and Images are the Objects of this Disquisition Of Relicks and the Sacramental bread I forbear to say more than that little which follows For the first that which will be said concerning the worship of Images will help us sufficiently in judging of the worship of Relicks If they be made Objects of Religious adoration if they be honoured as pledges of Divine protection if they be trusted in as Shrines of Divine virtue at adventure and in all ages they become as the Manna which was laid up for any other than the Sabbath-day useless to the preservers offensive to God and unsavory to men of sagacious Noses Concerning that substance which after Sacramental consecration appeareth as Bread that excellent Church in whose safe communion I have always lived doth still call it Bread For the Priest after having consecrated the Elements and received the Communion himself in both kinds is required by the Rubrick of that Office to administer to others and when he delivereth the Bread to any one to use this Form The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body and Soul to Everlasting life Now a Discourse concerning the worship of that Substance which appeareth as Bread will in effect be a Discourse about the Corporal presence of Christ under the shews of that creature and run the Disputant into another Question which hath been industriously sifted by Thousands Neither are the printed Volumes touching this subject few or small There is a great heap of them written by the learned Messieurs Arnaud and Claud and Monsieur Aubertin hath obliged the World with a very large and laborious work about Transubstantiation in which may be seen the sense of the Ancients Forbearing then any further Discourse about the Worship of Relicks or the Sacramental bread I proceed to the Worship of Saints Angels and Images inquiring how far the Church of Rome doth by her Veneration render them Idols At the entrance of this Inquiry the trueness of her Faith in one God and three Persons is to be acknowledged and observed The Creed which is formed by order of the Council of Trent beginneth with the Articles of that of Nice though it endeth not without Additions And Dr. Rivet in his Reflections on those excellent Notes with which the acute Grotius adorned the consultation of Cassander doth in this point own the Orthodoxy of the Roman Faith In the Article of the Divine Trin-unity there is nothing saith he controverted betwixt Papists and Protestants And thus much is true if spoken of the generality of them for they herein adhere to Catholick Doctrine Thus do the Protestants of the Church of England but all do not so either here or beyond the Seas who commonly pass under the name of Protestants Curcellaeus for instance sake is called a Protestant yet may seem no other than a Tritheite as may appear by the first of those four Disputations which he wrote against his sharp Adversary Maresius The Romanists then professing the true Catholick Faith in the Article of the blessed Trinity and owning the second Synod of Nice which though it favoured Images so very highly yet it ascribed Latria to God only they seem injurious to them who do not only charge them with Idolatry but also aggravate that Idolatry as equal to the false Worship of the most barbarous Gentiles They seem unjust I say in so doing unless this be their meaning that the least degree of that crime under the light of Christianity be equal to the greatest under the disadvantages of Heathenism It is certain that the Romanists who worship the true God do not worship Universal Nature or the Sun or the Soul of the World in place of the Supreme Deity as did millions of Pagans Also for the Angels which they worship they justifie only the adoration of those Spirits who persisted in their first estate of unspotted Holiness and they renounce in Baptism the Devil and his Angels after the manner of the Catholick Church And when an Heathen is by them baptized the Priest after having signed him first on the Forehead and then on the Breast with the sign of the Cross does exhort him in this Form Abhor Idols Reject their Images But the Gentiles sacrificed to Devils and to such who by the light of nature might be known to be evil Daemons because they accepted of such Sacrifices as were unagreeable to the justice and charity and piety of mankind Sacrifices vile and bloody such whose smoke might be discerned by a common nostril to smell of the stench of the bottomless pit Yet some of the Heathens expresly denied the practice of such worship and made to the Christians this following profession We worship not evil Daemons Those Spirits which you call Angels those we also worship the Powers of the Great God and the Ministeries of the Great God For Hero's they worship those only whom they believe to have professed Christian Religion and to have been visible Members of the Catholick Church For into that whatsoever particular communion it was which afterwards they visibly owned they were at first Baptized Whereas the Gentiles worshipped many who had been worshippers of false gods Such worshippers were Castor Pollux Quirinus among the Romans These first worshipped false Deities and were afterwards worshipped themselves with the like undue honour
we are daily delivered from the greatest dangers of Soul and Body For the Books of publick Offices their Forms have been already produced neither can I see where the Comment of any Rubrick removeth the scandal of their Text. Concerning Manuals they are usually composed by private Doctors or devout Students who often intermix the Glosses of their own Reason But nothing less than the Church it self can authentickly explain its Universal practice And for such Manuals as are authorized by the Church to me they seem to transcend rather than to come short of the Forms of the Missal and Breviarie Such a Manual is that of the Hours of of the Blessed Virgin in which if there had been any such Explication of the Forms used to her it had been shut up together with other Manuals from the common view of the Christian world by the Interdict of any vulgar translation of it For to every Country has not been granted the Sclavonian priviledg That people have been allowed the Books of their Religion in their vulgar tongue with advice notwithstanding to embrace the Latin though to them an unknown language In the Province of Mexico it was decreed by the Synod That no Books of Religion should be read without the permission of the Ordinary And the Manuals which were appointed for the use of the people whether Spanish or Indian were not likely to expound to them the meaning of the Roman Forms for their Contents were these The Lords-prayer The Salutation by the Angel The Apostles Creed The Articles of Faith those in the Creed of Trent The Precepts of the Decalogue The Precepts of the Church The seven Sacraments the seven deadly Sins and the Salve Regina This Antiphona called Salve Regina has been already repeated and it is one of the higher Forms of the Worship of the Virgin And Father Paul did in some measure shew his dislike of it in forbearing to repeat it as did his Brethren at the end of the Mass. But it is true that he coloured his aversness with such an excuse as this that he was not to observe a Decree of Thirty Fryars against the Order of the whole Church Now in the abovesaid Synod of Mexico there is a special inforcement of the singing of Salve Regina daily and with all solemnity during a great part of Lent And the Bishops are there much pressed to procure in this manner with all solicitude the increase of pious devotion towards the holy Virgin The English Romanists have had often in their hands the Manual of Godly Prayers published at St. Omers by John Heigham In the sixth Edition of that Book I find no Explication of the Worship of Saints but much which seemeth to advance it to a degree too high for it Under the first or in our account the second Commandment the Penitent is there taught to confess this as one breach of it that he hath not daily recommended himself to God and his Saints In the Litany of our Lady he hath these Forms O holy Mary stretch abroad the hand of thy mercy and deliver our hearts from all wicked thoughts hurtful speeches and evil deeds O holy Mary we worship thee we glorifie thee Words which are a part of that Religious Thanksgiving which the ancient Church offered to God and called the Angelical Hymn Horstius in his Manual called the Paradise of the Soul reprinted lately at Colen and adorned with Sculptures seems as devout as Heigham now cited for thus he prays or comments on Gratia Plena O blessed Virgin be graciously pleased to pour forth that Grace of which thou art full that the vein of thy benignity overflowing the guilty may receive absolution the sick medicine the weak in heart strength the afflicted consolation those that are in danger help and deliverance O that I could but deserve one drop of such great fulness for the refreshing of my dry and parched heart For the private Oral Instructions of the Romish Ecclesiasticks concerning the use and intent of such Forms I pretend not to be well acquainted with them But as to their publick Preaching I am not ignorant of one very common and no less scandalous usage For the Preacher after a short Preface which introduceth his Text or Subject exhorts the Congregation to say Ave Maria in order to a blessing upon that holy business about which they are assembled And this the Reader may see not only in the more private Sermons of Monsieur de Lingendes but likewise in the more publick one of John Carthenius a Carmelite at the Provincial Synod of Cambray By this Discourse it plainly appeareth that the Letter of the Roman Forms in the Invocation of Saints does to the most vulgar ears sound as Idolatrous as also that that Church hath not provided any publick direct clear Interpretation of them in its subsequent Synods Missals Breviaries Catechism Decretals Authentick Manuals or what I likewise may add in its Bullarium which as shall anon be shewed exalteth the Canonized into the condition of Patrons and Guardians of men There then remaineth this only to be said by the learned of that Communion That they who hear the Church professing plainly its Faith in one supreme God in Trinity cannot think it meaneth by any words whatsoever to give to the Creature the supreme Honour of that Trinity which it so solemnly acknowledgeth And indeed seeing all the Romanists believe the Apostles Creed seeing many of them appropriate all Latria to God seeing they teach in their Manuals that therefore all Prayers are ended with Through Jesus Christ our Lord to signifie that whatsoever we beg of God the Father we must beg it in the name of Jesus Christ by whom he hath given us all things some allowance is to be made them in the Exposition of those Forms which sound as if the Saints were invoked with Latria But yet it may be demanded whether the Forms and practice of a corrupt Church may not contradict their general Rule of Faith Whether the Roman Forms be applied to that Rule of Faith by any but prudent Ecclesiasticks and Laicks who are not the greater number Whether amongst them they take not away some honour from God though not that which is absolutely incommunicable And whether a Church which calleth it self Christian and Catholick should not be more careful of publick Forms of speaking in Prayer such as may render the Supplicants Idolaters in themselves in the ignorant use of them and to others by the external scandal whatsoever license the world takes in phrases of common speech And here it were well if those who so often alledg Mr. Thorndike in favour of their cause would weigh the words of a Letter of his said to be written about a year before he died To pray to the Saints saith he for those things which only God can give as all Papists do is in the proper sense of the words Idolatry If they
trifle and to bandy light matters backward and forward by eternal dispute But I trespass upon your Honour by the liberty of this Discourse and by introducing these Pedantick people who make so absurd a figure in Courts This only I have to add If there be any thing useful in this writing I know your Lordship will accept it for its own sake And for that which is useless or defective I hope it may obtain pardon through the submission of the Author who is From Dr. Lawson's house in Mincing-Lane in London March 16 1677. My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obliged and Obedient Servant THO. TENISON The CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS CHap. I. Of the Notion of Superstition pag. 1. Chap. II. Of the Notion of Idolatry p. 12. Chap. III. Of the causes and occasions of Idolatry in the World p. 24. Chap. IV. Of the commencement and progress of Idolatry p. 38. Chap. V. Of the Idolatry charged on the Gentiles Part 1. How far the Gentiles were ignorant of a supreme God p. 49. Part 2. Of the Worship of Universal nature c. by the Gentiles as God p. 52. Part 3. How far they owned one true God p. 55. Part 4. What applications they made to one God p. 62. Part. 5. Whether they worshipping one God could be guilty of the sin of Idolatry p. 65. Part 6. Of their Idolatry in worshipping the Statues of God p. 68. Part 7. Of their Idolatry in worshipping Daemons p. 75. Part 8. Of their Idolatry in worshipping the Images of Daemons p. 88. Part 9. Of their worshipping Daemons more than God p. 95. Chap. VI. Of the Idolatry of the Jews Part 1. Of the provisions made by God against the Idolatry of the Jews p. 97. Part 2. Of the Idolatry of the Jews p. 101. Part 3. Of the worship of the Golden Calf p. 108. Part 4. Of the worship of the Idol Apis p. 112. Part 5. Of the Originals of Apis and Serapis p. 118. Part 6. Of the Egyptian-Apis whether he were Moses p. 125. Part 7. Why Moses might be Idolized among the Egyptians p. 131. Part 8. Why Moses might be honoured by the Symbol of an Ox p. 136. Part 9. Why Moses might be called Apis p. 138. Part 10. When the Worship of Apis commenced p. 139. Part 11. Of the Idols Apis and Mnevis p. 140. Part 12. Whence the Original of Apis might be obscured p. 141. Chap. VII Of the Idolatry of the Mahometans p. 143. Chap. VIII Of the Idolatry with which some are charged who profess themselves Christians Part 1. Of the Idolatry of the Gnosticks p. 148. Part 2. Of the Idolatry of the Manichees p. 155. Chap. IX Of the Idolatry with which the Arians and Socinians are charged Part 1. Of the Idolatry of the Arians and Socinians jointly p. 157. Part 2. Of the Idolatry of the Arians p. 163. Part 3. Of the Idolatry of the Socinians p. 169. Chap. 10. Of the Idolatry charged on the Papists Part 1. Of the Charge which is drawn up against them p. 176. Part 2. Of the mitigation of the Charge of Idolatry against the Papists p. 184. Part 3. Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in the Invocation of Saints p. 189. Chap. XI Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in the Worship of Images and particularly of the Worship of an Image of God p. 264. Chap. XII Of the Idolatry charged on the Romanists in worshipping Images Part 1. Of the Worship of the Image of Christ p. 276. Part 2. Of the Worship of the Images of Saints p. 296. Chap. XIII Of the Idolatry charged on the Church of England p. 303. Chap. XIV Of the means which God hath vouchsafed the World towards the curing Idolatry and particularly of his favour in exhibiting to that purpose the Shechinah of his Son Part 1. Of the cure of Idolatry p. 311. Part 2. Of the cure of Idolatry by the Shechinah of of God p. 315. Part 3. Of the Shechinah of God from Adam to Noah p. 320. Part 4. Of the Shechinah of God from Noah to Moses p. 323. Part 5. Of the Shechinah of God from Moses to the Captivity and therein largely of the Ark and Cherubims and Urim and Thummim p. 330. Part 6. Of the Shechinah of God from the Captivity to the Messiah p. 368. Part 7. Of the cure of Idolatry by the Image of God in Christ God-man p. 371. Part 8. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah p. 379. Part 9. Of the Usefulness of this Argument of Gods Shechinah with relation to the Worship of Angels and Images p. 382. Chap. XV. A Review and Conclusion p. 391. ERRATA PAg. 7. lin 14. for of a remorse read of remorse p. 12. l. 13. f. Fritbert r. Freiberg p. 26. l. 17. f. Deitas r. Deütas p. 34. l. 2. f. notions r. motions p. 40. l 20. f. Families of Cain and Lamech r. Family of Cain p. 41. l. 32. p. 47. l. 33. f. Loyn r. Line p. 42. l. 18 19. f. Commical r. Conical p. 43. l. 6. f. Vatallus r. Vatablus p. 48. l. 18. f. ascendeth a Pyramis r. ascendeth in a Pyramis p. 196. l. 25. f. opposite r. apposite p. 230. Marg. for Virgine r. Virgini p. 249. Marg. f. quid r. quod p. 324. l. 20. f. re-acting r. reaching p. 338. l. 18. f. man r. mean p. 355. l. 26. blot out and. p. 385. l. 6 7. f. Heaven r. Heathen In p. 385 387 389. there is left out in the Title on the top with Relation to the Worship c. p. 400. l. 2. f. He r. We. p. 410. l. 23. f. second r. third p. 413. l. 21. f. chres r. sepulchres Other Mispellings and little mistakes are left to the candor of the Reader who is desired as he peruseth the Book to cast his eye sometimes upon the Review at the end of it a few amendments and additions being there subjoined CHAP. I. Of the notions of Superstition and Idolatry as they are usually confounded and as they ought of right to be distinguish'd I Know not how I can better begin this discourse concerning Religious Worship than by imitating the Prologue of Origen or rather of Maximus to his dispute against the Heresie of Marcion In the entrance of that Dialogue he maketh a right opinion concerning God to be the Basis and Foundation of Universal Goodness Men are imperfect and oftentimes the more they are known the less they are honoured insomuch that distance and reservedness is made use of especially among the Eastern Princes as the necessary instrument of Veneration But God is a Being absolutely perfect and the better he is understood he is worshipped with the more rational Religion and with the profounder Reverence God is that One Supreme Infinite Spirit who by Almighty Power Wisdom and Goodness made and governeth the World And if men entertained such a notion of him instead of those rude and false draughts which are pictur'd in their vain Imaginations they would pay
him an homage more agreeable to his Divine and to their own reasonable though humane nature They would then serve him with that pure Religion or sincere Christianity which is not adulterated either with Idolatry or Superstition Of these the notions being so commonly entangled that Hesychius expoundeth the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a superstitious person by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Idolater and the translators of the Psalms * render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vain or empty that is the exceeding vanities of Idols by superstitious vanities I will in the first place offer to the Reader a distinct consideration of them Superstition if we have regard only to the bare derivations of its names in the Greek or Latin Tongues is no other than a single branch of Idolatry It is the worship of the Divi coelestes semper habiti as the Law of the twelve Tables speaketh that is of the Sempiternal Daemons and also of those Quos in coelum merita vocârunt as the same Law distinguisheth of such Hero's and superexisting Souls as were through their eminent and exemplary virtue translated from Earth to Heaven Yet in the notion of Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Superstition consisteth not so much in the bare worship of such invisible Powers as in that servility and horror of mind which possessed the worshippers and inclin'd them like those who flatter Tyrants to hate them and yet to fawn on them and to suppose them apt to be appeased by ceremonious and insignificant crouchings Use hath further extended the signification of the word insomuch that sometimes it comprehendeth not only all manner of Idolatry but also every false and offensive way which disguiseth it self under the colour of Religion Thus Socrates the Historian when he mentioneth the signs which Julian gave of his proneness to Superstition he meaneth by that word the whole Religion of the Gentiles But there is still behind its proper and especial notion and the Synod of Mechlin hath attempted to set down a true description of it The Council of Trent having commanded the abolishing of all Superstition the Fathers of this Synod go about to explain the meaning of that Precept and they do it after the following manner This Synod say they teacheth that all that use of things is superstitious which is performed without the warrant of the Word of God or the Doctrine of the Church by certain customary rites and observances of which no reasonable cause can be assigned And when trust is put in Them and an expectation is raised of an event following from such Rites and not hoped for without them from the intercession of the Saints Also when in the worship of Saints they are done rather out of rashness and lightness than out of Piety and Religion But this description is in many respects defective For many of the Usages which it decrieth do not relate to Religion and they deserve rather the names of follies impertinences and ludicrous inchantments unless a man would distinguish concerning the kinds of Superstition and call some the Superstitions of common life and others the Superstitions of worship The rites of the former kind become the more Superstitious if their event be expected from some presumed Saint for then an impertinent custom becomes an impiety or the usage of a Magical charm by which invisible powers are depended on for the production of visible effects If for instance sake a man shall fall into that conceit which hath possesled many even Origen himself that certain names signifie by nature and not by institution and that an event will follow from a certain ceremonious pronunciation or other use of them he meriteth the Title of a Trifling and Credulous Philosopher But if he maketh such use of words suppose of Adonai or Sabaoth which Origen believeth to lose their vertue if turn'd into any other language and hopeth thence for the event from God through the intercession of some Spirit he deserveth the reproof due to a superstitious man who by supposing a Divine attendance on his Trifles doth highly dishonour God and his Saints Neither doth the Synod of Mechlin absolve such Rites from the guilt of Superstition by adding to the intercession of Saints the prescription of the Church for that cannot alter the nature of things though it may render some Rites indifferent in their nature expedient not to say necessary in point of obedience for the preservation of Peace and Order If Riâ—…es of worship are exceeding numerous under Christianity if they are light and indecent if being in themselves indifferent or decent in their use they are imposed or observed as necessary duties the stamp of Authority does not much alter the property of them Wherefore others have in more accurate manner defined Superstition A worship relating to God proceeding from a certain inclination of mind which is commonly called a good intention and springing always from mans brain separately from the Authority of the Holy Scriptures But neither in this definition are we to rest For if the reason of mans brain answers the Piety of his intention the worship which he offereth though not commanded in Scripture if not forbidden by it may be grateful to God I should therefore chuse in this manner to describe Superstition It is a corruption of publick or private worship either in the substance or in the Rites of it whereby men actuated by servile motives perform or omit in their own persons or urge upon or forbid to others any thing as in its nature Religious or Sinful which God hath neither required nor disallowed either by the Principles of right Reason or by his revealed Will. It is the paying of our Religious Tribute to God or an Idol in Coin of our own mintage The positive part of it is the addition of our own numberless absurd or decent inventions to the prescriptions of God in the quality of Laws and Rites equal or superior to those by him enacted First An observance of a very great number of such Rites and Ceremonies in the worship of God as admit of excuse or praise in their single consideration is a part of this Superstition For it prejudiceth the substance of our duty by distracting our attention and is unagreeable to the Christianity which we profess because it is not as was the Mosaic a Typical Religion The Greek Church as well as a great part of the Latin aboundeth with Ceremonies and the Rituals are of so great a bulk that they look like Volumes too big for the very Temple much more for the Church Neither probably should such a number of Rites have ever been imposed on the Jews if their ritual temper their conversation with a people of like ritual disposition and the use of Types in shadowing out the Messiah had not mov'd the Wisdom of God to prescribe them The late pretender to the Latin Text and English Translation of the Order and Canon of the Mass